, better known by his pen name , is a Japanese

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

and

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

Biography

He was born in Tokyo on 21 December 1934. He attended

Azabu High School , often referred to simply as "Azabu", is a private preparatory day school in Japan. It teaches boys between seventh and twelves grades. The campus of Azabu is located in the Azabu district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Azabu consists of two instit ...

and studied aesthetics at

Tokyo University The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

. He then found work at

Nippon Broadcasting System , or JOLF, is a Japanese radio station based in Yurakucho, Chiyoda ward, Tokyo, headquartered near the Tokyo Imperial Palace. It is also the main company of the Nippon Broadcasting Group. Nippon Broadcasting System is a subsidiary of Fu ...

(NBS). While an employee there, he also began submitting scripts for NBS radio programs under the pen name Sō Kuramoto, keeping his identity a secret from his employers. In 1963 he left NBS and began working as a freelancer. He had troubles around

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

's teleplay ''Katsu Kaishū'' and moved to

Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...

. After staying in

Sapporo is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in Hokkaido, Japan. Located in the southwest of Hokkaido, it lies within the alluvial fan of the Toyohira River, a tributary of the Ishikari River. Sapporo is the capital ...

, he moved to Furano in 1977. In 1984 he established Furano Juku, a school for script-writers and actors.

Hirokazu Kore-eda is a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He began his career in television and has since directed more than a dozen feature films, including '' Nobody Knows'' (2004), '' Still Walking'' (2008), and '' After the Storm'' ( ...

stated that in 1970s Japan, the top three TV scriptwriters were

Kuniko Mukōda was a Japanese TV screenwriter. Most of her scripts focus on day-to-day family life and relationships. She won the 83rd Naoki Prize (1980上) for her short stories "Hanano Namae", "Kawauso" and "Inugoya." Life Mukōda was born in Tokyo, and mov ...

Taichi Yamada was a Japanese screenwriter and novelist. His real name was . Early life Yamada was in Asakusa, Tokyo, a setting used in his novel ''Ijintachi to no natsu.'' He attended Waseda University before entering the Shōchiku film studios, where he ...

, and Kuramoto.

Works

Television

*''

Katsu Kaishū Count , born , best known by his nickname , was a Japanese statesman, naval engineer and military commander during the late Tokugawa shogunate and early Meiji period. Kaishū was a nickname which he took from a piece of calligraphy (Kaishū S ...

'' (1974) *''Zenryaku Ofukurosama'' (1975) *'' Daitokai Season1'' (1976) *''

Haguregumo is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by George Akiyama. It has been serialized by Shogakukan in ''Big Comic Original'' from 1973 to 2017 and collected in 112 tankōbon volumes. ''Haguregumo'' received the 1979 Shogakukan Manga A ...

'' (1978) * (1981–2002) *''Yasuragi no Sato'' (2018-19) *''Yasuragi no Toki: Michi'' (2019-20)

Film

*''

Kunoichi ninpō is a Japanese term for . In popular culture, it is often used for female ninja or practitioner of ninjutsu (''ninpo''). The term was largely popularized by novelist Futaro Yamada in his novel in 1964. Although kunoichi have appeared in numerous ...

'' (1964) *'' Kunoichi Keshō'' (1964) *'' Blue Christmas'' (1978) *''Fuyu no Hana'' (1978) *''

Station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

'' (1981) *'' Tokei – Adieu l'hiver'' (1986) *'' Umi e, See You'' (1988) *''Silence of the Sea'' (2024)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuramoto, Sō 1934 births Living people Japanese screenwriters University of Tokyo alumni