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Shin'ichirô Watanabe was born on 24 May 1965 in Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan. He is a writer and director, known for Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001), The Animatrix (2003) and Cowboy Bebop (1998).

Kiki Sukezane is a Japanese actress, active both in America and Japan. Born in Kyoto to a family with historical samurai ancestry, Kiki was inspired to learn English and studied abroad in South Dakota. Upon returning to Japan and graduating, Kiki attended acting school in Tokyo before moving to Los Angeles. While honing her sword fighting skills, she booked her first major role as Katana Girl/Miko Otomo in NBC's Heroes Reborn. Following her first major success, Kiki has stayed active in the industry, booking roles in various television shows and films including Lost in Space (Netflix), Westworld (HBO), Earthquake Bird (Netflix), and lead character, Yuko Tanabe, in The Terror: Infamy (AMC.)

Toshia Mori was born on 1 January 1912 in Kyoto, Japan. She was an actress, known for Roar of the Dragon (1932), The Secrets of Wu Sin (1932) and The Man Without a Face (1928). She was married to Allen Jung. She died on 26 November 1995 in The Bronx, New York, USA.

Rikiya Koyama was born on 18 December 1963 in Kyoto, Japan. He is an actor, known for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Movie: Mugen Train (2020) and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000).

A tragic end belies a life led with purpose. The son of a successful filmmaker, Juzo Itami made his name acting in television and films before making a late career shift into screenwriting and directing at age 50. Known to choose the subjects of his films through everyday observations, he often followed up significant events in his life with films depicting idiosyncrasies that he felt were unique to the evolving Japanese culture. He was the definition of an iconoclast who took the great Molière's words to heart, "castigat ridendo mores" (criticise customs through humour).

Attributed as a key figure in the re-emergence of the latest wave of Japanese films that marked their presence outside of Japan, Itami proved to be a force of energy and originality that revived the country's stake in international cinema during the 1980s. Critics and audiences alike were simpatico when it came to his clever and keenly entrenched satires of his country's societal misgivings and he quickly became the most famous modern director of his generation. Throughout his directorial oeuvre of 10 films (list at the end), which stretched from 1984 to his final film in 1997, they were popular both domestically and maintained a staunch international following.

Every so often, Itami was compared to his then recently deceased French counterpart, Jacques Tati, who utilised similar styles of critiquing their society's cultural transition while crafting films with trenchant distinctions in humour and sadness. They also had almost similar, brief numbers of films that they directed and wrote before their death and they also used similar elements in the majority of their films. Itami cast his wife, Nobuko Miyamoto in every one of his 10 films. She was synonymous with Itami's fans across the world. Her versatility with melodrama and her impeccable comic timing proved invaluable to her husband's unique blend of the two genres as she portrayed characters that have been labeled as an "Everywoman" role. These roles laid the groundwork for a much more diverse representation of genders in Japan's films as Itami's women were usually strong, smart and gifted with moral fortitude when faces with tremendous adversity.

A common misconception outside of Japan would be that Tampopo (1985) was Itami's career-making debut. And although Tampopo (1985) is his most successful and critically acclaimed to date, his first feature was actually a humourous look at the Japanese attitudes towards death in The Funeral (1984), which touched on the generational gap opposing the stringently revered traditional values of the elders and the often-callous modernism of their children. Tampopo (1985) followed it to immense and unexpected success outside of its native land. The gastronomic "noodle western" as Itami himself had coined it, was an episodic venture (which formed the structure of his other films) of a restaurateur determined to create the best possible noodle for the best possible noodle eatery. Consumed with quirky characters and their own respective obsessions, it was a surreal fusion of wink-wink ribald imagery that was obstinately Japanese and a cheeky lampoon on the Leone "spaghetti westerns" that showed early signs of his development to an auteur. The public was now aware of Itami's established comedic style and free-wielding use of the narrative and they wanted more.

After a string of successful hits such as A Taxing Woman (1987) (A Taxing Woman) and its sequel came one of Itami's most intriguing films to date in Minbo also commonly held as Minbo (1992) (The Anti-Extortion Woman). It was scathing attack on the pride of the Japanese Yakuza through the film's story of a spirited female protagonist skewering and training feeble men to fight back against the criminal elements through courage and determination instead of resorting to violence. The film's realistic content apparently hit a sore spot with real gang members who waited outside of Itami's home and slashed him across his face that left him in the hospital. During his recuperation at the hospital, he found material for his next feature in The Last Dance (1993) about a dying film director accepting with his illness amidst an uncaringly cold healthcare system with an ironic look at infidelity and suicide that was a precursor to the rest of Itami's life. Still haunted and suitably outraged by the attack following Minbo, Itami's final film in 1997 was the black comedy Woman in Witness Protection (1997). It was his ode to freedom of expression that revolved around an actress witnessing a cult murder and becomes a target, both in the media and for hired guns.

On December 20, 1997, the 64-year-old Itami was found seriously injured on the street below his office and later died in the hospital. A suicide note was left behind by Itami that expressed innocence to a tabloid's accusation of his infidelity with a younger woman. Itami's energy and aversion to jadedness in his long career in films would have no doubt been still at use to this day if he was alive.

Kaoru Kobayashi was born on 4 September 1951 in Kyoto, Japan. He is an actor, known for Sorekara (1985), Tales from Earthsea (2006) and Love Letter (1985).

Kyoto-born Miko Mayama graced the screen for a few years from 1965, typically cast as decorative Japanese or Chinese girls in popular TV fare like I Spy (1965), F Troop (1965), Ironside (1967), Hawaii Five-O (1968) and Mannix (1967). On a cult level, she is perhaps best known as the red-shirted Yeoman Tamura, a member of the Enterprise landing party to Eminiar VII in the Star Trek (1966) episode 'A Taste of Armageddon'.

In 1968, while working in Japan with a Kabuki theatre troupe, Miko caught the eye of Burt Reynolds, on his way to the Philippines to star in Impasse (1969), a yarn involving soldiers-of-fortune seeking a cache of gold bars hidden by the army during World War II. Reynolds promptly hired Miko for the part of Mariko, his on-screen mistress. A closer personal relationship soon developed, the couple returning to the U.S. where they ended up living together from 1968 until 1971. The year after appearing in Impasse, Miko was cast in a similar role as Fumiko, the mistress of hard-boiled plantation owner Whipple Hoxworth (Charlton Heston) in the epic drama The Hawaiians (1970), based on James A. Michener's novel

Privately, things were going well for Burt and Miko until 1971, when the actor met his new flame, the TV show host, singer and actress Dinah Shore. The inevitable break-up resulted in a settlement for Miko, which included a beach apartment, Burt's Cadillac and a $500 weekly allowance. She was later briefly married to Martin Erlichman, Barbra Streisand's long-standing manager.

Miko's final role of note was in a season seven episode of M*A*S*H (1972), as Sun Pak, the daughter of an ailing Korean ex-cavalry officer, reduced by circumstances to doing laundry for the 4077th.

Riho Yoshioka was born on 15 January 1993 in Kyoto City, Japan. She is an actress, known for Anime Supremacy! (2022), House of Ninjas (2024) and Fukushima 50 (2020).

Haruka is an U.K. based Japanese actress, Voice-over artist, Fight Director and Intimacy Coordinator.

Her first job out of drama school was to create the voice of Noodle from internationally acclaimed virtual pop band, the Gorillaz. On their first international tour, she was the backing vocalist to Damon Albarn.

Since then, she has become a highly sought after and successful voice over artist.

Haruka was the presenter for an award winning children's BBC show, Officially Amazing (7 series) and holds three Guinness World records.

Her versatile career has recently seen her working as an Intimacy Coordinator on Life After Life (BBC), Troubled Blood (BBC), Culprits (Disney+), a language coach to Oscar winning actress Alicia Vikander on the film Earthquake Bird (Netflix), Sidse Badette Knudsen on The Accident (Ch4), and dialect coach on Giri/Haji (BBC& Netflix).

Shigeru Miyamato has been helping create games for Nintendo since 1981. In the late 1970s Nintendo was going bankrupt. Myamato then made two characters, Donkey Kong and Mario (then called Jumpman), for the game Donkey Kong (1981). He has been the supervisor of many games, like the Mario and Zelda games.

Haruki Murakami graduated from Waseda University, Tokyo, in 1975. Widely considered one of Japan's most important 20th-century novelists. His often solitary, withdrawn, and world-weary protagonists are generally stripped of Japanese tradition. Frequently called postmodern, his fiction, which often includes elements of surreal fantasy and is sprinkled with references to American popular culture, is cool and contemporary; his distinctive style is often characterized as "hard-boiled." His first novel was Hear the Wind Sing (1979). Since then he has published such novels as Pinball 1973 (1980), A Wild Sheep Chase (1982), Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Norwegian Wood (1987), Dance, Dance, Dance (1988), The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995), The Sputnik Sweetheart (1999), and Kafka on the Shore (2002). He has also written short stories, e.g., those collected in The Elephant Vanishes (1993) and After the Quake (2002), and done translations. His first nonfiction book, Underground (2001), is an oral history of the 1995 gas attack by religious extremists in the Tokyo subway and its relation to the Japanese psyche.

Yuri Amano was born on 5 January 1966 in Kyoto, Japan. She is an actress, known for Yu Yu Hakusho: Ghost Files (1992), Tenchi the Movie - Tenchi Muyo in Love (1996) and Tenchi Forever!: The Movie (1999).

Takayuki Suzuki was born on 21 February 1990 in Kyoto, Japan. He is an actor, known for The Outsider (2018), The Taping (2019) and Safeguard (2020).

Aya Sugimoto was born on 19 July 1968 in Sakyo-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto, Japan. She is an actress, known for Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (2003), Kamen Rider W Forever: A to Z/The Gaia Memories of Fate (2010) and Flower and Snake (2004). She has been married to unknown since 17 April 2011. She was previously married to Toshinori Numata.

Kenji Misumi was born on March 2, 1921 in Kyoto, Japan. Misumi was the illegitimate child of a geisha mother and originally wanted to be a painter, but his father disapproved. Kenji attended Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. During this time Misumi met future Daiei studio head Kan Kikuchi, who gave Misumi a business card for a prominent studio executive. Kenji began his career at Daiei as a gofer before going on to become an assistant director. Moreover, after World War II Misumi spent about four years as an inmate at a prison of war camp in Siberia. Kenji directed his first film for Daiei in 1956 and worked profusely as a contract director for Daiei until the studio went bankrupt in 1971. In the wake of Daiei's collapse Misumi went on to direct several more movies that include four out of six entries in the hugely popular and successful "Lone Wolf and Cub" series. He died at age 54 on September 24, 1975.

Kuranosuke Sasaki was born on 4 February 1968 in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. He is an actor, known for Godzilla Minus One (2023), Mission Impossible: Samurai (2014) and 20th Century Boys 1: Beginning of the End (2008).

Asami was born in Kyoto and raised in Ibaraki, Osaka. She debuted at 13 in an ad for home builder's Asahi Kasei's Hebel Haus in 1997. She won the Grand Prix at the 3rd Miss Tokyo Walker and soon obtained a supporting role in the 2002 horror film, Dark Water. She has gone on to do multiple commercials and appear in even more films like the rejected woman in Close Range Love or the novelist mentee in The Woman Who Buys The Local Newspaper. She is signed with the Atlantis Cast talent agency.

An American Theatre, Film/TV Actor, Singer, Dancer and Martial Artist. He began studying Judo/Ju-Jutsu, in Hawaii and Japan, Continuing Martial arts in San Diego, he studied Kang's Tae Kwon-Do/Judo, and Aamka-jutsu. Having Achieved Black Belts in Karate, Tae Kwon do, Judo, Japanese ju-jutsu, aiki-jujutsu, Chinese Kempo and Aamkajutsu, he became a Full-Contact Karate & Sambo Champion. Recently setting a Guinness World Record, and having a page in the 2015 "Guinness Book of World Records" under "No Pain No Gain." After high school, he served his country honorably as a Naval Reconnaissance Corpsman "DOC", before attending University studies. During this time, he was inspired by Great Actors such as Anthony Hopkins and immersed himself in the world of theater, as an outlet for his vivid and passionate imagination. With a strong desire to become a dramatic lead actor, he began focusing on Shakespearean and extremely dramatic roles,(over 20 lead stage Credits) winning a best actor award for a very passionate, and unique take on "Hamlet", as well as critical acclaim for lead roles in "MacBeth", "Picnic", "Romeo & Juliet", and "Dracula." The more dimensional and dramatically demanding the part, the greater this actor shines! His first lead role in film, was a film called, "Samurai Avenger:The Blind Wolf", which received wide spread appeal with theatrical release in several countries, winning 9 International Film Festival Awards(including several Best of Festival and Best Feature Film awards)and distribution in nearly every country and language. Since this film, he has landed several roles on TV and Film such as Disney's "The Crusher" ,as the Universe's Strongest Superhero, 6 seasons and voted Kids peer group Favorite Superhero 3 years in a row. Also, appearing in 14 episodes as Sgt Freeman on General Hospital daytime's longest running TV show.. He Currently Tours internationally Singing//performing with the World Famous Band the "Village People" when not appearing on TV or Film.

Shinobu Terajima was born on 28 December 1972 in Kyoto, Japan. She is an actress, known for Vibrator (2003), Akame shijuya taki shinju misui (2003) and Tokyo Tower (2005). She has been married to Laurent Ghnassia since 26 February 2007. They have one child.

Eiko Nijo was born in Kyoto, Japan. She is a director and producer, known for 10 Years (2011), Eagle Eye (2008) and Burn Notice (2007).

Kin'ya Kitaôji was born on 23 February 1943 in Kyoto City, Japan. He is an actor, known for Fire Festival (1985), Haru no kane (1985) and Shinsengumi: Assassins of Honor (1969).

Masahiko Tsugawa was born on 2 January 1940 in Kyoto, Japan. He was an actor and director, known for A Taxing Woman (1987), Wakarenu riyû (1987) and Puraido: Unmei no toki (1998). He was married to Yukiji Asaoka. He died on 4 August 2018 in Japan.

Keiji Sada was born on 9 December 1926 in Kyoto City, Japan. He was an actor and producer, known for I Will Buy You (1956), Taifû sôdôki (1956) and Good Morning (1959). He died on 17 August 1964 in Nirazaki, Japan.

Saki Akai was born on 24 January 1987 in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. She is an actress, known for Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger (2001), Lady Ninja: A Blue Shadow (2018) and Iron Girl: Final Wars (2019).

Rei Dan was born on 4 August 1971 in Kyoto, Japan. She is an actress, known for Love and Honor (2006), Kabei: Our Mother (2008) and Kansen rettô (2009). She has been married to Mitsuhiro Oikawa since 27 July 2011.