History’s 100 Most Influential People: Hero Edition (Video)
Attention visitors: In addition to this post, you may want to check out two similar posts from 2006:
- Japanese rank their favorite 100 historical figures (a more general non-hero list)
- The Japanese people rank their favorite 100 female historical figures (ladies only)
Last night a new Top 100 historical figure list show, “Histories 100 Most Influential people: Hero Edition,” aired on NTV. Here is the full list of results, as selected by a national survey.
- Sakamoto Ryoma
- Napoleon I
- Oda Nobunaga
- Saigo Takamori
- Miyamoto no Yoshitsune
- Jean of Arc
- Hideyoshi Toyotomi
- Albert Einstein
- Yutaka Ozaki
- Akechi Mitsuhide
- Genghis Khan
- Tokugaya Ieyasu
- Thomas Edison
- Florence Nightengale
- Chiune Sugihara
- Kyu Sakamoto
- Hijikata Toshizo
- Rikidozan
- Yoshida Shoin
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Prince Shotoku
- George Washington
- Sanada Yukimura
- Mother Teresa
- Yujiro Ishihara
- Kakuei Tanaka
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Abraham Lincoln
- Oishi Yoshio
- Okita Soji
- Christopher Columbus
- Admiral Togo Heihachiro
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Andy Hug
- Amakusa Shiro
- Hideyo Noguchi
- Bruce Lee
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Abe no Seimei
- Walt Disney
- Kondo Isami
- Date Masamune
- Akira Kurosawa
- Julius Caesar
- Chosuke Ikariya
- Audrey Hepburn
- Liu Bei
- Ryunosuke Akutagawa
- John Lennon
- Takasugi Shinsaku
- Naomi Uemura
- Freddy Mercury
- Isoroku Yamamoto
- Osamu Tezuka
- Ninomiya Sontoku
- Charlie Chaplin
- Diana, Princess of Wales
- Ludwig van Beethoven
- Ryotaro Shiba
- Pablo Picasso
- John F Kennedy
- Yuri Gagarin
- “Giant” Baba
- Kong Ming
- Anne Frank
- Daijiro Kato
- Cao Cao
- Tokugawa Yoshimune
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- Elvis Presley
- Galileo Galilei
- Queen Himiko
- Yusaku Matsuda
- Pierre and Marie Curie
- Ferdinand Magellan
- James Dean
- Yukio Mishima
- Taira no Masakado
- Hokusai
- Sen no Rikyu
- Kiyoshi Atsumi
- Federic Chopin
- Babe Ruth
- Sun Yat-sen
- Ayrton Senna
- Takanohana Koji
- William Shakespeare
- Shirasu Jiro
- Taira no Kiyomori
- Eisaku Sato
- The Wright Brothers
- Stanely Kubrick
- Theodore Roosevelt
- Hiraga Gennai
- Miyamoto Musashi
- Eiji Tsuburaya
- Abebe Bikila
- Eiji Sawamura
- Isaac Newton
- Matthew Calbraith Perry
As in their previous historical figure listing shows, NTV had popular celebrities play the role of their favorite historical people who made the list. Here’s foreign “talento” Thane Camus playing Columbus (ranked 31):
Christopher Columbus was obsessed with sailing to Asia and often mentioned the riches of Japan. In this clip, Thane goes a bit further by proclaiming to his sailors that foreigners who come to Japan are popular with the women and can become TV celebrities. As the sailors cheer, text on the screen tells us that all the sailors are foreign “talento” for Japanese TV shows.
Another cool celebrity appearance was Mongolian sumo grand champion Asashoryu as Genghis Khan (ranked 11). Pretty cool moustache, Asa.
Update: A couple more clips from the show
Clip 1: Jean of Arc gets a message from God and later uses her divine knowledge to save a French soldier from a cannonball (fantastic special effects!):
Clip 2: Nobunaga, played by boxer Koki Kameda, demonstrates the effectiveness of longer spears and guns:
Not surprisingly, two of the top 3 results are the same as a similar list from an earlier NTV historical figure ranking show I translated back in May 2006. They also ran a top 100 historical women list show in September, which I also posted the results for. It’s interesting to see how the lists vary in their make-up, and how individuals such as the founders of Japanese Buddhist sects, are missing from the lists, while Jesus made one list. One could argue that NTV “cleaned up” their lists to be more politically correct, something that wouldn’t be too far out of place when other networks are facing accusations of faking/staging television programs.
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The Chinese characters in the first image read “hero” not “influential person.” The distinction is significant. “Choosing the top 100 heroes” would explain the list’s composition of mostly Japanese military figures diversified with a couple of famous foreigners. I wonder why so many Japanese consider Hideyoshi a hero. After his initial success in conquering Korea on his way to China, he ended up losing bigtime to a real hero, Admiral Yi Sunshin.
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The full title was “日本人の好きな１００の偉人 英雄編” by the way, so I think my translation was ok to call it “Hero Edition,” since the character is used at the end like that, and the 偉人 is like a “great/influential person.”
Also, I should have the whole list posted by tomorrow, and it’s not mostly Japanese military figures. About 40 of the people on the full list are foreigners, and there are a bunch of Japanese musicians, scholars, etc.
Being a “hero” doesn’t automatically require one to be some conquerer or military genius.
Hideyoshi is known inside Japan more for his rise to power from a lowly peasant to the very top through his intelligence and wits, and that would be a good enough reason for him to be considered a hero. (Especially in this day and age when brawn doesn’t count for as much as back then)
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Regardless of whether the distinction of hero versus infuential person is made, any list that ranks 47 places below freddy mercury is not to be taken seriously.
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freddie could have been #1, you boob
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Please rescue my comment from the spam trap.
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A ridiculous list, but it’s to be expected. Search Wikipedia for the “100 Greatest” lists from various countries. The UK had Princess Diana at nº 3 for example.
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I agree. Joan of Arc??
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Interesting list. Somehow I was expecting Nobunaga to get the top spot, though.
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asasheryu good luck
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So Thane is back on TV ever since his agency dropped him?
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Alright! Sakamoto Ryoma takes first place! WHOO HOOO!!
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Hideyoshi never conquered Korea. He failed when Admiral Yi repeatedly crushed his navy.
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Interesting list. Some Japanese are ignorant. Why do u want to celebrate someone who forced you to open your country?
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I think many focus on the bigger picture of Perry’s arrival in Japan as something that brought about positive changes in Japan and allowed forces within Japan to take down an old system that was no longer needed in the modern times, rather than some American guy bullying them into opening their country.
I’ll bet Sakamoto Ryoma wouldn’t have got top billing if he was a squat little ugly toad of a man with warts and one eye rather than the bishounen dream of too many young girls…..
Why is Einstein a “hero”? Or Yutaka Ozaki, whose death seems more famous than his life.
Come to think of it, what is JP’s policy for Japanese names? Looks like ‘historical’ ones are written correctly, but modern ones in the Western style. Why does JP, a Japan-specialist site, feel the need for western-style name-writing?
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Overthinker: I don’t really have a concrete system in place. I think I just went along with Wikipedia’s naming-system, which appears to write all post-modernization Japanese people with their family name last, and all pre-modern folks with the family name first. Since almost all of my updates are about news, I tend to be writing about people living today, so I usually put their family name last.
That Joan of Arc clip is so bad it’s good.
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Freddy Mercury??
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Japan knows good music
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ELVIS PRESLEY ALWAYS WILL BE NUMBER ONE!!!!!!!!
Is a fool trick this poll
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There can be only ONE – Freddie Mercury!!!
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Napolyon listed twice?
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This is a rediculous list. Bruce Lee is on it, but Karl Marx is no where to be found. He had an enourmous impact. I don’t see Adolf Hitler either, or Thomas Edison.
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You are absolutly right!
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So Perry makes the list but William Adams doesn’t?! Oh Anjin-san, why did they foresake you? Imo, these lists have to be edited or something because I cannot see jesus on any Japanese’s list of top 100 people. (Personally I’d disqualify that as a valid entry anyway, fictional characters have no place on a top 100 list of real people.)
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Also, ew, Columbus, you fraud.
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Freddie Mercury! The Best!, El Mejor!… Japón es un pais preferido de Queen!
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Asashoryu u r the best.
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