Yōzō Tanaka

Date of birth

17 May 1939

88 years ago at Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan

Also Known As

具流八郎
Hachiro Guryu

Yōzō Tanaka is a Japanese screenwriter. He was born in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. After joining the production department of Nichigeki Music Hall, he started writing radio scripts. While he was a student at Waseda University, he met Atsushi Yamatoya and Kaname Kawachi. Before becoming a screenwriter, Tanaka worked as a reporter, conducting a series of interviews with eccentrics in the magazine Weekly Sankei. After joining Nikkatsu, he joined a screenwriting team led by director Seijun Suzuki. Individuals in this group such as Tanaka, Yamatoya, and Chūsei Sone also contributed to various projects at Wakamatsu Productions during this period of the 1960s.

Biography

He is also a driving force behind the heyday of Nikkatsu Roman Porno, writing numerous screenplays. He continued to collaborate with fellow veterans of the aforementioned series such as Shinji Sōmai and Kichitaro Negishi.

His disciples include Haruhiko Arai and Miho Nakazono.

In 2005, he worked as an associate professor at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts.

In 2017, a book of Yōzō Tanaka's essays and other archival materials such as interviews and screenplays was published.