Sadamasa Arikawa

Godzilla effects directors
← Eiji Tsuburaya	Sadamasa Arikawa	Ishiro Honda →

Sadamasa Arikawa Born June 17, 1925 Tokyo, Japan Died September 22, 2005 (aged 80) Higashiizu, Shizuoka, Japan Occupation Special effects cinematographer, director of special effects First work The Woman in the Typhoon Area (1948) Notable work Godzilla (1954)

Sadamasa Arikawa (有川 貞昌 (さだまさ),   Arikawa Sadamasa), also known as Teisho Arikawa (有川 貞昌 (ていしょう),   Arikawa Teishō), was a Japanese special effects director and cinematographer. A protégé of Eiji Tsuburaya, Arikawa worked first as a cameraman, shooting the effects for every Toho science-fiction film from 1954 to 1965. Arikawa's first directorial assignment came in the form of the 1962 war film Blood in the Sky, though he would not receive credit as a special effects director until the second episode of Tsuburaya Productions' Ultra Q (1966). Toward the end of Tsuburaya's life, Arikawa succeeded him as the special effects director of the Godzilla series, beginning unofficially with Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966) and officially with Son of Godzilla (1967), until Destroy All Monsters (1968).

Arikawa's final film for Toho was 1970's Space Amoeba, after which he parted with the company due to Tsuburaya's death and the subsequent dissolution of Toho's in-house special effects department. Another of Tsuburaya's students, Teruyoshi Nakano, took over effects on the Godzilla series in 1971. Arikawa transferred to International Television Films, Inc., through which he would ultimately collaborate with Toho again on the 1972 television series Warrior of Love Rainbowman. He also worked on two foreign films in the late 1970s: the 1977 Hong Kong film The Mighty Peking Man, for which he worked alongside several other former Toho staff, and the 1978 Taiwanese film The Phoenix. Arikawa passed away at age 80 due to lung cancer on September 22, 2005.

Selected filmography

Special effects cinematographer

• Flowers of Raccoon Palace (1949) [uncredited]
• The Invisible Man Appears (1949) [uncredited]
• Godzilla (1954) [uncredited]
• Invisible Man (1954) [uncredited]
• Godzilla Raids Again (1955) [uncredited]
• Half Human (1955) [uncredited]
• The Legend of the White Serpent (1956) [uncredited]
• Rodan (1956) [uncredited]
• The Mysterians (1957)
• The H-Man (1958)
• Varan (1958)
• Monkey Sun (1959)
• The Three Treasures (1959)
• Battle in Outer Space (1959)
• The Secret of the Telegian (1960)
• The Human Vapor (1960)
• Mothra (1961)
• The Youth and His Amulet (1961)
• The Last War (1961)
• Gorath (1961)
• King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
• 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)

Director of special effects

• Ultra Q (TV 1966) [episodes 2, 17–19]
• Ultraman (TV 1966–1967) [episodes 37–38]
• Monster Booska (TV 1966–1967) [episodes 29, 31, 36, 38]
• Ultraseven (TV 1967–1968) [episodes 4, 6]
• Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966)
• Son of Godzilla (1967)
• Destroy All Monsters (1968)
• Mighty Jack (TV 1968) [episode 11]
• Fight! Mighty Jack (TV 1968) [episodes 1, 4–6, 9–10, 14–15, 19–20, 23–24]
• Space Amoeba (1970)
• Warrior of Love Rainbowman (TV 1972) [recurring]
  • Rainbowman: The Professional Killers (1973) [theatrical episode]
• The Mighty Peking Man (1977) [uncredited]
• The Phoenix (1978)

Selected bibliography

• Godzilla Complete Collection (1994) - Interviewee
• Godzilla Days (1998) - "1954–68 GODZILLA" writer
• Godzilla 1954-1999 Super Complete Works (2000) - Interviewee
• The Tsuburaya Special Effects Unit (2010) - Interviewee [posthumous]
• Sadamasa Arikawa: Godzilla's Son and Eiji Tsuburaya (2018) - Author [posthumous]

Gallery

• 
  Arikawa (second from right) during filming of Godzilla (1954)
• 
  Arikawa (center) directing Haruo Nakajima and Hiroshi Sekita for Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
• 
  Arikawa (far left) in a publicity photo for Destroy All Monsters with Ishiro Honda, Eiji Tsuburaya, and Tomoyuki Tanaka
• 
  Arikawa with Masao Fukazawa in the Minilla suit on the set of Son of Godzilla
• 
  Arikawa instructing Fukazawa on the set of Son of Godzilla

See also

• Eiji Tsuburaya
• Teruyoshi Nakano
• Motoyoshi Tomioka

External links

• Henshin!Online obituary, dated 10/3/05 (archived)

References

This is a list of references for Sadamasa Arikawa. 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

• Arikawa, Sadamasa (15 July 1998). "1954–68 GODZILLA: Godzilla is the Spirit of Challenging Modernity". Godzilla Days. Shueisha. ISBN 4-08-748815-2.
• Ragone, August (6 May 2014). Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters (paperback ed.). Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0811860789.
• Arikawa, Sadamasa (17 August 2018). Sadamasa Arikawa: Godzilla's Son and Eiji Tsuburaya. Yosensha. ISBN 978-4-8003-1534-2.

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