On May 22, the Japanese press announced that veteran actor Akira Nakao passed away on the 16th that same month, age 81. (The cause of death, per the newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun, was heart failure.)¹ Having grown up at a time when the Heisei Godzilla movies were steadily migrating to the American market and their Millennium counterparts underwent production in Japan, I spent many an hour watching movies featuring military officials or bureaucrats enacted by this distinctive-looking actor, who always stood out with his gravitas, intensity, and expressive eyes.

In particular, I remember him in Takao Okawara’s Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II (1993) as Takaki Aso, a military commander determined to defeat Godzilla. Nakao makes his series debut in the picture’s beginning: marching into a hangar and gloating over the creation of a robotic Godzilla. When the action progresses, he gleefully watches MechaGodzilla in battle, only to bark his frustration when Godzilla prevails. In what might be the picture’s finest dramatic moment, a room of stunned personnel silently react after Godzilla destroys his robotic doppelganger; director Okawara cuts to a high-angle close-up as Aso sinks quietly into his chair. No dialogue is necessary; Nakao’s expression and movements speak volumes.

Nakao reprised the character in Kensho Yamashita’s Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994), wherein Aso’s given a shade of dimension: presented as the former commander of a pilot who’s similarly driven by hatred for Godzilla. And in Okawara’s Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995), the gruff military leader’s forced to abandon attacks against the monster and watches solemnly when Godzilla expires in a nuclear meltdown. Nakao would play another authority figure tasked with saving Japan in Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla (2002) and Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003)—both directed by Masaaki Tezuka. This time, as the prime minister, he exchanged aggression for a calm, contemplative demeanor, and was faced with the moral dilemma of creating a biotechnical weapon. And in Ryuhei Kitamura’s Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), Nakao achieved victory over Godzilla—as the captain of the aerial battleship Gotengo, which successfully imprisons the monster in a glacier. These six films arguably remain the works for which this actor is best known internationally. And yet, they merely comprise part of a long, extensive movie career—more than eighty features spanning such genres as horror, mystery, and satire.

Akira Nakao came to the arts early in life. Born in Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture on August 11, 1942, he became enamored initially with painting, and at eighteen had an oil-on-canvas displayed at the Chiba Prefecture Art Exhibition. Hoping to make a living from his passion, he enrolled in Musashino Art University’s Oil Painting Department in 1961.² While in school, he nurtured an interest in acting, resulting in an application to the “New Face” acting program at Nikkatsu and his withdrawal from the university in 1963.³ Following a year studying in France and an apprenticeship at Mingei Theater Group,⁴ Nakao made his Nikkatsu film debut in Ko Nakahira’s Only on Mondays (1964).

In 1970—the year he quit Nikkatsu to freelance—Nakao starred in his first Toho project: as the lead in Michio Yamamoto’s Vampire Doll (1970). Predominately focused on a young couple attempting to solve the mysterious underpinnings of a family in a western-style house, the film planted Nakao amid enormous gothic sets and climaxed with him witnessing a vampire girl’s gruesome vengeance on her rapist father. The actor took on another mystery-centric role in Yoichi Takabayashi’s Death at an Old Mansion (1975) as Seishi Yokomizo’s beloved detective Kosuke Kindaichi. Once again, there were creepy houses, tormented families, and a blood-soaked denouement.

Nakao married actress Shino Ikenami in 1978 and returned to painting as his movie career continued into the subsequent decade. He won numerous French prizes for his oil works and in 1988 added pottery to his artistic hobbies. Painting and ceramics slowed as he became increasingly busy with film and television work in the ‘90s.⁵ Among his most memorable jobs was Juzo Itami’s Minbo (1992), a mockery of how the yakuza came to adopt non-violent scams in extorting victims. In this comedy—rife with Itami’s signature for-the-jugular satire—Nakao makes his entrance planting a cockroach inside a hotel restaurant meal and threatening legal action unless his monetary demands are met. The actor delivers a bullseye, larger-than-life performance as the character launches into increasingly preposterous antics: at one point he rides in a nationalist sound truck and later leads his thugs in chasing the hotel manager (Akira Takarada). Nakao’s rugged looks and persona made him ideal for other yakuza roles, e.g. Takeshi Kitano’s Outrage Beyond (2012).

Akira Nakao worked steadily until near the end of his life (his final job was in a 2023 episode in the TV sports drama Sanctuary),⁶ all the while clinging to his love for handcrafted arts. (Besides creating his own paintings, he collected the art of Kokuta Suda and owned a piece by the Impressionist Pierre Auguste Renoir. He likewise managed a Kyoto-based ceramics studio as well as ateliers in Chiba Prefecture and in Okinawa.) In promoting a talk featuring Nakao and his wife, the Nihonbashi/Kyobashi Art and Antiques Festival described Nakao as a man with “tried-and-tested acting ability” and “fans from all generations—from the young to the elderly.”⁷ And thanks to his recurring appearances in the internationally beloved Godzilla series, foreigners have been able to sample the gravitas that made him a beloved actor in his country.

1. “Akira Nakao, Japanese Actor, Dies at 81.” The Japan News 22 May 2024. Accessed 27 May 2024
2. “Talk Session.” Tokyo Art & Antiques: The Nihonbashi/Kobyashi Art and Antiques Festival. Accessed 27 May 2024
3. “Japanese Actor Akira Nakao Dies at 81.” Nippon 22 May 2024. Accessed 27 May 2024
4. “Talk Session.”
5. Ibid
6. Carter, Justin. “Obituary: Judgement actor Akira Nakao passed away at age 81.” Game Developer 22 May 2024. Accessed 27 May 2024
7. “Talk Session.”