Shōta Shunpūtei

Shunputei Shota is that rare rakugo artist most of Japan can recognize on sight, and that owes as much to television as to the stage. Sunday evenings on Nippon TV's Shoten put him in front of an audience that may never buy a ticket to a rakugo hall, and he runs that room with timing he built sitting alone on a cushion, telling stories with nothing but his voice and a fan. What strikes me is how portable that skill turned out to be: the pause before a punchline works the same whether the audience is fifty people or several million. Born in Shizuoka in 1959 and a graduate of Tokai University, he took an art form people file under tradition and made it feel like ordinary Sunday-night comfort viewing.

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Name (English)

Shōta Shunpūtei

Name (Japanese)

春風亭昇太

Reading

しゅんぷうてい しょうた

Born

December 9, 1959 (age 66)

Origin

Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

Height

163 cm

Occupation

rakugoka / television presenter / comedian

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Sagittarius / Boar

Agency

落語芸術協会

Active years

1982 -

University

Tokai University

Spouse

宝珠小夏

Works summary

Appearances

143 (1984–2026)

By year

1984: 1, 1988: 2, 1989: 3, 1990: 2, 1991: 2, 1992: 5, 1993: 10, 1994: 1, 1995: 2, 1997: 1, 1998: 1, 1999: 1, 2000: 3, 2001: 3, 2002: 3, 2003: 1, 2004: 2, 2005: 3, 2006: 4, 2007: 4, 2008: 9, 2009: 1, 2010: 2, 2011: 4, 2012: 6, 2013: 1, 2014: 5, 2015: 5, 2017: 8, 2018: 7, 2019: 9, 2020: 4, 2021: 4, 2022: 3, 2023: 2, 2024: 2, 2025: 1, 2026: 1

Debut work

日本全国ヤロメロどん!

Filmography / notable works

• Official sitehttps://shunputeishota.com/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunp%C5%ABtei%20Sh%C5%8Dta
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%A5%E9%A2%A8%E4%BA%AD%E6%98%87%E5%A4%AA
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11513872

Tags

• Shizuoka Prefecture
• rakugoka
• television presenter
• comedian

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.