THREE GIANT GUESTS! The Greatest Evening on Earth!

Eiichi Asada, Takeshi Miyanishi, and Takashi Naganuma. Photo by Brett Homenick.

Earlier tonight (Sunday, February 5), I spent the evening with a trio of Toho legends: Eiichi Asada, Takeshi Miyanishi, and Takashi Naganuma. I've blogged extensively about Asada-san and Naganuma-san in the past, but Miyanishi-san is someone I'd only met once before, so I was particularly interested in visiting with him again.

Eiichi Asada, Takeshi Miyanishi, and Takashi Naganuma. Photo by Brett Homenick.

I got a couple of autographs for a friend of mine in the U.S. and had all three sign a postcard from the Godzilla Store with a Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) theme. All three gentlemen worked on the film, as luck would have it.

Naganuma-san was his usual self, telling a lot of jokes and doing a lot of wordplay with both English and Japanese words. He always seemed to gravitate toward me, wanting to share his sense of humor with me. It's hard to match the level of Naganuma-san's wordplay, but I certainly tried my best!

Takeshi Miyanishi. Photo by Brett Homenick.

Miyanishi-san was born in 1942, and his career in movies began on the Toho production Gorath (1962) as an assistant cameraman. He continued in that capacity until 1968 with Destroy All Monsters. Following that, he moved up to optical photography and visual effects, doing matte shots and other such SFX work. His first onscreen credit for optical photography was Godzilla vs. Megalon, and his final credited film was Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991).

 

After taking the above photo, Miyanishi-san took out his phone and took a picture of me. It's always cool when the guests want a picture of you! As the oldest guest of the event, Miyanishi-san was a bit more reserved than the others but no less polite. I certainly enjoyed being in his company tonight.

While I didn't get to spend that much time with Asada-san, I did manage to ask him about director Kon Ichikawa. He said that Ichikawa was usually friendly but that he could get angry. I guess I always envisioned Ichikawa as a temperamental director, so it's refreshing to hear that he was mostly easy to work with.

And that's a wrap! See you next time!