Ryōichi Hattori was a Japanese pop and jazz composer. Katsuhisa Hattori is his son. He had a great influence on Japanese pop and was awarded the People's Honor Award. Japanese jazz was downtrodden during World War II, but he created a jazz boom after the war. He composed many songs for various artists such as Noriko Awaya, Shizuko Kasagi, Ichimaru and Ichirō Fujiyama. He also composed Li Xianglan's song "Suzhou Nocturne", which created an embarrassing controversy over half a century though it was not a militaristic song.
Ryōichi Sekiya is a Japanese ultramarathon and marathon runner from Sagamihara, Kanagawa. He is the current Asian record holder of the 24-hour run with the distance of 274.884 kilometres (170.805 mi), which he achieved in 2007 at Soochow International Ultra-Marathon. He is a four-time IAU 24 Hour World Championship winner, which makes him the athlete with the most wins in the event.