Ishirō Honda

Early life

Honda was the youngest of five kids, born to Hokan and Miyo. His dad ran the Honda Ryuden-in temple. The name Ishirō, he explained, came from three parts: "I" for inoshishi, the boar of his birth year; "shi" for four, his rank among the sons; and "ro" for a boy's name—so it meant the fourth son born in the year of the boar. He had three brothers, Takamoto, Ryokichi, and Ryuzo, plus a sister named Tomi who died young.

Both his father and grandfather were Buddhist monks at Churen-ji on Mount Yudono, where the family lived on temple land. They grew rice, potatoes, daikon, and carrots, and made miso and soy sauce. A brother ran a silk moth farm for extra income, and Hokan sold devotions in summer. While his brothers got religious lessons at sixteen, Honda focused on science, spurred by Takamoto, a military doctor who mailed him science magazines.

In 1921, when Honda was ten, his father became abbot at Io-ji in Tokyo, so they moved to Takaido in Suginami. Though a star student back home, his marks slipped in Tokyo; he had trouble with equations in chemistry, biology, and algebra. After his father switched temples, Honda went to Tachibana Elementary in Kawasaki and then Kogyokusha Junior High, where he practiced kendo, archery, and swimming until tearing his Achilles tendon.

Career

Honda returned to Toho as an assistant director. In 1946 he worked on Motoyoshi Oda's Eleven Girl Students and Kunio Watanabe's Declaration of Love. In 1947 he worked on 24 Hours in an Underground Market (jointly directed by Tadashi Imai, Hideo Sekigawa, and Kiyoshi Kusuda) and The New Age of Fools Parts One and Two, directed by Kajirō Yamamoto. During a labor dispute at Toho, many employees formed Shintoho; Kunio Watanabe tried to persuade Honda to join, promising quicker promotion to director, but Honda stayed neutral at Toho.

He worked on films produced by Film Arts Associates Productions, including Kajirō Yamamoto's Child of the Wind (on location in Noto Peninsula from September to October 1948) and Flirtation in Spring (January to March 1949). Before becoming a feature director, Honda directed documentaries for Toho's Educational Films Division, which sometimes used documentaries as tests for assistant directors. His directorial debut was Ise-Shima, a twenty-minute highlight reel of Ise-Shima's cultural attractions commissioned to boost tourism.

It covered the Ise Grand Shrine, local people, the economy, and pearl farms, and was the first Japanese film to use underwater photography successfully. Honda wanted a small submarine-like craft but budget and safety concerns led to professional divers assisting; a camera technician colleague built a waterproof housing for a 35-millimeter camera. Completed in July 1949, the documentary was a triumph for Toho and sold to multiple European territories. It resurfaced on Japanese cable television in 2003.

Style

Though known for tokusatsu films, Honda also directed documentaries, melodramas, romance, musical, and biographical films. Unlike Akira Kurosawa, who often used recurring themes and photographic devices and sometimes went over time and budget, Honda almost always finished projects on time and budget; Godzilla (1954) was one such project. Godzilla assistant director Kōji Kajita said that over 17 films together, Honda 'had his own style, this way of thinking': he never got mad, did not rush, expressed his thoughts, made clear when something differed from what he wanted, and corrected things quietly.

This earned him the nickname 'Honda the Amylase'. Authors, cast, and crew have called his style 'well-established'. Special effects director Teruyoshi Nakano noted that in Honda's 'running crowd' sequences, events such as firefighters being dispatched, police directing traffic, and people carrying furoshiki while running away were 'unrealistic' but important for bringing out everydayness. Actor Yoshio Tsuchiya reported that Kurosawa said if he directed a scene with police officers, he would make even the police flee first.

Honda said the policemen in his films do not run away because of his war experience as an officer. Hiroshi Koizumi said that during Mothra, Honda focused on a scene where a civilian helped a baby on a bridge.

Legacy

Honda's impact on cinema is widely acknowledged. Steve Ryfle described his influence as "undeniable," noting he helped shape the modern disaster movie and set a pattern for later blockbusters. Quentin Tarantino named Honda his favorite science-fiction director in 2007. The War of the Gargantuas has been cited as an influence by Tarantino, Brad Pitt, Guillermo del Toro, and Tim Burton. John Carpenter credited Godzilla as an inspiration and called Honda "one of my personal cinematic gods." Martin Scorsese also named Honda as an influence. In the TV episode "Tagumo Attacks!!!," a character tells Honda to forget an octopus creature, saying lizards are king, leading Honda to create Godzilla. The 2013 film Pacific Rim included dedications to both Honda and Ray Harryhausen. Takashi Yamazaki's 2023 film Godzilla Minus One paid homage to Honda's work.