Diminutive actor with a high-pitched voice, a favorite of both Akira Kurosawa and Ishiro Honda. He originally worked in a department store, and switched to acting when the store was destroyed in a fire. He joined Toho in 1954 and remained with the studio for the rest of his life and career.

He’s best known as the corrupt bailiff in Yojimbo (1961), as the fisherman who unwittingly rescued a princess in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), and as the mountaineer stumbling across alien technology in Destroy All Monsters (1968). His final film appearance was as Mafune’s mute butler in Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975).