As I haven't got any claims to fame yet
other then being the only person among my anime-loving friends to have actually gone to Japan, these are about my relatives (they're not crappy, but they'll have to do):

My Grand-uncles (dad's mom's brothers) were in the army during WWII - one was in the US army and the other was in the Japanese army. As you can imagine, this cause a quite a bit of anxiety for their family but fortunately they were on opposite sides of the globe (Italy and I'm not sure where) and survived the war.

The grand-uncle in Japan was also the first foreign-born Japanese to become a Sumo wrestler, and as I recall he got pretty high up in the ranks before the war. In order to become a sumotori he had to get Japanese citizenship and when the war started he was drafted. Afterwards he ran an inn and raised bulldogs.

Their father (my great-grandfather; dad's mom's dad) was the subject of a History-Channel style documentary in Japan. The film crew interviewed all of my dad's family and they seemed keen on the fact that 1) no one younger then my Grandma spoke any Japanese and 2) so many of my cousins married non-Japanese people.

My Dad's dad (who died a few months before my birth) lived to the age of 103 or 106, which is pretty good considering he had skin cancer and lost his ear. When I was born my relatives say I bore a remarkable resemblence to him!

My cousin (you rock and thanks for the t-shirts!) goes by the hip-hop alias "Key Kool" and travels the world with his rap group (crew? I don't know the proper term) "Visionaries." His mom's father was a Buddhist minister and he discovered that "Linkin Park" rapper Mike Shinoda and his family used to go to that church for special occasions. He's also met 2Pac Shakur ("a pretty cool guy") and probably a load of other famous people that I simply haven't asked about.

Ummm, what else? My mom was born in an internment camp in Oregon; my dad worked with a singer from "The Fifth Dimention" ("The Age of Aquarius"); one of my dad's friends' friend or brother (I have no idea) used to sing with "The Temptations"; two of my art teachers have been featured in LA Times articles; my art teacher who could care less about comic books and graphic novels had Frank "Sin City" Miller as an art prof, and my mom's friend's daughter once tutored Leonardo DiCaprio in high school.

Apologies for length etc.
(Kitsune-chan I'm not a bunny I'm a grownup girl, Sat 26 Feb 2005, 23:23, Reply)