He was initially enthusiastic about avant-garde Western music, especially that of Varèse, but beginning in 1957 he turned to pan-Asianism.[7]
A prolific composer for the cinema, he composed more than a hundred film scores between Wagaya wa tanoshii (My House Is Fun) in 1951 and Jo no mai in 1984. The best-known film with a score by Mayuzumi is The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.
Mayuzumi served as the chairman of the Nihon wo mamoru Kokumin Kaigi (Japanese: 日本を守る国民会議, lit. 'National Conference to Defend [or Protect] Japan'), an ultraconservative organization that supported constitutional revision. He was pivotal in its merger with the Nihon wo mamoru Kai (Japanese: 日本を守る会, lit. 'Society for the Protection of Japan') to form the Nippon Kaigi, and was slated to become the organization's first leader, but passed away shortly before it was inaugurated.[9]
Mayuzumi became the first representative of the Liberal Democratic Party_(Japan)'s supporter organization, the Liberal National Congress, in 1977, and continued to serve as its representative until his death 20 years later.
When foreign minister and deputy prime minister Tsutomu Hata stated that "[Japan] must tell [its] children what their forefathers did in Asia before and during the war", Mayuzumi stated in response "It's deplorable that the prime minister of Japan would talk so carelessly. In the past, people have been more indirect about the war".[10]
^"過去の受賞者 サントリー音楽賞" [Past winners - Suntory Music Award]. サントリー (in Japanese). Suntory. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
^Katayama, Morihide (17 December 2018). "「日本会議」誕生の知られざるキーパーソン・黛敏郎" [The unknown key figure in the birth of the "Nippon Kaigi": Toshiro Mayuzumi]. Gentosha plus. Gentosha. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
Kennedy, Michael, and Joyce Bourne Kennedy. 2007. "Mayuzumi, Toshiro". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, fifth edition, edited by Michael Kennedy and Joyce Bourne Kennedy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-920383-3.
Heifetz, Robin J. 1984. "East-West Synthesis in Japanese Composition: 1950-1970". The Journal of Musicology 3, no. 4 (Autumn): 443–455.
Loubet, Emmanuelle, Curtis Roads, and Brigitte Robindoré. 1997. "The Beginnings of Electronic Music in Japan, with a Focus on the NHK Studio: The 1950s and 1960s". Computer Music Journal 21, no. 4 (Winter): 11–22.