Sadao Iizuka (Visual Effects)

Sadao Iizuka (Īzuka Sadao, December 26, 1934 - March 24, 2023) was a prolific Japanese special effects artist and optical artist, most well-known for animating the rays and energy blasts of many Tokusatsu creations, like Godzilla's Atomic Breath and Ultraman's Spacium Beam. His first film was "Godzilla" (1954), where he worked under special effects art director, Akira Watanabe. He had similar roles in "Godzilla Raids Again" (1955), "Half Human" (1955), and "Rodan" (1956), before beginning his long career as an optical artist with "The Mysterians" (1957) under special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya. Throughout the 1960's, he would create optical effects and animation for some of Toho's greatest special effects films, like "King Kong vs. Godzilla" (1962) and "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster" (1964), as well as the newly formed Tsuburaya Productions' Tokusatsu television series like "Ultra Q" (TV 1966-1967) and "Ultraman" (TV 1966-1967). In 1972, after nearly two decades of being...Read More