Kazuo Funaki

Kazuo Funaki, born in Ichinomiya, Aichi in 1944 under his real name Shigeyuki Ueda, is proof that one song can hold a country's memory. Koko Sannensei, or High School Third-Year Student, put him on stage in a school uniform and made him the sound of Japanese graduations for decades. I never lived through the years when he was counted among the big three young male singers, so I know that era from photographs, and yet I can still sing the chorus. What impresses me more is the second act: he kept working as a stage and screen actor instead of coasting on nostalgia. The Golden Arrow Award fits him.

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Name (English)

Kazuo Funaki

Name (Japanese)

舟木一夫

Reading

ふなき かずお

Born

December 12, 1944 (age 81)

Origin

Ichinomiya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

singer / actor

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Sagittarius / Monkey

Awards & achievements

• Golden Arrow Award

Works summary

Appearances

438 (1963–2026)

By year

1963: 9, 1964: 29, 1965: 28, 1966: 28, 1967: 20, 1968: 19, 1969: 16, 1970: 14, 1971: 10, 1972: 10, 1973: 10, 1974: 3, 1975: 7, 1976: 3, 1977: 6, 1978: 3, 1979: 5, 1980: 2, 1981: 3, 1982: 2, 1983: 2, 1984: 1, 1987: 1, 1988: 1, 1990: 3, 1991: 3, 1992: 4, 1993: 5, 1994: 6, 1995: 6, 1996: 8, 1997: 8, 1998: 3, 1999: 9, 2000: 11, 2001: 4, 2002: 5, 2003: 5, 2004: 5, 2005: 1, 2006: 6, 2007: 2, 2008: 2, 2009: 2, 2010: 2, 2011: 2, 2012: 9, 2013: 4, 2014: 11, 2015: 8, 2016: 6, 2017: 21, 2018: 6, 2019: 6, 2020: 3, 2021: 3, 2022: 7, 2023: 3, 2024: 5, 2025: 1, 2026: 1

Debut work

水色のひと

Filmography / notable works

• Official sitehttp://www.aiesu.co.jp/talents/fk_index.html
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuo%20Funaki
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%88%9F%E6%9C%A8%E4%B8%80%E5%A4%AB
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1075063

Tags

• Aichi Prefecture
• singer
• actor

Last updated

September 18, 2026

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Works and profile fields sourced from Wikipedia reflect content as of 2026-08-26. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.