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138-414: Ishirō Honda ( Japanese : 本多 猪四郎 （ いしろう ） , Hepburn : Honda Ishirō , 7 May 1911 – 28 February 1993) was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 46 feature films in a career spanning five decades. He is acknowledged as the most internationally successful Japanese filmmaker prior to Hayao Miyazaki and one of the founders of modern disaster film , with his films having a significant influence on

276-466: A benshi was the aspect of the film presentation that drew in the audience, more so than the actors appearing in the film, and promotional posters would frequently include a photo of the benshi announcing the movie. The silent film era lasted until the mid-1930s in Japan in part due to benshi , despite the introduction of sound in full-length films in the late 1920s. The adoption of this new technology

414-462: A labor dispute at Toho , many stars and employees split off and formed Shintoho . Kunio Watanabe tried to convince Honda to join Shintoho, with the promise of Honda becoming a director quicker, however, Honda chose to remain neutral and stayed at Toho. Despite struggling at Toho, Honda worked on a handful of films produced by Film Arts Associates Productions. Between September and October 1948, Honda

552-518: A multimedia franchise , being recognized by Guinness World Records as the longest-running film franchise in history. Two years later, a heavily localized version of Godzilla was released in the United States as Godzilla, King of the Monsters! . Honda's next film was Lovetide , based on Hidemi Kon 's story Blow, River Wind and adapted by screenwriter Dai Nishijima. Toho promoted

690-520: A multimedia franchise , recognized by Guinness World Records as the longest-running film franchise in history, that established the kaiju and tokusatsu genres. It helped Honda gain international recognition and led him to direct numerous tokusatsu films that are still studied and watched today. After directing his eighth and final Godzilla film in 1975, Honda retired from filmmaking. However, Honda's former colleague and friend, Akira Kurosawa , would persuade him to come out of retirement in

828-443: A theatre organ as accompaniment, Japanese films had a score which supported the traditional Japanese instruments of a kabuki play. Since benshi performed without external amplification, they had to carefully coordinate with the orchestra to be heard. At that time, theaters typically seated 1000, so a trademark of successful benshi was the ability to project their voices into large spaces. Famous benshi active in

966-637: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down

1104-592: A black-and-white theatrical feature film directed by Honda, entitled Varan the Unbelievable , released in 1958. Considered his "weakest effort", it is a simple story about scientists who unintentionally awake a giant monster dubbed Varan while seeking scarce species of butterfly in Tōhoku region . An Echo Calls You , his twenty-third feature film, centers on an uneducated bus conductor , Tamako, who falls in love with Nabeyama, her bus driver after she fails to have

1242-409: A century of social critique, often presenting popular films along with new dialog and narrative intended to juxtapose their ideas with those of the audience. While some have adopted the term " Neo-Benshi ", other performers have chosen to adopt the title "movieteller" as an alternative. They believe it emphasizes the multicultural past and future(s) of the form, while inviting further experimentation with

1380-487: A common cold. Initially, Honda stayed in bed for a week, but after he lost his appetite, he underwent X-rays and blood tests. Honda was immediately told to seek hospital treatment following the results. Knowing something was wrong with his health, Honda had already packed his bags. Within ten minutes of leaving home, he was taken to Kono Medical Clinic, a 19-bed facility in Soshigaya. Because the major hospitals were full, he

1518-464: A coup against the civilian government, what would be called the February 26 Incident . Though Honda had no involvement with the coup, everyone associated with Kurihara were considered dangerous and the brass wanted them gone and as a result, Honda and his regiment were sent to Manchukuo in 1936, under questionable pretense. Honda would have completed his 18 remaining months of service had it not been for

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1656-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )

1794-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as

1932-558: A globally threatening alien invasion. The film was shot on an enormous budget of ¥200 million and was his debut movie to be filmed in Toho Scope . Song for a Bride , released in February 1958, is regarded as one of the director's best films of the 1950s. It is a comedy-drama film that explores the clash between traditional and modern ethics among Japanese youth. Following its release, Honda would direct two science fiction films in

2070-463: A great deal" to Honda for capturing the film's post-war atmosphere. In 1950, Honda worked on two films by Kajirō Yamamoto: Escape from Prison and Elegy , the last film produced by Film Art Associations. Honda had also worked as an assistant director on Senkichi Taniguchi 's Escape at Dawn . Between working on films as an assistant director, Honda began pre-production on Newspaper Kid , which would have been his feature directorial debut. However,

2208-484: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it

2346-408: A minute long. The first benshi were thus hired to provide greater value for the high ticket prices charged by theaters relative to other public entertainment, while also giving technical and cultural context to the audience. The operation of the projector itself would be described before the showing, and then explanations of Western culture would accompany the film with the benshi standing to

2484-514: A month after filming concluded. Half Human has been infrequently seen following its release. Ryfle and Godziszewski noted this is possibly due to Toho fearing the mountain tribe, described by Nobuo Nakamura 's character as "mysterious buraku ", is depicted in the film as "an uncivilized, primitive colony of subhuman freaks", could enrage burakumin 's rights groups such as the Buraku Liberation League . Some sources suggest it

2622-432: A moving visual. In addition, it was traditional for the benshi to introduce the film, even giving a brief lecture about the history of the setting. This meant that filmmakers could assume that a live narrator, accustomed to improvisation, would be present at the showing to explain scenes or even explain missing scenes or unfilmed action. Perhaps because most early Japanese films were simply kabuki plays adapted to film,

2760-650: A passing grade on his physical examination, he was not required to report for immediate duty. While waiting for his call-up, Honda continued working at P.C.L. Honda was then called to duty in January 1935 and was enlisted into the First Division, First Infantry Regiment in Tokyo. At the time, Honda began his training at the entry-level rank of Ippeisotsu, the equivalent of Petty Officer First Class. In 1936, Honda's former commanding officer, Yasuhide Kurihara , launched

2898-467: A relationship with a man from Kōfu 's wealthiest family. Featuring Ryō Ikebe in his fourth major role in a Honda movie, and with a possibly Hideko the Bus Conductor -inspired screenplay by Gorō Tanada , the film premiered in January 1959 to generally positive reviews from critics. Honda quickly moved on to his next project, Inao, Story of an Iron Arm . It is a biographical film based on

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3036-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),

3174-581: A silk moth farm managed by one of Honda's brothers. Honda's father earned income during the summers by selling devotions in Iwate Prefecture , Akita Prefecture , and Hokkaido and would return home before the winter. While Honda's brothers were given religious tutoring at sixteen, Honda was learning about science. Takamoto, who became a military doctor, encouraged Honda to study and sent him scientific magazines to help, which started Honda's love for reading and scientific curiosity. In 1921, when Honda

3312-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate

3450-451: A small submarine-like craft but the idea was scrapped due to budget and safety concerns. Instead, professional divers assisted with the production. Honda had commissioned a camera technician colleague who designed and built an air-tight, waterproof, metal-and-glass housing for a compact 35-millimeter camera. The documentary was completed in July 1949 and became a triumph for Toho. The documentary

3588-562: A traditional wedding ceremony, the two simply signed papers at city hall, paid their respects at Meiji Shrine , and went home. Since their marriage, the couple lived in Seijo in Setagaya, even after the war. Kimi would pass away on November 3, 2018, aged 101. This was also Godzilla 's 64th anniversary. Honda was recalled to service in mid-December 1939, a week before his daughter, Takako, was due to be born. Having already risen in rank, Honda

3726-526: A turning point in Honda's directing career, as he directed five films, with his first, Be Happy, These Two Lovers , filmed by Hajime Koizumi, who would work on 21 of his films thereon. Ryfle and Godziszewski called his camera work "the perfect complement to Honda's conservative, risk-averse style of composition". His next film, A Teapicker's Song of Goodbye , was the second in Honda's trilogy of films starring enka singer Chiyoko Shimakura (the first film

3864-680: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of

4002-421: Is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of

4140-492: Is a common misconception that Honda directed three sequences of Kurosawa's 1990 film Dreams entitled "The Tunnel," "Mount Fuji in Red," and "The Weeping Demon." In the early 1980s, Honda was approached to potentially direct a reboot of Daimajin reboot. While Honda expressed interest, the project never materialized and Honda was already involved with Kagemusha . Honda was truly a virtuous, sincere, and gentle soul. He worked for

4278-406: Is a metaphor for a nuclear holocaust . Principal photography for Godzilla began on August 2, 1954, and wrapped in late September, taking 51 days. It became a box office success in Japan and was nominated for two Japanese Movie Association awards: winning an award for best special effects but losing to Kurosawa's Seven Samurai for best picture. Because of the film's success in Japan, it spawned

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4416-518: Is also one of several filmmakers and actors who have cited Honda's The War of the Gargantuas as an influence, alongside Brad Pitt , Guillermo del Toro , and Tim Burton . John Carpenter cited Godzilla as an influence on his career and called Honda "one of my personal cinematic gods". Martin Scorsese has also cited Honda as an influence on his work. The episode, "Tagumo Attacks!!!" in

4554-448: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,

4692-527: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing

4830-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number

4968-701: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider

5106-466: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto

5244-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to

5382-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through

5520-581: Is known for its samurai films , Honda did not show any interest in directing a jidaigeki film since his stage was contemporary Japan. Nonetheless, in May 1956, Kurosawa reported that he would produce three jidaigeki films beginning that September, with Honda directing Throne of Blood , Hideo Suzuki directing The Hidden Fortress , and Hiromichi Horikawa directing Revenge (became Yojimbo ). Kurosawa would eventually direct all three of these films; now regarded as some of his best films. The year 1957 marked

5658-755: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey

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5796-471: Is notable for being the third and final film featuring Godzilla stars Momoko Kochi and Akira Takarada in leading roles. Honda's only tokusatsu film of 1957, The Mysterians , was released just over a year after Japan joined the United Nations and features affairs reflecting the Japan's return to global politics. The story concerned a young scientist ( Kenji Sahara ) who becomes involved in

5934-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of

6072-498: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and

6210-665: Is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as

6348-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and

6486-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have

6624-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns

6762-563: The Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered

6900-462: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in

7038-514: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than

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7176-738: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of

7314-806: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to

7452-527: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),

7590-478: The 1960s: Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964), Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965), Destroy All Monsters (1968), and All Monsters Attack (1969), the latter which Honda also served as director of special effects. His other tokusatsu films during the 1960s include: Mothra (1961), Matango (1963), Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965), The War of

7728-605: The Chinese National Revolutionary Army and relocated to an area between Beijing and Shanghai for a year before the war ended. During his imprisonment, Honda stated to have been treated well and was even befriended by the locals and temple monks, who offered him to stay permanently but Honda respectfully refused in favor of finding his wife and children. As a parting gift, the locals gave Honda rubbings of Chinese proverbs, imprinted from stone carvings of temples. Honda would later write these verses in

7866-469: The Gargantuas (1966), and King Kong Escapes (1967). While Honda managed to retain a job directing for Toho during the 1960s and 1970s, the studio did not renew his contract near the end of 1965 and was instructed to speak with Tanaka about employment on a film-by-film basis. In 1967, Honda began occasionally directing for television, since it had become more popular than the film industry in Japan. Between 1971 and 1973, Honda directed several episodes for

8004-486: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,

8142-736: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently

8280-645: The Pacific was a box-office hit and reportedly was Toho's first postwar film to earn over ¥100 million (approximately $ 278,000 ). Subsequently, Honda would direct another war film, entitled Farewell Rabaul , which was released on February 10, 1954. A month after the release of Farewell Rabaul , Honda met assistant director Kōji Kajita to commence production on a film titled Sanshiro the Priest . Possibly connected to Kurosawa's 1943 film Sanshiro Sugata ; Hideo Oguni , one of Kurosawa's frequent collaborators, wrote

8418-570: The Philippines but his unit missed the boat and were sent back to China instead. To Honda's fortune, the conflict in China was less intense than it was in the Pacific and South-East Asia. Honda became a sergeant and was in charge of trading and communicating with civilians. Honda never ordered the Chinese as a soldier and was respectful to them as much as possible. Honda was eventually captured by

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8556-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand

8694-590: The Universal Bluebird photoplays. Honda would often sneak into movie theatres without his parents' permission. For silent films in Japan at that time, on-screen texts were replaced with benshi , narrators who stood beside the screen and provided live commentary, which Honda found more fascinating than the films themselves. Honda's brother, Takamoto, had hoped for Honda to become a dentist and join his clinic in Tokyo but instead, Honda applied at Nihon University for their art department's film major program and

8832-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which

8970-417: The assignment. Honda and screenwriter Takeo Murata confined themselves in a three-week secluded residence at an inn in Tokyo's Shibuya ward to write the screenplay for this film, entitled Godzilla . The film was Honda's first kaiju film, the genre for which he would become most famous. The simple story, about a giant monster that rises near Odo Island and attacks Tokyo causing catastrophic destruction,

9108-504: The back of his screenplays. During his final tour, Honda escaped death near Hankou when a mortar shell landed before him but did not detonate. When the battle ended, Honda later returned to retrieve the shell and took it back home to Japan where he placed it on top of his desk in his private study until his death. Honda then returned home in March 1946; however, throughout most of his life, even as an old man, Honda would have nightmares about

9246-445: The character, Mick Rory tells Ishirō to "Forget about the octopus. Lizards. Lizards are king." In this fictional universe, this will lead Ishirō to creating the character Godzilla, as he states in the episode "The King... of the Monsters. I like that". Honda, alongside Ray Harryhausen , was given dedications in the 2013 film Pacific Rim . Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] )

9384-463: The characterization style benshi performed roles strongly influenced by the narrators in kabuki or a noh chorus—a grave, dramatic, exaggerated style. Due to the influence of kabuki , audiences were not distracted by a single benshi voicing male and female roles, regardless of the gender of the benshi . In 1927, there were 6,818 benshi , including 180 women. Many benshi were famous in their own right and garnered great acclaim. The presence of

9522-401: The coup and would be recalled to service again and again for the remainder of the war. Honda met Kimi Yamazaki in 1937 and proposed marriage to her in 1939. Honda's parents and Kimi's mother were supportive, but Kimi's father was opposed to the sudden engagement. Though Kimi's father never approved of her marriage, he nonetheless sent her ¥1,000 upon learning of her pregnancy. Rather than having

9660-578: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there

9798-515: The film by calling it a "gorgeous love melodrama with Toho's best cast, meant for all the woman fans". The film's stars Mariko Okada and Chieko Nakakita (Tanaka's wife) also played in Mikio Naruse 's film Floating Clouds , featuring a similar plot and released around a week after Lovetide . Tanaka had stated that if he had not made Honda predominantly direct science-fiction films, he would have become "a director like Mikio Naruse." During

9936-472: The film industry. Despite directing many drama , war , documentary , and comedy films, Honda is best remembered for directing and co-creating the kaiju genre with special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya . Honda entered the Japanese film industry in 1934, working as the third assistant director on Sotoji Kimura's The Elderly Commoner's Life Study . After 15 years of working on numerous films as an assistant director, he made his directorial debut with

10074-560: The filming of Mothra , Honda was focusing to appear in a scene where a civilian helped the baby on the bridge. Many filmmakers have been influenced by Honda's work. According to Steve Ryfle, his influence inside the film industry is "undeniable", as he was "one of the creators of the modern disaster film, he helped set the template for countless blockbusters to follow, and a wide array of filmmakers". In 2007, Quentin Tarantino called Honda his "favorite science-fiction director". Tarantino

10212-455: The flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics , a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure

10350-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had

10488-462: The group to collaborate on a screenplay but they mainly just socialized and drank. Honda attended a salon of film critics and students but hardly participated, preferring rather to listen. While in school, Honda met Iwao Mori, an executive in charge of production for Photographic Chemical Laboratories ( P.C.L. ) In August 1933, Mori offered entry-level jobs at P.C.L. to a few students, including Honda. Honda eventually completed his studies while working at

10626-454: The idea of a giant monster film . He was influenced by reports of a nuclear test in the Pacific that caused a Japanese fishing boat to be exposed to nuclear fallout , with disastrous results, and had heard of a recently released American monster film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms . Honda accepted the offer to direct the film after planned In the Shadow of Glory director Taniguchi declined

10764-430: The language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853,

10902-458: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system

11040-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of

11178-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,

11316-409: The largest municipal cemetery in Japan. His family later moved the grave to Fuji Cemetery. Despite being known primarily for directing tokusatsu films, Honda has also directed documentaries , melodramas , romance , musical , and biographical films. Unlike Akira Kurosawa , who often used recurring themes and photographic devices (even sometimes going over time and budget on productions), Honda

11454-498: The late 1970s and act as his right-hand man for his last five films. Honda was born in Asahi , Yamagata Prefecture (now part of the city of Tsuruoka ), the fifth and youngest child of Hokan and Miyo Honda. His father Hokan was the abbot of Honda Ryuden-in temple. Honda stated that his forename was a combination derived from three words: "'I' stands for inoshishi , the boar, the astrological symbol of my birth year . shi stands for

11592-514: The life of professional baseball pitcher Kazuhisa Inao , featuring Inao portraying himself as an adult. Additionally, it features Godzilla actors Takashi Shimura as his father and Ren Yamamoto and Sachio Sakai as his older brothers. The film was released in March 1959 and was later screened in honor of Inao following his death in 2007. In 1962, Honda returned to directing Godzilla films beginning with King Kong vs. Godzilla . Honda would go on to direct five additional Godzilla films during

11730-477: The nickname "Honda the Amylase ". Authors, cast, and crew members have called Honda's style of direction "well-established". Special effects director Teruyoshi Nakano stated that the events happening during his "running crowd" sequences, such as "Firefighters being dispatched in an emergency situation, police officer directing traffic, and people carrying furoshiki while running away", are "unrealistic" but it

11868-654: The number four, the fourth son. And ro indicates a boy’s name. Literally, it means the fourth son, born in the year of the boar." He had three brothers: Takamoto, Ryokichi, Ryuzo, and one sister: Tomi, who died during her childhood. Honda's father and grandfather were both Buddhist monks at Churen-ji, a temple in Mount Yudono, where the Hondas lived in a dwelling on the temple's property. The Hondas grew rice, potatoes, daikon radishes, and carrots, and also made and sold miso and soy sauce. The family also received income from

12006-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by

12144-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with

12282-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,

12420-568: The practice was more formalized and financed. As evidenced by the (above) listings of "benshi" in other cultures, the art of cinema accompanied by a live performer was as international then as it is now. There are groups in the United States seeking to revive this form and to continue exploring the possibilities of altering the form in the spirit of experimentation from which the practice emerged. Likewise, new attempts to subvert traditional notions of storytelling and film watching are underway. Some performers interject commentary into films, drawing from

12558-434: The presence of a benshi came to be part of the film. Benshi read the intertitles on silent films and voiced all on-screen characters. Perhaps most significantly for filmmakers, benshi would add their own commentary, explaining what was happening in a shot or describing what had happened in confusing edits or sudden transitions. Some benshi were known to interpret and add to a script, for example reciting poetry to accompany

12696-434: The project after finding Honda's script, which openly criticized leaders of World War II, to be too grim and realistic. Honda recalled that the studio felt it was "too soon after the war" to produce such a film. Had the project proceeded, it would have been Honda's first directorial feature. The script has since been lost. At the age of 40, Honda completed his first feature film The Blue Pearl . Released on 3 August 1951, it

12834-601: The project was canceled. Instead, he began working on another documentary titled Story of a Co-op (also known as Flowers Blooming in the Sand and Co-op Way of Life ) Story of a Co-op was a documentary about the rise of consumer cooperatives in post-war Japan. It was also written by Honda, with the production overseen by Jin Usami and with the support of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Some records indicated that some animation

12972-481: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as

13110-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning

13248-516: The same year for the first time. His second film of 1958, The H-Man , premiered on June 24, 1958 to mixed reviews. It is a distinctive Honda picture about a liquid creature who terrorizes Tokyo's gangland. Some scenes in the film were shot on the same sets used in Kurosawa's 1948 film Drunken Angel . In May 1959, Columbia Pictures released a shortened version of this film in the United States. Upon its release, U.S. critics erroneously believed it

13386-407: The script for the film. Authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski stated that the project never came to fruition because Oguni and Honda "couldn't see eye to eye about the screenplay". According to Kajita, the film would have been about a priest and a judo expert. Following the cancellation of a highly anticipated drama film titled In the Shadow of Glory , producer Tomoyuki Tanaka quickly converted

13524-423: The short documentary film Ise-Shima (1949). Honda's first feature film, The Blue Pearl (1952), was a critical success in Japan at the time and would lead him to direct three subsequent drama films. In 1954, Honda directed and co-wrote Godzilla , which became a box office success in Japan and was nominated for two Japanese Movie Association awards. Because of the film's commercial success in Japan, it spawned

13662-505: The side of the screen. This commentary was as much part of the theater-going experience as the film itself. In one instance, a benshi was able to avoid government censorship of The Kiss by describing kissing in Western culture to be as casual a greeting as a pat on the back . As film plots became longer and more complex, benshi often spoke for the characters on-screen in theatrical style and played multiple roles. Stemming from

13800-644: The silent era include Musei Tokugawa (at the Aoikan and Musashinokan theaters), Saburō Somei (at the Denkikan ), Rakuten Nishimura, Raiyū Ikoma (at the Teikokukan), Mitsugu Ōkura , and Shirō Ōtsuji . In the 1995 film Picture Bride , Toshirō Mifune portrays a benshi who traveled to sugar cane plantations in Hawaii during the early 20th century. As the film industry and art form developed in Japan,

13938-439: The speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )

14076-545: The start of production on Motoyoshi Oda 's Godzilla Raids Again , Honda began filming Half Human in the Japanese Alps . Upon his return to Tokyo, Tsuburaya was working on Godzilla Raids Again . Thus, production on Half Human was halted and Honda moved on to shooting a drama film titled Mother and Son . Principal photography for Half Human recommenced in June, and the film was released on August 14, 1955, around

14214-762: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this

14352-481: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This

14490-478: The studio and became an assistant director, which required him to be a scripter in the editing department. Honda eventually became a third assistant director on Sotoji Kimura's The Elderly Commoner's Life Study (1934). However, Honda then received a draft notice from the military. At twenty-three years old, Honda was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army in the fall of 1934. Despite receiving

14628-453: The television series Legends of Tomorrow is based around Honda. The central plotline of the episode involves a kraken-esque creature named Tagumo, that Honda has written, which becomes a reality due to a magic book that belongs to Brigid , the Celtic goddess of art. It is described as a "land octopus" that will destroy Tokyo , unless the protagonists can stop it. At the end of the episode,

14766-698: The television series Return of Ultraman , Mirrorman , Emergency Command 10-4, 10-10 , Thunder Mask , and Zone Fighter , and would only direct two films during the 1970s: Space Amoeba (1970) and Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975); Honda would temporarily retire following the release of the latter film. Despite retiring in 1975, Honda was persuaded by Akira Kurosawa to return to filmmaking, and collaborate on Kagemusha (1980). Honda would subsequently work on Kurosawa's last five films. His positions in these films included: directorial advisor, production coordinator, and creative consultant; he also made uncredited writing contributions to Madadayo (1993). There

14904-668: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Benshi The earliest films available for public display were produced by Western studios, portraying brief scenes of everyday life, often less than

15042-488: The traditions of kabuki , noh and bunraku theaters, the benshi 's narration and general commentary were an important part of the Japanese silent film experience. The benshi also provided translation for foreign (mostly American) movies. Much like in the West, Japanese silent films were often accompanied by live music (in addition to the benshi ). However, unlike Western films, which tended to have

15180-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,

15318-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of

15456-480: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It

15594-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending

15732-408: The war effort. The government took control of the Japanese film industry in 1939, modeling the passage of motion picture laws after Nazi policies where scripts and films were reviewed so they supported the war effort and filmmakers noncompliant were punished or worse. Honda's son, Ryuji, was born on 31 January 1944, however, Honda received another draft notice in March 1944. He was assigned to head for

15870-550: The war twice or thrice a year. During his entire military service, Honda served three tours, with a total of six years serving at the front. Honda returned to work at Toho as an assistant director. In 1946, he worked on two films: Motoyoshi Oda 's Eleven Girl Students and Kunio Watanabe's Declaration of Love . In 1947, he worked on three films, 24 Hours in an Underground Market (jointly directed by Tadashi Imai , Hideo Sekigawa , and Kiyoshi Kusuda) and The New Age of Fools Parts One and Two, directed by Kajirō Yamamoto . Due to

16008-495: The world of film with might and main, lived a full life and very much like his nature, quietly exited this world. — Inscription on Honda's headstone by Akira Kurosawa . In late 1992, Akira Kurosawa hosted a party for the cast and crew of Madadayo following the completion of principal photography . Honda appeared to be suffering from cold symptoms at the party and contacted his son Ryuji in New York . Ryuji believed Honda

16146-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or

16284-540: Was People of Tokyo, Goodbye ). The third film in the trilogy, entitled A Farewell to the Woman Called My Sister , was released the month after A Teapicker's Song of Goodbye . A Rainbow Plays in My Heart , a black-and-white two-part film based on Seiichi Yashiro and Ryunosuke Yamada's radio drama of the same name, was released on July 9, 1957 (a week after A Teapicker's Song of Goodbye ). The film

16422-491: Was a filmmaker who almost always finished his projects requested by Toho on time and budget; Godzilla (1954) was one such project. Godzilla assistant director Kōji Kajita stated that during their 17 films that they made together Honda "had his own style, this way of thinking", adding: "he never got mad, didn’t rush, but he still expressed his thoughts and made it clear when something was different from what he wanted, and he corrected things quietly." Thus, his skill earned him

16560-474: Was a rip-off Irvin Yeaworth 's The Blob , despite The H-Man being released prior to The Blob in Japan. The successful distributions of Honda's Godzilla and Rodan in the United States, lead Toho to seek further Hollywood connections. In 1957, the company agreed to co-produce a made-for-television film with AB-PT Pictures (who would go bankrupt during production). This project would eventually become

16698-869: Was able to visit his wife and daughter in the hospital but had to leave afterwards immediately to China. Between 1940 and 1941, Honda was assigned to manage a " comfort station ", a euphemism for brothels established in occupied areas. Honda would later write an essay titled Reflections of an Officer in Charge of Comfort Women published in Movie Art Magazine in April 1966, detailing his experiences and other comfort women's experiences working in comfort stations. Honda would then return home in December 1942, only to find that P.C.L. (now rebranded as Toho by that point) were forced to produce propaganda films to support

16836-551: Was accepted in 1931. The film department was a pilot program, which resulted in disorganized poor conditions for the class and cancellations from the teacher every so often. While this forced other students to quit, Honda instead used the cancelled periods to watch films at theaters, where he took personal notes. Honda and four of his class-mates rented a room in Shinbashi, a few kilometers from their university, where they would gather after school to discuss films. Honda had hoped for

16974-479: Was aired on television in the 1960s or early 1970s and was screened at a film retrospective in Kyoto in 2001. Toho has never released the complete film in any home video format. In 1956, Honda directed four films. The first, Young Tree , concerns a young girl who moves to Tokyo and endures the rivalries between other high school girls of varying economic and cultural backgrounds. The second, entitled Night School ,

17112-539: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular

17250-541: Was drunk and thought it strange that he called him. Then, in mid-February 1993, Kurosawa, Honda, and Masahiko Kumada, the unit manager, attended a screening of Agantuk , Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray 's last film, at an art-house cinema. After watching the film, Kurosawa invited Honda to his house for dinner and drinks, but Honda felt sick and went home. Honda was declared healthy following a checkup in December 1992, and no major illnesses were suspected. Although his cough kept getting worse, his family doctor diagnosed him with

17388-536: Was held at Joshoji Kaikan, an assembly hall in Setagaya , for Honda's friends, family, and colleagues on March 6. Honda's funeral reunited Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune , an actor who had starred in both Honda's and Kurosawa's early films. The Nikkei reported that Mifune was among the mourners at the funeral: "[Kurosawa and Mifune] made eye contact and hugged in tears at the funeral for their mutual friend." Honda's cremated remains were buried at Tama Cemetery ,

17526-444: Was his solo film ever directed outside of Toho and was among the first films about night schooling. The third, titled People of Tokyo, Goodbye , follows young lovers who try to listen to their hearts despite their parents' interjections. The fourth, Rodan , was Honda's first-ever film shot in color and depicted a winged monster named Rodan wreaking havoc in Japan after its awakening by nuclear bomb testing. Although Japanese cinema

17664-454: Was important for Honda to "bring out the everydayness by showing such things". According to actor Yoshio Tsuchiya , Kurosawa said that if he were to direct a scene in one of Honda's films featuring police officers directing civilians, he would "make even the police officers flee first." Regarding this, Honda said that the policemen featured in his films do not run away because of his war experience as an officer. Hiroshi Koizumi said that, during

17802-680: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,

17940-474: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )

18078-625: Was on location in Noto Peninsula working on Kajirō Yamamoto's Child of the Wind , the first release from Film Arts. From January to March 1949, Honda worked with Yamamoto again on Flirtation in Spring . Prior to being promoted to a feature film director, Honda had to direct documentaries for Toho's Educational Films Division. Toho sometimes used documentary projects as tests for assistant directors due to become directors. Honda's directorial debut

18216-512: Was one of the first Japanese feature films to utilize underwater photography and the first studio film to be shot in the Ise-Shima region. Honda initially chose not to direct war films, but changed his mind after Toho offered to have him direct Eagle of the Pacific , a film about Isoroku Yamamoto , a figure with whom Honda shared the same feelings regarding the war. It was the first film where Honda collaborated with Eiji Tsuburaya . Eagle of

18354-461: Was placed in a tiny room. A room in a bigger hospital was about to be assigned to Honda, so his friends could visit him. In the following days, Honda contracted pleurisy, a condition that causes difficulty breathing, and on February 27, just after returning home from visiting hours, Kimi and Takako received an urgent call: his vital signs had suddenly deteriorated. Honda died from respiratory failure at 11:30 pm on February 28, 1993. A memorial service

18492-494: Was slowed by the popularity and influence of the benshi (in addition to the high costs to the cinemas and production companies). Though the tradition has mostly faded, there are a few remaining active benshi in Japan (e.g., Midori Sawato ). The underlying concept of benshi, live narration of film, continues to work its way into performance practices. The actual practice of "benshi" is most commonly referenced in relation to live film narration largely due to it having been and when

18630-1019: Was ten, Hokan became the abbot at Io-ji temple in Tokyo , and the family moved into the Takaido neighborhood in Suginami . Though he was an honors student back home, Honda's grades declined in Tokyo and in middle school; he struggled with subjects involving equations such as chemistry, biology, and algebra. After his father transferred to another temple, Honda enrolled in the Tachibana Elementary school in Kawasaki and later in Kogyokusha Junior High where Honda studied kendo, archery, and athletic swimming but quit after tearing his Achilles tendon. Honda became interested in films when he and his class-mates were assembled to watch one of

18768-490: Was the documentary Ise-Shima , a twenty-minute highlight reel of Ise-Shima 's cultural attractions. It was commissioned by local officials to boost tourism to the national park. The film covers a brief history of the Ise Grand Shrine, the local people, the economy, and pearl farms. The film is also notable for being the first Japanese film to utilize underwater photography successfully. Honda originally wanted to use

18906-440: Was then sold to multiple European territories. It disappeared for a long time until it resurfaced on Japanese cable television in 2003. Between July and September 1949, shortly after finishing Ise-Shima , Honda reunited with his friend Akira Kurosawa on Stray Dog and began working as a chief assistant director on the film. Honda mainly directed second unit photography, all of the footage pleased Kurosawa and has stated to "owe

19044-447: Was used to explain the functions of co-ops but these reports have been unconfirmed. The film was completed on 6 October 1950 and has since been lost. However, Honda recalled that the film was successful enough to convince Toho to assign Honda his first feature film. Between filming the documentaries, Toho had offered Honda the chance to develop and direct a war film titled Kamikaze Special Attack Troop . Toho then chose not to proceed with

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