Nekotei Newsletter #2, Aug 1985 (Akihiko Hirata memorial doujinshi) - English Translation

I think you should all buckle up.

This is a translation of the memorial doujinshi published in 1985 by Nekotei Newsletter, which includes a few words at the beginning by Ishiro Honda and then two back-to-back essays by Motohide Katayama, the first of which your author was not entirely dry-eyed while transcribing. I originally posted about this doujinshi a few years back (wow, I was terser then; I should revamp that post a bit) and was delighted to finally get a saved search hit on it recently, so I got my hands on it as soon as I could.

I'll let this thing speak for itself, but suffice to say, as we've seen here and there over the course of this blog's existence, Hirata was very much beloved by both his fans and the people around him, and his death came as a huge tragedy, if not necessarily a shock, as he'd been ill for some time. It still is a tragedy 42 years later, but this doujinshi presents some really rare insight into the state of the fandom (as it were) at the time. And not to be a cornball or anything, but reading Katayama's essays felt like... is there an expression in any language that combines both "looking into a mirror" and "shaking hands emphatically with someone"? Because it was like that.

I should note that I have excluded the filmography section from translation since that is easily available elsewhere. This post will contain only the essays. I'm also including full scans; it's 16 pages, so you'll have to scroll quite a bit, but the translation is below. This is mostly a machine TL but I have checked it over to make sure it's reasonably accurate to the best of my abilities.

Before we move on, I just want to say that I don't think I can overstate the importance of Katayama's essay on television. Katayama was writing entirely from memory and notes that he had personally taken while looking at TV guides, and he mentions several titles that - as far as I can tell - have literally no presence on the internet at all. Meaning: if it were not for Katayama having kept notes throughout the 1970s and writing them up in 1985 for this doujinshi, all record of Hirata having been in these specific titles Katayama mentions would be lost. It keeps me at night to think about how much else is out there that has been lost to time.

Anyway.

Ishiro Honda's tribute.

"Thinking of Mr. H..." by Motohide Katayama, page 1

"Thinking of Mr. H..." by Motohide Katayama, page 2

"Thinking of Mr. H..." by Motohide Katayama, page 3

Katayama's TV essay, page 1

Katayama's TV essay, page 2

Katayama's TV essay, page 3

Editor's note

From Ishiro Honda

It is a great loss that we have lost Hirata; I find it deeply regrettable.

He appeared in various films of mine, ranging from Godzilla to Terror of Mechagodzilla, but his role in the original Godzilla was particularly significant. The young Hirata's sharp, intelligent appearance was perfectly suited for the role of a brilliant scientist who lived like a recluse. Acting is a human endeavor, so if an actor is averse to monster or special-effects films, you simply can't expect a good performance. While there are certain roles that demand a specific actor (and we do cast newcomers), I consistently relied on a core group that included Hirata and [Yoshio] Tsuchiya. Hirata, for his part, seemed to genuinely enjoy appearing in my films.

He was an actor with an honest, straightforward approach to performance; he would express exactly what I had in mind, making him a wonderful actor to work with. He memorized his lines quickly, and I have almost no memory of ever struggling to direct him.

Although we rarely had the chance to go out for drinks together in town, he was always the first to join in the fun whenever [we] gathered at my home. He was a serious man who was always considerate of others, so I could always rely on him when it came to organizing things.¹

May [he] rest in peace.

Thinking of Mr. H...

[By Motohide Katayama]

"They told me they'd add lines and make it a more important role, so I agreed. But when it came down to it, nothing had changed at all. That Sawako Ariyoshi, she really is something else..."

It has been a little over a month since Mr. H passed away - the man who shared those words with me when I visited his dressing room during the revival of Ranbu at the Imperial Theater. Hearing the sudden news of that talented authoress [Ariyoshi]'s death recently, I found myself - however cliche it may sound - deeply contemplating the transience and fragility of human life. I also recall something else Mr. H said back then: "I'm a movie actor at heart, you see... I get bored if I have to perform the same thing for weeks on end." He also spoke of his future work: "I have two or three stage productions scheduled for the rest of the year." Yet, that production of Ranbu in February 1983 - during which some criticized Ariyoshi's unusual directorial style - turned out to be Mr. H's final stage appearance, as well as the sixth and last time I ever met him in person. He fell ill before he could play the villain in the special Fujiko Yamamoto production schedule for September; after a brief period of improvement around the New Year, he passed away on July 25th, 1984.

I almost certainly first recognized Mr. H as an actor back in my kindergarten days. For a child whose dreams were filled with monsters and war, movies - especially Toho's bright, entertaining films - were the ultimate form of amusement during that twilight era of the late 1960s and early '70s. I cannot say for sure how many films I saw on the big screen or television, but somewhere along the way, I found myself drawn to Mr. H. It wasn't Yoshio Tsuchiya, Tadao Nakamaru, [Hideyo] Amamoto, Seizaburo Kawazu, Susumu Fujita or Jun Tazaki who captured my heart. The process defies words; one simply comes to like the person. Any attempt at a rational explanation feels superficial - a distortion of something that exists in a realm beyond language. It was akin to what Motoori Norinaga called "mono no aware" [...] and there the feeling remained, fixed and constant.

The difficulty inherent in being an actor lies precisely in this realm. Moreover, only poetry can truly hold its ground here; both praise and condemnation are essentially directed at one's own fantasies, unable to spill over into the outside world. Having written this, I will sidestep the ultimate, difficult question of why I like him; suffice it to say that my deep attachment can be understood as a clear sense of "fandom".

Scouring the TV listings in Weekly TV Guide for Mr. H's name had been a habit of mine from elementary school right up until recently. Dissatisfied with this one-way connection, I eventually wrote a fan letter during the autumn of my fifth-grade year. When no reply came despite my long wait, I tried sending another - but thinking that a messy, scrawled note from a child wouldn't work, I asked my mother to add a few lines this time.

"Motohide, I hear you always watch my shows. I understand you served as a class representative. [I was] class rep during the first term [of sixth grade] and the experience of leading a class is incredibly useful when you grow up. Do your best to become class representative again in the sixth grade. To that end, try not to watch too much TV; cultivating a habit of reading books is more important. Build up your body. And always remain a fine student of L'ECOLE DE L'ETOILE DU MATIN². Right now, I'm filming the movie Terror of Mechagodzilla, it's scheduled for release during the spring break in March. As for TV, I appear in shows like Taiyo ni Hoero!, Rise to the Heavens³, The Family Game, and Onihei Hankacho, though not every week. Please give my regards to your mother. It's cold out, so take care not to catch a cold."

That was the full text of the letter, and the joy of confirming it was in his own handwriting was a feeling I would experience only a few times in my life - far surpassing the emotion of passing a university entrance exam.

My first face-to-face meeting with him took place four months later. It was for a play newly written by Koji Toita titled Legend of the Saints, a production featuring the unusual casting of Eiko Muramatsu and Senri Sakurai as a young couple. Mr. H appeared on stage as a teacher at a girls' school. I must have been trembling as I stood at the entrance to the dressing room after the performance. I can still vividly recall the sensation of my head burning hot with the tension of crossing a line I wasn't supposed to cross. Mr. H came out when called, still wearing his stage makeup and a yukata.

"Glad you could make it. Come on in," he said, guiding me to a corner at the far end of the large dressing room shared by the male actors. The moment one comes face-to-face with the "real thing" - the person who is truly significant to you - is a time of both intense excitement and profound exhaustion. I cannot recall exactly what was said; all I remember [from the moment] is the sight of the couple Keisuke Sunagawa and Nobuyo Oyama standing near the entrance.

For the roughly ten years that followed, I maintained a nodding acquaintance with Mr. H - and to use a rather trite expression, that time felt both long and short. Our second meeting took place not long after, on July 31st, 1975, at the final performance of the Imperial Theater's summer production of The Sound of Music, starring Kaoru Yodo as Maria and Tetsuro Sagawa as Captain von Trapp, with Asao Koike and Kojiro Kusanagi in supporting roles. Mr. H, who played the Nazi admiral [von Schreiber], appeared in the audience just before the curtain rose; dressed in a sports shirt and holding a portable cassette recorder, he spotted me and strode over. I was taken aback. "My scene isn't until the very end anyway," he explained. "There are so many great songs in this show, so I thought I'd sit out here and record them right up to the last minute". As I watched his sturdy figure - after shaking my hand - disappear into a corner of the auditorium, I found myself grinning, filled with genuine delight. The Mr. H I knew was a truly good man in the best sense of the word - someone whose earnest, gentle nature was imbued with a serious intelligence. He was a man who never failed to show thoughtful consideration, even to an obscure fan like me - let alone to his regular colleagues. I wish he had taken more [time off]; it might have made things a little easier on him. When I recall the Mr. H who always treated me with such sincere warmth, the words spoken by Koji Tsuruta at [his] wake move me deeply, bringing tears to my eyes.

At 2:50 PM on July 27th, I pressed my palms together in prayer for a moment outside the gates of Honganji Wadabori Betsuin, where a crowd of onlookers had gathered; then, feeling strangely hollow, I walked toward Shimotakaido Station. I happened upon a secondhand bookstore and wandered inside. The proprietress at the counter seemed to be watching a live broadcast of the funeral; I could hear the reporter using the standard phrases reserved for such sad occasions. A greengrocer who supplied the shop arrived and struck up a conversation with her. "Looks like something's going on over there today." "It's Yoshiko Kuga's husband." "Oh, really? Remind me, what kind of man was he?" A portrait of [Hirata] appeared on the television screen. The greengrocer leaned forward intently to get a better look. "Oh, right, this guy. He was on TV a lot until recently, wasn't he?" "That's him. It's such a shame, he was still young."

Yes, he was young. I had assumed he would live forever, but I supposed that was wishful thinking. There is a strange, stark quality to the way a person simply ceases to be. Right now, I have exactly ten postcards from Mr. H beside me. Eight of them are New Year's cards; the one from 1984 bears the printed red greeting "Happy New Year," followed by a message written in his characteristically elegant handwriting: "I underwent surgery for a duodenal ulcer in September, so I'm taking some time to recuperate". It was a long convalescence - too long to take the message at face value - yet I couldn't simply dismiss it, either.

"He's been getting steadily better lately," people had been saying. That comment from So Yamamura, his senior from the University of Tokyo, formed the basis for how Mr. H was regarded in his later years. Indeed, Mr. H was the sort of actor whose depth and richness only grew with age. He was someone with a promising future ahead of him. The day when his renown as an accomplished actor would eclipse that of [Yoshiko Kuga] was truly close at hand. Yet fate is ever cruel, and that future was sealed off forever.

(Note: This piece was drafted last September and has now been revised. My grief remains unchanged.)

Motohide Katayama's TV Essay

It goes without saying that, like many other film actors, Akihiko Hirata shifted the primary focus of his career to television during the late 1960s. Here, I would like to present a record of Hirata's television appearances - to the best of my knowledge - as a reference for readers. Please not that I am currently 22 years old; while I believe I have covered the period from 1974 onwards reasonably well, there are likely significant omissions regarding the 1980s, a time for which I did not keep detailed notes. I ask for your understanding.

Everyone is likely familiar with Ultra Q and other tokusatsu shows, but his role as Mr. K was truly excellent. He appeared in Daitetsujin 17 for exactly one cour - thirteen episodes starting April 1, 1977. He appeared in episode 12 of Taiyo ni Hoero! as Toshio Kawamoto, a corrupt detective; he delivered a compelling performance in this tragic role, portraying a man who brings about his own ruin through entanglements with organized crime. Later, coinciding with the arrival of Yusaku Matsuda's character, Hirata returned to the series as Nishiyama, an inspector from the Metropolitan Police Department. He transferred to the role of the Nanamagari Precinct Chief, appearing in over forty⁴ episodes and becoming known for his shouting outbursts. Episode 88 in particular was essentially a showcase for [Chief Nishiyama]. There was even a storyline three or four years ago involving a bomb planted at his home.

In other police dramas, he frequently played the role of the criminal. He appeared in Shigeru Amachi's License to Kill on July 12, 1975, and February 19, 1976; playing a politician's secretary in the former and a yakuza executive in the latter. He made four appearances in Jiro Sakagami's Detective at Dawn (December 3rd, 1975; June 30 and September 15, 1976; and September 1, 1977) and played a public prosecutor in Tomorrow's Detective (November 29, 1978). In Running to the Dawn (starring Saburo Shinoda and Kenji Takaoka), he played Keiichiro Tokimura, a company president who orchestrates a staged kidnapping (February 22, 1977). He also appeared in Special Mobile Investigation Unit as a high-ranking police official.

He appeared as a semi-regular, playing the same role of a bureau chief at Haruta Bank as in the film version - the TV adaptation of The Family Game (1974, Asahi Broadcasting). Incidentally, while Yumeji Tsukioka played Daisuke Manpyo's legitimate wife in the movie, Yoshiko Kuga took over the role for the TV series.

In 1974, he appeared as a parent in the elementary school-themed drama Rise to the Heavens, starring Hitoshi Nakayama and Toshio Kurosawa (episodes aired November 2 and 9). Around the same time, he was a regular in the 30-minute daytime soap opera A Wife's Mistake, playing a husband who suspects his wife of infidelity; his character eventually dies after driving drunk and plunging off a cliff. He also played a husband in Yoko Tsukasa's daytime drama Skin of the Mountain (1981) and was a regular in Haruko Mabuchi's River of Flames.

He was an indispensable figure in period dramas as well. Early in his career he was a regular as police constable Shunzo Sasaki in Kikugoro Onoe's Young Lord Samurai's Detective Chronicles, and also appeared in Koshiro [Matsumoto]'s Onihei Hankacho. He had a long association with the Onihei series, appearing as a superior official (a junior councilor) in both the 1975 series starring Tetsuro Tamba and the more recent version starring Kinnosuke [Nakamura], (appearing in the former on May 14, May 28 and August 27). In the 1974 Kurama Tengu [TV series], he played the role of Katamono Komakine, the Kyoto deputy, in the three party Strange Tale of the Mountain Party arc (October 30, November 5 and November 12); his final scene showed him struggling after being tied to a pillar by Tengu. Masaya Takahashi played the Mountain Party leader Matsuyoshi Imamura, and Toshio Sugie served as director.

In Atsuo Nakamura's Kogarashi Monjiro, he played the yakuza boss Kanpachi, meeting a sordid and undignified end. He exuded a menacing presence as the corrupt physician Yoshioka Dogen in Toshu with Broken Umbrella Villain Hunting (Jan 27 1976) and as the corrupt constable Jinjuro Akazawa in Whirlwind of Edo II (June 24 1976, directed by Yoshiki Onoda).

In the Meiji-era drama Ronin of the Wasteland, starring Toshiro Mifune (Sept 15. 1976), he played Taketo Yamakawa, a Choshu-faction samurai shot dead by Go Wakabayashi. In the final episode of Hidden Eyes - which also featured Mifune alongside Toru Emori - he played Shuzen Hattori, a man plotting his lord's assassination with the help of a henchman played by Hideyo Amamoto. In New Zatoichi, he appeared as the yakuza boss Denbei of Shikagawa (Feb 7 1977). Other roles included appearances in Detective Stories of Denshichi (July 19, 1977), Falcons of Edo (March 28, 1978 as the Chief Censor Hara), Whirlpool of Edo (July 6, 1978) and Oedo Investigation Network (Feb 7 1979 as a Junior Councilor) - the latter being a rare merchant role, though the character was a corrupt magistrate.

He gave a fine performance as the sinister Tenmaya in Falcons of Edo IV (April 20, 1975). In Mito Komon, he played a virtuous senior retainer who is cut down almost immediately after appearing (Aug 14, 1978). In Fangs of Edo, he played the ultimate villain in the final episode; commanding a henchman played by Rinichi Yamamoto, he was spectacularly cut down by Mifune, delivering a memorable final line: "You are nothing but beasts"...

He also appeared in Teruhiko Saigo's A Tough Man, playing Yoshizumi - a department manager at a regional trading company - with a touch of earnest humor (appearing in four episodes; Oct 5, 12, 19 and 26, 1975). In another drama by writer Shigeo Hanato, Hanaborou, he played the father-in-law of Yoko Shimada's character, a man who meets an untimely death (appearing in two episodes, Jan 5 and 12, 1976). Appeared twice in Toshiba Sunday Theater. In Tobidashi (May 23 1976), his role was a doctor; the character watches over the budding romance between Keiko Sekine and Ryu Manatsu. His next appearance was in Snow Waltz, where his role wad the male lead opposite Mitsuko Kusabue. Both productions were made by regional stations.

He was a semi-regular in Matsuo Kayo's Judgement (1978), playing a judge. He also held a semi-regular role as a police chief, appearing in at least seven episodes. Hideki Takahashi appeared as a guest star in this rather melodramatic suspense series (April 1, 1977). Other credits include Ken Utsui's Rose Strait and Momoe Yamaguchi's Red Shock, in which he appeared [in four or more scenes] as the stoic JAL captain flying Momoe.

For NHK, he appeared as Kiyoshi Miyazaki, president of Mitsui & Co., in After the War: Dismantling the Zaibatsu (July 28, 1977). Subsequently, he took on roles in documentary-style productions, such as the Director of the Minister's Secretariat at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in NHK Special: The Day of Zero Imported Food (March 23, 1978) and a role in Saturday Drama: Shimoyama Incident (July 11, 1978). He also appeared in the historical drama Burning Grass, playing the Kamakura-aligned court noble Ichijo Yoshiyasu (appearing in three or four episodes). He played the role of Futaro Shiwa-Butsu in Blood Relatives (based on the novel by Hitomi Yamaguchi and starring Keiju Kobayashi).

He made guest appearances in Kumiko Oba's Comet-san and Yukio Aoshima's Mean Old Lady. He played a company president in [...] Star Dash Number 1 (starring Ikue Sakakibara and Yoshimi Iwasaki). He played the king of a certain nation in Monkey (starring Masaaki Sakai and Masako Natsume) and [appeared in the second season]. In the nighttime melodrama When a Woman Turns Around (starring Yoko Yamamoto), he was a regular, playing the ex-husband; a weak-willed man who did whatever his father (played by Yoshi Kato) told him to do (1977). In Yoshiko Mita’s Unforgettable Days (1979), he played a managing director pursuing Mita’s husband (Takao Inoue), who had vanished with company secrets and committed suicide by jumping from the office building in the final episode.

In the four-part spring 1979 series Wide Labyrinth, he played a managing director who is promoted to company president following the death of the incumbent (a fictional event). He also played a "parachuted" executive in So Kuramoto’s Shadows of Sand (where he portrayed an effeminate personnel manager) and appeared in Oryu-san, Fujiko Yamamoto’s ...Nani ga?, the role of Ishiguro (a gentleman back from France) in Mitsuko Mori’s Why? First Love South Wind, and Jinpachi Nezu’s Lovers, all in 1980.

In 1981, his roles included an advertising manager for a lingerie company in Yukiyo Toju’s Rainbow Forest, an advertising manager for a watch company in Ryoko Nakano’s Cheers to the Bad Wives of Japan!, and a pastor in Kaori Momoi’s Downtown Story. Then came the 1983 Yumie Hiraiwa drama series Lake Festival.

For some reason, nothing comes to mind regarding 1982.

At some point, he also made two or three appearances in a show called Kanasaka.

Next were the long-form dramas on commercial networks; he likely had a fair amount of work here, but since I kept no notes, I cannot be certain of the details. In 1983, he played Mashita Nagamori, one of the Five Commissioners, in TV Asahi’s New Year’s drama Sekigahara. In the Kaimaku Wide Theater slot, he played university professor Ryokichi Takigawa (showing off his mountaineering skills) in [The Mystery of the Broken Rope] (originally aired Jan 27, 1979). In Full Moon Murder Case and Don't Lay A Hand on the Bride (aired Feb 24, 1979, and June 27, 1981, respectively), he gave a powerful performance as an eccentric publishing company president with Koji Tsuruta as his chief subordinate; Aiko Morishita played his wife.

Then, in Serial Killer Torima, he played an investigation section chief; and in a police drama starring Tatsuya Mihashi and Kanako Higuchi, he played a criminal, featuring a memorable scene where he meets secretly with Kyoko Enami. In Finger of the Earth, he played an ambitious university professor, and in Wilderness of Youth (aired Jan. 2, 1978), he took on the role of a Diet member who shares a bed scene with Kiwako Taichi.

For Nippon TV’s Tuesday Suspense, a crime drama series featuring stars like Koji Tsuruta and Yuko Natori, he played an investigation section chief. In TBS’s Saturday Suspense, he appeared as a superior officer in two installments of the series starring the late Shinsuke Minami as a detective. He also appeared in TV Tokyo’s New Year’s 12-hour historical dramas, such as After That, Musashi (playing Matsudaira Izu-no-kami) and Isoroku Yamamoto. Oh yes, he also had a regular role as a vice-principal in a youth-oriented drama from the past starring Yosuke Natsuki or Raita Ryu (airing Sunday nights at 8:00 on Nippon TV). Then there was an action series - I can't recall the exact title - featuring a theme song by Dick Mine; in it, he played a Diet member who gets betrayed and eliminated by Ko Nishimura. Reiko Niwa played his only daughter.

I believe he appeared as the president of a public corporation in the first season of The Hangman, and later became a regular in New Hangman. Shingo Yamashiro, who appeared as a regular in that show, also ended his career playing a comic relief role, as everyone knows. His gaunt cheeks in his later years were a painful sight.

Moving on to non-drama appearances: first and foremost, there was Pittashi Kan-Kan. Along with the Godzilla boom, this program contributed significantly to reshaping the public image of Akihiko Hirata and garnering him renewed appreciation. He appeared on the show nearly a hundred times between 1975 and 1979, and even served as host as a substitute for Hiroshi Kume. He also displayed his brilliant answering skills on Quiz Derby (August 28, 1976) and appeared several times on Association Game. On Thanks for the Meal, he famously prepared "French toast à la Yoshiko." Then there was Tetsuko's Room, where he appeared several times with his wife. He also appeared on Let's Meet at Three, specifically the "Reunion" segment, and Guess It Right on March 10, 1979, as well as Saegusa's Roaring Laughter Salon on Saturday mornings. He also appeared on programs hosted by Fujiko Yamamoto; specifically, Fashionable and You at Three o'Clock on the same day: September 18, 1978. He even introduced Nordic cuisine from Shibuya on the show Cooking Heaven (March 20, 1976). In 1983, as part of the "Godzilla Revival Festival" campaign, he appeared on Wide Wide Fuji and even NHK’s NC9, where he expounded on the true nature of Godzilla. I also recall him appearing on Morning Jumbo Madam to promote the release of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.

There was that memorable joint appearance with Beat Takeshi and Tamori, as well as his roles on We are the Funny People and Today is the Best.

(Note) He provided the Japanese dubbing for the villain in the Columbo episode "A Friend in Deed" [How to Dial a Murder]. Akihiko Hirata was by no means an ordinary actor; rather, he possessed a personality that was perhaps too distinctive. His work surely served as a rebuke to the fools (in his family and elsewhere) who branded him as "nondescript."

Editor's Note

A year has gone by since the passing of Akihiko Hirata. During this time, there have been (at least to my knowledge) no publications or magazine articles commemorating [his achievements]; this deeply regrettable fact has surely left and indelible mark on the minds of those who truly cared for him. Of course, it may be too much to expect good sense from the stubborn and narrow-minded world of journalism; after all, they are merely the vanguard of mass manipulation. Yet, even the wisest of sages never forgets a betrayal. It is to strike a blow against this silence that I present Volume 2 of Nekotei Newsletter to the world. While it is a profound honor to compile this memorial issue for the deeply admired Hirata, I cannot help but regret that, inevitably, given my own laziness and lack of ability, the result is nothing more than a crude little booklet.⁵ I would be happy if it could, at the very least, quench some of the thirst felt by those who loved Hirata so dearly.

Furthermore, fully aware that it may be presumptuous, I humbly dedicate this publication to the late Akihiko Hirata. I received the cooperation of many people in compiling this issue, and I am deeply grateful to them all. I spoke with Ishiro Honda on April 21st, the day before the recording sessions for his film Ran began, he kindly made time for me despite it being such a rare day off [for him]. I am deeply apologetic for constantly making such unreasonable demands of him.

I also received immeasurable assistance from [Motohide] Katayama, a friend of Hirata's for over a decade, who contributed two articles and let me program booklets from stage productions in which Hirata had appeared; this publication would not have been possible without him. Finally, I asked Kazuhiro Hanayama to handle the design and the lettering for the section titles; I would like to make special mention of the fact that, since we could not use a photograph for the cover this time, he created original lettering for it as well. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Tatsu Mori, who handled the photomechanical processing despite his busy schedule; Nobutaka Suzuki, who assisted with some of the proofreading, and Ichiro Omata, who helped prepare the camera-ready copy.

While compiling the list of films in which Hirata appeared, I was struck by the sheer number of works I had not yet seen. For instance, I have resigned myself to the fact that I will likely never truly appreciate the full measure of Gertrude Lawrence's talent. Yet, Hirata was a magnificent screen actor; in seeking out the films I have yet to watch, it is still possible to catch glimpses of his artistry as a performer; facets of his talent that remain little known. Though [he] has ascended to the heavens, the radiance in his eyes as they appear on the silver screen will never fade. (July 15, 1985)

_____

Footnotes:

1) The specific word Honda uses here is "sewanin" which means sponsor, mediator, caretaker, that sort of thing.

2) I do not know what this means in this context. Writing a letter to a fifth-grader including a phrase in French might be singularly the most Akihiko Hirata thing I have ever heard.

3) Ten made agare [天まであがれ]. This one is weird - he himself confirms he was in the show, but I can find literally no evidence for it whatsoever.

4) My list says 33 episodes, but one of us may be wrong.

5) Editor, that "crude little booklet" currently resides in my house with candles around it.

Playing Yoshiko Otowa on a 100-Year-Old Gramophone

...because that's just what you have to do sometimes.

Here's Yume o yobu mado ("Window that Brings Dreams") by Yoshiko Otowa, released in 1957, played on my 1925 His Master's Voice model 101 gramophone. Apologies for the video quality; Blogger has a 100mb limit so I've had to compress it quite a bit.

I own a gramophone and a few of Yoshiko Otowa's records, and am working on getting recordings of them archived and uploaded online. I won't be making individual posts for each of them but you can always check up on my discography list which I'll be updating as I get the songs uploaded.

(Apologies for poor audio as well - I am new to gramophones and still getting the hang of how to crank mine enough so that it plays a full song at a consistent rate of speed. I am having a hell of a good time, though.)

(Also please note that it is usually a bad idea to play shellac records from the 1950s or later on a gramophone of this age, due to newer records typically being made of more fragile material that is not suited to the weight of the tonearm on these older machines. Japan - as with many things - seems to have continued older methods of manufacturing shellac records for longer than other countries, so even though my records are from the 1950s, they are safe to play on this machine.)

Dr. Iwamoto Appreciation Post (Ultraman Day Special)

Last year, we ranked Dr. Iwamoto's appearances across various Ultraman '66 manga for Ultraman Day. This year I wanted to write something a bit broader in scope, just a bit of a general low-down on the man himself. If you're here, it's likely that you already have some familiarity with the Ultra series, but I'm going to try to write this post with the assumption that my audience knows absolutely nothing about the character I'm talking about - while still trying to make it interesting for those who do. 

So, please, if that sounds even slightly appealing to you, read on for lore, trivia, behind-the-scenes history, extra-canonical appearances, and... choose-your-own adventure books, I guess?

I. Okay, Who Is He? (The Part You Can Skip If You Already Know)

Dr. Iwamoto was a semi-regular character on the 1966 tokusatsu television series Ultraman, played by Akihiko Hirata. Dr. Iwamoto appeared in a total of six non-consecutive episodes that aired between August 14th, 1966 and April 9th, 1967. His very first appearance was in episode 5, Secret of the Miroganda, in which he analyzed some snot. (This did include the sniff test.) Dr. Iwamoto's role within the show was as a kind of science consultant for the SSSP (Special Science Search Party/Patrol), who would offer analysis and advice on strange phenomena the team encountered and assist in developing weapons, vehicles, and other technology for them as well. Dr. Iwamoto was the inventor of most of the Japan branch's weapons and vehicles, including the Jet VTOL, the SSSP's main all-purpose aircraft, which still remains an iconic, recognizable fixture of the original series.

In the original United Artists English dub of the series, Dr. Iwamoto is voiced by William Kiehl, a notably deep-voiced American actor who had previously voiced Hercules as well as two characters played by Christopher Lee. This dub is available in full here, although not in the best quality. More recently, in 2025, Okratron5000 produced a new English dub for Tsuburaya's compilation project Ultraman 4K Discovery; as some of the episodes selected for the compilation do feature Dr. Iwamoto, I assume he was dubbed into English as well, but unfortunately I haven't seen 4K Discovery and cannot find a credit for his English voice actor.

While Dr. Iwamoto was never really the subject of an individual storyline, the closest he got to a "focus episode" is probably episode 16, where he is involved in a contest with another scientist to develop a new rocket. Iwamoto is presented as an example of a good, diligent scientist who is willing to take extra time to ensure that his work is viable - even though it loses him the contest - in contrast to the other scientist, Dr. Mori, who rushes to complete his rocket at the expense of safety.

I really have always wondered what the stage direction was here. I imagine it was something like "Pose like you're possessed by an alien" with no further elaboration.

Dr. Iwamoto is also featured quite prominently in the series finale (episode 39). He is the victim of an Alien Zetton plot to kill Ultraman, wherein he is knocked out, has his appearance stolen, and is used as a disguise to incapacitate Agent Fuji and infiltrate the SSSP base. Alien Zetton wearing Dr. Iwamoto's black business suit has also become somewhat of an iconic image from the series, and it is directly referenced in the 2019 ULTRAMAN manga by Edo, an Alien Zetton whose default outfit is a black suit and tie. (Whether or not this is the same Alien Zetton from the finale is never confirmed or denied.)

II. Extremely Cogent and Articulate Analysis (Trust Me)

The thing about Dr. Iwamoto is that he is an absolute nothingburger of a character. He has very few traits besides being a good scientist. I personally laugh every time I watch Science Patrol Into Space, because his "Impressive. I lost." line (more or less a direct translation) is more or less the only time in the entire series that he shows any personality.

But. But! The fans love him.

The proof that the fans love him is that, in the early 2000s, when a BBS for Akihiko Hirata fans ran a poll where visitors could vote for their favorite of his many roles, Dr. Iwamoto ranked within the top 5. There is also a small but respectable amount of fanart of Dr. Iwamoto out there (cute example). I'm going to go ahead and argue that Dr. Iwamoto is a fan favorite not because people like Dr. Iwamoto himself, but because people like Hirata. It was a great casting choice on Tsuburaya's part: almost every episode of the original Ultraman has a guest star who viewers would know from some tokusatsu movie or other, but having one of the Godzilla franchise's most recognizable actors stick it out throughout the entire series instead of just showing up for one guest appearance and never returning is, to put it plainly, fun. We love to see it. We've loved to see it for 60 years now.

III. Into The Weeds (And Also Into The Gotenyama Science Center)

Now, as I just said, within the main series, Dr. Iwamoto has no characterization whatsoever. We don't get to see anything at all of his life outside of Doin' Science. We don't even know his given name. The most personal detail about him that any Ultraman-related media has ever offered is that he is 40 years old. (To be fair, basically all of the characters from the original 1966 series have little to no backstory as well.) In this section, and what follows, I'm going to sum up what we do know about him based on canonical and extra-canonical sources, starting with his place of employment.

Dr. Iwamoto is the director of the fictional Gotenyama Science Center, staffed by many other scientists and their assistants, seen sporadically throughout the series. Gotenyama, for my readers unfamiliar with Japanese geography (I myself am also deeply unfamiliar with Japanese geography, so don't feel bad), is a hill located in Tokyo's Shinagawa ward. I'm gonna take a vague and extremely uninformed guess and say that the decision to place the Science Center in Gotenyama specifically might have had something to do with it being Sony's headquarters for many years beginning in 1947 - it could be that the area had an association with technology, development, etc due to Sony's presence. But, again, this is an uninformed guess.

You're damn right I'm using a Hokusai painting in my article about Dr. Iwamoto from the 1966 tokusatsu television series Ultraman.

The filming location for the fictional Gotenyama Science Center was the real-life Nagasawa Water Purification Plant, which you can see more pictures of here. Below is a picture of the site as it appeared in 2015. The plant served as a filming location for not just Ultraman '66 but many other tokusatsu shows as well, both within the Ultra series and without.

Dr. Iwamoto's status as director of the Science Center actually makes him the only human character who directly links Ultraman to its predecessor series Ultra Q, although the connection is, like much of our information about him, never stated within the original series. In the game Ultra Operation: Mobilization of the Science Patrol, Dr. Iwamoto is established as having taken over Dr. Ichinotani from Ultra Q's job after the latter retired due to injury.

While there is some post-series media that has looked at what happened after the events of Farewell Ultraman, to my knowledge, nothing has ever confirmed with any reasonable degree of canonicity (or even an unreasonable degree) what Dr. Iwamoto did after the end of the series. My personal headcanon is that he continued to be director of the Science Center until Hoshino came of age and then handed over the post to him. It's entirely made up, but I think Hoshino fanboying for Iwamoto's rocket in Science Patrol Into Space would make it fit nicely into series continuity.

IV. What Could Have Been

If you've watched the entirety of the original 1966 series, you'll notice that several episodes feature random scientists who show up for a scene or two, explain something, and are never seen again. Behind the scenes, every single one of these characters was actually written to be Dr. Iwamoto. This is one positive that arises from Iwamoto being such a paper-thin character: giving him a distinct personality would have made it impossible to sub in other actors last-minute. (But imagine if we'd had him in eleven episodes instead of six!)

I can think of no other way to illustrate this point than with a home-cooked meme. I apologize in advance for it.

From looking at changes made between early script drafts and finalized episodes, we can get a better idea of how Dr. Iwamoto developed into a character who was specifically associated with Hirata; I.E. it seems (operative word "seems", this is a theory) that if they couldn't get him in the studio that day, they just wrote in some other scientist instead, and if they did get him, they changed the role to be Dr. Iwamoto. Case in point: in Cry of the Mummy, there was originally a different guest scientist named "Dr. Shibata" who had what ended up being Dr. Iwamoto's role in the final version.

Even within the episodes that Dr. Iwamoto did appear in, there were changes made from the early scripts. For example, in Cry of the Mummy he initially had a more involved role in defeating Mummy Man, and it was going to be him instead of Arashi who uses the Spider Shot. We do in fact have a still from a deleted scene where Iwamoto and the team try to catch Mummy Man:

Dr. Iwamoto was also initially going to be a botanist, as per the script for Secret of the Miroganda; one assumes this was scrapped because a botanist would not be of as much use to the SSSP on a regular basis as just a generic scientist. It's worth mentioning as well that there is a whole host of unproduced scripts for episodes of the '66 series that never ended up being shot, any of which could, I guess, hypothetically have featured Iwamoto.

In terms of production background, and not just Dr. Iwamoto specifically, Hirata was slated to be involved in the series as far back as before it was even decided that Ultraman was going to be Ultraman (some early ideas for the series had the main protagonist imagined as a friendly, birdlike alien named Bemular who assisted the SSSP). Around this time Hirata was also considered for what ultimately ended up being Kenji Sahara's role on Ultra Q. I think we can draw a conclusion here that, as a young company making its foray into tokusatsu TV, Tsuburaya seems to have wanted Hirata in their series from a very early stage.

V. Appearances Outside of the Main Series

While Ultra Operation: Mobilization of the Science Patrol establishes pretty much the only backstory we ever get for Dr. Iwamoto, he does show up in a few other adaptations, spin-offs and other extraneous materials as well. I'm skipping over manga, having already covered it last year, but I'm still going to show you Yuzo Takada's Dr. Iwamoto again because, really, truly, if anything lives rent-free in my brain it is this.

Now, we've got some other video game adaptations to look at. As mentioned above, Dr. Iwamoto appears in Ultra Operation: Mobilization of the Science Patrol with some added lore, consulting on the process of defeating a kaiju that is original to the game...

...and he also appears in Super Tokusatsu Taisen 2001, a great big sprawling confusion of a game featuring many characters from across several different tokusatsu franchises. Interestingly, the game involves characters from Daitetsujin 17, including Hirata's Captain Gomes, which makes this probably the only time he's ever appeared in a video game twice. And yes there is crossover fanart (scroll to fourth panel.)

Iwamoto also appears very briefly in the PS2 Ultraman game via archival stills taken directly from the series. It seems like the whole storyline about Iwamoto being used to infiltrate the base is deleted from this part of the game; he shows up only to deliver the Pencil Bomb to the SSSP.

As a segue out of video games and into books, I'd like to take a moment to bring up Pat Cadigan's inclusion of Dr. Iwamoto in her novelization of the original series, because while I do of course appreciate that she wrote him into the book at all, she seems to be describing an entirely different guy. Throughout the book Dr. Iwamoto is written as being old - as in old old. This is a direct novelization of the original series, so there is no time-skip at play here; there's no reason why Dr. Iwamoto would not be the age he is in the series. One could almost get the feeling the author was talking about Dr. Ichinotani if he was not also described as being noticeably taller than Ide. It's weird, it really is. I don't know what's up with it.

Anyway, moving on to other novelizations, Dr. Iwamoto also appears in Tetsuo Kinjo's 1967 novelization of the series. Unfortunately, this novelization has somehow escaped English translation for going on 60 years now, so I know nothing about what his role within the novel is or if he gets any extra backstory besides what's given in the series. There's surprisingly little information about this book out there, and secondhand copies tend to be hard-to-find and expensive. (Maybe if we try hard enough, we can summon Dr. Jeffrey Angles with the power of our minds to help with the situation.)

Another category of Ultraman '66 tie-in media that has gotten surprisingly little English-language coverage is "choose your own adventure" books (referred to in Japanese as "game books"), of which there are two that I know about. Dr. Iwamoto is featured in both. In Shoot the Mysterious Meteorite Swarm!, published in 1986 (seen below), there are a whole bunch of scenarios that involve Iwamoto, including one where he (and several other people) get possessed by Alien Baltan. This game book also introduces a few original characters, such as Dr. Iwamoto's colleague Dr. Togawa and an agent named Natasha from the SSSP's Moscow branch.

I think it's nice that they gave him a friend :)

The second game book... okay, can you bear with me for a second?

The second Ultraman game book, 1987's Tokyo Rescue Mission, is set in the 1980s, and features all of the same characters as the 1966 series, including Dr. Iwamoto. The problem here is that the 1966 series actually does not take place in 1966; as implied by Jamila's gravestone seen in My Home Is Earth, the series is set in 1993. This would mean that Tokyo Rescue Mission actually takes place before the events of the 1966 series, and if we go by the assumption that Iwamoto is 40 as of 1993, it would also mean that he'd been working as a scientist for the SSSP since his late twenties.

Or - and this is more likely scenario - it implies that the people who wrote Tokyo Rescue Mission forgot or didn't know or didn't care that the series was supposed to be set in 1993. I prefer this explanation, because if we assume the original series all took place in the '60s and the game book takes place in the '80s, then that means Dr. Iwamoto had a nice long career with the SSSP, and provides some insight into what he was doing after Farewell Ultraman.

In any case, I also own a copy of Tokyo Rescue Mission, and I can tell you that Dr. Iwamoto does not have much to do in it at all. Unfortunately, this second game book does not have any fun illustrations like the first one, just a lot of blurry black-and-white stills like any good publication from the early days of home media.

VI. In Conclusion

There's no conclusion! Now we all go and watch Science Patrol Into Space for the 500th time! And we enjoy the fact that such talented, creative people came together to produce a show whose beautiful practical effects and message of hope and collaboration are ever-green!

Yoshiko Otowa's Full Discography

Rejoice!

No longer must you think to yourself "Damn, I really wish I knew who sang the B-side to Hana no inochi wa mijikai mono yo"! No more will you lament your ignorance as to who wrote the lyrics to Yoru no Akuma! You can, at any time you wish, find out the catalogue number for Igawa Ondo / Igawa Kouta!

Alright, maybe not so many people are curious about those things, but I'm quite happy to announce that I've compiled (what I believe to be) the first full* discography for Yoshiko Otowa, and it'll be a permanent fixture in the tabs bar at the top of my blog from now on. This is, as far as I know, the only list of its kind; no one website has a complete catalogue of every release she sang on. I've linked to YouTube recordings of all the songs that I could find, but some of these songs have never been uploaded to the internet. I own many of her records - and will buy more in the future - so I am actively working on uploading those missing tracks. 

Her singing career lasted from the early 1950s to the mid-late 1970s (it's a little foggy when exactly she stopped recording music), so if you've got any interest in Japanese pop music from any point within that period, it might be worth checking some of this stuff out.

*This is still somewhat of a work in progress; her work is so obscure that I will be continually updating this list if/when I find more.

portrait by author

Legend of the Irresponsible Hero II: 2 Irresponsible 2 Heroic

I greet you again today with news of new subtitles! I was not planning on making another post for Legend of the Irresponsible Hero (I already wrote one with less detail a few years back), but once I started subtitling the movie I found that there was, in fact, still enough to talk about to justify a new post.

We'll start with a little production history.

A Little Production History

Production on this one was touch-and-go. The film was originally slated for a March release, but during filming, in January of 1964, Hitoshi Ueki was hospitalized for about a month due to overwork. (Unsurprising; I'm not sure how all seven of these guys were not constantly either overworked or ending up with broken ankles from all their stunts). The film was eventually released in the middle of July on a double bill with Hiromichi Horikawa's Brand of Evil. 

According to Keiko Awaji's audio commentary, the Hong Kong location shooting was done at the same time as the shooting for the previous film Crazy Cats Go To Hong Kong. There is something kind of weird going on with some of the location footage, specifically the external location shots done in Macau; the bottom of the frame is occasionally blurry in some shots, and the film stock seems different. I'm wondering if post-production was especially rushed, because that's not the only film oddity here; a good number of the cuts in this movie are noticeably very messy and have visible artifacting along the bottom of the screen.

Example of blurry frame...

 

...and messy cut. And these are both from the HD remaster, which if anything makes the sloppy cut job even more obvious.

This was director Toshio Sugie's last time with the Cats, which is too bad; his entries in the series are some of the most outlandish and spectacular. Sugie had worked for Toho since its PCL days and was very versatile, contributing entries to many of Toho's big series: the President series, the Young Guy series, their lesser-known Rakugo Guy films, and the Crazy series, of course.

Music is a huge part of these Crazy Cats movies, obviously. The two people responsible for creating the film's soundtrack were Hiroaki Hagiwara (music) and Shigeru Tsukada (lyrics). Hagiwara was involved with Crazy Cats in some way or another even before the band was in its final form: he was initially a member of the band's predecessor Hajime Hana and the Cuban Cats, but left to focus on composing music. He continued to write for the band up to his death, including writing Hitoshi Ueki's big hit Suudara-bushi. In addition to that, though, he also wrote for other singers, one of whom just so happened to be Yoshiko Otowa, Akihiko Hirata's younger sister. Listen to Ramen Girl in Love here.¹

I think you should also know this about him:

In the waiting room at Hakodate Port, Hagiwara was reading the newspaper. Soon [Hitoshi] Ueki noticed a strange smell and took a closer look, seeing that Hagiwara's coat was touching the stove, and a faint wisp of smoke was rising from it. "[Y]ou should move a little further away," Ueki warned, but Hagiwara only gave a half-hearted reply and continued reading the newspaper. Soon the coat began to burn, so Ueki said, "Your coat is on fire," but Hagiwara replied, "I know," and continued reading the newspaper.

Fly Pan Am: International Distribution

Legend of the Irresponsible Hero opened at the Toho La Brea on September 23rd, 1966 under the title It's a Bet, and was shown as a double feature with Dark the Mountain Snow, a now-mostly-forgotten Hideko Takamine picture directed by Zenzō Matsuyama. Just a few weeks prior, the Toho La Brea had also shown Boss of Pick-Pocket Bay on a double-bill with Campus A-Go-Go. The movie continued to kick around until October and was then never shown theatrically again, as far as I can determine. I have not found any indication that the movie had any theatrical screenings outside of Japan and the United States.

Crazy Cats were not unknown outside of Japan at this time, but were certainly not a household name; places like Hawai'i and Los Angeles that had a large nisei and sansei population and theaters that showed Japanese films would have been familiar with them. In fact, 1966 could probably be considered the height of the Cats' international stardom, as they actually made a visit to Toho's Honolulu theater in July of that year.

Although this section is for international distribution, I do want to at least mention briefly that when the film was aired on television in Japan in 2019, previews introduced Hirata's character with the subtitle "The Man Who Killed Godzilla and Zetton".

...Zetton? Really? Zetton? I mean... technically, I guess?

Image credit @kortoku on Twitter

Don't Have A Macau, Man: Geographic Context and Gambling

As of 1964, Macau was still a Portuguese territory. Japan (surprisingly) did not occupy the island during the second World War aside from installing "government advisors", and it was actually the United States who were responsible for really the only direct military action that occurred during the war, when they bombed the island after learning that the colonial government had plans to sell fuel to Japan. Portugal relinquished control over Macau to China in 1974 as a "Portuguese territory under Chinese administration" and finally agreed to hand over the colony entirely by 1999.

(You will notice in the opening credits that the Hong Kong actors have "Cathay Organization" written in parentheses next to their names. That is these folks. I do not know if Cathay had any stake in the actual production of the film or if their involvement was limited strictly to providing actors.)

Now is the part of the post where I talk about gambling, which had been legal in Macau since the 1850s. This is skippable, since I don't think there's any part of the movie that will be completely ruined if you don't have context for the game that's being played, but I had to learn this, so dammit, now you do, too. Here's a quick run-down of all the games played in Legend of the Irresponsible Hero.

Sic Bo

Also known as "big and small", this is an uneven game of chance that essentially involves betting on the outcome of a dice roll. It's commonly played in casinos across Asia but has spread internationally. You can read more about it on its English Wikipedia page here. As one would expect, we only see Ueki's character win at sic bo, specifically with a triple match, which according to Wikipedia has a 215-to-1 chance of happening, and he does it twice.

Oicho-kabu

Ueda and Hanaki play a quick round of oicho-kabu in Hanaki's apartment in loving memory of Hanaki's mustache. You can read about oicho-kabu on Wikipedia here; it is from this game that we get the word "yakuza", but oddly enough the name of the game itself is derived from the Portuguese for "eight end" (oito cabo). Oicho-kabu can also be played with a hanafuda deck, which is mentioned in the film's theme song ("cherry blossom and moon over the mountain, plum and pine" are all hanafuda cards).

Mahjongg

You already know what mahjongg is.

In the cold open of Legend of the Irresponsible Hero, Ueda wins with a "Big Three Dragons" hand, which jisho.org defines as a "winning hand consisting of pungs or kongs of each of the three types of dragon tiles​". This means that Ueda held three-of-a-kinds (or four-of-a-kinds) of each of the three dragon "suits". To tell you the truth, I am never more miserable while subtitling a movie than I am when people are playing mahjongg. Fortunately, it doesn't show up in the movie any more after the opening.

Chō-han

You most likely also know what chō-han is if you've seen even one yakuza film, ever, at any point in your life. Incredibly simple: two dice go into a cup, the cup is shaken, players bet on whether the dice will be even (cho) or odd (han). And yet, the amount of onscreen bloodshed that has resulted from such a rudimentary game...

Ueda and Zhang play three rounds of cho-han against each other at the end of the film, although Zhang cheats... kind of? I don't think there's really any way to cheat at cho-han unless you play with loaded dice, since it's pure chance, but he does take advantage of his opponent's weakness. Read about chō-han on Wikipedia's very short and sweet page for it here.

Rōkyoku LARPing: Historical Background

A memorial stone erected by Torazo Hirozawa, originator of "Torazo-bushi" whom we met in our Boss of Pick-Pocket Bay / Crazy Violence at Shimizu Harbor post.

It is a relatively major recurring joke in Irresponsible Hero that Hanaki and Ueda think their situation is just like the famed "Brawl at Koujinyama", and they invoke the story as motivation and justification for their adventures in Macau (much to the chagrin of their long-suffering significant others). This is obviously familiar ground for Japanese viewers, but it is as obscure or even more so than much of the Shimizu Jirocho lore we discussed in our post about the same would be to non-Japanese viewers. (Actually, this IS Shimizu Jirocho lore, just a kind of side-story. The Shimizu Jirocho Cinematic Universe, if you will.)

The "Brawl at Koujinyama" refers to a turf war that took place on April 6th and 8th, 1866, at what is now the site of Koujinyama Kannon-ji temple in Suzuka City. It began as a dispute between two gamblers, Nagakichi of Kanbe and Annotoku (the nickname of Tokujiro Anou), the latter of whom was a local yakuza boss who had seized territory - including a gambling den, hence the relevance in Irresponsible Hero - as his own. The conflict escalated when Jirocho of Shimizu himself got involved after hearing of the death of his sworn brother Nikichi Kira. Jirocho supposedly raised 480 men against Annotoku's side; the battle ended in an apology and an eventual peace agreement, which was finalized in 1869. Among the combatants and serving as something of a mediator was Jirocho's man Omasa, played by Hirata in both Crazy Cats Shimizu films.

Nikichi Kira, who both Hanaki and Ueda seem to want to be, became sort of a folk hero after his death by gunshot wound(!) at the age of 28 during the battle at Koujinyama. Nagakichi of Kanbe, Chen Shumei's counterpart according to Hanaki, was an underling of Annotoku until his adopted son got into a fight and his house was set on fire by Annotoku's men. Nagakichi survived the conflict.

This battle, while historical, has been embellished over the years (as has Jirocho) through its telling by kōdan and rōkyoku performers. This kind of thing was experiencing a resurgence in the mid-1960s, which may explain both its inclusion in Legend of the Irresponsible Hero and the impetus behind the two Shimizu films.

"Have You Spotted Any Suckers?": Translation Notes

I actually do not have much else to say in the way of translation notes; much of the context I feel is necessary to fully understand the film's historical references has already been explained above. The only thing I really want to mention is that the long musical number in the middle of the film is sung in the format of a specific type of traditional counting song where the opening verse of each stanza begins with a number ("one", "two", etc; or in Japanese "hitotsu", "futatsu", etc) and then the verse that follows begins with the same kana as the initial number. I found that there was no way to make this work in English without compromising the translation itself, so I had to settle for using the same letter to begin the first two verses.

I guess I should also mention that I did not translate the Chinese dialogue directly at all; I translated it from the on-screen Japanese subtitles, which from experience are not always quite accurate, but, also from experience, it is an absolute fool's errand for a non-Chinese speaker (myself) to attempt to translate Chinese phonetically. (I did transcribe the English dialogue by ear as opposed to using the Japanese subtitles, because allegedly I do speak English.)

Without much else to say that I haven't already covered, we're going to wrap this one up right about here. If at one point this concluding section was longer and filled out with an embarrassing nerd rant that I thought was a great idea to post on the internet at 2 in the morning, then that's for me to know and you never to find out. Otherwise I'll say ciao for now, and I'll also say that I think we have some cause to celebrate, because with this, every Crazy Cats movie Hirata guest-starred in is now subtitled save for Fantasy Heaven and that one is not far behind, trust me.

______

1 Me hearing Kei Tani say "Don't cry, little sister" in Legend of the Irresponsible Hero: "OMG, is he referencing Yoshiko Otowa's 1953 King Records A-side duet with Toshiro Oumi, 'Don't Cry, Little Sister'?!"