Seeing a Stage Performance in Daikanyama!

Hidemi Aoki. Photo by Brett Homenick.

On Tuesday evening, November 8, I saw a stage play in Daikanyama starring two actors who are no strangers to film and television of the 1970s: Hidemi Aoki and Makoto Akatsuka.

Among her film and TV credits, Hidemi Aoki plays Sumi in Seven Nights in Japan (1976), co-starring Michael York and Charles Gray (directed by Lewis Gilbert of You Only Live Twice fame). She also portrays Kyoko Osawayama in episodes 2-7, 9, 11-13 of Toho's tokusatsu TV series Diamond Eye (1973-74).

Makoto Akatsuka. Photo by Brett Homenick.

Makoto Akatsuka (born on March 19, 1951) began his professional acting career in 1967 with Toho, playing high school students. He plays Sangoro in the film Double Suicide (1969), Mamoru Watanabe in Wet Sand in August (1971), Chuji Saito in Yoji Yamada's The Village (1975), the grandson in the Tora-san film Tora's Pure Love (1976), a chimpira in The Yellow Handkerchief (1977), Otomatsu Kawase in Nomugi Pass (1979), Makoto in Tora-san Goes North (1987), a policeman in Tora-san Makes Excuses (1992), and Yazaki in the Oscar-nominated The Twilight Samurai (2002).

On television, he appears uncredited in episode 12 of Ultraman Ace (1972-73), episode 11 of Jekyll and Hyde (1973) as a toy factory worker, Fight! Dragon (1974) as Kojiro Musashi, the all-star TV movie Tokyo Earthquake Magnitude 8.1 (1980) as Hiroshi Sakaki, episode 28 of Kamen Rider Black (1987-88) as Tsunekichi Koyama, and Kamen Rider Black RX (1988-89) as the recurring character Shunkichi Sahara. 

It was a great show with a dramatic meeting toward the end between Akatsuka-san, playing the master of a Japanese izakaya, and Aoki-san, who played a woman from his past. 

I met Akatsuka-san for the very first time afterward, who was quite friendly. I told him about my interest in tokusatsu productions. It was great to see Aoki-san in person, too, for the first time in three years.

Let's do it again soon!