The events I organize with suit actors -- performers who play superheroes and villains in masks and full-body suits -- are always very lively. This is because the friends of these actors join hands for the events and come along.
The events are held between two and 30 years after a particular show has stopped being broadcast. The younger colleagues of those actors are always willing to help run the events without pay. The colleagues and actors who played the same characters -- albeit before they have transformed into masked and suited superheroes and villains -- also rush to provide support.
These people have nurtured comradeship not only because they are bound by rules typically seen at school sports clubs, but also because they have bonded strongly as performers taking on dangerous action scenes together -- scenes that would be impossible to do without mutual trust.
In April, I held an event called Ishigaki Matsuri for suit actor Hirofumi Ishigaki, who initially trained at the famous Japan Action Club (JAC; now Japan Action Enterprise).
He debuted in a tokusatsu sci-fi action work in a stage show featuring drama "Taiyo Sentai Sun Vulcan" at the Korakuen amusement park. His roles in TV tokusatsu dramas include a main role in "Choju Sentai Liveman," Fiveblue in "Chikyu Sentai Fiveman" and Kirinranger in "Gosei Sentai Dairanger." He eventually became an action director and has supervised the action scenes in "Tokuso Sentai Dekaranger," "Kamen Rider Wizard" and other dramas.
As if to underline his brilliant career, the seats reserved for guests at the venue were packed with actors who played his characters before transformation, and also his JAC colleagues of varying ages.
At the event, Ishigaki talked about his childhood days in Yamagata Prefecture, how naughty he was as a kid, and that he was a promising swimmer at junior high school.
He also recalled something surprising about his youth: Until Jan. 1, 2000, he firmly believed in the Nostradamus prophecy that the world would come to an end in 1999. "I couldn't be serious about studying because I thought the world would come to an end anyway," he said. The audience loved hearing those new stories about him.
The event's highlights were the skits and stage combat by Ishigaki and his actor colleagues. For the occasion, Ishigaki wrote scripts based on true stories about various tokusatsu drama directors.
One lovable director had an accent so thick that the people around him could not understand what he was saying, resulting in chaos; and in another, a director spent a long time shooting clouds and hermit crabs before working on action scenes. And there was also an episode in which an action director, in trying to go beyond saying to a younger colleague, "What you are thinking is 180 degrees different from the director's view," makes the hilarious, mysterious comment: "What you are thinking is 360 degrees different from the director's view."
The excellent team effort at the event seemingly points to the great chemistry between the participants. I found this very heartwarming.
At the end of the show, Ishigaki was joined by actors who had played his characters before transformation for a medley of the superheroes' declaring their names one by one. It was met with enthusiastic applause.
Although these events are small, it is a precious opportunity to learn about the reality of the tokusatsu superhero drama industry, and I'd like to continue organizing it.
Kazutoshi Yokoyama, the suit actor behind Red Racer in "Gekiso Sentai Carranger" and other characters, is set to be the guest for an event on June 14.
Suzuki is a Yomiuri Shimbun senior specialist and an expert on tokusatsu superhero films and dramas.
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