The most well-known Japanese ranking as researched by TBS variety show "Suiyoubi no Downtown"

TBS variety show "Suiyoubi no Downtown" announced the results of their survey to find out who is the most well-known Japanese celebrity during their 1 November broadcast. The survey was conducted by compiling a list of 1,000 famous people from various fields and polling 2,000 men and women in their teens to 70s according to the proportion of each age bracket in the Japanese population. The survey was done either via street interviews or questionnaires done by a research company. Respondents were shown the pictures of the celebrities and asked for their names which was then used to compile the awareness percentage as shown in the results below (in brackets behind the celebrity's name). However, the imperial family and celebrities who had already passed away were excluded from the preset list.


Here are the results in descending order with the occupations of the celebrities indicated behind their names. The percentages within the brackets indicate the proportion of respondents who were able to name the celebrity after seeing his/her photo:

20) Ken Naoko - singer & actress (87.3%)
19) Darvish Yu - professional baseball player (88.7%)
18) Higashikokubaru Hideo - politician; former governor of Miyazaki Prefecture, comedian and actor (88.8%)
17) Matsumoto Hitoshi - comedian, TV host & actor (89.2%)
16) Kato Cha - comedian & actor (89.3%)
15) Shimura Ken - comedian, TV host & actor (89.4%)
14) Nakai Masahiro - actor & TV host; former member of SMAP (90.3%)
13) Ichiro - professional baseball player (90.4%)
12) Koizumi Junichiro - politician; former Prime Minister of Japan (90.7%)
11) Antonio Inoki - politician; former professional wrestler & martial artist (90.8%)
10) Tokoro George - comedian, TV host, singer-songwriter & essayist (92.2%)
9) Dewi Sukarno - businesswoman, socialite, TV personality; wife of former Indonesian President Sukarno (92.7%)
8) Shofukutei Tsurube - rakugo comedian, actor & TV host (93.0%)
7) Matsuko Deluxe - TV host (93.9%)
6) Kuroyanagi Tetsuko - actress, TV host & author (94.1%)
5) Akashiya Sanma - actor, comedian & TV host (95.2%)
4) Beat Takeshi - actor, director, comedian, TV host & author (95.7%)
3) Abe Shinzo - current Prime Minister of Japan (95.8%)
2) Wada Akiko - actress, singer & TV host (96.3%)
1) Tamori - TV host & actor (97.8%)

Some other observations highlighted in the survey:

- Sashihara Rino is the only AKB member who made it to the top 100 at No.87 (71.8%).
- Asahara Shoko who is on death row for being the mastermind of the 1995 sarin gas attacks in Tokyo, was ranked at No.62 with a awareness percentage of 78%.
- Ichikawa Ebizo who is a kabuki actor, made it to No.35 with an awareness percentage of 84.5%.
- Former SMAP member Kimura Takuya was ranked at No.29 with an awareness percentage of 85.7%.

Source: Infoseek