{{Unreferenced, date=December 2009 The Japanese word ''Sosai'' (Japanese:総裁, "Sōsai") means roughly "president" or "director-general". It is used in several ways:

Political

*Sosai, or president of the government, was only once the title of the imperial prime minister: from 1 January 1868 (before there was no cabinet, only chief advisers: '' Kampaku'' to the nominally reigning

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

and both '' Rōjū'' and '' Tairō'' to the de facto ruling ''

shōgun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...

'') until 11 June 1868: Prince Arisugawa Taruhito (1835–1895); next the prime ministerial office is styled '' U Daijin'' "Ministers to the Right", in 1871 shortened to ''Daijin''. *Sosai also was the title of Admiral

Takeaki Enomoto Viscount was a Japanese samurai and admiral of the Tokugawa navy of Bakumatsu period Japan, who remained faithful to the Tokugawa shogunate and fought against the new Meiji government until the end of the Boshin War. He later served in the Meij ...

(1836–1908), the elected president (27 January 1869 – 27 June 1869) of the short-lived rebellious

Ezo Republic The was a short-lived separatist state established in 1869 on the island of Ezo, now Hokkaido, by a part of the former military of the Tokugawa shogunate at the end of the ''Bakumatsu'' period in Japan. It was the first government to attempt t ...

on the present Hokkaidō Island, vanquished by Imperial troops. *Sosai, or President of Liberal Democratic Party, is the office of the head of the LDP.

Others

This office also exist in various sports, in particular budō, business and charitable organizations. The term is also used to translate the head of various foreign organizations. The most famous of such people is Sōsai

Ōyama Masutatsu , more commonly known as Mas Oyama, was a karate master who founded Kyokushin Karate, considered the first and most influential style of full contact karate. A Zainichi Korean, he spent most of his life living in Japan and acquired Japanese ci ...

, who earned this appellation by creating a

karate (; ; Okinawan language, Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial arts, martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the Okinawan martial arts, indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the ...

style called Kyokushinkai and spreading karate in the western world. Mas Oyama is an exceptional icon to be called "Sosai" because of his contributions especially in the world of Martial Arts and in the overall history of Japan. Heads of state Heads of government Japanese words and phrases