Nippon Chinbotsu: Television Series (TV 1974–1975)

Nippon Chinbotsu: Television Series Air date October 6, 1974–March 30, 1975 Directed by Jun Fukuda, Kiyoshi Nishimura, Takashi Nagano, Eizo Yamagiwa, Tadashi Mafune Producer(s) Susumu Saito, Hitoshi Ogura, Yoji Hashimoto, Takao Yasuda Written by Yuichiro Yamane, Shukei Nagasaka, Toshiro Ishido; Sakyo Komatsu (novel) Special effects by Yoshio Tabuchi, Koichi Kawakita, Koichi Takano Funded by Toho Eizo, TBS Production companies Toho Eizo, Nihon Gendai Kikaku Channel(s) TBS Genre(s) Drama, disaster, special effects Episodes 26

Nippon Chinbotsu: Television Series (日本沈没,   Nippon Chinbotsu, lit. "Japan Sinks"; released on home video as 日本沈没 TVシリーズ,   Nippon Chinbotsu: Terebi Shirīzu, lit. "Japan Sinks: TV Series") is a Japanese tokusatsu science-fiction disaster series developed by Tomoyuki Tanaka based on the 1973 novel Japan Sinks by Sakyo Komatsu. Produced for TBS by Toho Eizo with uncredited special effects cooperation from Nihon Gendai Kikaku, it was the second live-action adaptation of Japan Sinks after the 1973 Toho Pictures/Toho Eizo film Submersion of Japan, though the two are not connected. The series aired from October 6, 1974, to March 30, 1975, after which a 90-minute TV movie compiled from various episodes was aired on December 31, 1975.

Plot

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To be added.

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Director of special effects	Air date
1	"The Raging Sea"	Jun Fukuda	Yuichiro Yamane	Yoshio Tabuchi	10/06/1974
2	"Undersea Torrent"	Kiyoshi Nishimura			10/13/1974
3	"White Fissure"				10/20/1974
4	"When the Sea Turns Violent"	Takashi Nagano		Koichi Kawakita	10/27/1974
5	"The Island Is Sinking"		Shukei Nagasaka		11/03/1974
6	"The Earth Wails in Sorrow"	Kiyoshi Nishimura		Yoshio Tabuchi	11/10/1974
7	"A Black Tornado, the Fang of the Sky"		Yuichiro Yamane		11/17/1974
8	"The Furious Stream"	Eizo Yamagiwa		Koichi Takano	11/24/1974
9	"Mystery of the Undersea Cave"		Toshiro Ishido		12/01/1974
10	"The Aso Firefall"	Minoru Kanaya	Shukei Nagasaka	Koichi Kawakita	12/08/1974
11	"An Aurora Over Kyoto!!"		Yuichiro Yamane	Koichi Takano	12/15/1974
12	"Kyoto Is in Danger"	Tadashi Mafune			12/22/1974
13	"Kyoto Crumbles"				12/29/1974
14	"Tomorrow's Love"	Takashi Nagano	Shukei Nagasaka	Koichi Kawakita	01/05/1975
15	"The Oil Platform Explodes"				01/12/1975
16	"Kagoshima Bay SOS!"	Eizo Yamagiwa	Yuichiro Yamane	Koichi Takano	01/19/1975
17	"Amakusa Vanished!"				01/26/1975
18	"Crisis Approaches Ogouchi Dam"	Kiyoshi Nishimura			02/02/1975
19	"Farewell, Hakodate"	Minoru Kanaya	Shukei Nagasaka	Koichi Kawakita	02/09/1975
20	"Hokkaido Sinks"				02/16/1975
21	"Flame Spreads Through Izu Oshima"	Takashi Nagano		Koichi Takano	02/23/1975
22	"The Japanese Islands Break Apart"		Yuichiro Yamane		03/02/1975
23	"Kamakura Disappeared Into the Sea"	Minoru Kanaya			03/09/1975
24	"Get Out, People of Tokyo"				03/16/1975
25	"Ah! Tokyo Is Sinking"	Jun Fukuda			03/23/1975
26	"Tokyo's Final Day"				03/30/1975

Staff

Staff role on the left, staff member's name on the right.

• Directed by   Jun Fukuda, Kiyoshi Nishimura, Takashi Nagano, Eizo Yamagiwa, Tadashi Mafune
• Written by   Yuichiro Yamane, Shukei Nagasaka, Toshiro Ishido
• Based on the novel Japan Sinks by   Sakyo Komatsu
• Planned by   Tomoyuki Tanaka
• Produced by   Susumu Saito, Hitoshi Ogura, Yoji Hashimoto, Takao Yasuda
• Music by   Kenjiro Hirose
• Theme song "Love of Tomorrow" and insert song "Little Bird"
  • Performed by   Hiroshi Itsuki
  • Lyrics by   Yoko Yamaguchi
  • Composed by   Kyohei Tsutsumi
  • Arranged by   Bob Sakuma
• Cinematography by   Kiyoshi Hasegawa, Shoji Utsumi, Senkichi Nagai
• Edited by   Shosuke Funazawa
• Production design by   Masayasu Ito, Shoichi Sasagawa
• First assistant directors   Taku Shinjo, Toshio Sanagawa, Tetsutaro Hagiwara
• Directors of special effects   Yoshio Tabuchi, Koichi Kawakita, Koichi Takano
• First assistant directors of special effects   Eiichi Asada, Shinichi Kamisawa

Cast

Actor's name on the left, character played on the right. Keiju Kobayashi   as   Dr. Yusuke Tadokoro Takenori Murano   as   Toshio Onodera Kaoru Yumi   as   Reiko Abe Mari Christine   as   Maria Bailey Tomoko Ogawa   as   Maya Ariyoshi Tomoyuki Hosokawa   as   Assistant Professor Nobuhiko Yukinaga Toshio Kurosawa   as   Secretary Nakata Isao Hashimoto Noboru Nakaya   as   Hideo Yoshimura Kunie Tanaka   as   Tatsuno, reporter Takamaru Sasaki Kenji Sahara   as   Nozue, technician Kei Yamamoto   as   Assistant Professor Kunie So Yamamura   as   Prime Minister Matsugawa Ganjiro Nakamura II   as   old man on ferry Yasuko Agawa   as   Atsuko, old man's apprentice (as Tomoe Mari) Keisuke Otori, Utako Kyo   as   Mr. and Mrs. Akimoto, apartment managers Ayako Sawada   as   Haruko Onodera, Toshio's sister Nobuto Okamoto   as   Shuji Onodera, Haruko's husband Kenji Kobana   as   Kenichi Onodera, Haruko and Shuji's son Yatsuko Tanami   as   Kayo Onodera, Toshio's mother Asao Uchida   as   Shintaro Abe, Reiko's father Komachi Oi   as   Nobuko Yamakawa, nurse at Kinoshita Hospital Toshiaki Shinbori, Michihiro Ikemizu, Osamu Ichikawa, Isao Sakuma   as   newscasters Mariko Mochizuki Masami Shimojo Munemaru Koda, Hajime Izu, Tatsuo Matsushita   as   professors Kazuko Imai Katsuhiko Sasaki   as   Tsuchiya Yoshio Katsube   as   technician Setsuko Sekine   as   Jun Toshie Shojo, Reiji Shojo   as   Hiro and Takeshi, comedy duo Kunio Murai Tetsuro Tsuno Tsunehiro Arai Mika Katsura   as   nurse Michio Kida   as   islander Kazuya Oguri   as   Senzo Onodera Takao Zushi   as   Kazuhiko Sasaki Hiroya Morita Kan Yanagiya   as   Gensan Baku Owada   as   Haruo Tokumitsu Isao Tamagawa   as   Tazaemon Tokumitsu Ken Mitsuda   as   Yoshio Onishi Masaaki Daimon   as   Kenji Okita Harumi Arai   as   Reiko Kitagawa Toshio Takahara   as   Reiko Kitagawa's father Masahiko Kameya   as   Norihiko Aoki

Eishin Tono   as   Hidaka Junko Natsu Jun Negami   as   Kozo Kimura Tony Cetera   as   Professor Douglas Hiroshi Itsuki Takanobu Hozumi Hiroshi Yagyu   as   assistant foreman Mie Hama   as   Kazumi Yamauchi Shinichi Yanagisawa   as   Yasaku Kawauchi Katsutoshi Atarashi Franz Gruber   as   Robert Caster Miyako Tasaka Takashi Kanda   as   Ushiyama Kikuo Hayashiya   as   Kazuo Sakamoto Sumio Takatsu   as   Koichi Ariyoshi Toyoko Takechi   as   Haru Sakamoto Atomu Shimojo   as   Saburo Nagai Aki Mizusawa   as   Naoko Nihonmatsu Yu Fujiki   as   Yasugoro Nihonmatsu Tomoko Ishii   as   Yasugoro's wife Noriko Sengoku Pepe Hozumi   as   Genta Inoue Midori Takei Hideaki Kohara   as   Goro Kazuhiro Fukuzaki   as   Kazuo Takayoshi Nabeya   as   Shigeru Sakura Kamo Kojiro Kusanagi Kazuki Emura   as   Sasuke Keiji Sakakida   as   Iku's father Yoshio Yoshida   as   Kamon Shimamoto Michiyo Yamazoe   as   Taeko Shimamoto Toyoto Fukuda   as   Kenichiro Ozaki Ichiro Ogura Noriko Kitazawa Yoshio Tsuchiya Hiroyuki Takano Ako (as Ako Nakamura) Kunihisa Mizutani Kazuo Suzuki Kenji Todoroki Taibun Tozawa   as   Self-Defense Force soldier Paula Ozawa   as   Emmy Hatsuko Wakahara   as   Okayama Ban Kojika   as   Ginji Matsumoto Machiko Soga Taketoshi Saito   as   narrator Shin Kishida   as   narrator (previews, uncredited)

Appearances

Weapons, vehicles, and races

• Wadatsumi
• Kermadec

Development

Nippon Chinbotsu: Television Series was based on Sakyo Komatsu's 1973 novel Japan Sinks, the film rights to which had been purchased by Toho Eizo producer Tomoyuki Tanaka before it even released. These rights were first exercised for the 1973 film Submersion of Japan, produced by Toho Eizo and Toho Pictures. Accounts differ on the origin of the series; according to special effects assistant director Eiichi Asada, it was devised to capitalize on Submersion of Japan's success, whereas special effects director Koichi Kawakita recalled that it was planned at the same time as the film, explicitly rejecting the premise that it was made to cash in on the film.

Production

The series was produced for ¥500 million, an unprecedented budget for TV series of the time. According to Kawakita, two cameras were brought to the set of Submersion of Japan to capture material for the show, but most of it went unused, perhaps due to difficulty disguising the film's Tokyo setting for the show's varied locations. The bulk of the special effects shooting thus began the following year, 1974, and overlapped with that of Prophecies of Nostradamus. The choice for the series' first special effects director was narrowed to either Kawakita or Yoshio Tabuchi, with the other to become Teruyoshi Nakano's assistant director for Nostradamus. The choice was left to the two of them to figure out, and they decided to play rock paper scissors for first pick; Kawakita won, and chose to work on Nostradamus, as he was more interested in film and found Nostradamus's fantastical premise to be more freeing than the science-based Nippon Chinbotsu: Television Series.

Unlike Nostradamus, however, the series' effects were not produced at Toho Studios, but rather at the facilities of Nihon Gendai Kikaku in Komae. Asada, who worked on the series' first three episodes, recalled in 2022: "The tokusatsu [was] done at ... a small studio in Komae, Tokyo. There was no air-conditioning in the studio, so it was very hot. ... For the movie [Submersion of Japan], the special effects scenes, like the ones that take place at the bottom of the ocean, were filmed on sets built in the largest studio at Toho, whereas the Komae studio was only one fourth or fifth of the size, so we couldn't film the same kind of effect there. We could film scenes that only required small sets at the Komae studio, but, for special effects scenes like the ones that take place at the bottom of the ocean, we had to use stock footage that had been shot for the film version". Other stock footage included unused portions of the scene from Nostradamus where a ship encounters icebergs.

After Kawakita finished his work on Nostradamus, his help was requested on the series by one of the producers, Yoji Hashimoto. The crew had been experiencing difficulty realizing some of the effects, including a sequence involving the submarines Wadatsumi and Kermadec in the Japan Trench, which did not appear to be convincingly set underwater. Kawakita agreed to take over for Tabuchi on episodes 4 and 5, the first sequence he directed being a series of underwater shots for the latter, for which a number of small fish were caught from the Tama River and filmed in a pool. Of his experience with the show, Kawakita stated, "Unlike with movies, we had to consider costs and efficiency, so it wasn't easy to shoot things as I wanted". Though Tabuchi and Kawakita both worked on a few more episodes after this, the majority of the show's special effects were ultimately directed by Nihon Gendai Kikaku's Koichi Takano, another former acolyte of Eiji Tsuburaya.

According to an Associated Press (AP) story published shortly after the series' conclusion, TBS officials reported that two days' worth of shooting were required to produce two minutes of special effects footage. Asada, meanwhile, placed the overall length of the shoots he was involved in at "maybe five or six days" apiece. The same AP report also noted that smoke and fire used on the Tokyo Tower miniature set (featured in episode 25) were created with "burning glue" and "titanium chloride," respectively.

The human portions of the series' first, penultimate, and final episodes were directed by Godzilla series veteran Jun Fukuda, one of his last science-fiction assignments for the Toho Group.

Alternate titles

• Japan Sinks (literal Japanese title)
  • Submersion of Japan (alternate translation)
  • The Submersion of Japan (alternate translation)
  • Sinking of Japan (alternate translation)
• Japan Sinks: TV Series (Japanese home video title)
• Japan Sinks: Television Series (Japanese home video title)

Ratings and reception

According to a 1975 report from the Associated Press, Nippon Chinbotsu: Television Series failed to meet TBS's expectations, debuting with a rating of 1.8 which fell to 1.3 by the final episode. The report speculated that audiences may have been turned away by the series' acting, as "[t]he story of the ever-eroding archipelago seldom got away from melodrama." However, it complimented, "the special effects were something else. ... Each installment was preceded and followed by a special announcement informing viewers they were watching a fictional account--not newsreel film--because the destruction looked chillingly authentic at times." It concluded, "after the two-year media blitz [spawned by Japan Sinks], the Japanese seem to have lost interest in the theme. And [Nippon Chinbotsu: Television Series] lost the TV ratings battle to a historical drama of sex, violence and court intrigue in 17th-century Japan".

Video releases

Amuse Soft LaserDisc (October 25, 1996) [LD-BOX D-1] Discs: 7 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: None Notes: Includes episodes 1–14. Amuse Soft LaserDisc (February 21, 1997) [LD-BOX D-2] Discs: 6 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: None Notes: Includes episodes 15–26. Amuse Soft DVD (April 27, 2001) [M-1.0] Region: 2 Discs: 1 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: None Special features: Audio commentary by Jun Fukuda, Shinji Higuchi, and Hideaki Anno Notes: Includes episodes 1–3. Amuse Soft DVD (April 27, 2001) [M-2.0] Region: 2 Discs: 1 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: None Special features: None Notes: Includes episodes 4–6. Amuse Soft DVD (April 27, 2001) [M-3.0] Region: 2 Discs: 1 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: None Special features: None Notes: Includes episodes 7–9. Amuse Soft DVD (May 25, 2001) [M-4.0] Region: 2 Discs: 1 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: None Special features: None Notes: Includes episodes 10–12. Amuse Soft DVD (May 25, 2001) [M-5.0] Region: 2 Discs: 1 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: None Special features: None Notes: Includes episodes 13–15.

Amuse Soft DVD (May 25, 2001) [M-6.0] Region: 2 Discs: 1 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: None Special features: None Notes: Includes episodes 16–18. Amuse Soft DVD (June 22, 2001) [M-7.0] Region: 2 Discs: 1 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: None Special features: None Notes: Includes episodes 19–21. Amuse Soft DVD (June 22, 2001) [M-8.0] Region: 2 Discs: 1 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: None Special features: None Notes: Includes episodes 22–24. Amuse Soft DVD (June 22, 2001) [M-9.0] Region: 2 Discs: 1 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: Audio commentary by Koichi Takano and author Shiro Shinagawa; "Excavation! Searching Through Toho Eizo's Sacred Warehouse with Koichi Kawakita" featurette (18:09); compilation of special effects shots, unedited footage, and outtakes (27:31); textless opening sequences, opening sequence elements, and opening sequences from reruns and the 1975 TV movie (6:02); DVD promotional video (3:59); photo gallery Notes: Includes episodes 25–26. Amuse Soft DVD (July 7, 2006) [Premium Hazard BOX] Region: 2 Discs: 9 Audio: Japanese Subtitles: None Special features: Features from M-1.0 and M-9.0 discs; booklet with comparisons of the cast from the show, Submersion of Japan, and Sinking of Japan, interviews with Sakyo Komatsu, Jun Fukuda, Koichi Takano, and Koichi Kawakita, and a message from Shinji Higuchi; mouse pad (limited edition only) Notes: Box set containing the M-1.0 through M-9.0 discs.

Trivia

• A miniature used for the Wadatsumi in this series was modified to portray the NSTL Ripley in Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991).
• A shot from episode 4 of Himeji Castle's stone wall collapsing was reused during Battra's attack on Nagoya Castle in Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992).

See also

• Submersion of Japan
• Sinking of Japan

External links

• Amuse Soft DVD webpage (archived)

References

This is a list of references for Nippon Chinbotsu: Television Series. 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

• Shlacter, Barry (1979). "Televersion: Submersion of Japan". Japanese Fantasy Film Journal. No. 12 – via Internet Archive.
• Encyclopedia of Godzilla (Mechagodzilla Edition). Editor-in-chief: Kawakita, Koichi. Gakken. 10 December 1993. ISBN 405600174X.CS1 maint: others (link)
• Tucker, Guy Mariner (1996). Age of the Gods: A History of the Japanese Fantasy Film. Feral House.
• Kawakita, Koichi (22 January 2010). The Spirit of Tokusatsu: Toho Special Effects Battle Chronicle. Yosensha. ISBN 978-4-86248-515-1.
• Nakamura, Satoshi (10 February 2012). "Burning Column No. 010: The Stock Footage of Heisei Godzilla". Heisei Godzilla Perfection. ASCII MEDIA WORKS. ISBN 978-4-04-886119-9.
• Asai, Kazuyasu (28 September 2012). "Submersion of Japan (2nd Draft—Final Draft—1973.9.5), Submersion of Japan (3rd Draft—Final Draft—1973.9.22)". Toho Special Effects Movie Complete Works. villagebooks. ISBN 978-4-86491-013-2.
• Ozawa, Ryoko; Murai, Shugo; Imai, Atsushi; Nakamura, Satoshi; Tomoi, Taketo; Shimazaki, Jun, eds. (20 July 2018). All Toho Mechanic Pictorial Book (2nd ed.). Yosensha. ISBN 978-4-8003-1461-1.
• Iwahata, Toshiaki (25 February 2020). Character Complete Works: Special Effects Complete History – 1970s Hero Complete Works (4th ed.). Kodansha. ISBN 978-4-06-219821-9.

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