Toshiaki Toyoda

is a Japanese film director and screenwriter based in Komae, Tokyo. He is best known for his feature films Blue Spring, 9 Souls (2003) and Hanging Garden (2005), which, among others, have garnered him an international cult following.

Early life Toshiaki Toyoda was born in Osaka Prefecture. As a child he was a prodigy in the game of shogi. He attended the Japan Shogi Association's apprenticeship (Shōreikai) from age 9 with the aim of eventually becoming a professional player. He began working with producer Genjirō Arato and director Junji Sakamoto, assisting the latter on the shogi-related film Ōte (1991), for which he helped pen the script. The 1990s marked a fascination with juvenile criminals and violence in Japan. Films such as 2000's Battle Royale, 2001's Ichi the Killer and Suicide Club are examples of that and have been put into a bracket with Pornostar. 2001 also saw the release of Unchain (アンチェイン), a documentary following a failed professional boxer named Kaji and his friends. Kaji had to give up boxing because of nerve damage and struggles to hold a job. As of 2017, Toyoda is still in touch with Kaji and his friends.

In 2003 Toyoda's third feature film Nine Souls (ナイン・ソウルズ), the story of nine prison inmates breaking out of jail and searching for a hidden treasure, released to the public. Even after the group of men (including Ryuhei Matsuda, Jun Kunimura and Yoshio Harada among others) escape they are faced with a bleak reality: Being guilty in the eyes of society makes the whole world their prison. In a 2012 interview Toyoda has said that the movie was inspired by an American case of prison escape a few years prior to the film's release. He has since described his subsequent treatment as being blacklisted from the Japanese film industry. Toyoda shared in a 2012 interview that his alienation from society even went so far that he moved to a cabin in the forest where he came up with the outline of Monsters Club (モンスターズクラブ), his second feature after the arrest. The film is heavily inspired by the life of American terrorist Ted Kaczynski and explores a man's (Eita Nagayama) isolation, political thoughts (written down in a manifesto) and finally his supernatural encounter with a spiritual entity in the woods. While the film has been read as a critique of new religious movements, Toyoda later said in an interview that "faith has provided [him] with plentiful of insight regarding questions of [death]." He was later let go. In an interview several months after the incident Toyoda tells that the police raided his home for illegal drugs, and found an antique World War II gun from his grandparents which was no longer working. Seppuku Pistols later even toured the country on the occasion of Wolf's Callings premiere. The film includes original music from Japanese bands Seppuku Pistols, GEZAN and Mars89. Toyoda described the casting process as "gathering a bunch of friends." As of April 2025 the latest arrangement is Mt. Resurrection Wolf used by Blake Simmons of Eastern Kicks. The three films so far, as well as the four entries that would follow, are connected by a theme of human ignorance, especially on repeating the mistakes of the past. They are commonly read as transparent critique on the Japanese government. Toyoda's eleventh feature film 'Transcending Dimensions (次元を超える) released in 2025, and is, according to Toyoda, the seventh entry into the informal Resurrection/Wolf Mountain series. Multiple journalists have commented on the similarities and recurring imagery from the preceding Wolf Mountain films.

Filmography Feature films

Music videos "Kimi to Iu Hana" (Asian Kung-Fu Generation) "Siren" (Asian Kung-Fu Generation) "Ato 10 Byō de"(Art-School) "Lost in the Air" (Art-School) "Hakkō" (Rosso) "Sangatsu" (Does)