1903 in Japan

Decades:	1880s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s;
See also:	Other events of 1903; History of Japan • Timeline • Years

Events in the year 1903 in Japan. It corresponds to Meiji 36 (明治36年) in the Japanese calendar.

Incumbents edit

March 1 – 1903 Japanese general election: The Rikken Seiyūkai party remained the largest in the House of Representatives, winning 175 of the 376 seats, but lost its majority.
July 7 – Momijigari, the oldest extant Japanese film, premiers. It runs until August 1.^[2]
Unknown date – Kagome was founded, as predecessor name was Aichi Tomato Food Processing in Tokai, Aichi Prefecture.^{[page needed]}

January 2 – Kane Tanaka, supercentenarian (oldest verified Japanese person and the second oldest verified person ever) (d. 2022)
January 7 – Mori Mari, author (d. 1987)
January 25 – Fumiko Kaneko, anarchist (d. 1926)^[a]
February 3 – Yasutarō Yagi, screenwriter (d. 1987)
February 5 – Koto Matsudaira, diplomat (d. 1994)
February 18 – Tokihiko Okada, silent film actor (d. 1934)
March 6 – Empress Kōjun, empress consort of Emperor Hirohito (d. 2000)
March 30 – Chiezō Kataoka, actor (d. 1983)
April 11 - Misuzu Kaneko, poet (d. 1930)
May 19 - Shimoe Akiyama, Japanese supercentenarian (d. 2019)
June 8 – Yukie Chiri, Ainu transcriber and translator (d. 1922)
June 22 – Jiro Horikoshi, aircraft designer and engineer (d. 1982)
August 3 – Roppa Furukawa, film actor (d. 1961)
September 7 – Kensaku Shimaki, writer (d. 1945)
October 1 – Yoshiyuki Tsuruta, Olympic swimmer (d. 1986)
October 13 – Takiji Kobayashi, writer (d. 1933)
November 3 – Shizue Shiono, film actor (d. 1962)^[4]
December 12 – Yasujirō Ozu, film director and screenwriter (d. 1963)
December 31 – Fumiko Hayashi, writer (d. 1951)

February 18
- Prince Komatsu Akihito, Field Marshal, Chief of the General Staff (b. 1846)
- Onoe Kikugorō V, kabuki actor (b. 1844)
April 28 – Saigō Tanomo, Shinto priest, martial artist and former Samurai (b. 1830)
May 22 – Misao Fujimura, student and poet (b. 1886)
June 29 – Rentarō Taki, pianist (b. 1879)
August 27 – Kusumoto Ine, physician, first female doctor of Western medicine in Japan (b. 1827)
September 13 – Ichikawa Danjūrō IX, kabuki actor (b. 1838)
October 30 – Ozaki Kōyō, author (b. 1868)

^ The exact dates of Kaneko’s life are uncertain. The official record lists her birthday as January 25, 1902, but this record was created years after her birth, and is therefore unreliable. Her date of birth listed here is based on coinciding statements made by both of her parents.^[3]

^ "Meiji | emperor of Japan". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 27 March 2019.
^ Irie, Yoshiro (2009). "Saiko no Nihon eiga ni tsuite" (PDF). Tōkyō Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan Kenkyū Kiyō (in Japanese) (13). National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo: 67. ISSN 0914-7489. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 January 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
^ Raddeker, Hélène Bowen (1997). Treacherous Women of Imperial Japan: Patriarchal Fictions, Patricidal Fantasies. London: Routledge. pp. 202–203. ISBN 9780415171120.
^ Kinema Junpōsha (1980). 日本映画俳優全集・女優編 [Complete Works of Japanese Film Actors and Actresses] (in Japanese). Tōkyō: Kinema Junpōsha. p. 424. OCLC 22823615.