R.I.P. Akira Nakao, 1942-2024

[Benjamin Haines]

Sadly, it has just been reported that actor Akira Nakao passed away last Thursday at age 81.

https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2024052200553/japanese-actor-akira-nakao-dies-at-81.html

Nakao made such a strong impression in his role as Commander Aso in the last three Heisei Godzilla movies. His character was pretty much the face of G-Force and Nakao did a terrific job of conveying Aso's eagerness to thwart Godzilla and his exasperation with each new monstrous threat that appeared. He also brought gravitas to the role of Prime Minister Igarashi in both of the Kiryu flicks, and he had a memorable cameo as the original Gotengo captain in the prologue of Final Wars. He made all of those movies more fun.

R.I.P. Akira Nakao

[lhb412]

This dude had such a great presence. If you boil his persona down across the six films then he's Godzilla's greatest human enemy!

Highlight for me has to be the scene between him and Yuki in Spacegodzilla; the kind of charismatic performances all too rare in the films of that era.

[Kailem]

One of the great joys of the Godzilla series for me is seeing certain actors popping up again and again across multiple films and usually multiple different roles, and he was definitely one of the stand-outs of the Heisei era especially, then later in the Millennium. He was just always cool to see in each movie he was in, and you're right that he had great presence.

So many of the great Showa stars, both in front of and behind the camera, have passed on, and it sucks that we seem to be at the point where it's starting to become more common for that to be the case with those from the Heisei era too.