Hōji Shimanaka

Hōji Shimanaka (嶋中 鵬二, Shimanaka Hōji, February 7, 1923 – April 3, 1997) was a Japanese magazine publisher who was the president and publisher of the prominent monthly magazine Chūō Kōron for nearly five decades. According to Shimanaka's longtime friend and sometime rival Kengo Tanaka, the publisher of competing Bungei Shunjū magazine, "Shimanaka was a virtual synonym for Chūō Kōron." Under Shimanaka's leadership, Chūō Kōron became one of the best known and most widely read magazines in Japan, but in his final years as president he sunk the magazine deep into debt, causing it to be taken over by a rival publishing company. Shimanaka is also known for an attempt by a right-wing youth to assassinate him in February 1960, in what became known as the "Shimanaka Incident."

Shimanaka was a close friend and the primary publisher of famed Japanese author Junichirō Tanizaki, and was a close friend to renowned American scholar of Japanese literature Donald Keene. Shimanaka's wife, Masako (1925–2004), was the daughter of the well-known political scientist Masamichi Rōyama.