nwasianweekly.com
Dec. 15,
2007
The huge tiny world of Tsuburaya
By Andrew Hamlin
Northwest Asian Weekly
Photos quickly overwhelm the text in August Ragone’s coffee-table book, “Eiji Tsuburaya: Master Of Monsters,” the first English-language biography of Japanese special effects doyen Eiji Tsuburaya. The text remains important, however, since Tsuburaya accomplished much more in 68 years than even many of his ardent fans know.
Ragone, along with contributing authors, is committed to every nook and cranny touched by the master’s hand. Collaborators include Ed Godziszewski, writing on Tsuburaya’s favorite henchmen; Brad Warner, writing on how Tsuburaya’s business survived him; and the master’s own son, Akira, on the tribulations and triumphs of keeping the unreal real.
The sum total surpasses its parts to become the definitive document, in pictures and words, of an unsung, essential man.
The first few pictures lay the all-important foundation: A crew of technicians worry over camera placement, amid a landscape with buildings reaching up to their knees. Two stuntmen waist-deep in water, dressed from the neck down in what look like gorilla suits, make faces at the lens while a bathtub-sized ocean liner, waiting to be menaced, floats serenely to their left.
In the middle of many of these shots stands a gentleman, outfitted in coat, tie, slacks, fedora, eyeglasses and burning cigarette. Tsuburaya spent his life making small things look large, so the photographic sumptuousness makes perfect sense — and so does the always-amusing contrast of the true scale of his land and cityscapes, with the life-sized men fretting about getting a take before tea break, and how not to step on the 3-foot pagoda palace.
Tsuburaya began life in 1901, in the Japanese town of Sukagawa, Fukushima Prefecture. From his boyhood, he loved to build models, and he didn’t distinguish between those designed for a boy’s bedroom display and those that floated or flew. He especially loved planes and was an actual pilot for a short stint.
His miniatures-plus-explosions re-creation of the bombing of Pearl Harbor for a Japanese film called “The War at Sea From Hawaii to Malaya” was so realistic that some Allied forces mistakenly included it in postwar documentaries.
Occupation officials in Japan, while aware of the footage’s true nature, became convinced Tsuburaya had to have espionage-based information to so realistically depict the U.S. Naval base, and he got the boot from his film studio, Toho (although he later rejoined, with brilliant success).
In reality, he was guilty of nothing more than obeying government orders to produce propaganda films. His own knack for perfection did the rest. Left to his own devices as the Allies sifted out of Japan, he helped usher in a new kind of movie.
A Japanese tuna trawler accidentally irradiated by a U.S. H-bomb blast was the inspiration for the monster lizard called “Gojira” (combining Japanese terms for “gorilla” and “whale”), renamed “Godzilla” overseas. Tsuburaya and his never-sleeping team labored to make the monster real, using latex bodysuits, expendable miniatures, wire work, mechanized monsters and even puppetry.
They did this for a slew of films and menaces, as Mothra the giant psychedelic moth, Rodan the overgrown pterodactyl, and even a forlorn-looking King Kong joined the fun.
In one photograph, stuntman Hirose Shoichi, in a full-body King Kong suit, gestures to Tsuburaya between takes and diminutive skyscrapers. “What’s my motivation?” he seems to ask. Or maybe he’s just ordering tea.
The old man’s overtaxed heart gave out in 1970; he did most of his best-remembered work never knowing he was near the end.
Turn on the Sci Fi channel late at night, or head to the video shop — after picking up this book, of course — and feast your eyes on his huge tiny worlds.
“Eiji Tsuburaya: Master Of Monsters,” by August Ragone and others. Published by Chronicle Books, 2007. $40.
Andrew Hamlin can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.
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