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The landscape of science fiction films was relatively dominated by America in the early 1950’s. More was to change however in 1954 with the introduction of Gojira. This single film drastically changed the scene and gave Japan a place in the competition. However, Japan had previously also released a slightly more underground science fiction film before that, which was called Tômei ningen arawaru or ‘The Invisible Man Appears’. It was created to be distributed by the Daiichi movie studio and the effects of invisibility were created by Eiji Tsuburaya, who later moved to Toho Studios and was a crucial part of bringing Godzilla to life. In 1954, Toho decided to make their own version of the film and named it Tômei ningen, later released as The Invisible Avenger in the US. In this film, The Father of ‘Tokusatsu’ Eiji Tsuburaya was hired to do effects work.
Tômei ningen arawarlu was a lot more eclectic due to its source inspiration. The book had a lot more freedom compared her previous adaptations, which were created in order to supplement H.G Wells’ The Invisible Man. The novel had earned so much attention that Tômei, the first working scientist had secretly worked on, was a crime drama that has no correlation to the novels, further emphasizing the extreme contrast with the rest of the film.
Likewise, Toho’s version is written by Shigeaki Hidaka upon a story by Kei Beppu and has no relationship whatsoever to the work of Wells while also managing to evade inspiration of the American films so much story-wise.
In the beginning of the film, a car crashes into something nonexistent in the heart of Tokyo. During the investigation of the car crash, an invisible middle aged gentleman who goes by the name of Haruo Nakajima, reveals himself. He then dies under the car. The police are able to retrieve a letter from Nakajima’s pocket where he claims that he tried to commit suicide and there was one other individual like him that lived in the city, but remained invisible.
Undoubtedly, this news causes a commotion for the residents of Tokyo, which in turn causes a dividend of criminals referring to themselves as ‘invisible men’ to take advantage of the situation and begin robbing banks as well as race-tracks with bandages masking their entire head. They are however, organized head under a mob boss named, Yajima (Minoru Takada), he happens to also own the Black Ships nightclub where Yajima does his drug dealings. His primary associate, Ken (Kenjirô Uemura) attempts to force the clubs singer, Michiyo (Miki Sanjô) to work him as a drug mule, but to no avail, which causes him to become aggressive towards her in the dressing room until he is stopped by the clown Takamitsu Nanjô (Seizaburô Kawazu).
Nanjô is a clown who advertises the club while ‘sign walking,’ and is a neighbor to Michiyo. This nice, easily overlooked clown is, guess what, also, the invisible man, hiding himself under his clown make-up. His best friend in the whole wide world is a blind little girl named Mariko (Keiko Kondo), who lives with her old grandfather (Kamatari Fujiwara) who works as a nightwatchman.
Newspaper reporter Komatsu (Yoshio Tsuchiya) links the murders to the club, and begins to suspect the clown is the invisible man. He breaks into Nanjô’s nuit and lays in wait for him to come back from work. When Nanjô does get home, he comes across an emotionally distraught Mariko who reveals to him that the rival syndicate must have killed her grandfather. Following this, in a fit of fury, Nanjô bolts towards his room and begins to disrobe himself. But he is caught off guard by Komatsu. Nanjô then begins narrating his story to Komatsu. At the end of the First World War, the Japanese government managed to succeed in its top secret military research on invisibility, attempting to build super soldiers which would change the outcome of the war in Japan’s favor. But as everyone knows, the war ended with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and the government discarded the invisibility program. The invisibility doctors who survived the catastrophe were literally abandoned by the government and shunned by the populace. Nanjô has chosen to work as a clown since there is no other profession that allows him to wear makeup without drawing attention to himself. Feeling sorry for Nanjô, Komatsu decides to fight the criminal organization and clear the invisible man’s name while avenging Mariko’s death.
In the Fall of ’54, Gojira was all set to be released to the public, which pushed Toho to want to quickly produce another special effects movie, setting the premiere date on December 29, which meant that Tômei ningen would also be set as a new years eve movie. Toho’s workhorse, Shigeaki Hidaka, mixed in some of Kei Beppu’s original concepts to form a first draft of a script. The director was chosen from within the studio; young Motoyoshi Oda was picked because, like Ishiro Honda, the director of Gojira, and the superstar Akira Kurosawa, he was from Oda’s generation. Oda’s rise through the Toho ranks happened rather rapidly considering a number of the studio’s directors were active in military duty. Oda became known as one of the speediest and most trusted directors in the industry; so much so that he produced an average of 7 movies a year.
In 1954, Oda did make a film named Yurei otoko, or Ghost Man, which had a killer who wraps bandages around his head to conceal his identity. It is not a sci-fi, nor a supernatural film but it does somewhat allude to the Invisible Man. Movie is based on a widely read mystery novel series. Tômei ningen furthermore possesses vivid elements of film noir, being more influenced by American crime movies rather than horror or sci-fi flicks. The majority of the film takes place inside of a nightclub and features shifty looking men dressed in suits, trench coats, and fedoras. It is clear the budget is very low, and the film itself is a little over an hour long, with ten minutes devoted seemingly for accent jazz performances in the club.
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