Tsuneari Fukuda (25 August 1912 – 20 November 1994) was a Japanese playwright, translator, literary critic and public intellectual.

Born in Tokyo to a working-class family, Fukuda read English literature at Tokyo Imperial University. A scholar of D. H. Lawrence, he found his voice as a critic by contributing to literary magazines. Interested in theatre from a young age, Fukuda became associated with the shingeki genre of contemporary theatre, writing and producing numerous original plays, including The Man Who Stroked the Dragon (1952) and The Fuhrer is Still Alive! (1970), for which he was awarded the Yomiuri Prize and Grand Prize for Japanese Literature [ja] respectively. From the 1950s, he began a life-long endeavour to translate William Shakespeare's work into Japanese. He staged successful productions of these translations, starting with Hamlet in 1955, which set off a Shakespeare boom in Japan. Originally associated with the Bungakuza theatre company, he later broke away to found the Kumo and Subaru companies in 1963 and 1975 respectively.

A contributor to popular magazines such as Bungei Shunjū, Chūō Kōron, and Shokun!, Fukuda became well-known to the Japanese public as a conservative intellectual from the 1950s. He opposed the post-war Japanese script reform, and was awarded another Yomiuri Prize for his book on the subject, My Japanese Language Classroom (1960). He criticised left-wing movements, such as the Anpo protests, and questioned the dominance of pacifism in post-war Japan. A supporter of individual liberty and freedom of expression, he rejected the politicisation of art, and expressed doubts about Japanese modernisation. From 1969, he began teaching at Kyoto Sangyo University, and in 1981, he became a member of the Japan Art Academy. After suffering more than a decade of declining health, he died at Ōiso in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1994.

Tsuneari Fukuda was born to Kōshirō and Masa Fukuda on 25 August 1912 in the Hongō ward of Tokyo, the first of five children. While Fukuda's parents received limited formal education, his father, Kōshirō was able to acquire white-collar work as a salaryman at the Tokyo Electric Light Company [ja] through self-study, and was also a calligrapher. Fukuda's given name "Tsuneari" (恆存) was chosen by novelist Shian Ishibashi [ja], and originates from a passage in the works of Confucian philosopher Mencius. His mother Masa was fond of the theatre, and often him took him to see kabuki and Noh plays from the age of three or four. From 1919, Fukuda attended the prestigious Kinka Primary School, where he received a liberal education that placed emphasis on independent learning. His studies were interrupted by the Great Kantō Earthquake in September 1923, which destroyed his home and much of Tokyo. He was evacuated to the countryside, and did not return to school until March 1924. Fukuda, whose family was of working-class origins, felt isolated by his privileged peers. The gap between the progressive academic environment and his conservative homelife signified his intellectual isolation, a trait that would come to define Fukuda.

From 1925, he attended Tokyo No. 2 Junior High School, which was also known for liberal education. In 1930, he was admitted to the elite Urawa High School in Saitama Prefecture, where he enrolled in a humanities and English language course. The school was enveloped in a wave of left-wing student activism taking place across Japan at that time, but Fukuda never participated. During his high-school years, he developed an interest in literature and drama, and was particularly drawn to the works of Hardy and Shakespeare. In an article published in the school newspaper, Fukuda criticised the politicisation of art in the then popular shingeki theatrical genre, which was often used a vehicle for leftist thought. Around this time, he wrote his first play, called Aru machi no hito (或る街の人), and submitted it to a new playhouse called Tsukiji-za run by shingeki actor Kyōsuke Tomoda [ja]. It received honourable mention, but was never performed.

In 1933, he matriculated at Tokyo Imperial University, where he read English literature, graduating in 1936. His thesis, which was written in English, was entitled "Moral Problems in D. H. Lawrence". In the paper, Fukuda used works such as Lady Chatterley's Lover and Sons and Lovers to examine individualistic, modern man's capability for love. The whereabouts of this text are unknown. During his years at university, Fukuda worked as a private teacher to support his family, as his father had fallen into financial difficulties. Living at home, away from the intellectual safe space of the university dormitories, Fukuda retained a willingness to learn from everyday people that was rare in Shōwa-era intellectuals.

During his graduation year, Fukuda underwent a medical exam to evaluate his suitability for conscription, which found him to be of a weak constitution. He was thus granted an exemption from military service. With the effects of the Great Depression in full-swing, Fukuda was unable to secure full-time employment after completing university, and turned to part-time work for sustenance. In 1937, he enrolled in an English literature postgraduate course at Tokyo Imperial University; during this time, he wrote his first literary criticism of Shakespeare's Macbeth, and began contributing to literary magazines. He submitted an article on Riichi Yokomitsu to one such magazine, Kōdō bungaku, which was published in its February 1937 issue. In May 1938, he found work as a junior high school English teacher at Kakegawa in Shizuoka Prefecture. He quit in 1939 after objecting to the head teacher's practice of admitting talented baseball players for their athletic ability alone.

After returning to Tokyo, Fukuda was contacted by his junior high-school teacher, the linguist Minoru Nishio [ja], who offered him a job as the editor of a new humanities magazine called Keisei. He accepted, and worked for the magazine until July 1940, when it went out of print due to a wartime paper shortage. He then worked on a criticism of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, which was published in 1941, and the first time he was paid for his written work. During the same year, he also published a translation of D.H. Lawrence's Apocalypse.