DEEP DIVE: Did Teruyoshi Nakano Work on the Bloodthirsty Series?

Teruyoshi Nakano in May 2017. Photo by Brett Homenick.

I was browsing Wikizilla the other day and noticed that one of the editors removed the Bloodthirsty trilogy -- consisting of The Vampire Doll (1970), Lake of Dracula (1971), and Evil of Dracula (1974), all of which were directed by Michio Yamamoto -- from Toho special effects director Teruyoshi Nakano's filmography, due to a lack of proper citation.

I thought that was rather interesting, as I didn't realize Nakano-san's involvement was that poorly documented. But it did remind me of the time I asked Nakano-san about it in person. Thankfully, I took contemporaneous notes of his comments, and, after doing some digging for them, I finally found them and had a chance to look at them for the first time in a long time.

My notes are below, slightly edited for clarity:

5/27/2017 - Teruyoshi Nakano worked on the Bloodthirsty trilogy for free and no credit because he was friends with Fumio Tanaka. 

Fumio Tanaka, of course, produced the Bloodthirsty trilogy. And there you have it, straight from the source.

VAMPIRE DIARIES! Meeting Actress Mio Ota!

Mio Ota. Photo by Brett Homenick.

One of my favorite horror movies has long been Evil of Dracula (1974), and I think a good case can be made for it as the best of director Michio Yamamoto's Bloodthirsty trilogy. She played student Yukiko Mitamura in Evil of Dracula, as well as Blue Jaguar on the TV series Giant Iron Man 17 (1977) from episode 22 through 35. She also appears in Shohei Imamura's Why Not? (1981).

Ota-san had some of her art on display at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno, and I decided to pay her a visit. We had a nice chat about her acting career and other topics. She was surprised to learn that I'm an American from California, saying that I looked like a British gentleman.

It was a great afternoon and well worth braving the sweltering heat and humidity. I certainly hope to have a chance to meet Ota-san again.