On October 11, 2024, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), to which they belong as a representative, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

[3] He was born on 29 April 1932 in Manchuria in China, which was then under Japanese occupation as the puppet state of Manchukuo.

[4] Tanaka has been involved with hibakusha activism since 1974, and he became secretary-general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations in 2000.

[12]After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Tanaka and Hidankyo called for the decommissioning of reactors that had already been shut down.

[13] Along with other atomic bomb survivors Tanaka attended the May 2016 speech of US President Barack Obama in Hiroshima, responding positively[14] and praising it as being "wonderful", although he regretted that Obama had not been able to make progress towards a nuclear free world.