Tanabe became the oldest man in Japan following the death of Nijiro Tokuda, who was 111 at the time, on 12 June 2006.
[1] Upon the death of 115-year-old Emiliano Mercado del Toro on 24 January 2007, Tanabe assumed the title of the man with the oldest validated date of birth in the world.
Tanabe was the seventh-oldest validated person in the world and the third-oldest in Japan (behind Kama Chinen and Chiyo Shiraishi).
"[9][10] Tanabe received a giant tea cup engraved with his name and date of birth plus birthday gifts, flowers and 100,000 yen cash from Miyakonojo Mayor Makoto Nagamine.
On 19 June 2009, Tanabe died in his sleep of heart failure at his home in southern Japan.