Yūkichi Iwata

Yūkichi Iwata was born in 1887 in Ogaki, Gifu — and if that city name rings a distant bell, it should, because it's where Matsuo Bashō ended his famous journey along the narrow road to the deep north. There's something poetic about an actor coming out of a place so steeped in that kind of quiet, wandering spirit. He lived through the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa eras — war, defeat, reconstruction, the economic miracle — all of it — and kept working as an actor through most of it. I honestly don't know every role or every stage he graced, but I don't think that's the point. The point is that 92 years of living in Japan across that particular stretch of history is itself a kind of performance, and the fact that he was there on stages and screens while the country was literally reinventing itself around him is just staggering to sit with.

Yūkichi Iwata (1887–1980) was a Japanese actor born in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture. He spanned three imperial eras — Meiji, Taisho, and Showa — over the course of his career. He lived to the age of 92, passing away on January 18, 1980.

Name (English)

Yūkichi Iwata

Name (Japanese)

岩田祐吉

Reading

いわた ゆうきち

Born

March 23, 1887 – January 18, 1980

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aries / Boar (亥)

Origin

Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, Japan

Occupation

Actor

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B2%A9%E7%94%B0%E7%A5%90%E5%90%89

Tags

• From Gifu Prefecture
• Actor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.