A Japanese politician who served as Governor of Tokyo from 1995 to 1999. He is also well known as a TV actor, novelist, film director, screenwriter and songwriter.

Yukio was born in Nihonbashi ward of Tokyo City in 1932. His father was an entrepreneur who had been running a bento catering business. He began writing manzai comedy while enrolled as a student at Waseda University and made his debut as a comedy writer in Japan's fledgling television industry.

He rose to fame as the star of programs such as Shabondama Holiday (シャボン玉ホリデー "Soap Bubble Holiday") and Iji-waru Baasan (いじわるばあさん "Mean Granny"). He produced, directed and starred in the film Kane (鐘 "The Bell"), which was a contestant in the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. His first novel, Ningen banji saiō ga hinoeuma (人間万事塞翁が丙午), won the Naoki Prize in 1981.

Aoshima wrote for popular comedian Hitoshi Ueki and was largely responsible for creating Ueki's image. According to Ueki, Aoshima once told him: "Don't tell anyone you don't drink, otherwise you'll put me out of a job."[2] Aoshima wrote the hit 1961 song Sudara Bushi (スーダラ節), performed by Hajime Hana and the Crazy Cats, of which Ueki was a member. Aoshima characterized the song as "the saga of a happy-go-lucky salaryman who is unable to avoid the temptations of drink and gambling" with the resonant lyric "I know it's wrong, but I can't give it up." He linked the song to his political views later on, writing that "we have spent several decades creating a society and economy oriented towards mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, and mass waste. We know something is amiss, but we are so caught up in it that we cannot give it up." (wikipedia) Edit Biography