Famous People with Name Kenji

Kenji Maruyama            Origin/Culture/Country: Japanese

Kenji Maruyama: a Japanese author. He received the Akutagawa Prize for one of his novels, Summer’s Passage (????, Natsu no nagare?), in 1966 at the age of 23, becoming the youngest winner of the Akutagawa Prize at that moment.

Kenji Nakagami            Origin/Culture/Country: Japanese

Kenji Nakagami: was a noted Japanese writer, critic, and poet of buraku ancestry. Nakagami died from kidney cancer in 1992 at the age of 46.Many of his works are set in the Kumano region of the Kii Peninsula where he grew up under difficult circumstances. When Nakagami won the Akutagawa Prize in 1975 for The Cape (? Misaki), he became the first author born in the post-war period to win this prize. He is considered one of the most important postwar writers in Japan, and one of the only of prominence to reveal the dark side of a racist Japanese society. A number of Nakagami's short stories have been translated into English and other languages, including The Cape and Snakelust (?? Ja'in). He also won the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award for his yet untranslated story Karekinada (??? The Sea of Withered Trees).

Kenji Imai            Origin/Culture/Country: Japanese

Kenji Imai: was a Japanese architect and professor.Kenji Imai went to Waseda University in Tokyo and graduated with a degree in Architecture. He travelled to the USSR, Scandinavia, Italy and Spain in 1926. He met Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Ernst May and others, which asserted an influence on his way of thinking and his architectural style. Like Togo Murano and Takamasa Yoshizaka who also trained at Waseda University, Imai had a style which can be categorized as Expressionist. Impressed with the works of Antoni Gaudi, he proceeded to promote him in Japan and elsewhere. He also introduced the work of the Austrian mystic, Rudolf Steiner to Japan. In 1948 his wife Maria Shimko died and he converted to Catholicism. [1][2]

Kenji Watanabe            Origin/Culture/Country: Japanese

Kenji Watanabe: a retired male breaststroke swimmer from Japan, who represented his native country in three consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in 1984. His best Olympic result was the 7th place (2:14.70) in the Men's 200m Breaststroke event at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. He is the grandson of Hisakichi Toyoda, who won the gold medal in the men's 4x200m freestyle event at the 1932 Summer Olympics.

Kenji Eda            Origin/Culture/Country: Japanese

Kenji Eda: a Japanese politician, an independent and member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Okayama, Okayama and graduate of the University of Tokyo, he joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in 1979, attending the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University in the United States while in the ministry. Leaving the government in 1998, he ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives in 2000 as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. He ran again in 2002 as an independent and was elected for the first time. He lost his seat in 2003 but was re-elected in 2005.

Daimanazuru Kenji            Origin/Culture/Country: Japanese

Daimanazuru Kenji: is a former sumo wrestler from Kawakami, Yoshino District, Nara, Japan. He began his professional career in 1992, and spent a total of 19 tournaments in the top two divisions, peaking at maegashira 16 in 2006. He retired at the end of the January 2010 tou

Oshio Kenji            Origin/Culture/Country: Japanese

Oshio Kenji: is a former sumo wrestler from Kitakyushu, Japan. His highest rank was komusubi. His career lasted twenty six years, from 1962 until 1988, and he holds the record for the most bouts contested in professional sumo. He was born in Yahata Higashi ward. He ma

Den Kenjiro            Origin/Culture/Country: Japanese

Den Kenjiro: was the 8th Governor-General of Taiwan from October 29, 1919 to September 1923, and the first civilian to hold that position.A graduate of Tokyo Imperial University, Den Kenjiro served as a member of the Japanese Diet for several years before being appointed as Governor-General of Taiwan. As Governor-General, he promoted a new policy of Doka, where Taiwan would be governed the same way as the Home Islands, and Taiwanese would be assimilated into normal Japanese society. Several major reforms were carried out during Den's tenure, including various administrative reforms, expansion of the public education system, the abolition of caning as a criminal punishment, construction of the Chyanan Reservoir, and the legalization of Japanese-Taiwanese intermarriage.

Baron Yamakawa Kenjiro            Origin/Culture/Country: Japanese

Baron Yamakawa Kenjiro: was a Japanese samurai of the late Edo period who went on to become a noted physicist, university president, and author of several histories of the Boshin War. Though his name is commonly written "Yamakawa," he himself wrote it as "Yamagawa" in English.Yamakawa was born as the third son to Yamakawa Naoe, a senior samurai of the Aizu Domain (present day Fukushima Prefecture). He became a member of the Byakkotai, a unit of the newly reorganized Aizu domain army composed mostly of boys aged 15 to 17 years, who fought in defense of Aizu during the Boshin War.