[2] An English major who graduated from Waseda University in 1935, Motoyoshi Oda was accepted into the directors' program at Tokyo's P.C.L.

(Photo Chemical Laboratories, a film company later incorporated into Toho Studios).

Toho kept Oda working as a director of trivial films that had to be made in order to keep product flowing into the theaters, but which offered little time or room for artistic achievement.

Toho insisted that Oda direct as many as seven movies a year, knowing that he could be trusted to deliver them on time.

He was by all accounts a popular director with his staff, who affectionately called him "Odabutsu-san" (オダブツさん).