List of Famous people born in Ehime Prefecture, Japan
Noriko Aota
Noriko Aota is a Japanese tarento, actress and former idol singer. She is known as a member of the idol group C.C. Girls. She is now represented by Great Den.
Masayoshi Ōishi
Masayoshi Ōishi is a Japanese musician and singer-songwriter from Uwajima, Ehime. His professional music career began in 2001 as vocalist of the band Sound Schedule. Following the band's disbandment in 2006, he began a solo career, releasing his debut single "Honoka Terasu" in 2008. Sound Schedule reunited in 2011, with Ōishi returning as the band's vocalist.
Kenji Utsunomiya
Kenji Utsunomiya is a Japanese lawyer and former chair of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.
Tomoko Honda
Tomoko Honda is an announcer on Fuji Television. Honda graduated from Rikkyo University and has been working for Fuji TV since April, 2006. Honda used to date Makoto Hasebe.
Akinori Iwamura
Akinori Iwamura is a former Japanese baseball infielder, who currently is a manager for the Fukushima Red Hopes in Japan's Baseball Challenge League. He made his Major League debut with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2007.
Tokihiro Nakamura
Tokihiro Nakamura is a Japanese politician and the current governor of Ehime Prefecture, located in the Shikoku region of Japan. He succeeded Moriyuki Kato in the 2010 Ehime gubernatorial election. Nakamura has previously served as the mayor of Matsuyama, the largest city in Ehime and Shikoku, from 1999 to 2010. He has also represented Ehime in the national House of Representatives from 1993 to 1996 and before that in the Ehime Prefectural Assembly from 1987 to 1990.
Tomohiro Anraku
Tomohiro Anraku is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). He was drafted second overall in the 2014 NPB Draft out of Saibi High School in Ehime Prefecture, Japan.
Shuji Nakamura
Shuji Nakamura is a Japanese-born American electronic engineer and prolific inventor specializing in the field of semiconductor technology, professor at the Materials Department of the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and is regarded as the inventor of the blue LED, a major breakthrough in lighting technology. Together with Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano, he is one of the three recipients of the 2014 Nobel Prize for Physics "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources". In 2015, his input into commercialization and development of energy-efficient white LED lighting technology was recognized by the Global Energy Prize. In 2021, Nakamura, along with Akasaki, Nick Holonyak, M. George Craford and Russell D. Dupuis were awarded the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering "for the creation and development of LED lighting, which forms the basis of all solid state lighting technology".
Kenzaburō Ōe
Kenzaburō Ōe is 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 Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994 for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today".
Takashi Fukunishi
Takashi Fukunishi is a former Japanese football player. He played for Japan national team.