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 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. 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. 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 1937).
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 film Navy Bomber Squadron. 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. 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. Tsuburaya was purged from employment at Toho by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in 1948. 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.
In 1954, Tsuburaya directed the special effects for Hiroshi Inagaki's jidaigeki epic 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.[2] Two years later, he directed the effects for Shirō Toyoda's The Legend of the White Serpent and Honda's Rodan, with Rodan winning him his second Japan Technical Award.[2] 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. Three years later, Tsuburaya earned another Japan Technical Award for his effects on Inagaki's epic The Three Treasures.[2] Later, he worked on the tremendously successful tokusatsu films: Mothra, The Last War (both 1961), King Kong vs. Godzilla, and (both 1962). In 1963, he earned the Japan Technical Award for his special effects work on The Lost World of Sinbad;[2] the following year he made the effects for Honda's Mothra vs. Godzilla, often regarded as his best kaiju film. 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. His efforts on the 1965 war film 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).[2]
Because Ultra Q was a tremendous success during its release, Tsuburaya moved on to develop and supervise a follow-up titled Ultraman. 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. After working on Honda's influential kaiju film The War of the Gargantuas (1966), he began being credited as the "special effects supervisor" on the Godzilla films and continued receiving this credit until Destroy All Monsters (1968). 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; 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 , an audiovisual exhibit for the Expo '70. 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.
| scope=col rowspan="2" | Year | scope=col rowspan="2" | Title | scope=colgroup colspan="4" | Credited as | scope=col class=unsortable rowspan="2" | Notes | scope=col class=unsortable rowspan="2" | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| scope=col | Special effects director | scope=col | Cinematographer | scope=col | Director | scope=col | Special effects supervisor | ||
| scope=row | 1919 | ||||||||
| scope=row | 1920 | ||||||||
| scope=row | 1925 | [3] | |||||||
| scope=row | 1926 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="4" | 1927 | ||||||||
| scope=row | 1928 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="2" | 1929 | ||||||||
| scope=row | 1930 | ||||||||
| scope=row | 1931 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="2" | 1932 | ||||||||
| scope=row | 1933 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="2" | 1934 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="2" | 1935 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="2" | 1936 | Documentary | |||||||
| scope=row | 1937 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="2" | 1938 | ||||||||
| Unreleased | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="4" | 1940 | ||||||||
| Two-part film; with Bunshiro Okuno | |||||||||
| scope=row | 1941 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="5" | 1942 | ||||||||
| Scripting supervisor | [4] | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="12" | 1943 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="4" | 1944 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="3" | 1945 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="3" | 1946 | ||||||||
| scope=row | 1947 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="4" | 1948 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="7" | 1949 | ||||||||
| Uncredited; with Tatsuyuki Yokota | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="3" | 1950 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="3" | 1951 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="3" | 1952 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="7" | 1953 | ||||||||
| With Jun Yasumoto | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="6" | 1954 | ||||||||
| [5] | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="3" | 1955 | [6] | |||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="4" | 1956 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="3" | 1957 | Uncredited | |||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="3" | 1958 | ||||||||
| Uncredited | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="5" | 1959 | ||||||||
| Remake of Son Gokū (1940) | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="3" | 1960 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="5" | 1961 | ||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="6" | 1962 | ||||||||
| [7] | |||||||||
| Completed in 1961 | [8] | ||||||||
| [9] | |||||||||
| Uncredited | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="7" | 1963 | ||||||||
| The Love Eterne | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="5" | 1964 | ||||||||
| [10] | |||||||||
| [11] | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="5" | 1965 | ||||||||
| [12] | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="4" | 1966 | Uncredited | |||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="3" | 1967 | ||||||||
| Supervisor | |||||||||
| [13] | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="2" | 1968 | [14] | |||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="4" | 1969 | Uncredited | |||||||
| Also participated in editing | |||||||||
| scope=rowgroup | 1970 | Produced in 1969 | |||||||
| scope=col rowspan="2" | Year | scope=col rowspan="2" | Title | Credited as | scope=col class=unsortable rowspan="2" | Notes | scope=col class=unsortable rowspan="2" | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| scope=col | Supervisor | |||||||
| scope=row | 1957 | |||||||
| scope=row | 1959–1960 | Uncredited | ||||||
| scope=row | 1960 | Himself; episode | [15] | |||||
| scope=row | 1962 | Himself; May 15 episode | ||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan="2" | 1966 | Also producer | ||||||
| Himself; episode, | ||||||||
| scope=row | 1966–1967 | Also developer | ||||||
| scope=row | 1967–1968 | |||||||
| scope=rowgroup rowspan=3 | 1968 | |||||||
| scope=row | 1973 | Produced in 1969 | ||||||