Kotaro Fukuoka

There's something quietly remarkable about Kotaro Fukuoka — born in 2005, a professional at thirteen, and in 2026 the youngest Honinbo in history at twenty. Go is one of those games where the deeper you look, the more bottomless it gets; the fact that he earned pro status at all puts him in a very small, very serious club. He's not the type to end up on a variety show, and that's kind of the point — there's something refreshing about a young person going all-in on a centuries-old craft just because the craft matters. Having already beaten Iyama in the 2024 Ryusei final, he clearly has the nerve for big games, and I'm low-key looking forward to seeing how far he goes.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Kotaro Fukuoka is a Japanese professional Go player born on December 22, 2005, in Tokyo, Japan. Affiliated with the Nihon Ki-in and a student of Hon Seisen 4-dan, he turned professional in 2019 at 13, won the Ryusei title in 2024 by beating Iyama Yuta in the final, and in 2026 became the youngest-ever Honinbo at 20, earning promotion to 8-dan.

Name (English)

Kotaro Fukuoka

Name (Japanese)

福岡航太朗

Reading

ふくおか こうたろう

Born

December 22, 2005 (age 20)

Origin

Tokyo, Japan

Occupation

Professional Go Player

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Rooster

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A6%8F%E5%B2%A1%E8%88%AA%E5%A4%AA%E6%9C%97
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q65095894

Tags

• From Tokyo
• Professional Go Player

Last updated

November 2, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.