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Shusuke Kaneko (金子 修介,   Kaneko Shūsuke?) is a Japanese Filmmaker Kaneko got his start in the film industry working for the Nikkatsu Corporation in the 1980s, during which time he also worked as a writer for popular anime series such as Urusei Yatsura and Creamy Mami. By the end of the decade, Kaneko had become a freelance director working for multiple studios and had cemented himself as one of Japan's up-and-coming directors. When Daiei chose to revive the Gamera franchise to commemorate its 30th anniversary, it selected Kaneko as the director for the new film. Working with acclaimed anime writer Kazunori Ito and revolutionary special effects director Shinji Higuchi, Kaneko directed 1995's Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, a film which attracted unprecedented critical acclaim for a kaiju film. Kaneko was honoured with the Director's Award at the 17th Yokohama Film Festival, while the film itself won numerous awards throughout Japan. Kaneko and his staff returned to direct two follow-ups, Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion in 1996 and Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris in 1999, both of which are highly regarded by genre fans to this day. Toho, who had distributed the trilogy in theatres, took notice of Kaneko's work and selected him to direct the 25th Godzilla film. Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack ended up being the most successful Godzilla film of the Millennium series. Kaneko followed this by directing several episodes of two shows in Tsuburaya Productions' Ultra Series from 2005 to 2006, making him the only man to have directed entries in all three major kaiju franchises.


Life and career[]

Shusuke Kaneko was born in Tokyo on June 8, 1955. According to the biography on his official website, Kaneko was interested in science fiction, particularly Godzilla and Gamera films, from a young age. He became involved in amateur film making in his teen years but majored in education when he attended Tokyo Gakugei University. After graduation, he found a job at the major Japanese movie studio Nikkatsu. By 1982 he was a screenwriter and assistant director for Nikkatsu's line of Roman porno films. He made his debut as a director with Nikkatsu in February 1984 with Kōichirō Uno's Wet and Swinging, part of a long-running Nikkatsu series based on the works of erotic novelist Kōichirō Uno. That work along with two other Roman porno films he directed for Nikkatsu that year, OL Yurizoku 19-sai (OL百合族・19才) and Eve-chan-no hime (イヴちゃんの姫), won him the Best New Director award at the 6th Yokohama Film Festival. The next year, his manga-based April 1985 movie for Nikkatsu, Minna Agechau, took the award as the 9th Best Film of the year at the 7th Yokohama Film Festival. In July 1986, still at Nikkatsu, he directed Mischievous Lolita: Attacking the Virgin From Behind (いたずらロリータ 後からバージン, Itazura Lolita: Ushirokara virgin), which despite its strange title, was a fantasy about a sex-doll coming to life as a woman. Kaneko's final film for Nikkatsu was the appropriately named Last Cabaret, the second to last of the studio's Roman porno series. The film, released in April 1988, about a cabaret forced to close has been taken as a metaphor for the demise of the studio itself.

The year 1988 marked a watershed in Kaneko's career as a director. At the 10th Yokohama Film Festival, he was given the Best Director award for his two films of 1988, the Roman porno Last Cabaret for Nikkatsu and Summer Vacation 1999, a mainstream film for the Shochiku studio. Nikkatsu ceased their Roman porno film line that year and filed for bankruptcy a few years later and Kaneko moved full-time into mainstream film.

Selected filmography[]

Director[]

Writer[]

References[]

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