Question: Who is the most famous Japanese personality in the world?
I'd have to say Yoko Ono, although Ichiro Suzuki is now giving her a run for her money -- but only in Japan and the United States, whereas Ono is known all over the planet.
Ono would not have achieved anything like the degree of fame she enjoys were it not for her marriage to John Lennon -- which has always made her much-vaunted feminism pretty bogus as far as I'm concerned. I see it as an ideological smoke screen designed to distract attention from the fact that she comes from a branch of the Yasuda zaibatsu, and from the inconvenient fact that she had to marry a famous guy to become famous herself.