Sadly, Yahoo News Japan reports that special effects director Teruyoshi Nakano passed away on June 27 at age 86.
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/9747f51548f8f283dec418a404f2fb4d57825b34
This is a true loss for fans the world over. Nakano was involved in nearly all of Toho's sci-fi films from 1959 to 1987, working his way up from Eiji Tsuburaya's trusted 1st assistant SFX director to Tsuburaya's successor as SFX director on the Godzilla films of the 1970s and 1984. I still need to see Submersion of Japan, which seems to be one of Nakano's most renowned works.
Nakano was really generous to fans in his later years with how much he shared in interviews, convention appearances, documentaries and DVD extras about what went into creating Toho's classic fantasy films. The Matango DVD includes a 27-minute interview with him and he was also featured in the 1986 Japanese documentary Toho Unused Special Effects Complete Collection (included in Criterion's Showa set), the 2008 American documentary Bringing Godzilla Down to Size (included on Classic Media's Rodan DVD), and the crew interviews included on Media Blasters' Latitude Zero DVD.
Here's an archived transcript of David Milner's July 1994 interview with Nakano:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150123035354/http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/nakano.htm
Here's a transcript of Brett Homenick and J.D. Lees' July 2004 interview with Nakano:
https://vantagepointinterviews.com/2019/06/26/an-explosive-career-toho-sfx-director-teruyoshi-nakano-reflects-on-some-of-his-non-godzilla-films/
Here's a transcript of Brett Homenick and Mark Rainey's July 2004 interview with Nakano:
https://vantagepointinterviews.com/2019/07/18/a-look-back-on-the-godzilla-series-toho-sfx-director-teruyoshi-nakano-reflects-on-his-godzilla-film-work/
Here are both parts of SciFi Japan TV's 2012 video interview with Nakano:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLGd5Nnl_Uw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY-ayGpyyKk
Here''s SciFi Japan TV's 2014 video interview with Nakano commemorating the 30th anniversary of The Return of Godzilla.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBUBVsL6PUk
R.I.P. Teruyoshi Nakano