Kenichiro Matsuoka

The eldest son of Japanese foreign minister Yōsuke Matsuoka, Kenichiro was born in the United States while his father was First Secretary of the Embassy of Japan, Washington, D.C., attended Gyōsei High School and Tokyo Imperial University, majoring in Political Science and Law.^[2][3]

When his father took over leadership of the South Manchuria Railway (Mantetsu), Kenichiro became involved with the Manchukuo Film Association (Man'ei), formed in partnership with Mantetsu. Through Man'ei, Kenichiro would meet Negishi Kanichi and Masahiko Amakasu, who gave him experience in building a film studio from the ground up. Kenichiro would also meet the popular pre-war Japanese actress Yoshiko Yamaguchi, whom Yamaguchi would write in her biography "Ri Kōran: My Half Life", to be her first love. They would meet again after the war, at which time Kenichiro attempted to rekindle the relationship, but by then, Yamaguchi was already involved with the noted designer Isamu Noguchi.^[4]

Graduating Tokyo Imperial University in 1941, there was talk of Kenichiro attending school in America to defuse any suspicion of Japan's war ambitions, and he would join the state run news agency Dōmei Tsushin that would be broken up by Allied forces during the Occupation of Japan. During the war, he would also serve as an accounting officer for the Imperial Navy, and followed Yōnosuke Natori to the Sun News Photo agency following Dōmei's breakup.

In 1957, Matsuoka joined the fledgling Nippon Educational Television Board (NET) television network.^{[5][6][7][8] [9]} NET courted Matsuoka for his knowledge of foreign culture and fluency in English and French, having been born in the United States, studied in Paris, and experienced with Man'ei. He was able to watch foreign programming in its original format and was responsible for licensing Rawhide and Laramie, gaining high ratings for the new network, and giving them an advantage over rivals NHK and Fuji TV.^[10][11]

By the time NET parent company Asahi Shimbun would rebrand the network as Asahi Broadcasting Corporation in 1977, Matsuoka would be promoted to Executive Vice President (Fuku-shacho) at Asahi Broadcasting Co, serve as a founder of Japan Cable Television, and act as its first president, a position he held until his retirement in 1986.^[12][13][14]

Kenichiro was portrayed in the 1989 Fuji TV limited series Farewell Li Xianglan by Hideki Saijo, and in the TV Tokyo 2007 film Ri Kōran by Fukami Motoki.^[15][16]

Kenichiro's father Yōsuke, was a prominent diplomat in pre-war Japan.^[17] Kenichiro's mother Ryuko, was the daughter of an influential kuge judge Shin Soroku, a former retainer of the Chōshū clan, and a beneficiary of their outsized influence in the Meiji Restoration that helped shaped the modern Japanese Government. Kenichiro is related to the royal family through Kacho Haruko, the daughter of Marquis Fushiminomiya Hironobuo and Princess Kaninnomiya Hanako, who was once considered as a potential match for then Crown Prince Akihito. Haruko would end up marrying Kenichiro's younger brother Shinzo.^[18][19] Yōsuke's sister Fujie was widowed in 1911 with two young girls, whom Yosuke supported and were like sisters to Kenichiro.^[20] One of those nieces, Hiroko, married her second cousin and future Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Satō, and further cemented Kenichiro's ties to the contemporary Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Abe political dynasty through Abe's maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, Eisaku's older brother.^[21]