Tsunehiko Watase

was a Japanese actor. He is best known for portraying Rintaro Kano in Keishicho Sosa Ikka 9 Gakari ("Homicide Team 9"). He won Best Supporting Actor at the 2nd Japan Academy Prize for The Incident and at the 3rd Hochi Film Award for The Incident, Kōtei no inai hachigatsu and The Fall of Ako Castle. Biography 1944–1969: Pre-debut Watase was born on July 28, 1944, in Shimane. He had an older brother, Michihiko Watase. He moved from his hometown of Shimane to Awaji, Tsuna, Hyōgo. In his junior high school exam, he had the second highest score, and in his third year of junior high school, he received his black belt in judo. He belonged to the swimming club in high school. His classmate, Hyōgo Prefectural Assemblyman Hiroshi Noma, recalled that Watase "was always reading Natsume Sōseki" and his Japanese score was always in the top 5 among 270 students. During high school, Watase aspired to be a newspaper reporter. After graduating from high school, Watase was accepted into the Faculty of Law at Chuo University and Keio University, but not Waseda University. His older brother told him to go to Keio University, but after seeing his mother in tears over the rejection letter in the garden, he decided to retake the college exams a year later. Influenced by Shirou Ozaki's Theater of Life, he entered Waseda University's Faculty of Law. He began living with his older brother, who was attending Aoyama Gakuin University at the time. While at Waseda, he belonged to the karate club and was a second dan. He said he was "a sloppy student", his dream to become a newspaper reporter disappeared because the university had no lectures or graduation thesis at the height of student activism, and at one point he wrote a lot of poems, hoping to become a lyricist. Watase then thought that after graduating, he wanted to work in a job that was demanding and cutting-edge, and his brother advised him to "take the hard path". He got a job in public relations at Dentsu but quit the company after a month to work in sales at Japark, an advertising agency in Aoyama founded by his senior.