Toshio Masuda

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For the Japanese composer, see Toshio Masuda (composer).

Toshio Masuda (舛田利雄 Masuda Toshio born October 5, 1927) is a Japanese film director whose best known to Western audiences as the co-director of the Japanese portions of the 1970 film Tora Tora Tora.

He is primarily a live action film and television director but became involved in anime in 1974 as a co-director on the 1974 classic TV series Space Battleship Yamato. He served as co-director on all of five of the Yamato movies.

During this period, Masuda was a close working partner to director Tomoharu Katsumata. Katsumata would handle the animation direction and Masuda would handle the general direction. Together they co-directed Future War 198X, Arcadia of My Youth, and Final Yamato. In 1985, two years following the conclusion of the Yamato saga, Masuda worked once again with Yamato producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki to co-direct Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight.

Masuda's experience with live action direction lends a remarkable degree of realism to the anime productions which he directs. He eschews the traditional cartoon style exaggeration that is expected in animation. In animation, he is also one of the first directors to effect the technique of having long, silent scenes without background music, thus increasing their dramatic effect. Typically, the silence is supplemented by an ambient sound effect in the background. He effectively puts this to great use in the Yamato movies. Possibly the most memorable examples demonstrating Masuda's directoral style is the beginning of Arrivederci Yamato (aka Farewell Space Battleship Yamato in the Name of Love) where after the opening narration, there is almost two minutes of complete silence. Most of this scene seems like a static shot of deep space, however, if one looks closely after about 20 seconds, one can see in the background what looks like a very tiny shooting star (the approaching Comet) appear and vanish a few times. Also, if you listen carefully, there is a barely audible pulsating sound in the background. On three of the five Yamato movies, the closing credits ran in silence, the only sound being the Yamato eerie signature engine's hum.

This technique is not often seen in western animation where it is felt that it slows the pace of the story or makes the scene more bland. In many westernized anime productions, silent scenes are often filled in with sound effects, additional dialogue or music by the dubbing staff.

One of Toshio Masuda's most recognizable trademarks is his extreme use of onscreen captions. Traditionally, captions, are only used to note changes of location in a story, and names of characters are given in dialogue. Masuda has used captions to give the name of major characters when they first appear. This is useful in ensemble cast stories such as the war drama Tora Tora Tora where there are dozens of characters to keep track of. He also likes to caption inanimate objects such as military hardware and spaceships. This is seen to a large extent in the Yamato anime.

In recent years, Masuda has returned to live action direction with the historical drama television series Shinsengumi keppuhroku.