Sadamasa Arikawa

Biography

Sadamasa Arikawa (有川 貞昌, Arikawa Sadamasa, June 17, 1925 - September 22, 2005), also known as Teisho Arikawa, was a Japanese special effects director and cinematographer. Arikawa's first film was Daiei's "The Invisible Man Appears" (1949), and he was also the primary cinematographer for the special effects sequences in Toho's tokusatsu films from "Godzilla" (1954) to "The War of the Gargantuas" (1966). A student of original Godzilla special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, Arikawa was promoted to director of special effects for Toho's Godzilla series after Tsuburaya stepped down due to health issues and work with his own company, Tsuburaya Productions, in 1966. Arikawa would serve as special effects director for the Godzilla films "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep" (1966), "Son of Godzilla" (1967), and "Destroy all Monsters" (1968), as well as several episodes of Tsuburaya Productions' television output, including "Ultra Q" (1966), "Ultraman" (1966-1967), and "Ultraseven" (1967-1968). Following his final directorial assignment for Toho with "Space Amoeba" in 1970, Arikawa would leave the company due to the death of Eiji Tsuburaya and the dissolution of Toho's in-house special effects department, and was later employed as director of special effects (above other former Toho staff) on the Shaw Brothers monster film "The Mighty Peking Man" (1977). His final film as director of special effects and final work overall was Taiwanese-Japanese co-production "The Phoenix" (1978). Sadamasa Arikawa passed away due to lung cancer on September 22, 2005, at the age of 80.