It for Identifying people Actually We normally use 'it' rather than he, she etc when identifying people Who's that man over there? - It's Dave Brown; he's our instructor. Is that Pete Franshaw? - No, it isn't. It's his brother, Paul. It's Paul who got married last week, isn't it? - No, it was Pete. (On the phone) Hello, Darling, it's Pete here. So in your example 'it' is used to identify who the young man was. 'It was Ohira Takayuki.'

It's perfectly normal to use "it" in this way, because you are referring to "who", not the person's gender. *a knock at the door* "Who is it?" "It's your mother!" PS. Use "I found the following expression..." By using "next expression", you mean that there is already an expression that we can move from (two things: "from this one to the next"). However, you only gave us one expression.

One of the uses of "it" as a personal pronoun is "it as empty subject"...used in when describing time, weather and sometimes just the current situation. It's Monday. It's cold out. It's ten km from here to the bus station. I think the use of "it" rather than he in your sentence falls in this category. Note that sentence in question is an answer to the question "Who was this young man?", which I would say is the reason why "it" (as an empty subject) was used rather than "he" -- because if "he" were used, the reader would encounter a pronoun before it was clear who the subject was. Certainly pronouns can and often do come before their antecedants in a sentence -- but if you're looking for the rationale for the choice of "it" rather than "he" in this case, I think it is a matter of style, and the writer wishing to leave the "revealing of the answer to the question" to the actual name "Ohira Takayuki"... It leaves an element of surprise. And this is how/why knock knock jokes follow this formula: Knock knock Q: Who is it? A: It's Santa Claus! (not: He's Santa Claus!)