Chumei Watanabe. Photo by Brett Homenick.
Tonight, I had the privilege of spending the day with film and TV composer Chumei Watanabe (whose real name is Michiaki Watanabe) at a private gathering. Among Watanabe-san's film compsitions are: several entries of the Starman (a.k.a. Super Giant) series, Black Cat Mansion (1958), Ghost of Yotsuya (1959), Hell (1960), 100 Monsters (1968), and Along with Ghosts (1969). However, Watanabe-san is much more famous for his anime and TV tokusatsu scores, which are too numerous to list here. Film also composing runs in his family, as his son is Toshiyuki Watanabe, the composer for the '90s Mothra trilogy.
Watanabe-san began his film composing career at Shintoho in 1956, and at age 92 years old, he is still active writing music to this day. Watanabe-san was curious about American culture and how tokusatsu movies and TV programs are received in the West, and naturally I was happy to answer his questions.
Suffice it to say, it was a great evening!
No comments:
Post a Comment