His best known film in the West is the blockbuster American-Japanese co-production Tora! Tora! Tora!, but his contributions somewhat are overshadowed by co-directors Richard Fleischer and Kinji Fukasaku—the latter of which later achieved international cult notoriety for his own yakuza films—despite having been responsible for the lion's share of the Japanese segments of the film. Masuda's animated works, especially the Space Battleship Yamato series, are remembered by anime fans worldwide. The first Yamato film originally reached overseas audiences in 1978, including theatrical screenings in England and American television. The series has since expanded into a full blown franchise. A comprehensive, Japanese language book detailing Masuda's career was released in 2007, titled Masuda Toshio: The Complete Action Films of Giant Star Toshio Masuda ( Eiga kantoku Masuda Toshio: akushon eiga no kyosei Masuda Toshio no subete). It includes an extensive interview with Masuda, approximately 500 pictures, poster images of his 52 Nikkatsu films and notes on all 82 feature films. Widely neglected by Western critics, writer Mark Schilling dedicated a section of his 2007 book No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema to Masuda, predominately focusing on said cinema. Musician and writer Chris D. has expressed an interest in doing likewise. No Borders, No Limits is an expanded edition of the version that accompanied the Nikkatsu Action Cinema retrospective Schilling programmed for the Far East Film Festival. Abridged versions of the retrospective have appeared in the United States. The Criterion Collection has optioned a number of films from the retrospective to be made available for the first time in the North American home video market. Awards At the 1981 Japanese Academy Awards, Toshio Masuda was nominated for Best Director for his film The Battle of Port Arthur. He won Kinema Junpo's Readers' Choice Award for Best Film for the same film. In 1990, he was again nominated for Best Director at the Japanese Academy Awards for Company Funeral. He won in the same category at the Blue Ribbon Awards and the Mainichi Film Awards. Filmography Between 1958 and 1992, Toshio Masuda directed 82 feature films, 52 of those over the course of his decade with the Nikkatsu Company. He developed a reputation as a "hitmaker" and 16 of his films breached the top ten list for domestic Japanese box-office revenues. Only one other director has superseded that record. The following is a list of the 16 films. References Further reading Toshio