100 Notable alumni of University of Tokyo

Hideo Nakata is a Japanese filmmaker.

Masahiro Imamura is a former Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party who served as a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature).

Hideya Sugio is a Japanese politician who is a member of the House of Councillors of Japan.

Yanagi Sōetsu, also known as Yanagi Muneyoshi, was a Japanese art critic, philosopher, and founder of the mingei (folk craft) movement in Japan in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Kenji Eda is a Japanese politician who was a member of the House of Representatives from 2002 to 2003 and again from 2005 to 2026.

Hiromu Kurokawa is a Japanese prosecutor who served as chief of the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office from January 2019 to May 2020. The extension of his term of office by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in February 2020, followed by his resignation for misconduct in May 2020, sparked political controversy in Japan.

Masahiro Yasuoka was a Japanese scholar of yangmingism who, through his philosophy, reportedly exerted considerable influence on many Japanese politicians, including postwar prime ministers of Japan. He has been considered a backroom power broker or eminence grise.

Katsuei Hirasawa is a Japanese politician who served as the Minister of Reconstruction in Yoshihide Suga's cabinet. A member of the House of Representatives, Hirasawa is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party and is affiliated to the revisionist lobby Nippon Kaigi.

Hirotugu Akaike was a Japanese statistician. In the early 1970s, he formulated the Akaike information criterion (AIC). AIC is now widely used for model selection, which is commonly the most difficult aspect of statistical inference; additionally, AIC is the basis of a paradigm for the foundations of statistics. Akaike also made major contributions to the study of time series. In...

Count Makino Nobuaki, also Makino Shinken, was a Japanese politician and imperial court official. As Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan, Makino served as Emperor Hirohito's chief counselor on the monarch's position in Japanese society and policymaking.

Seiji Tsutsumi was a Japanese businessperson, author and poet, also known by the pen names Takashi Tsujii (辻井 喬, Tsujii Takashi) and Ikuo Yokose (横瀬 郁夫, Yokose Ikuo).

Kazuo Ueda is a Japanese economist who has been serving as the 32nd Governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) since April 2023.

Kaoru Yosano was a Japanese politician. He was a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the Sunrise Party of Japan and former member of the House of Representatives, serving his ninth term in the Lower House representing Tokyo's first electoral district until his defeat in the 2009 Japanese general election. He was Chief Cabinet Secretary to Prime Minister Shinzō...

Leo Esaki is a Japanese solid-state physicist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ivar Giaever and Brian Josephson for his work on tunneling in semiconductors, which led to his invention of the tunnel diode that exploits this phenomenon. His research was done when he was with Sony. He has also contributed in being a pioneer of semiconductor...

Eiji Toyoda was a Japanese engineer and industrialist. He was largely responsible for bringing Toyota Motor Corporation to profitability and worldwide prominence during his tenure as president and later, as chairman. He was succeeded as the president of Toyota by Shoichiro Toyoda.

Motojirō Kajii was a Japanese writer in the early Shōwa period known for his poetic short stories. Kajii's works included Remon (檸檬; "Lemon"), "Shiro no aru machi nite" (城のある町にて; "In a Castle Town"). Fuyu no hi (冬の日; "Winter Days") and Sakura no ki no shita ni wa (櫻の樹の下には; "Beneath the Cherry Trees"). His poetic works were praised by fellow writers...

Hideo Kobayashi was a Japanese author, who established literary criticism as an independent art form in Japan.

Takaaki Kajita is a Japanese physicist, known for neutrino experiments at the Kamioka Observatory – Kamiokande and its successor, Super-Kamiokande. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Canadian physicist Arthur B. McDonald. On 1 October 2020, he became the president of the Science Council of Japan.

Takeru Inukai was a Japanese politician and novelist active in Shōwa period Japan. Also known as "Inukai Ken", he was the third son of Prime Minister of Japan Inukai Tsuyoshi.

Hiroya Masuda is a Japanese politician, government official, and business executive. He was Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications from August 2007 to September 2008, and has served as the president and CEO of Japan Post Holdings since January 2020.

Ryōsei Akazawa is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party and member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature), representing the Tottori 2nd district in Tottori Prefecture.

Isao Inokuma was a Japanese judoka. He won a gold medal in the heavyweight division (above 80 kg) at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and a world title in 1965.

Daishiro Yamagiwa is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party, serving as a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). He served as Minister in charge of Economic Revitalization under the cabinet of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida from October 2021 to October 2022.

Baron Kijūrō Shidehara was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1945 to 1946. He was a leading proponent of pacifism in Japan before and after World War II.

Yōsuke Tsuruho is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party, a member of the House of Councillors in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Osaka and graduate of the University of Tokyo, he was elected to the House of Councillors for the first time in 1998 after running unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives in 1996. He subsequently...

Toyo Ito is a Japanese architect known for creating conceptual architecture, in which he seeks to simultaneously express the physical and virtual worlds. He is a leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of a "simulated" city, and has been called "one of the world's most innovative and influential architects."

Naoko Yamazaki is a Japanese engineer and former astronaut at JAXA. She was the second Japanese woman to fly in space. The first was Chiaki Mukai.

Seiichiro Murakami is a Japanese politician. He was the Minister of State for Regulatory Reform, the Minister of State for Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan, the Minister of State for Administrative Reform, the Minister of State for Special Zones for Structural Reform and the Minister of State for Regional Revitalization in Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet.

Junnosuke Yoshiyuki was a Japanese novelist and short-story writer, and a member of the so-called "Third Generation of Postwar Writers" (第3の新人).

Junya Ogawa is a Japanese politician who is the president of the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA) since 2026 and a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Takamatsu, Kagawa and graduate of the University of Tokyo, he joined the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1994. Leaving the ministry in 2003, he ran unsuccessfully...

Arata Isozaki was a Japanese architect, urban designer, and theorist from Ōita. He was awarded the Royal Gold Medal in 1986 and the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2019. He taught at Columbia University, Harvard University, and Yale University.

Hiroyuki Hosoda was a Japanese politician who served as the speaker of the House of Representatives of Japan from November 2021 to October 2023. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1990, and served as Chief Cabinet Secretary in Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet from 2004 to 2005, and as Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party from 2008 to...

Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, self-rendered in 1894 as Daisetz, was a Japanese essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, and translator. He was an authority on Buddhism, especially Zen and Shin, and was instrumental in spreading interest in these (and in Far Eastern philosophy in general) to the West. He was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Sanskrit literature. Suzuki...

Hideaki Ōmura is a Japanese politician and the current governor of Aichi Prefecture and a former member of the House of Representatives.

Nam June Paik was a South Korean artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super highway" to describe the future of telecommunications.

Yoichi Hatta was a Japanese engineer, known for his contributions in hydraulic engineering in the Japanese-ruled Taiwan. Hatta was born in Kanazawa, Ishikawa. After graduating from Tokyo Imperial University in 1910, he joined the Seat of Governor-General of Taiwan and served as a technician of the government. He was the designer of Chianan Canal and Wusanto Reservoir.

Yoichi Miyazawa is a Japanese politician who serves as Chairman of the Tax Research Commission in the Liberal Democratic Party since 2021 and from 2015 to 2019. He also served as Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry from 2014 to 2015. He has served as a member of the House of Councillors since 2010 and was previously a House of...

Natsuo Yamaguchi is a Japanese politician who served as the chief representative of Komeito from 2009 to 2024. He is a member of the House of Councillors since 2001 and previously served in the House of Representatives from 1990 to 1996.

Matsutarō Shōriki was a Japanese media proprietor and politician. He was the owner of the Yomiuri Shimbun, founder of the Yomiuri Giants and the Nippon Television Network Corporation.

Shin’ichi Hoshi was a Japanese novelist and science fiction writer best known for his "short-short" science fiction stories, often no more than three or four pages in length, of which he wrote over 1000. He also wrote mysteries and won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Mōsō Ginkō (Delusion Bank) in 1968.

Kisho Kurokawa was a leading Japanese architect and one of the founders of the Metabolist Movement.

Soichi Noguchi is a Japanese aeronautical engineer and former JAXA astronaut. His first spaceflight was as a mission specialist aboard STS-114 on 26 July 2005 for NASA's first "return to flight" Space Shuttle mission after the Columbia disaster. He was also in space as part of the Soyuz TMA-17 crew and Expedition 22 to the International Space Station (ISS), returning...

Haruhiko Kuroda is a Japanese banker and a former Ministry of Finance government official who served as the 31st governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) from March 2013 to April 2023 and is currently a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS). From 2003 Mr Kuroda served as special advisor to the Cabinet of Prime Minister...

Shizuka Kamei is a retired Japanese politician served in the House of Representatives from 1979 to 2017. He was a faction leader in the Liberal Democratic Party, but left in opposition to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in 2005 and founded the People's New Party.

Rui Arai is a Japanese politician and diplomat who serves as a member of the House of Councillors representing the Liberal Democratic Party. She previously served as Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Defense and Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Cabinet Office. She is the wife of diplomat Yūsuke Arai.

Sadako Ogata, née Nakamura, was a Japanese academic, diplomat, author, administrator, and professor emerita at the Roman Catholic Sophia University. She was widely known as the head of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) from 1991 to 2000, as well as in her capacities as Chair of the UNICEF Executive Board from 1978 to 1979...

Yoshiro Nakamatsu, also known as Dr. NakaMats (ドクター中松, Dokutā Nakamatsu), is a Japanese inventor. He regularly appears on Japanese talk shows demonstrating his inventions. Nakamatsu is known as a perennial candidate in Japanese politics, having contested elections regularly since the early 1990s.

Hisashi Owada is a Japanese former jurist, diplomat and law professor. He served as a judge on the International Court of Justice from 6 February 2003 until 7 June 2018, and was president of the court from 2009 to 2012. He is the father of Empress Masako and the father-in-law of the reigning Emperor of Japan, Naruhito.

Chizuko Ueno is a Japanese sociologist and Japan's "best-known feminist". Her work covers sociological issues including semiotics, capitalism, and feminism in Japan. Ueno is known for the quality, polarizing nature, and accessibility of her work. She was married to Daikichi Irokawa.

Kazuo Shii is a Japanese politician who has been the chairman of the Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) since 2024. He previously served as the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Central Committee of the JCP from 24 November 2000 to 18 January 2024.

Shiori Yamao is a former member of the Japanese House of Representatives for the Aichi 7th district. Yamao was a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan from 2017 to 2020. She was the policy chief of the Democratic Party and a former liberal member of the Democratic Party of Japan. She has been elected to the Japanese House...

Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev was King of Nepal from 1972 until his assassination in 2001.

Tokiko Kato is a Japanese singer, composer, lyricist, actress and activist.

Shinji Miyadai is a Japanese sociologist and professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University.

Lieutenant-General Mori Rintarō, known by his pen name Mori Ōgai (森 鷗外; Japanese pronunciation: [mo.ɾʲi (|) oꜜː.ɡai, -ŋai]), was a Japanese Army Surgeon general officer, translator, novelist, poet and father of famed author Mari Mori. He obtained his medical license at a very young age and introduced translated German language literary works to the Japanese public. Mori Ōgai also was...

Sadakazu Tanigaki is a Japanese politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives from 1983 to 2017, as Minister of Finance from 2003 to 2006, as President of the Liberal Democratic Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2009 to 2012, as Minister of Justice from 2012 to 2014, and as LDP Secretary-General from 2014 to 2016....

Tamayo Marukawa is a Japanese politician and former announcer of TV Asahi, who served as a member of the House of Councillors from 2007 to 2024. She is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. She served as the head of the Women's Affairs Office of the LDP in October 2009.

Hayato Sumino is a Japanese pianist and composer known for his performances of music by Frédéric Chopin.

Kunio Hatoyama was a Japanese politician who served as Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications under Prime Ministers Shinzō Abe and Yasuo Fukuda until 12 June 2009.

Kimifusa Abe, known by his pen name Kōbō Abe (安部 公房, Abe Kōbō), was a Japanese writer, playwright and director. His 1962 novel The Woman in the Dunes was made into an award-winning film by Hiroshi Teshigahara in 1964. Abe has often been compared to Franz Kafka for his modernist sensibilities and his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in...

Huang Kuo-chang is a Taiwanese legal scholar and politician. A member of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), he has led the party's caucus in the Legislative Yuan since 2024, after being elected from its party list. He has served as the TPP’s chairman since 2025.

Katsunobu Katō is a Japanese politician who served as the Minister of Finance under Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba from 2024 to 2025. Previously, he was served as the three-time Minister of Health, Labour, and Welfare under Shinzo Abe from 2017 to 2018 and from 2019 to 2020, and under Fumio Kishida from 2022 to 2023, and as the Chief...

Koichi Sugiyama was a Japanese composer, conductor, and orchestrator. He was best known for composing for the Dragon Quest franchise, along with several other video games, anime, film, television shows, and pop songs. Classically trained, Sugiyama was considered a major inspiration for other Japanese game music composers and was active from the 1960s until his death in 2021.

Masanori Hata was a Japanese zoologist, essayist, and filmmaker. A popular essayist under the pen name Mutsugorō, he was awarded the Kikuchi Kan Prize for his writing in 1977. He was perhaps best known in the West as the director and screenwriter of the 1986 film The Adventures of Milo and Otis.

Yōko Kamikawa is a Japanese politician and former think tank researcher who served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs between September 2023 and October 2024. She served as the Minister of Justice from September 2020 to October 2021, and also served as Minister of State for Gender Equality and Social Affairs in the cabinets of Shinzō Abe and Yasuo Fukuda....

Ryuho Okawa was a Japanese religious and political leader who was the CEO and founder of the Happy Science and the Happiness Realization Party. He was also an author and chairman of two companies affiliated with the organization, New Star Production and ARI Production.

Ryuichi Yoneyama is a Japanese politician and a former Governor of Niigata Prefecture. Prior to entering politics, Yoneyama worked as a radiology researcher at the University of Tokyo Hospital and was also trained as a lawyer.

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki was a Japanese author who is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in modern Japanese literature. The tone and subject matter of his work range from shocking depictions of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions to subtle portrayals of the dynamics of family life within the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society. Frequently,...

Baron Kitasato Shibasaburō was a Japanese physician and bacteriologist. He is remembered as the co-discoverer of the infectious agent of bubonic plague in Hong Kong during an outbreak in 1894, almost simultaneously with Alexandre Yersin.

Yasutoshi Nishimura is a Japanese politician who served as the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry from August 2022 until December 2023. Nishimura previously served as Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy from 2019 to 2021. A member of the Liberal Democratic Party, he has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2003, representing Hyogo's 9th...

Yukio Hatoyama is a retired Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and leader of the Democratic Party of Japan from 2009 to 2010. He was the first Prime Minister from the party.

Motohiko Saitō is a Japanese politician and the 53rd and 54th governor of Hyōgo Prefecture in Japan.

Kenzaburō Ōe was a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, including nuclear weapons, nuclear power, social non-conformism, and existentialism. Ōe was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature for creating "an imagined world,...

Yuichiro Tamaki is a Japanese politician and the leader of the Democratic Party For the People (DPFP). He is a member of the House of Representatives, and a former leader of Kibō no Tō. Before joining Kibō, Tamaki was a member of the Democratic Party.

Shintaro Abe was a Japanese politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1982 to 1986. He was a leading member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He was the father of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and part of the Satō–Kishi–Abe family.

Isao Takahata was a Japanese director, screenwriter and producer. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he earned international critical acclaim for his work as a director of Japanese animated feature films.

Yasunari/Kōsei Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read.

Takafumi Horie is a Japanese entrepreneur who founded Livedoor, a website design operation that grew into a popular internet portal. After being arrested and charged with securities fraud in 2006, he severed all connections with the company. His trial began on September 4, 2006. On March 16, 2007, Horie was sentenced to imprisonment of 2 years and 6 months.

Mayuko Wakuda is a Japanese announcer and news anchor for NHK. Wakuda previously is one of the anchors hosting NHK General TV's primetime news program News Watch 9.

Tomitaro Makino was a pioneer Japanese botanist noted for his taxonomic work. He has been called "Father of Japanese Botany", having been one of the first Japanese botanists to work extensively on classifying Japanese plants using the system developed by Linnaeus. His research resulted in collecting more than 500,000 specimens, many of which are represented in his Makino's Illustrated Flora...

Jiro Horikoshi was a Japanese aeronautical engineer. He was the chief engineer of several Japanese fighter aircraft designs used during World War II, most notably the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter, as well as the NAMC YS-11.

Shūji Tsushima, known by his pen name Osamu Dazai (太宰 治, Dazai Osamu), was a Japanese novelist and author. A number of his most popular works, such as The Setting Sun (斜陽, Shayō) and No Longer Human (人間失格, Ningen Shikkaku), are considered modern classics.

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, art name Chōkōdō Shujin (澄江堂主人), was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "father of the Japanese short story", and Japan's premier literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. He took his own life at the age of 35 through an overdose of barbital.

Ruri Lully Miura is a Japanese essayist and academic in the field of International Politics.

Yukio Ozaki was a Japanese politician of liberal signature, born in modern-day Sagamihara, Kanagawa. Ozaki served in the House of Representatives of the Japanese Diet for 63 years (1890–1953). He is still revered in Japan as the "God of constitutional politics" and the "father of the Japanese Constitution".

Kengo Kuma is a Japanese architect and emeritus professor in the Department of Architecture (Graduate School of Engineering) at the University of Tokyo. Frequently compared to contemporaries Shigeru Ban and Kazuyo Sejima, he is also noted for his prolific writings. Kuma is the designer of the Japan National Stadium in Tokyo, built for the 2020 Summer Olympics. In politics, he...

Noritoshi Furuichi is Japanese Sociologist and novelist. He is also a TV personality. He is also known for his best-selling book Zetsubō no Kuni no Kōfuku na Wakamono-tachi (The Happy Youth of a Desperate Country).

Yoshinori Ohsumi is a Japanese cell biologist specializing in autophagy, the process that cells use to destroy and recycle cellular components.

Katsuko Saruhashi was a Japanese geochemist who created tools that let her take some of the first measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in seawater. She later showed evidence of the dangers of radioactive fallout and how far it can travel. Along with this focus on safety, she also researched peaceful uses of nuclear power.

Koichi Kato is a Japanese politician from Tokyo and a member of the Democratic Party of Japan. A native of Chiyoda, Tokyo and graduate of Sophia University, he worked at Recruit from 1988 to 1996. Kato was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 2000 and served until 2012.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi is a Japanese filmmaker. An alumnus of the University of Tokyo and Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, he first gained international recognition for Happy Hour (2015), Asako I & II (2018) and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021), which premiered at the main competitions of Locarno, Cannes and Berlin respectively.

Masahito, Prince Hitachi is a member of the Imperial House of Japan, the younger brother of Emperor emeritus Akihito and the paternal uncle of Emperor Naruhito. He is the second son and sixth born child of Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun and is third and last in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne. He is mainly known for philanthropic activities and...

Itsunori Onodera is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party and a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). He served as the Minister of Defense from 2012 to 2014 and again from 2017 to 2018.

Yoichi Ochiai is a Japanese media artist, entrepreneur, and academic. He has a doctorate from the University of Tokyo, and is an associate professor at the University of Tsukuba Library; Information and Media Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Digital Nature Development and Research; Specially-appointed professor at Digital Hollywood University; as well as a visiting professor at Osaka...

Zhou Youguang, also known as Chou Yu-kuang or Chou Yao-ping, was a Chinese economist, linguist, sinologist, and supercentenarian. He has been credited as the father of pinyin, the most popular romanization system for Chinese, which was adopted by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1958, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1982, and the United Nations in 1986.

Seiji Kihara is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party. A former Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs and former State Minister for Foreign Affairs (Third Abe Cabinet) and former Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, he currently serves as a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature).

Natsume Sōseki was a Japanese novelist, poet, and scholar. He is considered one of the greatest writers in modern Japanese history and is often called the first modern novelist of Japan. Sōseki's fiction explored themes of individualism, loneliness, and the conflict between traditional Japanese values and the rapid Westernization of the Meiji era. His major works include I Am a...

Chulabhorn Walailak, Princess Srisavangavadhana is a Thai princess. She is the youngest daughter of King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) and Queen Sirikit, and the younger sister of King Vajiralongkorn (Rama X).

Yōichi Masuzoe is a Japanese politician who was elected to the position of governor of Tokyo in 2014 and resigned in June 2016 due to the misuse of public funds. He was previously a member of the Japanese House of Councillors and served as the Minister of Health, Labour, and Welfare. Before entering politics, he became well known in Japan...