Sayonara Nihei Masanori

[szmigiel]

Nihei Masanori aka Masaya Nihei aka Ito in Gorath and Mitsuhiro Ide in Ultraman.

He might not of been in any Godzilla films, but was a big part of early Tsuburaya Productions, and had plenty of cameos in later shows and movies.

[Terasawa]

His filmography at Wikipedia is incomplete, but as best as I can tell, his Toho genre credits were Mothra, The Last War, Gorath, Samurai Pirate, Siege of Fort Bismarck, A Keg of Gunpowder, and Retreat from Kiska. And although he didn't turn up in any Godzilla films, he did have roles in films from two of the other huge Toho series of the '60s, Young Guy (two films) and the Crazy Cats (eight, including two with substantial special effects). Plus several of the unconnected underworld/yakuza films of the early '60s, and...

Suffice to say, it was a good career. RIP

[CrimsonBloodX]

Wow, he was also in Mothra, Gorath and even Ultra Q. I did not know that. He will be missed.

[MaxRebo320]

Man, this bums me out to no end. While Hayata/Ultraman was the hero we were all meant to look up to, Ide truly was the backbone of the show. His Toho credits of course can't go unnoticed either. Most were minor, but almost always memorable.

His filmography at Wikipedia is incomplete, but as best as I can tell, his Toho genre credits were Mothra, The Last War, Gorath, Samurai Pirate, Siege of Fort Bismarck, A Keg of Gunpowder, and Retreat from Kiska.

He has fairly big roles in Oh, Bomb! and Age of Assassins/Epoch of Murder Madness, both from Kihachi Okamoto (Both of which are at home with Toho's "genre" offerings IMO, though that in itself is a pretty vague term). Pretty confident he was an extra in Sanjuro, too, albeit I can't find anywhere that confirms or denies this is him.