Saturday, December 20, 2014

FORTY YEARS OF MECHAGODZILLA! Celebrating Mecha-G's Major Milestone with Two of His Makers!

SFX director Teruyoshi Nakano signs my Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla DVD sleeve, which has already been signed by a couple of other Toho luminaries. Photo by Brett Homenick.

I just returned from a memorable Mechagodzilla event in Kawasaki, Kanagawa. There were two guests of honor: SFX director Teruyoshi Nakano and screenwriter Hiroyasu Yamaura. Both gentlemen worked together on the genre classic Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974), which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2014. However, the pair also worked together on a lesser known sci-fi effort, Tokyo Blackout (1987).

Yours truly poses with an original copy of the Mechagodzilla script with the man (Hiroyasu Yamaura) who wrote it!

I was pleased to add the signature of Nakano-san to my Mechagodzilla DVD sleeve, which has already been signed by Yamaura-san and designer Akihiko Iguchi. I sat next to Yamaura-san for the event, and after speaking with other fans and attendees, Nakano-san joined our table for a discussion.

Lucky me: Sitting between two of the original Mechagodzilla's godfathers.

It was rather cool to have Nakano-san share his memories of Eiji Tsuburaya and then have Yamaura-san translate them to me in English! While Yamaura-san isn't fluent, his English is much better than my Japanese, so he was able to explain some of the stories that were told. For one, Nakano-san said that Eiji Tsuburaya would make his own suits himself! I guess he really loved creating all sorts of things!

It was a great night with great people, honoring a great film. I'm glad to have been a part of it.

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