Before CGI, every monster movie required an army of clever technicians pulling wires, stitching costumes, and building miniature cities. The Eiji Tsuburaya Google Doodle drops you into that world, putting you in the director’s chair for a series of rapid-fire Tokusatsu filmmaking challenges that are equal parts chaotic and charming. Released on July 7, 2015 — Tsuburaya’s 114th birthday — this interactive Doodle celebrates the man who created both Ultraman and the entire genre of Japanese monster films.
Eiji Tsuburaya was born in 1901 in Sukagawa, Japan, and developed an obsession with aviation that eventually led him to cinema. He joined the Japanese film industry in the 1930s and developed groundbreaking special effects techniques during World War II. But his legacy was truly cemented in 1954, when he served as special effects director on the original Godzilla — a film that invented the concept of a man in a rubber suit stomping through a miniature city. Tsuburaya built every set by hand at carefully calculated scales, rigged every wire himself, and used forced perspective to make a man in a monster costume look genuinely terrifying. The illusion was so convincing that US military officials reportedly believed the film was using real wartime footage.
In 1963, Tsuburaya founded Tsuburaya Productions and created what would become Japan’s other great monster franchise: Ultraman. The 1966 television series combined Tsuburaya’s signature miniature-destruction aesthetic with a superhero narrative, inventing a template for the “tokusatsu” (special filming) genre that has influenced everything from Power Rangers to Pacific Rim. Tsuburaya died in 1970, but his studio and techniques live on — Ultraman remains one of the most profitable entertainment franchises in Japanese history.
The Google Doodle captures his process brilliantly. You work through five mini-game challenges that simulate what it actually took to make a Tokusatsu production in the 1960s. You dress an actor in the monster costume before the scene starts, connect electrical wires to rig the lighting, fasten the harness that will make the monster appear to fly, and then direct the actual monster attack — stomping through a meticulously built miniature city. The final challenge requires you to destroy buildings on cue, timing your destruction for maximum cinematic effect. It’s silly, fast, and surprisingly educational about a filmmaking craft that deserves far more recognition than it typically gets.
How To Play Eiji Tsuburaya Doodle
The Doodle runs you through five sequential mini-game challenges, each simulating a different stage of Tokusatsu filmmaking:
- Dress the actor — drag costume pieces onto the actor before the timer runs out. Match each piece to the correct body position.
- Connect the wires — draw lines to complete the electrical circuit, linking each pair of matching connectors on the lighting rig.
- Connect the harness — attach the rigging cables to the correct attachment points on the monster costume so the actor can be lifted safely.
- Destroy the buildings — time your clicks or taps to knock down miniature city blocks at the right moment as the monster charges through the set.
- Each challenge must be completed within a time limit — work quickly but accurately to move through all stages and complete the film.
