Yonesaburo Tsukiji

Yonesaburo Tsukiji (Japanese: 築地 米三郎, Hepburn: Tsukiji Yonesaburō; September 5, 1923 – March 30, 2012) was a Japanese special effects director who worked on eleven films in a career spanning twenty-one years. Tsukiji co-designed Gamera with Masao Yagi, Noriaki Yuasa, and Akira Inoue.^[1]

Yonesaburo Tsukiji
築地 米三郎
Tsukiji in 1958
Born	5 September 1923 Ōimachi, Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan
Died	30 March 2012
Occupation(s)	Special effects director, cinematographer, producer
Years active	1946–2009
Known for	Warning from Space Gamera, the Giant Monster

Biography

Early life

Tsukiji was born on September 5, 1923, in Ōimachi, Shinagawa, Tokyo.^[2] Tsukiji's family lived across the street from the Oikan movie theater, he went to the movies nearly every day from the age of 5 to 6.^[3]

Early career and war propaganda

Daiei years

Filmography

Special effects

• Warning from Space (1956) [with Tōru Matoba]^[4]
• Panther's Eye (1956)^[4]
• Nichiren and the Great Mongol Invasion (1958)^[5]
• The Precipice (1958)^[4]
• Hanran (1959)^[4]
• Ten Dark Women (1961)^[6]
• The Great Wall (1962)^[4]
• Giant Horde Beast Nezura (1964)^[7]
• Money Talks (1964)^[4]
• Gamera the Giant Monster (1965)^[8][9]
• Gamera: Super Monster (1980)^[4]

Producer

• Hatsukoi: Natsu no Kioku (2009)^[10]

Legacy

Immediately after the bankruptcy of Daiei Film, Kiyoshi Kawamura published a novel The Flute of Gomera, featuring Tsukiji as the protagonist to depict difficulties of tokusatsu productions by the company.^[11]

A fictional character based on Tsukiji would appear in the 2021 film Nezura 1964.^[12]