世論 What Japan Thinks

In one of these strange and totally unscientific surveys that goo Rankings rather often conducts, we find out who the Japanese consider to be a model international couple. That is “model” as in “role model”, not “fashion model”. There is no demographic or other information for this poll, except that it was conducted over three days towards the end of November.

I believe the gist of the original Japanese question is after which international couple’s example would they like to model their relationship. One wonders about the thought processes that went on in the selection of two other-kind-of-model brides.

You may also note that all bar one seems to be a marriage with a white foreigner.

UPDATE: Following feedback from Roy, I’ve promoted (demoted?) Kumiko Goto to just “model”.

Q: Which international couple would you want to model your relationship on?

Rank	Couple	Score	Notes
1	Jean Alesi and Kumiko Goto	100	French-Sicilian Jean Alesi was my favourite F1 driver when he was racing.
2	Kiyoshi and Helen Nishikawa	96.7	Of all the couples on the list, they appear together on TV the most. Perhaps people see them as a happy and still in love middle-aged couple, somewhat of a rarity, it seems, in Japan.
3	John Lennon and Yoko Ono	84.4	I think you’re all familiar with who they are!
4	Hiroshi Katsuno and Kathy Nakajima	44.4	Never heard of them! Japanese actor and Hawaiian quiltmaker, it seems.
5	Kouichi Iwaki and Anna Yuuki	36.7	Seems to be an actor who, judging from his Japanese Wikipedia entry, was born as a Korean resident of Japan (Zainichi), and apparently another ex-bikini (and bikini-less?) model of not-yet-determined nationality (it might be someone else with the same name, though), although I will be sure to do plenty of research on her, once I finish with my Kumiko Goto research…
6	Tatsuo and Claudia Umemiya	29.4	A Japanese actor and a German-American former model - the respectable kind of modelling, I believe.
7	Hide Temon and Rosanna Sanpon (?)	27.2	Now passed away singer and actor, and his Italian wife, who was also a singer, I believe. I also can’t find the correct spelling of her name.
8	Michael Krumm and Kumiko Date	26.1	German sports car racer (complete with patronising 日本語はかなり上手に話せる - “He can speak Japanese rather well” comment in Japanese Wikipedia) and former tennis player.
9	Bob Limp and Naoko Nozawa	15.6	American performance artist or something and extremely irritating to me Japanese comedienne.
10	Panzetta and Kikuko Girolamo	15.0	Italian lounge lizard (in the nicest sense of the term!) and Japanese cooking expert.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, or check out my weekly newsletter. Thanks for visiting!