As I was reading through the archives at the interesting and informative site Now I Know, I stumbled

As I was reading through the archives at the interesting and informative site Now I Know, I stumbled upon this entry. Ken is just everywhere I go!

Now I Know – Type Cast

Actor Ken Watanabe was born in Koide, Niigata, Japan, on October 21, 1959.  He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in The Last Samurai, and has more recently appeared in Batman Begins and Inception. He survived leukemia, which he was diagnosed with in 1989, and has Hepatitis C.  In 2004, he was featured in People Magazine’s issue listing the fifty most beautiful people. One can learn all of this from Watanbe’s Wikipedia entry.

To learn his blood type, however, you will have to dig deeper.  Not much deeper, though. That information is in his Wikipedia entry, too – his entry on the Japanese Wikipedia, that is.  (For those who do not speak Japanese, here’s a screenshot of it, translated.  Pay particular attention to the infobox on the right, three lines up from the bottom.)  He’s blood type A.

Why is it there?  Because Japanese culture treats blood types much like the Western world treats Zodiac symbols: mythical indicators as to people’s personalities and, in relationships, to their compatability with others. These blood type characteristics can be seen [in the “Japanese blood type personality chart” above].  While science has widely debunked any causal connection here, an estimated 90% of Japan’s residents know their blood types.