Masaaki Tezuka

Godzilla film directors
← Roland Emmerich	Masaaki Tezuka	Shusuke Kaneko →

Masaaki Tezuka Born January 24, 1955 Tochigi, Japan Occupation Director, screenwriter First work The Tomb of the Wild Chrysanthemum (1977) Notable work Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003)

Masaaki Tezuka (手塚 昌明,   Tezuka Masaaki) is a Japanese director. He became interested in filmmaking after seeing King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) at age 7. Once he graduated from Nihon University, he was hired as an assistant director for Katsumi Nishikawa on the made-for-TV film The Tomb of the Wild Chrysanthemum (1977). He first crossed paths with Toho later that year, when he worked in a similar capacity on Nishikawa's film Sweet Revenge. Tezuka would continue on as an assistant director for over 20 years, most frequently for Toho's Kon Ichikawa, whom he was first assigned to on Ancient City (1980). Despite this, Tezuka remained freelance until 1994, when he was hired at Toho Pictures following his work as Ichikawa's first AD on 47 Ronin.

Tezuka finally made his directorial debut with the second Millennium Godzilla film, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000). The following year, he led an auxiliary special effects unit on Shusuke Kaneko and Makoto Kamiya's Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. Though he departed from Toho Pictures in 2002, the company enlisted him to direct Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002) and its direct sequel Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003), also co-writing the latter. Tezuka has since directed four more films—Kadokawa's Samurai Commando: Mission 1549 (2005) and Rescue Wings (2008), the direct-to-video Toho kaiju film Go! Godman (2008), and the documentary Blue Impulse (2014)—and reunited with Ichikawa as an associate director on his final film, The Inugamis (2006).

Tezuka published his memoir, Godzilla x Kon Ichikawa: Masaaki Tezuka Works 1977-2006, through Hobby Japan in 2024.

Selected filmography

Assistant director

• Bye-Bye Jupiter (1984)
• Princess from the Moon (1987)
• Reiko, Psyche Resurrected (1991)
• Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

First assistant director

• Rebirth of Mothra 2 (1997)
• Rebirth of Mothra 3 (1998)

Director

• Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)
• Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)
• Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003)
• Go! Godman (2008)

Actor

• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) as G-Force Second Lieutenant Masaaki Tezuka
• Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000) as teacher
• Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) as JSDF officer
• Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002) as Kiryu dock worker
• Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003) as scientist in monster DNA repository

Miscellaneous

• Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) - Director of special effects [2nd unit, uncredited]
• Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003) - Screenwriter [with Masahiro Yokotani]

Selected bibliography

• Godzilla x Kon Ichikawa: Masaaki Tezuka Works 1977-2006 (2024) - Author

Gallery

• 

  Masaaki Tezuka (left) with Kenji Suzuki, Godzilla, and Megaguirus on the Shibuya set of Godzilla vs. Megaguirus

• 

  Tezuka (right)'s cameo in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

• 

  Tezuka with Kiryu

Trivia

• Tezuka directed exactly half of the Millennium Godzilla films, and was the only person to direct more than one.
• All of Tezuka's cameos in the Godzilla films that he directed are in their post-credit scenes.
• Each of Tezuka's Godzilla films features a prominent actor from the Showa era in a supporting role: Yuriko Hoshi in Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, Kumi Mizuno in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, and Hiroshi Koizumi in Godzilla: Tokyo SOS.
• The DNA of a monster named "Tezuka" (テズーカ,   Tezūka) is stored among the canisters in the post-credits scene of Tokyo SOS, though it is not visible onscreen. The date it was collected, 1/24/1955, is Masaaki Tezuka's birthday.

References

This is a list of references for Masaaki Tezuka. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: ^[1]

Bibliography

• Kimura, Manabu, ed. (21 December 2016). Godzilla Against Type-3 Kiryu (Mechagodzilla) Completion. Hobby Japan. ISBN 978-4-7986-1353-6.
• Matsui, Satoshi, ed. (1 January 2004). Godzilla: Tokyo SOS Super Complete Works. Shogakukan. ISBN 4-09-101493-3.

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