on 23 march 2003, chuganji became the first japanese man, and only the second man in the world after 115-year-old christian mortensen who died almost 5 years earlier, to become at least 114 years old (although the claimed 120-year-old shigechiyo izumi was still believed to have been older, and denzo ishizaki who died a year after christian mortensen at age 112 years, 191 days claimed to have been two years older, asserting that his birth register which showed a birth year of 1886 rather than 1884 was "delayed by two years").