Kentarō Kobayashi
Japanese theatre director, manga artist
Kentarō Kobayashi (小林 賢太郎, Kobayashi Kentarō; born 17 April 1973) is a Japanese comedian, actor, dramaturge, theatre director, and manga artist. Outside Japan, he is most well known for directing and acting in "The Japanese Tradition (日本の形)" videos (e.g. "Sushi (鮨)"), and for playing the Mac (opposite Jin Katagiri who plays the PC) in the "Get a Mac" advertising campaign in Japan. He is a member of the Rahmens owarai comedy duo. His manga series, Hana Usagi, ran from 1999 to 2004 in Young Magazine Uppers (published by Kodansha).
Controversy
Kobayashi was assigned the role of Director of the Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony; however, a 1998 comedy show recording of him making an insensitive joke about the Holocaust surfaced. In that comedy show, he said "We tried to play Holocaust with these human-shaped papers for a kids TV show, but our producer heavily scolded us." It was pointed out that Kobayashi's selection may violate the Olympic Charter, which advocates anti-discrimination. On 22 July, State Minister of Defense Yasuhide Nakayama updated his Twitter account. He posted: "I immediately contacted and talked to Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC)." The SWC released a statement and expressed the view that Kobayashi's jokes include those for people with disabilities. On 22 July 2021, the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (TOCOG) dismissed Kobayashi.
The public source identifies “Kentarō Kobayashi” as japanese theatre director, manga artist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Kentarō, Kobayashi and Japanese.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3545203. VIAF identifies the subject as 261756842. The Library of Congress control number is no2008124672. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973, 1999, 2004 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kentarō Kobayashi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.