Takeshi Kitano

Takeshi Kitano is a Japanese actor, comedian, screenwriter, director, and author. Takeshi Kitano was born on 18 January 1947 (Adachi, Tokyo, Japan). He is the youngest in his family with two elder brothers and an elder sister. His father was a house painter while his mother worked in a factory and was an educator as well as a disciplinarian. He studied engineering at the Meiji University. But he was dropped out of the college at the age of 19. He came to Asakusa district to become a comedian in the year 1972. He worked at France-za striptease.

He eventually became the MC of the theater. He collaborated with Niro Kaneko (aka Kiyoshi Kaneko), his friend and started comedy duo performances. They called themselves The Two Beats. They were known as Beat Takeshi and Beat Kiyoshi. They became very famous which resulted in their first television performance in 1976. They were very popular on national stage. He went solo after some time and became one of the “big three” comedians including Sanma Akashiya and Tamori in Japan. Takeshi’s Castle, a worldwide famous game show was hosted by him.

He has done a ton of movies, television shows, and radio shows. They include Violent Cop, A Scene at the Sea, Kids Return, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Takeshis’, Ghost in the Shell, etc. His television series include The Manzai, Super Jockey, Waratte Pon! Sports Taisho, Owarai Ultra Quiz, Genki TV, Heisei Board of Education, Koko ga Hen da yo Nihonjin, Hagoku, etc. Radio shows include All Night Nippon, Beatnik Radio, etc. He has also designed video game called Takeshi no Chosenjo in 1986, under the developer, Taito Corporation. Before that, many video games have used the names of celebrities but, he is the first celebrity to have contributed to the making of the video game of his name.

He acted in a video game named Yakuza 6 for PlayStation 4. Takeshi has also written a bunch of books. They include Kitano, Takeshi series; Abe, Casio; Gerow, Aaron;, etc. He has won 50 different awards in his whole lifetime in the entertainment business. Some of his awards are Best Director at The Asian Films Awards, Award of the Japanese Academy for Best Editing, Most Popular Performer. He won the Best Director, Film, and Actor award at the Blue Ribbon Awards for Hana-bi in 1997. Along with these, he has 35 nominees for most of the prestigious awards.