A Legendary Evening with a Legend of TV Tokusatsu!

Akihide Tsuzawa poses with a signed shikishi board. Photo by Brett Homenick.

Last night (Thursday, January 25), I was lucky to spend a fun evening with former child actor Akihide Tsuzawa. Tsuzawa-san is best known for playing Isamu Hoshino on the original Ultraman (1966-67) TV series. 

I called Tsuzawa-san from the train station as soon as I arrived, and shortly thereafter he met me at the station. From there, we headed to a nearby Jonathan's family restaurant and ordered our food. Without any prompting from me, Tsuzawa-san brought a shikishi board with him and signed it for me. I usually don't collect these boards (if you have too many, they can start to take up too much room), but this is one I'll certainly cherish.

During our conversation, I was surprised to learn that Tsuzawa-san has an older brother who lives in Paris with his French wife. The couple has a daughter together, and Tsuzawa-san showed me a couple of photos of his older brother and his Parisian family. 

Tsuzawa-san also enjoys driving long distances, including to places like Okutama, with which I'm pretty familiar myself. He takes his mother, Masako, with him on trips, whom he takes care of in her old age. According to Wikipedia, his mother, who is a well-known haiku poet, was born in 1927, but thankfully she's still going strong. 

Akihide Tsuzawa with his script for The Birth of Ultraman (1966). Photo by Brett Homenick.

Tsuzawa-san brought along a few scripts, including the one for The Birth of Ultraman (1966) TV special, as well as the one for Ultra Q (1966) episode 12, "I Saw a Bird," in which he played the young boy Saburo. It was fascinating to thumb through these treasures of tokusatsu history. In addition, he pulled out a plastic bag that contained New Year's greeting cards from the likes of directors Toshihiro Iijima, Nobuo Nakagawa, and Eizo Yamagiwa, all of whom Tsuzawa-san had worked with in the 1960s. Tsuzawa-san received these cards around the time he had worked with these directors in the '60s.

The script for The Birth of Ultraman. Photo by Brett Homenick.

As if all that weren't enough, Tsuzawa-san also brought a few photo albums with him to our dinner. Many of the photos were taken by his mother on set and on various filming locations. For example, there was a photo of Tsuzawa-san with Kenji Sahara at the filming location for Ultra Q.

Akihide Tsuzawa with his script for Ultra Q (1966) episode 12 (which was called "Unbalance" at the time). Photo by Brett Homenick.

When I asked Tsuzawa-san what Sahara-san was like, he said that Sahara-san was a star who had that kind of aura around him. For what it's worth, director Harunosuke Nakagawa was also included in the photo album, and Tsuzawa-san commented that he was kind.

The script for Ultra Q episode 12. Photo by Brett Homenick.

One interesting aspect of the photo albums he brought is that they contained many photos taken of their home TV set whenever Tsuzawa-san was onscreen. Naturally, his appearances on Ultraman were well represented among these snapshots, but so were assorted commercials he was on. In those pre-VHS days, there was no other way to record such broadcasts, which is why his mother took those photos whenever Tsuzawa-san was on TV.

Tsuzawa-san was quite proud of the photos he had with famed Japanese pro wrestler Rikidozan on the set of the TV series Champion Futoshi (1962-63). Speaking of which, it was actually on this show where Tsuzawa-san worked with Eizo Yamagiwa, who was an assistant director at the time.

In fact, there was a photo of Yamagiwa-san in one of the albums taken at the time of Champion Futoshi, which was my first time to see Yamagiwa-san when he was young. Coincidentally, Yamagiwa-san would go on to direct many episodes of the Ultra-series in the 1970s.

But we also talked about things not related to Tsuzawa-san's entertainment career. For example, he was quite interested to get the proper pronunciation of my first and last name, which is quite difficult for most Japanese. He was also interested in my family history and background. 

What was particularly fun for me was when Tsuzawa-san took pictures of and with me. It's always great when I'm not the only one snapping photos!

When it was all said and done, I insisted on paying for dinner, even though Tsuzawa-san did his best to convince me to let him pay. That wasn't going to happen, so, when the waiter left the bill on the table, I made sure to snatch it before Tsuzawa-san could. It was my privilege.

At the end of the evening, Tsuzawa-san walked me back to the train station. He took a couple of photos of me after I entered the ticket gate, and we waved to each other until I went down the escalator and was completely out of sight. All I can say is that Tsuzawa-san is a true gentleman, and this was one of the best evenings I've had in years.