Masutatsu Ōyama
Masutatsu Ōyama founded Kyokushin Karate and built an international full-contact organisation whose history later became closely intertwined with popular legend.
People Who Shaped Japan
Hironori Ōtsuka
Hironori Ōtsuka founded Wadō-ryū by developing Karate through his prior study of Shindō Yōshin-ryū jūjutsu and Japanese budō.
Kenwa Mabuni
Kenwa Mabuni founded Shitō-ryū Karate, drawing especially on the teachings of Ankō Itosu and Kanryō Higaonna and a broad study of Okinawan kata.
Chōjun Miyagi
Chōjun Miyagi was the Okinawan Karate teacher who named and systematised Gōjū-ryū from the Naha-te tradition associated with Kanryō Higaonna.
Chikamatsu Monzaemon
Chikamatsu Monzaemon was a Genroku-period playwright whose works transformed both ningyō jōruri puppet theatre and Kabuki.
Izumo no Okuni
Izumo no Okuni is the early-seventeenth-century performer associated with kabuki odori and the origins of Kabuki in Kyoto.
Zeami Motokiyo
Zeami Motokiyo was a Noh actor, playwright, troupe leader, and theorist whose plays and treatises shaped the transmission of Noh.
Kan’ami Kiyotsugu
Kan’ami Kiyotsugu was a fourteenth-century actor, troupe leader, and playwright whose performance innovations helped form Noh theatre.
Sen no Rikyū
Sen no Rikyū was a sixteenth-century tea master whose wabi-cha practice reshaped Japanese tea rooms, utensils, hospitality, and cultural memory.
Kenji Tomiki
Kenji Tomiki was a Japanese martial artist and educator who connected Judo and Aikido through systematic kata, randori, and university physical education.