Teruyoshi Nakano

Godzilla effects directors
← Ishiro Honda	Teruyoshi Nakano	Koichi Kawakita →

Teruyoshi Nakano Born October 9, 1935 Andong, Andong, Manchukuo Died June 27, 2022 (aged 86) First work Night School (1956) Notable work Submersion of Japan (1973), The Return of Godzilla (1984)

“	Japan was the first country to suffer damage from an atomic bomb. We have to deal with the monster in a special way when the Japanese make a Godzilla movie, so we don't forget the bomb.	„
	— Teruyoshi Nakano (The Dawn of Kaiju Eiga)

Teruyoshi Nakano (中野 昭慶 (てるよし),   Nakano Teruyoshi), also nicknamed Shokei Nakano (中野 昭慶 (しょうけい),   Nakano Shōkei) and miscredited in English as Akiyoshi Nakano, was a Japanese special effects director. Working as Eiji Tsuburaya's first assistant director since Attack Squadron (1963), he made his directorial debut on Crazy Big Explosion (1969). Nakano's first experience directing Godzilla came later the same year, when he created a handful of effects sequences for All Monsters Attack (1969) on Ishiro Honda's behalf. Following Tsuburaya's death in 1970 and the departure of Tsuburaya's first replacement Sadamasa Arikawa, Nakano officially took up special effects duties on the Godzilla series with Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971), and continued until The Return of Godzilla (1984).

Other notable credits in Nakano's career include four Toho disaster movies from 1973 to 1980, the space opera The War in Space (1977), and the Godzilla-inspired North Korean kaiju film Pulgasari (1985). Nakano retired at the age of 52 after directing the effects for Princess from the Moon (1987), and subsequently worked on numerous projects related to theme parks and exhibitions. He continued to be a prominent and active figure in the Godzilla franchise, however, performing interviews about his work on the series and making public appearances at events like G-Fest.

Nakano's memoir, Special Effects Director: Teruyoshi Nakano, was published by Wides in 2007. He passed away at age 86 on June 27, 2022, due to sepsis.

Selected filmography

Assistant director

• The Three Treasures (1959) [uncredited]
• The Human Vapor (1960) [uncredited]
• Mothra (1961) [uncredited]
• The Youth and His Amulet (1961) [uncredited]
• All Monsters Attack (1969)

Assistant director of special effects

• Gorath (1962) [uncredited]
• King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) [uncredited]

First assistant director of special effects

• Matango (1963)
• Samurai Pirate (1963)
• Atragon (1963)
• Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
• Dogora (1964)
• Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
• Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965)
• Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965)
• The War of the Gargantuas (1966)
• Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966)
• King Kong Escapes (1967)
• Son of Godzilla (1967)
• Destroy All Monsters (1968)
• Latitude Zero (1969)
• All Monsters Attack (1969)
• The Nature of Japan and the Dreams of Japanese (1970)
• Space Amoeba (1970)

Director of special effects

• All Monsters Attack (1969) [uncredited; with Ishiro Honda]
• Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
• Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)
• Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
• Zone Fighter (TV 1973) [episodes 1-2, 5-7, 9, 11, 17, 20- 21]
• Submersion of Japan (1973)
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)
• Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974)
• ESPY (1974)
• Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)
• The War in Space (1977)
• The Phoenix (1978)
• Magnitude 7.9 (1980)
• The Return of Godzilla (1984)
• Pulgasari (1985) [uncredited]
• Tokyo Blackout (1987)
• Princess from the Moon (1987)

Interviewee

• Toho Unused Special Effects Complete Collection (1986)
• Bringing Godzilla Down to Size (2008)
• SciFi Japan TV (web 2012-2014) [episodes 6-7, 36]
• The Dawn of Kaiju Eiga (2019)

Miscellaneous

• Star Bows (TV 2000-2001) - Supervisor

Bibliography

• Godzilla Days (1998) - Author ["1962-84 GODZILLA"]
• Special Effects Director: Teruyoshi Nakano (2007) - Author [with Katsuji Someya]
• Talk About Cinema (2017) - Author ["Talk Session #1" with Keiichi Sakurai, Takeshi Miyanishi]

Gallery

• 

  Teruyoshi Nakano and Yoshimitsu Banno with the SoshingekiGoji on the set of Godzilla vs. Hedorah

• 

  Teruyoshi Nakano with the MegaroGoji and Mechagodzilla suits on the set of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla

• 

  Teruyoshi Nakano with Mechagodzilla 2 on the set of Terror of Mechagodzilla

• 

  Teruyoshi Nakano with the 84Goji suit on the set of The Return of Godzilla

• 

  Teruyoshi Nakano, Shinji Higuchi, and Takashi Naganuma pose with the Godzilla statue in front of Toho Studios

Videos

SciFi Japan TV episode 6, "1970's Godzilla FX Director - PART I" SciFi Japan TV episode 7, "1970's Godzilla FX Director - PART II" SciFi Japan TV episode 36, "The Return of Godzilla 30th" Nakano talks about Toho's soundstage No. 8 in 2015

Trivia

• Nakano is one of only two Godzilla special effects directors to have never worked on an Ultra Series production. The other is Eiichi Asada.

External links

• Teruyoshi Nakano on the Japanese Wikipedia
• Teruyoshi Nakano on Eiga.com
• Interview by David Milner (1994)
• Interview by Brett Homenick and J.D. Lees (2004)
• Interview by Brett Homenick and Mark Rainey (2004)

References

This is a list of references for Teruyoshi Nakano. 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

• Nakano, Teruyoshi; Someya, Katsuji (2014). Special Effects Director: Teruyoshi Nakano (Movie Bunko ed.). Wides Publishing. ISBN 978-4898302804.
• Nakamura, Satoshi; Shiraishi, Masahiko; Aita, Tetsuo; Tomoi, Taketo; Shimazaki, Jun; Maruyama, Takeshi; Shimizu, Toshifumi; Hayakawa, Masaru (29 November 2014). Godzilla Toho Champion Festival Perfection. ASCII MEDIA WORKS. ISBN 978-4-04-866999-3.
• Iwabatake, Toshiaki (1 September 1994). TV Magazine Special Edition 40th Anniversary of the Birth of Godzilla Complete Works. Kodansha. ISBN 4-06-178417-X.
• Kabuki, Shinichi (15 July 1998). Godzilla Days. Shueisha. ISBN 4-08-748815-2.
  • Nakano, Teruyoshi. "1962-84 GODZILLA: Godzilla is the Origin of Drama-Making". In Kabuki (1998), pp. 291-350.

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