Google Pays Tribute to Eiji Tsuburaya on His Birthday

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 114th birthday of the father of Tokusatsu, Eiji Tsuburaya.

On July 7th, 2015, the Google homepage paid tribute to one of the pioneers of the Tokusatsu genre, Eiji Tsuburaya. From his early days in film production, he went on to become a co-creator of one of cinema’s most iconic monsters, Godzilla, with director Ishiro Honda and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka. He later went on to create his own production studio in 1963, Tsuburaya Productions, and eventually launched the popular Ultra series with Ultra Q and Ultraman in 1966. The attention to detail in practical effects and miniature work that Tsuburaya possessed paved the way for many franchises that would use similar techniques for decades to come.

Google Doodlers Jennifer Hom & Mark Holmes paid a visit to the Tsuburaya Productions studio to experience first-hand the process of creating a special effects project in Japan. From their experiences, they developed a mini-game that allows users to capture a small, simplified glimpse of the process of creating a monster movie or TV series.

Recently, Ultraseven and Ultra Q have become available for streaming on Shout! Factory’s main site for free. The episodes themselves are sourced from Shout!’s previously released Ultra Q and Ultraseven DVD sets. These join Ultraman Leo, 80, Max, and Mebius available on Crunchyroll, and the original dubbedUltraman on Hulu as the only Ultra Series available for streaming .

Source: Google