During the early 1970s, disaster films began to gain popularity with movies such as *Airport* (1970), *The Poseidon Adventure* (1972), *The Towering Inferno* (1974), and *Earthquake* (1974), which were successful both domestically and internationally. Toei, a major Japanese film studio at the time, noticed this trend and sought to capitalize on it. Japan’s first two bullet train lines, Tokaido and San'yō, had opened …