Celebrating Halloween in Tokyo with Mothra's Moll!

With Megumi Kobayashi.

Today, Sunday, October 25, I attended a special Halloween-themed event hosted by actress-singer Megumi Kobayashi. If you're familiar with Kobayashi-san, it's almost certainly from her starring role as Moll in all three of the Rebirth of Mothra movies from the late 1990s. She also appears as Miyuki Aizawa in Gamera the Brave (2006). 

As it was a Halloween party, Kobayashi-san appeared in an orange wig and wielded a magic wand during the afternoon's festivities. She was a very charismatic and engaging host, talking to everyone who attended and asking questions about each attendee. She asked me about my background and remembered the details well enough that, when another person arrived late and began asking me questions, Kobayashi-san took the initiative by answering his questions about me herself! At least now I know the person I want to write my biography.

I asked Kobayashi-san talked about working with directors Okihiro Yoneda and Kunio Miyoshi, to which she described how kind and supportive they both were. Despite how SFX-heavy many of her scenes were, I was surprised to hear that she had very little interaction with Koichi Kawakita and Kenji Suzuki during the making of the films. 

She also talked about visiting the U.S., in particular Hawaii and New York. She visited New York about 30 years ago as part of her work on a TV program, going many places there and trying out the food. (Man, sign me up for that kind of work!) She was very impressed with the culture of NYC.

When the time came to sign autographs, she asked how to spell my name, and, when she wrote it out on paper, she commented on how cool it was. Hey, she said it, not me, and I'll take her word for it! 

In total, I was there for four hours, and I had a really good time. Kobayashi-san was a great host, and she more than made it worthwhile for me. I hope to see her again very soon!