Since the film has been screened and released on PBS some consistent questions have arisen. This is an attempt to provide some answers to these FAQs.

*The 86-minute PBS film “A Life Reimagined” is a reduction of a longer feature-length film of the same name, and some of these questions are expounded upon in that version. That version will be made available later in 2026 via a link on this georgemasa.com webpage.

As mentioned on this research page for the film, the book: George Masa: A Life Reimagined goes into much more detail about many of these topics, and the chapter notes and citations provide more information about sources and some (but not anywhere close to all) of the other ‘rabbit holes’ we’ve gone down. For questions about the director and the filmmaking process, many can be found on the press & press kit page.

Q. Why did Shoji Endo change his name to Masaharu Iizuka? Why that name?

A: With his desire to end the life of Shoji Endo and live again to fulfill Endo’s obligations, a new name was needed. And it is also clear from how he lived the rest of his life, he was very interested in being someone different, disconnected to not just his past in Portland, but from Japan. This is the ‘reimagining’ that occured multiple times in his story, thus the title of the book and film. So, when he married Tsura Iizuka, he did not immediately change his name; that happened a few months later when he left her and the West Coast, with his symbolic "suicide". At that time, he took the name Masaharu Iizuka. And that is the name with which he arrived in Asheville in 1915. Endo needed a new name as he began his new life, and he never went by Shoji Endo again, at least never, to our knowledge. His reasons could have been several. He did not want people who might be looking for him due to the loss of the baseball team’s funds to be able to find him. From the “Yama” letters, we know he was intent on “paying back Yama’s debt”… but was working to do that as George Masa, telling his friends in Portland in those letters that George Masa was a life-long friend of Yama’s (Shoji Endo) and thus knew him so well.

He must have been concerned that continuing as Shoji Endo, anywhere in the world, could have led to problems for him related to the loss of the team’s money. So, after he and Tsura Iizuka went to Los Angeles, and his departure on a train bound for New Orleans, he used her last name, Iizuka, as a surname and Masaharu as his given name. In Japan, it is not uncommon for a second sons husband to take his wife’s name. Perhaps it just seemed the most convenient name for him, or it was a way to acknowledge the relationship. This is unknown and curious, as it could provide a link to his past. It is not clear at this time whether Masaharu was his birth name, but it’s possible he was born Masaharu Takahashi.  Or, Masaharu could be a family name of some kind, perhaps his mother’s maiden name.  He would later shorten and use in his Americanized name of George Masa.

Through our work with our Japanese researchers, we came to understand better that "George" is essentially an Americanized version of "Shoji".  So when Masaharu Iizuka began working at Grove Park, it seems he used “George”. Soon after he opened his own photo shop and worked as a photographer in the community, he found the need to have an easier, more Americanized name, thus George Masa, sometimes spelled “Massa”.

Q: What happened to Masa’s wife, Tsura Iizuka? Is there any more information about her?

A: To date, we have not found any more information about what happened to Tsura Iizuka after Shoji Endo changed his name to Masaharu Iizuka and left Los Angeles for New Orleans in January 1915. No mention of her life or name has appeared in the extensive research conducted in the US and Japan. This leads to the theory that she either changed her name (or reclaimed an earlier name) and lived out her life not as Tsura Iizuka. That name, as mentioned in the film, did not turn up in any passport applications in Japan or in US immigration records during the likely window of immigration. It’s possible she stayed in the US using a different name, or returned to Japan. 

Q: What do you consider the outstanding mysteries in Masa’s story?

A: One is complete clarity on his full birth name. As mentioned, It’s probably either Shoji Takahashi or Masaharu Takahashi, but these have not been verified due to his adoption at age three, and given the name Shoji Endo, which he used until 1915. 

Legal documents and family genealogy are legally restricted in Japan and researching these items, especially from this time period are very difficult. World War Two, and the great civilian deaths as well as the destruction of may records also complicate the issues.

Another mystery that is not completely understood is exactly what happened in Portland with the baseball team’s money, and what role Endo had in that. More research has been conducted, primarily looking for records in the Japanese-language newspapers at the time, where the story was mentioned, mostly in the gossip columns and the like. The banker who was described as “tricking him” was a powerful man in the Portland and Seattle business and newspaper scene. He was likely able to keep the story from being printed in the more prominent papers.

What happened to Masa’s negatives from his last 8 years of photography, 1925-1933, is also a significant mystery. The photographer, Elliott Lyman Fisher, who purchased them in 1934 when Fisher and his wife came to live in Asheville, built his business for a time using Masa’s negatives and contacts, even opening his business in the same office of the Grove Arcade where Masa’s last office was located. Fisher was, by all accounts, a good photographer and very engaged in the community. He followed Masa’s path, working for the Chamber of Commerce and other reputable clients, including the Vanderbilts. In fact, the photos and negatives now in the possession of Biltmore Estate, and referenced in the film were in the hands of Fisher in the mid 1930s. They had always been marked as “Copyright CVC” (Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil) and thus requested and returned to Biltmore by Fisher. Fisher no doubt made some profit from Masa’s negatives, reprinting and reselling them to publications, usually with no credit given to Masa. He also photographed many of the same mountain and city vistas on his own. As Fisher and his wife planned to retire and relocate to Florida in the late 1950’s, he offered many clients their negatives for sale before he left town. What he did with the Masa negatives is unknown. There were estimated to be between 4000 and 5000 images, and these were all in the form of 8x10 or 5x7 Kodak “safety film” negatives (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose_acetate_film), which would have been kept in paper folders. This volume would have occupied probably 6-10 cubic feet of storage space, thus, a fair bit to haul around. It is unclear whether he took the images with him to Port Charlotte, Florida, or surrendered them to someone else or the city garbage dump. He continued to do some photographic work in Florida for a time, and this suggests that he possibly could have taken them to Florida, as they have not been found here in Asheville. Fisher and his wife lived another 10 years or so in Florida before he died by self-inflicted gunshot in 1968 and she in 1969. There has been no trace of the negatives in his possession. 

Q: Were the Yama letters, described as “drafts of letters” in the film, ever mailed by Masa?

A: The documents we call “the Yama letters” included more than just the drafts of letters he wrote to his baseball friends explaining the life of Yama, and the events surrounding the loss of the team’s money. They also included some pages of letters received by Masa. These various drafts of the letters and comments made by Masa in them indicate that correspondence has been received by his friends. They also showed some correspondence from others in Tokyo that had been received, possibly from his birth family siblings. In one case, the news was that an elder woman in the Takahashi family, possibly his grandmother, had died. These indicate that Masa’s carefully crafted letters, as seen in these drafts, were most likely used as both first drafts for actual letters and his way of documenting what had happened during that time. 

Our researchers and translators feel that Masa’s tone and language in the letters suggest the recipients of the letters most likely understood that it was the former Shoji Endo writing as George Masa. This cannot be verified, but, curiously, a newspaper story about the early years of Japanese Baseball in Portland, written in 1924 in Portland, mentioned Yama as well as his teammates, some of whom were interviewed for the story. It was stated that “Yama had never been heard from again,” implying that his teammates were sticking to the story that Shoji Endo had ‘disappeared’. 

Q: Some people say his name “Masa” (Mah-sa) and others “Massa” (Mass-ah), which is right, or what did he prefer?

A: Since “Masa” is a derivative of “Masaharu" and both were names he chose for himself,  I feel he intended the pronunciation of “Masa" with the Broad A / Ah Sound (/ɑː/ or /a/) or “Mas-ah”. It was first written by Masa and others as "Masa" and so I think that was his original intent. It was sometimes spelled "Massa" as well, leading some to believe the pronunciation should be that way. We don't know what he preferred, and it was certainly pronounced both ways. I would bet he did not care either way. Folks in the Carolina Mountain Club who knew Masa, including some I interviewed while they were still alive, pronounced it “Mass-ah”. I feel it’s possible the “Mass-ah” pronunciation came about due to the influence of the Southern dialect and maybe a (conscious or unconscious?) preference for a more Americanized version. But that’s just a thought of mine.

Q: Why did it take so long to get copies of the Yama letters? You mention “years” in the film. Did that delay the research or not?

A: When I was first contacted about the letters by a grandson, who had knowledge of them, he did not know exactly where they were, if they still existed and who had them for certain. So it became a long series of phone calls and conversations with various family members. Sometimes there were significant amounts of time, many months, between contacts. The location of the letters was somewhat in question for much of this time, and it took time for the searching to become conclusive. It’s worth noting that I did not have any clear understand what these letters could be. They might have been impersonal or business letters with no substantive value. So, the continued interest was intermittent for me as well, as many other projects were occupying my mind and interest.  This lasted about 5 years, before copies were then made and delivered for us to have translated.

Even after they were translated and reviewed by me and my wonderful translator/researcher Fusako Krummel, we could not clearly understand all the nuance in them. Fusako, to her credit, suspected that Masa and Endo were one in the same, based on the level of detail shared, and the odd tone to the letters. But this was far from conclusive. In 2019, we took another look at them and shared them with new researchers and translators. This is when the modern digitized newspapers that allowed key word searches revealed the name “Yama” and other names in the letters, helping to connect these letters to ‘reality’ and the true identity of Masa as the person of Shoji Endo, and at birth in the Takahashi family.

Q: Where are the “Yama” letters? Will they be made public?

A: The original letters found at the May home in Asheville and preserved by family members have disappeared and are presumed to be destroyed sometime in the decade after they were copied for our use. Like bins of items in many of our basements and garages, the location and preceived importance of items can depend on many factors.

To date, we have not created versions that are suitable for depositing into an archive or sharing with the public, but that is the plan. The subtlety of Japanese writing and the various translations and interpretations leave us with multiple versions that we had to pull from and compare/contrast as we wrote the book and excerpted for the film.

We feel this would be a disservice without putting them in the proper context, and having a comprehensive consensus of their meaning for future researchers and the general public is important. The book goes into more detail about the backstory and providence of the letters.

Q: Where can I see more of George Masa’s photos?

A: Online you can go to georgemasaphotodatabase.com. In person, see the list of archives on the “Support” page where you can visit and see images in person.