"Taigaku Hitsui: My Biography of Akira Ifukube"

2024/04/17

I was born in 1963. Toho's Godzilla, Daiei's Gamera, Shochiku's Guilala, and Nikkatsu's Gappa. I grew up immersed in kaiju movies in the late 1960s. Eventually, I came to admire one particular composer and one particular actor. The actor was Akihiko Hirata. In the 1954 film "Godzilla" (the first in the series), he played the genius scientist who dies alongside that hydrogen-bomb monster at the bottom of Tokyo Bay. I sent him a fan letter when I was in elementary school, and from then on, whenever Mr. Hirata appeared on stage, I would rush to his dressing room with a bouquet of flowers. He went from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy to the former First Higher School, the University of Tokyo Faculty of Law, and Mitsubishi Corporation, yet he chose to become an actor.

He was a special person who carried the shadows of the war, and he always told me, as a child, to train my body more.

The composer was Akira Ifukube. He also worked on the music for the 1954 "Godzilla" and was an indispensable figure in Toho's kaiju and sci-fi films thereafter. Since kindergarten, the so-called "Godzilla Theme"—"Do-Si-La, Do-Si-La, Do-Si-La-Sol-La-Si-Do-Si-La"—was hammered into my brain. Once I realized Ifukube was a classical composer who also worked on films, I wanted to hear his symphonies and concertos, so I started collecting records and attending concerts. This was during my time in elementary and junior high school. In college, I had the opportunity to start visiting his home in Oyamadai, Setagaya. At the time, Mr. Ifukube had a plan to compile an autobiography based on oral accounts, and I was designated as the interviewer and editor. It was never finished, though. However, since then, I have been involved in many concerts and CD recordings of his works as a music critic, and I was able to listen to his stories for over 20 years. He passed away in 2006. Perhaps it is time to bring it all together. While a truly objective biography may still be a long way off, I wanted to convey, as vividly as possible and with plenty of his unique perspectives, the singular nature of Akira Ifukube's music—nurtured by his encounters with Russians, Chinese music, and the Ainu in Taisho-era Hokkaido—and the dynamism and vitality that could only have been born from such roots, while preserving his words from Oyamadai as much as possible. If I can preserve even a fraction of Ifukube's voice... that is the intent behind this humble book.

"Taigaku Hitsui: My Biography of Akira Ifukube"

Morihide Katayama

Shinchosha

368 pages, 2,970 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.