of the Sea of Japan: Go to Sea (1983). Masuda became involved in animated films when producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki decided to make his own product. Nishizaki wanted to meld a live action influence into an anime series and was a fan of Nikkatsu Action, including Masuda's films with Yujiro Ishihara. He invited Masuda to direct on Leiji Matsumoto's science fiction television and film series Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers). Between 1977 and 1983, Masuda directed or co-directed all five Yamato films. The original series has been credited as Japan's first animated television space opera. The eponymous first film gained popularity when it played against Star Wars (1977) in Japanese theatres and it has been cited as the beginning of the golden age of anime. He also made room for more intimate subject matter such as his High Teen Boogie (1982), in which a teenage biker falls in love with a straight-laced girl. The corporate drama Company Funeral (1989) was selected for the Kinema Junpo magazine's annual Best Ten list. Masuda's most recent feature film was the crime thriller Heavenly Sin (1992). It starred Sayuri Yoshinaga as a detective in near-future Tokyo and Omar Sharif as a Chinese Triad boss. Sharif replaced Yūsaku Matsuda who had died of cancer. The film was a critical and commercial failure. Masuda continues to direct and write for television. Filmmaking As an assistant director and screenwriter at both Shintoho and Nikkatsu Studios, Toshio Masuda apprenticed under a number of directors. He has said Mikio Naruse had the greatest impact on him. He credited Kon Ichikawa with teaching him how to use the camera. His primary mentor at Nikkatsu was Umetsugu Inoue from whom he learned the value of linking together large setpieces to draw in audiences. Masuda was more inclined toward drama than his mentor and created the setpieces but then incorporated character-based drama into his work. Masude quickly climbed the Nikkatsu ranks to become a top director. The financial success of his star-studded action films, beginning with Yujiro Ishihara in Rusty Knife, ensured that studio heads would continue to assign him top stars and action films. He continued to write for his own films but mostly due to time constraints as he would have preferred to hire other writers, which did after he left the studio. The films were made quickly and largely without studio supervision. In one example, Ishihara began drawing huge