Tetsuya Watari, who made his screen debut in 1964 in Isamu Kosugi’s Abare Kishidō, passed away on August 10 of pneumonia at the age of 78. The actor joined the Nikkatsu studio shortly after graduating from Aoyama Gakuin University and soon became a star, appearing in such cult classics as Seijun Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter in 1966 and Toshio Masuda’s Outlaw: Gangster VIP in 1968.

After Nikkatsu began producing softcore porn in 1971, Watari left the studio and joined Ishihara Promotion, a talent agency founded by Yujiro Ishihara in 1963. In 1976, he starred in Kinji Fukasaku’s semi-factual Yakuza Graveyard, playing a rogue police investigator, for which he won a Blue Ribbon Award for Best Actor. Although he was scheduled to appear in Fukasaku’s signature gangster series, Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973-74), he had to bow out due to illness.

Watari also had a successful television career, starring in two top-rated cop shows: Seibu Keisatsu (1979-84) and Taiyo ni Hoero (1986). After the death of Ishihara in 1987, he took over as president of Ishihara Production, a position he held until 2011.

Although he battled illness throughout his career, including rectal cancer in 1991 and a heart attack in 2015, Watari remained a sought-after actor. His last theatrical film was Yamato, which tells the story of the crew of the World War II Japanese battleship Yamato, which was sunk by US carrier-borne aircraft before it could reach Okinawa.

Late in his career, Watari found success in the Yakuza video game franchise, voicing the characters Shintaro Kazama, the captain of the Dojima Family and the patriarch of the Kazama Family, subsidiaries of the Tojo Clan, and Jōji Kazama, the younger brother of Shintaro Kazama.

The games have been praised in Japan for merging innovative gameplay with cinematic storytelling and character development. A remake of Yakuza, titled Yakuza: Kiwami, was released on January 21, 2016, for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, while Yakuza Kiwami 2, a remake of Yakuza 2 was released for PlayStation 4 on December 7, 2017. The Xbox One version of the game was just released on July 30, 2020.

Source: Variety

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