One future film buff was robbed of the great actor too soon.

The Japanese entertainment world was saddened on 21 February by the passing of Ren Osugi at the age of 66 from heart failure. As one of Japan’s greatest character actors, he was never a leading man but lent his supporting talents to many great films of the past such as Cure, Audition, Hana-bi, and Uzumaki to name just a few.

▼ Here’s Osugi showing off his musical talents too, playing guitar for Takeshi Kitano, whom he acted alongside in many movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BveT6t4uojw

Osugi’s ability to transform himself and play a range of roles from wormy bureaucrat to bad-ass yakuza was unrivaled, right up to one of his final parts as Prime Minister Okochi in Shin Godzilla (Godzilla Resurgence).

It was this role that inspired the young son of art teacher and Twitter user Okoshi (@okoshi2017) to draw this moving piece.

If I may take the liberty of interpreting it, in this work we see Godzilla evolving from his sea-dwelling form into its final city-roaming and laser-shooting form just so that he could bring flowers to the grave of Ren Osugi. However, as usual, Godzilla can’t get anything done without having to deal with buzzing helicopters around him. This one in particular appears about to hit a turbo boost.

According to Okoshi, the boy overheard his mother watching the news on TV which announced the passing of Osugi and mentioned that he “appeared in Shin Godzilla.” Every night he draws little doodles before going to bed, but this evening he decided to send Godzilla on one more sentimental rampage.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree either, and Godzilla’s cutesy proportions were lifted straight from the artist’s father’s own style. Here’s Okoshi’s rendition of some of history’s greatest guitarists with the same big heads and small arms. Dare I say, Slash is looking downright cuddly.


Wherever Ren Osugi may be now, hopefully he’ll see and get a kick out of the fact that he is still helping to inspire Japan’s next generation of artists. We’ll definitely need some more to fill the huge gap in talent left by his untimely death.

Source, featured image: Twitter/@okoshi2017