Today would be the 114th birthday of Eiji Tsuburaya, creator of Ultraman and co-creator of Godzilla. Google is celebrating the person behind some of our most treasured cultural icons with a Google Doodle mini-game that challenges players to recreate some iconic scenes from Tsuburaya’s movies.
Born on 7 July 1919, Tsuburaya made his name in cinematography history by pioneering visual effects techniques for Japanese cinema. He gained international fame in 1954 with Godzilla, and spawned a massive franchise of giant monsters fighting each other that has evolved into a genre of its own.
In 1966, Tsuburaya founded his own studio and began making a television series that would influence entire generations: Ultraman. In a display of how timeless the concept of fighting giant monsters is, Tsuburaya Productions is still making Ultraman shows almost 50 years later. Tsuburaya passed away in 1970, but not before changing modern cinema for the better and influencing entire generations of moviemakers.
Google has added its own touch to the monsters that appear in its latest Doodle by ensuring that each Kaiju that appears resembles one of the letters that spell Google. The order in which they appear is also spells out Google’s name.
