Kinuyo Tanaka
Kobayashi left Nagano for Tokyo, where he studied theater. He became involved with butoh, worked as a set designer, and wrote theatrical criticism while in university. In 1954 he joined Shintoho studios as an assistant director. Here he worked under "ero guro" masters Teruo Ishii and Hiroshi Shimizu, as well as Kinuyo Tanaka, Japan's first female director. Kobayashi's directorial debut was with the independently produced (1959). For Shintoho Kobayashi made ten more films with such exploitable titles as "Dangerous Temptation", "Three Women Burglars" and "Phantom Detective: Terrifying Alien" (all 1960).