Kuga Katsunan (陸 羯南, born Nakata Minoru (中田 実) 30 November 1857 – 2 September 1907) was a Japanese journalist.

This marked the start of Kuga’s lifelong opposition to the hanbatsu system and domination of the Meiji government by natives of the former Satsuma and Chōshū domains.

However, he again failed to graduate, having been expelled together with Hara Takashi for a student protest against the school’s room and board policy.

In 1885, Kuga translated into Japanese some of the works of French conservative political philosopher Joseph de Maistre.

In April 1888, Kuga decided to publish a newspaper called Tokyo Denpō (東京電報, Tokyo Telegraph), but due to reader confusion with the similarly named commercial newspaper Shōgyō Denpō (商業電報, Industrial Telegraph), he changed the name in 1889 to simply Nippon (日本, Japan).