Shin'ichi Sekizawa

Shinichi Sekizawa was born in Kyoto, Japan on June 2, 1921. He began his cinema career in 1939, working on an animated movie in Kyoto. He was called into the service in 1941 and returned to Japan in 1946. In 1948, he was hired at Beehive Productions, where he worked as an assistant director and a screenwriter. In 1953, Sekizawa made his debut as a screenplay writer for the film "Profile of the City." His first science fiction film was Shin Toho's Sora tobu enban: Kyôfu no shûgeki (1956) ("Fearful Attack of the Flying Saucer"), a film on which he served as both writer and director. He came to Toho Studios in 1958, and wrote the screenplay for Varan (1958) ("Giant Monster Baran"). He formed the studio's science fiction team of writers with writer Takeshi Kimura shortly thereafter. The Planning Department at Toho collected story ideas from all over the studio and passed them onto the writers for development. According to director Ishiro Honda, Sekizawa was given the whimsical or fun stories to write, while the more serious or political stories went to Kimura. Sekizawa also did many song lyrics, which were original songs used in some of the Godzilla films of the 1970s. In addition, Sekizawa was a devoted enthusiast of steam locomotives.