MIZUKI, Yoko

水木洋子

August 25, 1910 - April 8, 2002

playwright, radio dramatist, screenwriter (TV & film) 1935-2002

• born Tomiko Takagi (高木富子) in Tokyo
• first wife of director Senkichi Taniguchi (谷口千吉, 1912-2007). At the time, Taniguchi was an assistant director at Toho. They married in a Shinto ceremony in December 1938. They divorced by mutual consent on the 4th April 1939.
• attended a Tokyo prefectural girl's school which today is known as Tokyo Metropolitan Hakuo Senior High School - Junior High School
• a graduate of the Bunka Gakuin
• worked with the Tokyo Sayoku Gekijou (Left-Wing Theater Film Unit, Tokyo)
• on January 9, 1934, when she was just 23, her father passed away and Mizuki began writing in order to help support her mother and younger sister Ayako financially
• she began by writing stage plays and during the war wrote radio dramas
• her 30-year-old sister Ayako died on January 15, 1944
• after the war, she was encouraged by the screenwriter Toshio Yasumi, who had been her Russian teacher, to write screenplays
• Mizuki is most famous for her work for Tadashi Imai and Mikio Naruse - not to mention Masaki Kobayashi's Cannes Special Jury Prize winning film Kwaidan (1964). She received much acclaim for her work during her lifetime
• Mizuki was particularly skilled at writing films from a female perspective and she also adapted many literary classics
• she lived with her mother until her mother passed away on January 11, 1983. After her mother's death her writing decreased
• after her death at the age of 91, all of her post -1946 property was donated to Ichikawa City in Chiba Prefecture. Her former home there is open to the public on the 4th weekend of every month. In 2004 she was named an honorary citizen of Ichikawa City.

Awards:

• 1960 won the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Screenplay for Kiku and Isamu (Tadashi Imai, 1959)
• 1960 won the Mainichi Film Concours for Best Screenplay for Kiku and Isamu (Tadashi Imai, 1959)
• 1962 won the Kinema Junpo Award for Best Screeplay for Arega minato no hi da (Tadashi Imai, 1961) and The Age of Marriage (Kozaburo Yoshimura, 1961)
• 1965 won the Kinema Junpo Award for Best Screenplay for Sweet Sweat (Shiro Toyoda, 1964) and Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)
• 1980 won the Purple Ribbon for her contributions to the arts

Sources:

• Ichikawa City tribute page (JP)
• Wikipedia (JP)
• complete list of stage plays by Mizuki, 1935-2002 (JP)
• complete list of radio plays by Mizuki, 1937-1972 (JP)
• complete list of television scripts by Mizuki, 1957-1990 (JP)