Japan’s Most influential Person

August 4th, 2010By Category: Culture

MSN Japan’s Sankei news service has the results of a survey to find out who the most influential person is in modern Japanese society. The result – Takeshi Kitano, aka Beat Takeshi.

The filmmaker behind hit movies such as, Hana-bi, Zatoichi and Violent Cop is a regular on TV where his dry sense of humour has been a constant hit (check TBS’s News Cast every Saturday). More recently he has also rumored to have several links to political factions including, Hideo Higashikokubaru, who was placed not too far behind in 9th.

JitiJiti / Wikimedia

Second place was a tie, Prime Minister Naoto Kan ranking alongside American-based baseball superstar Ichiro Suzuki. For solace, Kan can take heart that he was the top politician, Ichiro Ozawa (4th), Renho (8th and pictured) and Yukio Hatayama (7th) were all well behind despite having arguably more screen-time in the nation’s broadcasts.

In fact, screen time seems to of had a big influence on who made the list, less than 30 of the top 100 were from a political or professional background. Those that were included Masayoshi Son, Akio Toyoda the head of Toyota and Takafumi Horie, the controversial ex-CEO of Livedoor who has now gone into the adult video business.

Japanese pop groups including AKB48 (counted as one), Arashi were high-up as were other talents Masuwaka Tsubasa, AKB member Maeda Atsuko (counted by herself) and Ayumi Hamasaki. Expect 53rd place Kimura Kaera to move up the list by the end of summer with tunes link this:

The Top 10 in Full:

1.Takeshi Kitano (Director)

2.Ichiro (Baseball)

3.Naoto Kan (Prime Minister)

4.Ichiro Ozawa, (Politican)

5.Junichiro Koizumi (Former Prime Minister)

6.Shinsuke Shimada (TV Personality)

7.Yukio Hatoyama (Former Prime Minister)

8.Renho (Minister for Administrative Renewal)

9.Hideo Higashikokubaru (Governor of Miyazaki)

10.Keisuke Honda (Football Player)

Get the list in full over at Sankei News.

Author of this article

GaijinPot

GaijinPot is an online community for foreigners living in Japan, providing information on everything you need to know about enjoying life here, from finding a job and accommodation to having fun.

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