,
Ken Takakura,
Seikaku Takagi, Nakanishi and
Tasuku Honjo received the
Order of Culture from
Emperor Akihito on November 3, 2013. After that they posed for photo with
Shinzō Abe at the East Garden of the
Imperial Palace. Nakanishi studied at the Department of Japanese Literature at the University of Tokyo (UTokyo), where he was supervised by the Japanese literary scholar Senichi Hisamatsu (久松潜一). He graduated from the university in 1953 with a Bachelor of Arts in Literature. He continued his studies at UTokyo. His master's thesis was titled 'A Study on the Prosaic Nature in Early Japanese Literature (上代文藝における散文性の研究)'. Nakanishi continued to study under Hisamatsu during his postgraduate studies. In 1954, he lectured part-time at Yukigaya High School. Nakanishi earned a Master of Arts in Literature from UTokyo in 1955. He wrote his doctoral thesis titled 'A Comparative Literary Study of the Man'yōshū (萬葉集の比較文学的研究)', and he earned a Doctor of Literature degree from UTokyo in 1962. Subsequently, he began comparative studies between ancient Japanese literature and Chinese literature. He is the honorary president of the
Nara Prefecture Complex of Manyo Culture, president of the
Koshinokuni Museum of Literature, and has been a guest lecturer at
Princeton University. and in 2013 he received the
Order of Culture. == Honours ==