Stopping By for a Visit with Godzilla's Former Boss!

Shogo Tomiyama. Photo by Brett Homenick.

This morning (Friday, March 22), I had the distinct privilege of being invited to visit former Toho president and Godzilla series producer Shogo Tomiyama at his university office. I also came to Tomiyama-san's office three years ago to conduct our in-person interview, but this was my first time to meet him one-on-one there.

Shogo Tomiyama. Photo by Brett Homenick.

The appointment was scheduled for 11:00 a.m., but somehow I arrived quite earlier than I expected. (I guess I got lucky with the train schedule.) It's usually polite to arrive to an appointment about 10 minutes early, but I had to kill more time than I would have expected just to get to the 10-minute mark. But, once the time came, I made my way over to the office and asked for Tomiyama-san.

The university staff knew I was coming, so they immediately informed Tomiyama-san when I arrived. (I must say, they were very friendly.) After that, Tomiyama-san invited me into his office, which is where we talked for about the next 40 minutes. Most of our discussion centered around movies, both new and old, American and Japanese. Naturally, there was a lot of Godzilla talk, but we also discussed some real-world issues. It was all rather enlightening.

After our meeting, we took the photos seen in this blog post. I must thank Tomiyama-san for making time to see me today. He's a true legend of Japanese films, and his steady guidance of the Godzilla series is sorely missed. What a day!