Eiji Tsuburaya

Eiji Tsuburaya
Eiji Tsuburaya
	Tsuburaya in 1959
Native name	円谷英二
Born	Eiichi Tsumuraya; (圓谷英一 Tsumuraya Eiichi?); July 7, 1901; Sukagawa, Fukushima, Empire of Japan
Died	Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.; Itō, Shizuoka, Japan
Resting place	Fuchū, Tokyo
Occupation	Special effects director; film director; cinematographer; film editor; inventor;
Years active	1919–1969
Works	Filmography
Spouse(s)	Masano Araki (m. 1930; his death 1970)
Children	4, including Hajime and Noboru
Relatives	Aōdō Denzen (ancestor); Hiroshi Tsuburaya (grandson)
Awards	6 Japan Technical Awards
Signature
	150px

Eiji Tsuburaya (Japanese: 円谷英二, Hepburn: Tsuburaya Eiji^?, July 7, 1901^{[lower-alpha 2]} – January 25, 1970) was a Japanese special effects director, film director, cinematographer, and inventor. Known as the "Father of Tokusatsu",^[6]^:{{{3}}}^{[lower-alpha 4]} he pioneered Japan's special effects industry, introducing several technological developments in the production of films. Considered one of the most influential Japanese filmmakers of all time, he is widely regarded as the co-creator of the Godzilla series, as well as the main creator of the Ultraman series. During his five-decade career, Tsuburaya worked on approximately 250 films and earned six Japan Technical Awards.

Born in Sukagawa in 1901, he expressed interest in film and aviation from an early age. In 1915, he joined Nippon Flying School, but the school closed in 1917 after his teacher was killed in a plane crash. In 1919, Tsuburaya was employed by Japanese cinema pioneer Yoshirō Edamasa and began his career working as an assistant cinematographer on Edamasa's A Tune of Pity. Thereafter, he worked as an assistant cinematographer on several films, notably Teinosuke Kinugasa's A Page of Madness. At the age of thirty-two, Tsuburaya watched King Kong, which inspired him to work in special effects. In 1935, he worked on the film Princess Kaguya, one of Japan's first major films to incorporate special effects. His first majorly successful film in effects, The Daughter of the Samurai (1937), remarkably featured the first full-scale rear projection.

In 1937, Tsuburaya was employed by Toho and established the company's effects department. In 1942, Tsuburaya directed the effects for The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya, which became the highest-grossing Japanese film in history upon its release. His groundbreaking effects were believed to be behind the film's major success, and he won an award for his work from the Japan Motion Picture Cinematographers Association. In 1948, however, Tsuburaya left Toho and created Tsuburaya Special Technology Laboratory with his eldest son Hajime. Thus, he worked at major Japanese studios outside Toho, creating effects for films such as Daiei's The Invisible Man Appears (1949).

In 1950, Tsuburaya officially returned to Toho alongside his effects crew from Tsuburaya Visual Effects Laboratories. At age fifty-three, he gained international recognition and won his first Japan Technical Award for Special Skill for directing the effects in Ishirō Honda's Godzilla (1954). He served as the special effects director for Toho's string of financially successful science fiction films that followed, including, Rodan (1956), The Mysterians (1957), Mothra (1961), and King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962). In April 1963, Tsuburaya founded Tsuburaya Special Effects Productions; his company would go onto produce the television shows Ultra Q, Ultraman (both 1966), Ultraseven (1967–1968), and Mighty Jack (1968). While he spent his last years working on a number of Toho films and operating his company, Tsuburaya's health began to decline, and he died of a heart attack in January 1970.

Biography

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Childhood to war years: 1901–1945

Childhood and youth (1901–1919)

File:Eiji and Sei Tsuburaya.jpg

Tsuburaya with his mother Sei, c. 1902. Sei died of illness shortly after giving birth to her second son.

Eiji Tsuburaya was born Eiichi Tsumuraya (圓谷英一, Tsumuraya Eiichi^?)^{[lower-alpha 1]} on July 7, 1901^{[lower-alpha 2]} at the merchant house called Ōtsukaya in Sukagawa, Iwase, Fukushima Prefecture, where his family ran a malted rice business.^[11]^[12]^[13]^[5] He was the first son of Isamu Shiraishi and Sei Tsumuraya, with a large extended family.^[12] When he was three, his mother died of illness, at the age of 19, shortly after giving birth to her second son. His father subsequently left the family, and Tsuburaya was raised by his grandmother Natsu.^[12] Through Natsu, he was related to the Edo period painter Aōdō Denzen, who brought copper printing and Western painting to Japan, from whom Tsuburaya considered to have inherited his dexterity.^[13]^[5] His uncle Ichirō, who was Sei's younger brother,^[7] was five years older than him and acted like an elder brother to him.^[13] Thus, Tsuburaya began to use the name Eiji ("ji" indicating second-born) instead of Eiichi ("ichi" indicating first-born).^[14]

He attended the Dai'ichi Jinjo Koto Elementary School in Sukagawa beginning in 1908 and it was soon realized he had a talent for drawing. Though he often daydreamed of flying during his elementary school years, Tsuburaya was interested in regular studies. Consequently, his aunt, Yoshi, predicted he would become prosperous by the age of thirty-three. In 1910, Tsuburaya took an interest in flight due to the sensational success of Japanese aviators.^[3]^[12]^[13] Two years after, he took advantage of a photograph featured in a newspaper article and started building model airplanes as a hobby, an interest he would pursue throughout his life.^[3]^[13]

He saw his first film the ensuing year, which featured footage of a volcanic eruption on Sakurajima; strangely, Tsuburaya was more fascinated by the projector than the movie itself.^[3]^[13] In 1958, Tsuburaya told Kinema Junpo that because he was extremely fascinated by the projector, he purchased a "toy movie viewer" and created his own film strips by "carefully cutting rolled paper, then making sprocket holes, and drawing stick figures [on the paper], frame by frame."^[3]^{[lower-alpha 5]} Because of his craftwork at a young age, he became a provincial celebrity and was interviewed by the Fukushima Minyu Shimbun.^[13]

In 1915, at the age of 14, he graduated the equivalent of high school, and begged his family to let him enroll in the Nippon Flying School at Haneda. After the school was closed on account of the accidental death of its founder, Seitaro Tamai, in 1917, Tsuburaya attended the Tokyo Kanda Electrical Engineering School (now Tokyo Denki University). While at the school, he became an inventor at the toy company Utsumi and created some successful products that are still widely used in the 21st century. His devised inventions at the company include the first battery-powered phone capable of making calls, an automatic speed photo box, an "automatic skate" and the toy phone. The latter two earned him a patent fee of ¥500.^[13]^[2]

Early career and marriage (1919–1934)

File:Eiji Tsuburaya with comrades.jpg

Tsuburaya (far right) with fellow Imperial Japanese Army comrades, c. December 1922

In the spring of 1919, filmmaker Yoshirō Edamasa hired Tsuburaya as a cameraman at his company Natural Color Motion Pictures Company (dubbed "Tenkatsu").^[11]^[13]^[15] Tsuburaya worked as Edamasa's camera assistant on films such as A Tune of Pity (1919) and Tombs of the Island (1920). Despite Tenkatsu becoming part of the Kokatsu Company and Edamasa leaving his job in March 1920, Tsuburaya maintained working at the studio until he was ordered to serve the Imperial Japanese Army in December 1922.^[15]

After leaving the army in 1923, Tsuburaya moved back to his family's house in Sukagawa. He stayed there considering possible future paths within the filmmaking industry until departing one morning on an unknown date, leaving a note: "I won't return home until I succeed in the motion picture business, even if I die trying."^[16] The next year, he work as the cinematographer on the film The Hunchback of Enmei'in Temple.^[17] Tsuburaya joined Shochiku the following year^[18] and would have his breakthrough as the cameraman, and assistant director on Teinosuke Kinugasa's masterpiece, A Page of Madness (1926).^[8] In 1927, he shoot Minoru Inuzuka's jidaigeki films Children's Swordplay and Melee both starring Chōjirō Hayashi and Tsuyako Okajima,^[19]^[20] as well as Toko Yamazaki's The Bat Copybook, Mad Blade Under the Moon, and Record of the Tragic Swords of the Tenpo Era.^[21] Because of the financial success of these films, Tsuburaya became regarded as one of the Kyoto's leading cinematographers.^[22]

In 1928, while working on eleven films at Shochiku, Tsuburaya began creating and utilizing developing camera operating techniques, including double-exposure and slow-motion camerawork. The next year, he constructed his own smaller version of D. W. Griffith's considerable 140-foot tall six-wheeled shooting crane, which he used both in and outside of the studio. Having invented it without the benefit of using blueprints or manuals, the wooden crane allowed Tsuburaya to improve camera movement and was able to be used in and outside the studio. The creation proved a success until one day while Tsuburaya and an assistant prepared the crane to film a scene, it collapsed sending him plummeting to the ground of the studio. A witness of the incident named Masano Araki was one of the first to run to his aid. She visited Tsuburaya daily while he was in the infirmary and the pair formed a relationship shortly thereafter. On February 27, 1930, Tsuburaya married the decade-younger Araki.^[8] Their first child, Hajime, was born on April 23 the following year.^[23]

In May 1932, Tsuburaya, Akira Mimura, Hiroshi Sakai, Kohei Sugiyama, Masao Tamai, and Tadayuki Yokota established the Japan Cameraman Association, which later coalesced with other companies to become the Nippon Cinematographers Club (presently called the Japanese Society of Cinematographers). Shortly after that, the association would start to hold award ceremonies. In November of that year, Tsuburaya quit Shochiku and joined Nikkatsu Futosou Studios. Around the same time, he began using the professional name "Eiji Tsuburaya".^[2]^[24]

In 1933, Tsuburaya saw the groundbreaking American film King Kong, which inspired him to work on films featuring special effects. In 1962, Tsuburaya told the Mainichi Shimbun that he attempted to convince Nikkatsu to "import this technical know-how, but they had little interest in it because at the time, I was seen as merely a cameraman who worked on Kazuo Hasegawa's historical dramas." He managed to acquire a 35mm print of the film and started to study its special effects frame-by-frame without the advantage of documents explaining how they were produced. In October 1933, an article on the film's effect, written by Tsuburaya, was published in Photo Times, which featured an inaccurate understanding of how the scenes were created.^[25]

In the same year, Masano gave birth to a second child, a daughter named Miyako. In 1935, she would, however, die of a confidential cause that shocked her parents. Nevertheless, Tsuburaya continued with his customary life, working on several projects, and arranging methods to enhance his camerawork.^[8]

In December of 1933, Nikkatsu granted Tsuburaya permission to use and study new screen projection technology for the company's jidaigeki films. While the studio approved of his decision to project these films cast into a location use using location plates, not all of his technological developments were met with approval. During filming the final scenes for Asataro Descends Mt. Akagi in February 1934, Tsuburaya got into a significant disagreement with Nikkatsu's CEO, who had no acquaintance with what Tsuburaya was creating and assumed Tsuburaya was wasting the company's money. After the argument, Tsuburaya resigned from his job at Nikkatsu.^[26]

J.O. Studios, directorial works, and Toho (1934–1940)

File:Eiji Tsuburaya 1934.jpg

Tsuburaya riding his iron shooting crane in 1934. An adaptation of this crane is still used worldwide today.^[22]

Shortly after leaving Nikkatsu, he accepted an offer from Kyoto entrepreneur Yoshio Osawa to work at his company, J.O. Talkies, and research optical printing and screen projection.^[27] In October 1934, Tsuburaya and his colleagues completed the first iron shooting crane model and used it to shoot Atsuo Tomioka's The Chorus of a Million.^[28] Contrary to his previous prototype, this one was on a truck that operated on tracks, which made it able to change the camera's position in seconds. Osawa renamed the studio J.O. Studios and designated Tsuburaya as its chief cinematographer in December of that year.^[29]

From February to August of 1935, he traveled to Hawaii, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand on the cruiser Asama in order to shoot his directorial debut, Three Thousand Miles Across the Equator, a feature-length propaganda documentary film.^[13]^[29] During the expedition, his second son, Noboru was born on May 10 that year.^[29]

Upon returning from the voyage, Tsuburaya began work on Princess Kaguya, an adaptation of the 10th-century Japanese literary tale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. He not only served as the film's cinematographer but was also in charge of special effects for the first time. For the film, he worked with animator Kenzō Masaoka to create miniatures, puppets, a composite of Kaguya emerging from a cut bamboo plant, and a sequence in which a ship encounters a storm.^[11]^[13]^[30] While the original print of the film is considered lost, a shortened version screened in England in 1936 was discovered by a researcher at the British Film Institute in May 2015. The shortened version was released in Japan as part of an event marking Tsuburaya's 120th birthday on September 4 and 5, 2021.^[10]^[31]^[32]

File:Folk Song Collection- Oichi of Torioi Village.jpg

Publicity still of geisha singer Ichimaru playing the female lead in Tsuburaya's first histrionic film, Folk Song Collection: Oichi of Torioi Village.

In March of the next year, his histrionic directorial debut, Folk Song Collection: Oichi of Torioi Village, was theatrically released. It is an adventure film concerning a condemned romance, which features political tones.^[33] Folk Song Collection: Oichi of Torioi Village was the second film to star popular geisha singer Ichimaru and it also featured actor Kenji Susukida.^[11] Soon after its completion, Tsuburaya began working on Arnold Fanck's The Daughter of the Samurai (released 1937). The Daughter of the Samurai was the first German-Japanese co-production, Tsuburaya's first major success in effects, and it featured the first full-scale rear projection.^[11]^[28]^[33] The German staff were impressed by his elaborate miniature work on the project.^[4]

In September 1936, Ichizō Kobayashi merged the film studios P.C.L. Studios and P.C.L. Film Company with J.O. Studios to create the film and theatre production company Toho. Film producer Iwao Mori was made the production manager at Toho and was keenly aware of the importance of special effects during a tour of Hollywood. As a result, in 1937, Mori hired Tsuburaya at the company's Tokyo Studio, establishing the special effects department on November 27, 1937, and treating him as the section's manager.^[34] Shortly after, Tsuburaya received a research budget and began studying optical printers to create Japan's first version of the device, which he designed.^[35]

Among Tsuburaya's first film assignments at Toho were The Abe Clan, a jidaigeki film directed by Hisatora Kumagai, and the unreleased propaganda musical The Song of Major Nanjo (both 1938). The latter film was directed and shot by Tsuburaya, and he completed it on September 6 of that year.^[36]

In 1939, because of an instruction from the Imperial government, he joined the Kumagaya Aviation Academy of the Imperial Army Corps and was entrusted to shoot flight-training films. After impressing his superiors with his aerial photography, Tsuburaya was given more assignments and a master's certificate during his almost three years at the academy.^[37]

In November 1939, while Tsuburaya was still at the flight school and undertaking assignments at Toho, he was appointed head of Toho's Special Arts Department. A month after that, he was commissioned to shoot a science film for Toho's then-recently assembled educational section. Under governance demands, Toho was mandated to maintain the creation of propaganda films. Accordingly, in May 1940, Tsuburaya began directing the documentary The Imperial Way of Japan for Toho Education Films' branch Toho National Policy Film Association. He also filmed the effects of Sotoji Kimura's Navy Bomber Squadron, featuring the bombing scene with a miniature airplane for the first time in his career, and he was given his first credit for special effects.^[27]^[4]^[38] Navy Bomber Squadron was believed lost for over sixty years until an unfinished copy of the film was discovered and screened in 2006.^[39]

In September 1940, Yutaka Abe's The Burning Sky, was released to Japanese cinemas. Tsuburaya was in charge of effects for the film and received his first accolade from the Japan Motion Picture Cinematographers Association.^[40]^[34] His next undertaking, Son Gokū, was released on November 6, 1940.^[41]^[27]^[34] In a 1960 interview with American Cinematographer, he stated that for Son Gokū: "I was called upon to create and photograph a monkey-like monster which was supposed to fly through the air", adding: "I managed the job with some success and this assignment set the pattern for my future work."^[42]

War years (1941–1945)

The elaborate miniature set used to represent Pearl Harbor and the U.S. navy ships in The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya. The film depicted the attack so realistically that footage from it was later featured in documentaries on the Pearl Harbor attack.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked the United States navy base on Pearl Harbor, causing a sensation of national pride in Japan. Consequently, the Imperial Japanese Government tasked Toho to produce a film that would influence the nation to believe they would win the Pacific War. The resulting film, Kajirō Yamamoto's war epic The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya (1942), became the highest-grossing Japanese film in history upon its release in December 1942 and won Kinema Junpo's Best Film Award. Tsuburaya directed its effects, which he created with the assistance of navy-provided photographs of the Pearl Harbor attack, and he worked with future Godzilla collaborates Akira Watanabe and Teizō Toshimitsu for the first time. His groundbreaking effects work was supposedly behind the film's major success and accordingly, he won the Technical Research Award from the Japan Motion Picture Cinematographers Association.^[43]^[39]^[44]^[11] The film depicted the attack so realistically that footage from it was later featured in documentaries on the Pearl Harbor attack.^[45]

Around the same time as The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya was in production, Toho's effects department was filming Japan's first puppet film Ramayana. The film's screenplay, inspired by the Sanskrit epic of the same name, was written by future Moonlight Mask creator Kōhan Kawauchi the previous year under Tsuburaya's supervision.^[46]^[47]

Tsuburaya's next four major productions were all war films: Masahiro Makino's The Opium Wars, Tadashi Imai's Watchtower Suicide Squad, Kunio Watanabe's Decisive Battle in the Skies and Kajirō Yamamoto's follow-up to The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya, General Kato's Falcon Fighters (all produced in 1943).^[48]^[44] For The Opium Wars, Tsuburaya and his team created miniature navy battle sequences and animation synthesis in urban landscapes.^[49] Remarkably, during the production of General Kato's Falcon Fighters (released in 1944), Tsuburaya had his first meeting with his future collaborator, filmmaker Ishirō Honda.^[50]^[44] After watching The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya, Honda became interested in special effects and believed Tsuburaya's work in General Kato's Falcon Fighters was inferior in scope, but the art and gunpowder technology had enhanced. Additionally, Tsuburaya expressed dissatisfaction with the size of the shooting stage, the art materials, the method of performance, etc.^[50]

Shortly before Toho distributed General Kato's Falcon Fighters in cinemas, Masano and Tsuburaya's third son and last child, Akira, was born on February 12, 1944.^[51] Akira was the first of the couple's sons to receive baptism since his mother had been converted to the Catholic Church by her younger sister. Masano persisted in introducing her children to Catholicism and ultimately converted her husband.^[52]

In late 1945, Tsuburaya made the effects in Torajirō Saitō's Five Men from Tokyo, for which he was credited as Eiichi Tsuburaya.^[53] Five Men from Tokyo is a comedy film concerning five men who struggle to make a living after returning to Tokyo after the war and remain unemployed due to the Tokyo air raids on March 10, 1945 at the end of World War II.^[54] During the two-hour-long attacks on March 10, Tsuburaya told his sons fairy tales to keep them quiet as the family was in their residence's bomb shelter.^[45]

Postwar years to Chūshingura: 1946–1962

Early postwar work (1946–1954)

Even though Toho was unaffected by the Tokyo bombings as the company was located in Seijo, the amount of film productions was reduced due to the Occupation of Japan.^[45] Because of this, the company produced only eighteen films in 1946, with Tsuburaya working on eight of them.^[35] Since he and his effects unit at the company had a minor slate of films to work on, Tsuburaya began testing matte painting and optical printing. While the effects sector of Toho was experimenting with this equipment, meanwhile, the company was struggling.^[45]

Toho was on the verge of disbandment due to the three major labor disputes (ja) that occurred at the studio during the late 1940s.^[55] According to Akira Tsuburaya, for his father to get to work he had to sneak around the Japanese police and U.S. tanks deployed during these strikes and disputes.^[56] To repel the police, the labor strikers erected a barricade, using a large fan made by the special effects department of the company that was equipped with the Zero fighter engine that Tsuburaya had used during the war. These events lead to the creation of Shintoho;^[53]^[56]^[55] Tsuburaya would create the effects for Shintoho's first film, A Thousand and One Nights with Toho (1947).^[57]

In late March 1948, Tsuburaya was purged from Toho by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers because of his comprehensive miniatures featured in The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya.^[12]^[58]^[4]^[59]^[60] Therefore, Toho disbanded their special effects division and Tsuburaya, with his son Hajime, founded the independent special effects company Tsuburaya Special Technology Laboratory,^[11]^[58]^[61]^[35]^[60] an unofficial juridical entity.^[53] Henceforth, he worked at major film studios outside Toho.^[56]

File:Invisible Man reveals himself - The Invisible Man Appears.gif

Tsuburaya's effects in The Invisible Man Appears (1949) were intended to be superior to those in Universal's The Invisible Man film series

In 1949, five major Daiei Film productions featuring effects directed by Tsuburaya were released to Japanese theaters: Japanese horror filmmaker Bin Kato's The White Haired Fiend, Keigo Kimura's Flowers of Raccoon Palace, Kiyohiko Ushihara's The Rainbow Man, Akira Nobuchi's The Ghost Train, and Nobuo Adachi's The Invisible Man Appears.^[62]^[63] The Invisible Man Appears made a significant contribution as the first substantial Japanese science fiction film and the country's first adaption of H. G. Wells' novel The Invisible Man. Created by studying the eponymous 1933 film adaptation of Wells' novel,^[64]^[62] Daiei had intended this film to be Tsuburaya's full-scale postwar recovery, featuring special effects superior to those in Universal Pictures' The Invisible Man film series.^[4] Tsuburaya, however, was disappointed with his lack of competence on the project and gave up his ambition to become a Daiei employee after The Invisible Man Appears was finished.^[64]^[62]^{[lower-alpha 6]}

In 1950, Tsuburaya relocated Tsuburaya Special Technology Laboratory to Toho; his independent company was merely the size of six tatami mats inside Toho Studios.^[66]^[61] While slowly rebuilding the company's Special Arts Department, he filmed all of the title cards, trailers, and the logo for Toho's films from 1950 to 1954.^[67]^[35] The first production featuring contributions by Tsuburaya upon his return to Toho was reportedly a 1950 film directed by Hiroshi Inagaki based on the life of Japanese swordsman Sasaki Kojirō.^[11]^[58]^[35] However, Senkichi Taniguchi's war film Escape at Dawn is sometimes cited as featuring his contributions.^[61]

In February 1952, Tsuburaya's exile from public office was officially lifted.^[12]^[68]^[60] That same month, Ishirō Honda's second feature film, The Skin of the South, was released to theaters. Tsuburaya directed the film's effects for the typhoon and landslide scenes, which was his first experience acting as the effects director on a film by the future Godzilla director.^[66]^[69] Tsuburaya collaborated with Honda and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka on The Man Who Came to Port later that year, which marked the first time the trio, who are considered the creators of Godzilla, collaborated.^[70]

During World War II, Toho began researching 3D films and completed a 3D film process known as "Tovision". While it was later abandoned, the "Tovision" project at Toho was later revived when the 3D film Bwana Devil (1952) became a box office hit in the United States. Hence, the company produced its first 3D film, future Godzilla co-writer Takeo Murata's The Sunday That Jumped Out (1953). It features cinematography by Tsuburaya, who shot this short film using an interlocking camera.^[71]^[66]

After the completion of The Sunday That Jumped Out, Murata discussed creating a tokusatsu film about a giant whale attacking Tokyo, which Tsuburaya devised the previous year. Tsuburaya, therefore, resubmitted the conception of this production to producer Iwao Mori. Although this project never materialized, elements of it were inserted into early drafts of Godzilla the following year.^[71]

International recognition (1954–1959)

Tsuburaya (center) working with director Ishirō Honda (left) on the set of Godzilla (1954)

After failing to renegotiate with the Indonesian government for the production of In the Shadow of Glory, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka began to consider creating a monster (or kaiju) film, inspired by The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the Daigo Fukuryū Maru incident. He believed that it would be potential due to the financial success of monster films and nuclear fears generating news. Thus, he wrote an outline for the project and pitched it to Iwao Mori. Following Tsuburaya's agreement to create its effects, Mori approved the production, eventually titled Godzilla, in mid-April 1954; filmmaker Ishirō Honda soon took over the directing duties.^[72] During preproduction, Tsuburaya considered using stop motion to depict the titular monster but, as stated by special effects crew member Fumio Nakadai, had to employ the "costume method" because he "finally decided it wouldn't work". This technique is now known as "suitmation".^[73]

Tsuburya's special effects department filmed Godzilla in 71 days from August 1954 to late October on a budget of ¥27 million.^[74]^[75] He and his relatively younger crew worked relentlessly, regularly starting at 9:00 a.m., preparing at 5:00 p.m., and finishing the shoot at 4 or 5 a.m. the following morning.^[76] Shortly after Tsuburaya completed filming its effects,^[75] Tsuburaya, Tanaka, and Honda were shown the finished film on October 23, 1954, and its staff and cast were shown the film on October 25. Upon its nationwide release on November 3, Tsuburaya's effects received critical acclaim and the film became a box office hit.^[77]^[78]^[79] As a result, Godzilla established Toho as the most successful effects company in the world and Tsuburaya obtained his first Japan Technical Award for his efforts.^[80]

Instantly after completing Godzilla in October, Tsuburaya began working on another Toho-produced science fiction film, The Invisible Avenger, which was released to Japanese theaters in December 1954 under the title Invisible Man. This tokusatsu production was directed by Motoyoshi Oda and featured special effects and photography by Tsuburaya.^[80] Because The Invisible Avenger was his second film to feature an invisible character, after The Invisible Man Appears (1949), he inherited and expanded the technology used in The Invisible Man Appears for the movie.^[81]^[62] Tsuburaya instructed his crew to portray the title character's invisibility in various ways throughout the film, including optical synthesis and suggested that the character disguised his invisibility ability by dressing up as a clown.^[82]

Due to the enormous box-office success of Godzilla, Toho quickly gathered the majority of the crew behind the film to create a smaller-budget sequel to the film, entitled Godzilla Raids Again. Tsuburaya was officially given the title of special effects director for the first time on Godzilla Raids Again, as he was always credited under "special technique" beforehand. Shot in less than 3 months, the film opened in April 1955.^[83] A month after the release of Godzilla Raids Again, Tsuburaya began directing the effects of Half Human,^[84] his second kaiju film collaboration with director Ishirō Honda.^[85] Among his efforts on this film, the effects director notably created stop-motion animation, rear-screen miniature, and miniature avalanche sequences.^[84]

In April 1956, Godzilla became the first Japanese film to be widely distributed throughout the United States and it was later released worldwide, leading Tsuburaya to gain international recognition.^[78] However, for its American release, it was retitled Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, heavily re-edited, and featured new footage with actor Raymond Burr.^[86]

Tsuburaya's next major undertaking, The Legend of the White Serpent, a film adaptation of a novel by Fusao Hayashi based on the Chinese legend Legend of the White Snake, was Toho's first tokusatsu feature completely filmed in color (via Eastmancolor).^[87]^[88]^[89]^[90] In preparation for the film, which was produced on a then-enormous budget of ¥210 million,^[89] Tsuburaya and his unit spent a month training with color process technology before shooting the effects.^[91] After working on The Legend of the White Serpent, Tsuburaya made the renowned Toho logo and his unit constructed the opening credits for most of the company's films. Between working on large-scale Toho films, he created the effects for Toho's musical The Snapping Turtle, Nippon TV's Ninja Arts of Sanada Castle and theatrical productions for Tokyo Takarazuka Theater.^[92]

Toho's next assignment for Tsuburaya was Rodan, the first kaiju film produced in color.^[93]^[61] 60% of Rodan's ¥200 million budget was spent on Tsuburaya's effects, which was expended on optical animation, matte paintings, and extremely elaborate miniature sets.^[94]^[84] Rodan required a large number of model sets in a variety of sizes, including 1/10, 1/20, 1/25, and 1/30, to be developed and assembled by Tsuburaya's division.^[84] The film premiered in Japan In December 1956 and upon its release in the United States the following year, earned more at the box office than any previous science fiction film.^[95]

Throne of Blood, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth from renowned filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, was Tsuburaya's first film release of 1957. Kurosawa cut several scenes by Tsuburaya due to his displeasure with the amount of footage he made for Throne of Blood.^[96] He next served as the special effects director for The Mysterians, a science fiction epic directed by Ishirō Honda. It was the first color film by Honda and Tsuburaya and is often called the "definitive science fiction movie".^[97]^[98] He obtained another Japan Technical Award for his widescreen effects in The Mysterians.^[11]^[99]^[100]

A new subgenre for Toho was born with Tsuburaya's first movie of 1958, The H-Man, which was the first entry in the "mutant series".^[100] He next directed the effects for Honda's Varan the Unbelievable about a giant monster awakened in the Tōhoku mountains who surfaces in Tokyo Bay. Initially planned as a made-for-television film co-produced between Toho and the American company AB-PT Pictures, the production was plagued with numerous difficulties. AB-PT collapsed during production, leading Toho to alter the film's status to a theatrical feature.^[101]^[102] Tsuburaya's final film released in 1958 was Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress.^[103]

The Secret of the Telegian to Chūshingura (1960–1962)

File:Eiji Tsuburaya Manda.jpg

Tsuburaya with a Manda prop on the set of Atragon, 1963

The tremendous success of Godzilla led Toho to produce a series of science fiction films, films introducing new monsters, and further films involving the Godzilla character itself. The most critically and popularly successful of these films were those involving the team of Tsuburaya, Honda, and Tanaka, along with the fourth member of the Godzilla team, composer Akira Ifukube. Tsuburaya continued producing special effects for non-kaiju films like The Secret of the Telegian (1960), and The Last War (1961), and won another Japanese Movie Technique Award for his work in the 1957 science-fiction film The Mysterians. He also won another award in 1959 for the creation of the "Toho Versatile System," an optical printer for widescreen pictures, which he built in-house and first used on The Three Treasures in 1959. (Tsuburaya was continually frustrated by both the poor state of equipment he was forced to use, and Toho's money-pinching that prevented the acquisition of new motion picture technologies.)

In 1960, Tsuburaya designed Toho's Special Effects Filming Pool with Yasuyuki Inoue, for the film Storm Over the Pacific.^[104] Over the course of four decades, Toho continued to use it for tokusatsu films. It was used in nearly every entry of the Godzilla series before it was demolished after the filming of the ending of Godzilla: Final Wars.^[105]

A loyal company man, Tsuburaya continued to work at Toho Studios until his death in 1970.^[106]

Birth of a company to last years: 1963–1970

In 1963, after visiting Hollywood to observe the special effects work of major American studios, Tsuburaya founded his own independent company, Tsuburaya Special Effects Productions (later called simply Tsuburaya Productions).^[106] In 1966 alone, this company aired the first Ultra series for television, Ultra Q beginning in January, followed it with the highly popular Ultraman in July, and premiered a comedy-monster series, Monster Booska in November. Ultraman became the first live-action Japanese television series to be exported around the world, and spawned the Ultra series which continues to this day.

Last years (1968–1970)

File:Eiji Tsuburaya's Gravepost.jpg

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Toward the end of his life, Tsuburaya dedicated to the planning for a film titled Japan Airplane Guy.^[9] Despite preliminary work, it was never filmed. Tsuburaya was advised to reduce his workload due to declining health, but he continued to take on more and more projects, dividing his time between Tsuburaya Productions and directing special effects for two Toho films, Latitude Zero and Battle of the Japan Sea.^[106] In addition, Mitsubishi hired him to oversee a special exhibit at Expo '70, the World's Fair in Osaka.^[106] On January 25, 1970, at 10:15 P.M.,^[107] he died of a heart attack caused by bronchial asthma,^[108] while sleeping with his wife in their home in Itō, Shizuoka.^[107] Five days after he died, on January 30, 1970, Emperor Hirohito awarded him the "Order of the Sacred Treasure."^[109]^[107] His funeral was held at Toho Studios on February 2, with Sanezumi Fujimoto providing the services.^[108]

Filmmaking

Style

Relationship with cast and crew

Filming and editing

According to special effects cinematographer Sadamasa Arikawa (ja), Tsuburaya also edited his own film work.^[76] Tsuburaya's assistant director, Masakatsu Asai, stated that memorized the situation and storage location of the cuts he shot.^[110] Scripter Keiko Suzuki said Tsuburaya envisioned his own editing plan, and he often filmed scenes unscripted. Thus, for instance, scenes were altered to become "Battle 1" and "Aerial Battle 2".^[111]

Legacy

Tsuburaya Productions described Tsuburaya as the "Father of Tokusatsu" because of his "astounding balancing act of technique and entertainment".^[6] The Independent's Doug Bolton wrote that even "people not familiar with Japanese science fiction will easily recognise [sic] the legacy of Tsuburaya's work".^[112] The Tokusatsu Network said that Tsuburaya was "possibly the most influential figure in the Japanese film industry" and stated that his legacy "lives on to this day through his creations and has had a large enough impact for him to be compared to Walt Disney."^[113]

In popular culture

Posthumous works

Tsuburaya had intended to work on Space Amoeba (1970), but he died shortly after filming began. While the film was completed in Tsuburaya's honor and was his last project to be involved in, Toho executives refused to grant him a dedication in its opening credits.

A number of posthumous works have been created based on or inspired by Tsuburaya's unfilmed concepts. A script for a project entitled Princess Kaguya was written by Tsuburaya shortly before he died in Izu.^[6]^:{{{3}}} Motivated by his father's desire to work on another adaptation of the tale, Hajime Tsubruaya attempted to produce Princess Kaguya into a film for Tsuburaya Productions' 10th anniversary. In the preface of Hiroyasu Yamaura's script for the film, Tsuburaya said he had taken "great pains to incorporate the strengths of various folk tales and fairy tales into a work that children around the world would honestly enjoy".^[114] Despite his tireless efforts, he passed away on the morning of February 9, 1973, before director Yoshiyuki Kuroda was scheduled to begin production that evening. Thus, production on the project was canceled.^[115] In 1987, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka turned Eiji Tsuburaya's lifelong ambition into a live-action movie titled Princess from the Moon, which featured effects directed by Tsuburaya's protégé Teruyoshi Nakano.^[32]

In 2020, filmmaker Minoru Kawasaki created a film loosely based on his unmade film prior to production of Godzilla, featuring a giant octopus.^[116]

Portrayals

Many actors have played Tsuburaya in television dramas and programs. For his portrayal in the 1989 television drama The Men Who Made Ultraman, an unidentified renowned Toho actor who had been starring in many of the company's box office hits since before Godzilla (1954) was initially cast as Tsuburaya. However, the famed actor declined the offer, believing he lacked similarities in appearance to Tsuburaya. Therefore, actor Kō Nishimura was cast instead.^[117] In 1993, filmmaker Seijun Suzuki played Tsuburaya in the television drama I Loved Ultraseven.^[118] For The Pair of Ultraman, a 2022 television documentary on the two screenwriters behind Ultraman, he was portrayed by Toshiki Ayada.^[119]

Tributes

In honor of the 114th anniversary of his birth, Google made an animated doodle of his skill with special effects on July 7, 2015.^[112] On January 11, 2019, the Eiji Tsuburaya Museum opened in his hometown of Sukagawa, a tribute to his life and work in film and television.^[120]

Selected filmography

Films

A Page of Madness (1926)
Princess Kaguya (1935)
The New Land (1937)
The Abe Clan (1938)
The Burning Sky (1940)
The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya (1942)
The Opium Wars (1943)
General Kato's Falcon Fighters (1944)
A Thousand and One Nights with Toho (1947)
Lady from Hell (1949)
The Invisible Man Appears (1949)
The Skin of the South (1952)
The Man Who Came to Port (1952)
Anatahan (1953)
Eagle of the Pacific (1953)
Farewell Rabaul (1954)
Godzilla (1954)
The Invisible Avenger (1954)
Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
Half Human (1955)
The Legend of the White Serpent (1956)
Rodan (1956)
Throne of Blood (1957)
The Mysterians (1957)
The H-Man (1958)
Varan (1958)
The Hidden Fortress (1958)
Monkey Sun (1959)
Submarine I-57 Will Not Surrender (1959)
The Three Treasures (1959)
Battle in Outer Space (1959)
The Secret of the Telegian (1960)
Storm Over the Pacific (1960)
The Human Vapor (1960)
The Story of Osaka Castle (1961)
Mothra (1961)
The Last War (1961)
Gorath (1962)
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
Chūshingura: Hana no Maki, Yuki no Maki (1962)
Attack Squadron! (1963)
Matango (1963)
The Lost World of Sinbad (1963)
Atragon (1963)
Whirlwind (1964)
Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
Dogora (1964)
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
None but the Brave (1965)
Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965)
Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965)
The War of the Gargantuas (1966)
King Kong Escapes (1967)
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
Latitude Zero (1969)
Battle of the Japan Sea (1969)

Television

Ultra Q (1966)
Modern Leaders [episode, "The Father of Ultra Q"] (1966)^[121]
Ultraman (1966-1967)
Monster Booska (1966-1967)
Mighty Jack (1968)
Fight! Mighty Jack (1968)

Awards and honors

Year	Award	Category	Nominated work	Result	Ref(s)
1940	Japan Motion Picture Cinematographers Association	Special Technology Award	The Burning Sky	Won	^[11]
1942	Japan Motion Picture Cinematographers Association	Technical Research Award	The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya	Won	^[11]
1954	8th Japan Technical Awards	Special Skill	Godzilla	Won	^[122]
1957	11th Japan Technical Awards	Special Skill	The Mysterians	Won	^[122]
1959	13th Japan Technical Awards	Special Skill	The Three Treasures	Won	^[122]
1959	Movie Day	Special Achievement Award	The Three Treasures	Won	^[11]
1963	17th Japan Technical Awards	Special Skill	The Lost World of Sinbad	Won	^[122]
1965	19th Japan Technical Awards	Special Skill	Retreat From Kiska	Won	^[122]
1966	20th Japan Technical Awards	Special Skill	Invasion of Astro-Monster	Won	^[122]
1970	N/A	4th Class Medal of Order of the Sacred Treasure	N/A	Won	^[107]
1970	Japanese Society of Cinematographers	Honorary Chairman Award	N/A	Won	^[107]

Notes

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References

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