Eiji Tsuburaya (1901–1970) was a Japanese special effects director and filmmaker who worked on roughly 250 films throughout his five-decade career.[1] Having pioneered and popularized the special effects sector of the Japanese film industry, he is popularly known as the "Father of Tokusatsu".[2][a] Tsuburaya started his career in the Japanese film industry as a cinematographer for several successful dramas and jidaigeki (Japanese historical drama) films in the early 1920s.[4] His directorial debut was the propaganda documentary film Three Thousand Miles Across the Equator, which he filmed in the Pacific Ocean on the Asama for most of 1935. Following the completion of photography on this film, he worked as the cinematographer and had his debut as special effects director on Princess Kaguya (1935). It was one of Japan's first major productions to feature special effects.[5][6] The next year, Tsuburaya made his dramatic directorial debut with the release of Folk Song Collection: Oichi of Torioi Village and had substantial success staging the special effects for Arnold Fanck's The Daughter of the Samurai (released in 1937).[7]
Tsuburaya left his job in Kyoto and moved to Tokyo in order to form the newly established company Toho's special effects division in late 1937. The following year, he was assigned to create effects for The Abe Clan and directed and filmed the unreleased propaganda musical The Song of Major Nanjo; two years later, he directed and shot the documentary motion picture entitled The Imperial Way of Japan and shot the war filmNavy Bomber Squadron.[8] In 1942, Tsuburaya supervised the effects for the Kajirō Yamamoto-directed war epic The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya, which became the highest-grossing Japanese film in history.[9] His efforts were regarded as a significant factor in its major critical and commercial success and earned him the Technical Research Award from the Japan Motion Picture Cinematographers Association.[10][11] Tsuburaya was purged from employment at Toho by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in 1948.[12][8] He created his own independent effects company and worked on films by other major film companies, including Daiei Film's The Invisible Man Appears (1949), which was Japan's first science fiction film. Tsuburaya returned to Toho in 1950, and subsequently worked on their films Escape at Dawn (1950), The Lady of Musashino (1951), The Skin of the South, and The Man Who Came to Port (both 1952), Eagle of the Pacific (1953), and Farewell Rabaul (1954), with the latter four being his first collaborations with director Ishirō Honda.[13]
In 1954, Tsuburaya directed the special effects for Hiroshi Inagaki's jidaigeki epic Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto and Honda's kaiju film Godzilla. For the latter major critically and commercially successful film, he achieved his first Japan Technical Award for Special Skill and attained international recognition.[14][15] Two years later, he directed the effects for Shirō Toyoda's The Legend of the White Serpent and Honda's Rodan,[16] with Rodan winning him his second Japan Technical Award.[14] In response to recent popular alien invasion science fiction films, Toho assigned Tsuburaya to direct the effects for Honda's big-budget epic The Mysterians (1956) and he won another Japan Technical Award for his work.[17] Three years later, Tsuburaya earned another Japan Technical Award for his effects on Inagaki's $1 million[18] epic The Three Treasures.[14] Later, he worked on the tremendously successful tokusatsu films: Mothra, The Last War (both 1961), King Kong vs. Godzilla, and Chūshingura: Hana no Maki, Yuki no Maki (both 1962). In 1963, he earned the Japan Technical Award for his special effects work on The Lost World of Sinbad;[14] the following year he made the effects for Honda's Mothra vs. Godzilla, often regarded as his best kaiju film.[19] Also that year, he began preproduction on his recently founded company's first series that aired on Japanese television in 1966, under the title Ultra Q, and created the special effects for Frank Sinatra's war epic None but the Brave.[20] His efforts on the 1965 war film Retreat from Kiska [ja] won him another Japan Technical Award for Special Skill and he gained the same award the following year for the same position in Honda's Invasion of Astro-Monster (also 1965).[14]
Because Ultra Q was a tremendous success during its release, Tsuburaya moved on to develop and supervise a follow-up titled Ultraman.[21]Ultraman was broadcast from 1966 to 1967 and was even more successful than its predecessor. These programs spanned a franchise that is still majorly popular and ongoing today.[20] After working on Honda's influential kaiju film The War of the Gargantuas (1966),[22] he began being credited as the "special effects supervisor" on the Godzilla films and continued receiving this credit until Destroy All Monsters (1968).[23] His final official theatrical film credit, the Seiji Maruyama-directed war epic Battle of the Japan Sea, was released in August 1969 and became the second-highest-grossing Japanese film of 1969;[24] he received a ceremonial title as effects director on Honda's All Monsters Attack later that year. In December of the same year, he completed work on Birth of the Japanese Islands [ja], an audiovisual exhibit for the Expo '70.[25] Tsuburaya planned to work on Space Amoeba, Japan Airplane Guy, and Princess Kaguya, but died in Itō, Shizuoka on January 25, 1970, a day before his scheduled return to Tokyo to begin work on the projects.[2][26]
^日本戦歿学生の手記 きけ、わだつみの声, Nippon senbotsu gakusei no shuki: Kike wadatsumi no koe lit.'Notes from Fallen Japanese Student Soldiers: Listen to the Voices from the Sea'
^ abcde"日本映画技術賞 受賞一覧 – 一般社団法人 日本映画テレビ技術協会" [Japan Motion Picture Technology Award Winner List – Motion Picture and Television Engineering Association of Japan]. mpte.jp (in Japanese). Motion Picture And Television Engineering Society Of Japan Inc. Archived from the original on March 22, 2023. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
^Asano, Eiko (February 18, 2020). "太平洋戦争中の特撮人形劇映画、制作現場の写真見つかる 人形は浅野孟府作" [Special effects puppet movie during the Pacific War, photos of the production site can be found. Puppets made by Mōfu Asano]. Voice of Nara (in Japanese). Archived from the original on February 7, 2023. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
^"ゴジラの円谷監督が特撮担当、幻の映画を"初上映"" [Director Tsuburaya of Godzilla is in charge of special effects, "premiere" of the fantasy movie]. ZAKZAK (in Japanese). October 24, 2005. Archived from the original on October 28, 2005. Retrieved March 25, 2023.
Iwabatake, Toshiaki (September 1, 1994). テレビマガジン特別編集 誕生40周年記念 ゴジラ大全集 [TV Magazine Special Edition: 40th Anniversary of the Birth of Godzilla Complete Works] (in Japanese). Kodansha. ISBN978-4-06-178417-8.
"手塚治虫と特撮テレビ" [Osamu Tezuka and Tokusatsu TV]. ぼくらが大好きだった 特撮ヒーローBESTマガジン [Beloved Favorite Tokusatsu Hero BEST Magazine] (in Japanese). Kodansha. April 22, 2009. ISBN978-4-06-375707-1.
Matsuda, Takehisa, ed. (1997). 日本特撮・幻想映画全集 [Complete Collection of Japanese Special Effects and Fantasy Movies] (in Japanese). Keibunsha. ISBN978-4-7669-2706-1.
Matsuda, Takehisa, ed. (August 10, 2001). 円谷英二特撮世界 [Eiji Tsuburaya's World of Tokusatsu] (in Japanese). Keibunsha. ISBN978-4-7669-3848-7.
Nakamura, Tetsu; Shiraishi, Masahiko; Aita, Tetsuo; Tomoi, Taketo; Shimazaki, Jun; Maruyama, Takeshi; Shimizu, Toshifumi; Hayakawa, Masaru (2014). ゴジラ東宝チャンピオンまつりパーフェクション [Godzilla Toho Champion Festival Perfection] (in Japanese). ASCII Media Works. ISBN978-4-04-866999-3.
Nishimoto, Tadashi; Yamada, Kōichi; Yamane, Sadao (October 2004). 香港への道 中川信夫からブルース・リーへ [Road to Hong Kong: From Nobuo Nakagawa to Bruce Lee] (in Japanese). Chikuma Shobō. ISBN978-4-480-87316-3.
特撮 円谷組 ゴジラと東宝特撮にかけた青春 [Special Effects: The Tsuburaya group, Godzilla and Youth in Toho Special Effects] (in Japanese). Yosensha. October 9, 2010. ISBN978-4-86248-622-6.