Monster Suit Actor Retrospective: Part 2 - 1970-1980

Kenpachiro Satsuma (Hedorah) and Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla) taking a break from filming 'Godzilla vs. Hedorah.'

Welcome back to another round-up here on the site, and it's the second installment in our look at kaiju suit actors. Last time, we started at the very beginning and stopped at 1970 which was the death of Eiji Tsuburaya. Now, we'll continue on here by looking at the actors who stared in kaiju films from then on, only instead of discussing the individuals and their roles we'll look at the films one by one due to a decided lack of repeated performers in these films.

Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla), Koetsu Omiya (Anguirus), Kenpachiro Satsuma (Gigan) and Kanta Ona (King Ghidora) in a a posed publicity shot on set of Godzilla vs. Gigan.

In keeping with Toho's actors being first, the first actor in question from this time-period is Koetsu Omiya, the first of two new actors from Godzilla vs. Gigan. Drafted to play Anguirus in the film, he doesn't have much else to his credit beyond the role as the only other acting credit to be found is a jidegeki TV show in the later half of the 70's. Also appearing for the first time in Gigan was Kanta Ina, portraying King Ghidorah in that one. However, he has even less than Omiya as he's basically responsible for stuntwork on the classic Hausu and an obscure samurai film from the later part of the 70s before quitting the business.

Tsugutoshi Komada being fitted for the Jet Jaguar suit in Godzilla vs. Megalon.

Up next is Godzilla vs. Megalon which is noteworthy for two reason. Firstly, it's mostly notable for having the first new actor portray Godzilla throughout filming in the series. Following Nakajima's retirement after Gigan, the first man into the suit was Shinji Takagi, although this is his only credited appearance in anything. He has not performed in anything else in history, which starts up a disturbing trend with the film itself as no one else in the film went on to anything else but they need to be mentioned much the same. His partner Jet Jaguar was played by Tsugutoshi Komada, also with this being his one role as lastly, Megalon was portrayed by Hideto Odachi, the final one-role performance in film-history.

Tohru Kawai (with cigarette) and Mamoru Kusumi working on set of a monster TV show.

The next film is Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, which offered up several first-time suit actors into the mix. Stepping into the Godzilla costume was Isao Zushi, who at least had one other role to his name unlike his predecessor to the role. He was one of two men to portray the Big G in the Toho TV series Zone Fighter during his five appearances on the program so he does have some other genre work. After him, though, was several other actors with big roles. Playing both Anguirus and King Seesar was Mamoru Kusumi (also known as Kin'ichi Kusumi, Yasunori Kusumi and Gen Kusumi), who has a prominent and on-going role in films of all genres not just kaiju exclusively. Not only playing roles in Mirrorman, Redman and Godman, he also donned various one-off roles in Ultraman Ace, was one of the performers drafted into working on Hanuman and the 6 Ultra Brothers vs. The Monster Army and played Astra in it's appearance throughout Ultraman Leo. The other prominent actor was Ise Mori, also called either Kazushige or Kazunari depending on various prints out there, who portrayed the robotic doppleganger himself Mechagodzilla. So effective and mesmerizing was his performance that he was asked back to the next film to play the mechanical marvel in that one as well for his only two roles

Toru Kawai (Raidron) and Hiroshi Nagasawa (Ultraman Taro) on a break from filming Ultraman Taro.

The last of the Toho Godzilla films in this regard was Terror of Mechagodzilla, which sent the series out on a high-note with several fine actors. Once again we have a new Godzilla with Tohru Kawai, who is one of the finest kaiju actors of the time-period. Before becoming Godzilla, he was Ultraman Ace in that series as well as regularly donning costumes in the two follow-up series of shows, Ultraman Taro and Ultraman Leo (shown above). As well, he helped play the Big G on the small-screen sharing the role with Isao Zushi on Zone Fighter before taking it on full-time here. Afterward, he played the T-Rex in the low-budget cheesefest The Last Dinosaur and then finally made history as the only person in history to play both Godzilla and Gamera by taking the role in the new scenes filmed for Gamera: Super Monster, leaving him as one of the more important and undervalued performers from that time-period.

Ise Mori (Mechagodzilla), Tomoko Ai, Katsumi Nimiamoto (Titanosaurus) and Tohru Kawai (Godzilla) in a purification ceremony at the start of filming Terror of Mechagodzilla.

The other big name in this entry was Titanosaurus who was played by Katsumi Nimiamoto, who much like Tohru had some similar credits at the same time. He is also an Ultraman, having been the title character for the just-finished Ultraman Leo where the two crossed paths on several episodes which is what happened when Nimiamoto also donned several monsters for Zone Fighter. He faced off with Kawai one last time by appearing in the front-half of the Triceratops costume in The Last Dinosaur against him, and then finally appeared one more time in the series Dinosaur War Izenborg as Aizenbo the giant cyborg creation built to combat the dinosaur monstrosities. Overall, we have two stellar actors taking centerstage in a fantastic series of performances.

Umenosuke Izumi enters the Gamera suit on the set of Gamera vs. Jiger.

So, now that we've taken a look at Toho, let's take a look at the few other kaiju films from that period. Over at Daiei, Teruo Aragaki had retired from Gamera which required a new performer in the role which happened to be Umenosuke Izumi. At first playing two different Ultraman monsters, Ragon and Magular, he then joined Daiei where he portrayed Gamera in Gamera vs. Guiron and Gamera vs. Jiger. Izumi worked on the staff of Tsuburaya Productions, contributing to their various monster shows in the late 1970's and maintaining the kaiju suits in the company's warehouse in the 1970's and 1980's. However, that's where we come to an end here as both the suit actors for Jiger and Zigra are unknown to me at the time of this writing. Should they be found, I'll mention them in a later post about these actors, but for now thanks for reading and we'll see you next time.