Writtten By: Ken HulseySource: Popular Fidelity
The city of Sukagawa in the prefecture of Fukashima, Japan, has come up with a rather odd way to pay homage to one of it's local heroes, famed special effects man, Eiji Tsuburaya. This strange tribute to the man who helped revolutionise the island nation's film industry, and also helped to create some of the world's greatest monsters, Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and King Ghidorah (not Gamera though), comes in the form of painting the likeness of the superhero, "Ultraman" (created by Tsuburaya in 1966) on the side of local electrical transformer boxes.
This may seem as strange to us westerners, I would kinda be like putting the image of "Batman" on telephone poles to pay tribute to Bob Kane, but in Japan such an act is quite an honor. Come to find out, these transformer boxes are on just about every corner in Sukagawa, so the "Ultraman" images are literally all over the place.
About "Ultraman":
Ultraman (ウルトラマン, Urutoraman?) is a fictional character featured in tokusatsu, or "special effects" television programs in Japan. Ultraman made his debut in the tokusatsu SF/kaiju/superhero TV series, Ultra Q: Ultraman: Special Effects Fantasy Series, a follow-up to the television series Ultra Q. The show was produced by Tokyo Broadcasting System and Tsuburaya Productions, and was broadcast on Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) from July 17, 1966 to April 9, 1967, with a total of 39 episodes (40, counting the pre-premiere special that aired on July 10, 1966).
About Eiji Tsuburaya:
Eiji Tsuburaya (born Eiichi Tsumuraya) on July 7, 1901 – died January 25, 1970, in Sukagawa, Fukushima) was the Japanese special effects director responsible for many Japanese science-fiction movies, including the Godzilla series.
In 1963 Tsuburaya started his own special effects laboratory, and later that year founded Tsuburaya Productions. In 1966 alone, this company aired the first 'monster' series for television, Ultra Q beginning in January, followed it with the highly popular Ultraman in July, and premiered a comedy-monster series, Booska, the Friendly Beast in November. Ultraman became the first live-action Japanese television series to be exported around the world, and spawned the Ultra Series which continues to this day.
Many of you may not know that "Ultraman" is the third most popular character icon world-wide, based on licenses and merchandise sales, behind only Mickey Mouse and Snoopy.
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