Eiji Tsubaraya
| Eiji Tsuburaya 円谷 英二 |
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| Born | 圓谷 英一 (Tsumuraya Eiichi) July 10, 1901 Sukagawa, Fukushima, Japan |
| Died | January 25, 1970 (aged 68) Itō, Shizuoka, Japan |
| Occupation | Special effects creator, producer |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Years active | 1919–1969 |
Eiji Tsuburaya (円谷 英二 Tsuburaya Eiji) (Eiichi Tsumuraya (圓谷 英一 Tsumuraya Eiichi); July 10, 1901 – January 25, 1970, in Sukagawa, Fukushima) was a Japanese special effects director responsible for many Japanese science-fiction films and television series, being one of the co-creators of the Godzilla series, as well as the main creator of the Ultra Series. During his rise to post-war fame in the wake of Godzilla (1954), many press accounts gave Tsuburaya's birthdate as July 7, which falls on the high day of the star festival, Tanabata, a sign of good fortune. This is akin to an American saying that they were born on the Fourth of July. Tsuburaya's actual birthdate of July 10 has been verified by his last surviving son, Akira, and the company Eiji founded, Tsuburaya Productions, as the official entry in the Tsuburaya Family Register, in researching the official English-language biography on this important figure of cinema, Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters, Chronicle Books, 2007.
Tsuburaya described his childhood as filled with "mixed emotions." He was the first son of Isamu and Sei Tsumuraya, with a large extended family. His mother died when he was only three and his father moved to China for the family business. Young Eiji was raised by his barely older uncle, Ichiro, and his paternal grandmother, Natsu. He attended elementary school at the Sukagawa Choritsu Dai'ichi Jinjo Koutou Shogakko beginning in 1908, and two years later, he took up the hobby of building model airplanes, due to the sensational success of Japanese aviators, an interest he would retain for the rest of his life. In 1915, at the age of 14, he graduated the equivalent of High School, and begged his family to let him enroll in the Nippon Flying school at Haneda. After the school was closed on account of the accidental death of its founder, Seitaro Tamai, in 1917, Tsuburaya attended trade school. He became quite successful in the research and development department of the Utsumi toy company, but a chance meeting at a company party in 1919, set the course for his destiny—he was offered a job by director Yoshiro Edamasa, a job that would train him to be a motion picture cameraman. While the Tsuburaya family's traditional religion was Nichiren Buddhism, Tsuburaya converted to Roman Catholicism in his later years (his wife had already been a practicing Roman Catholic).
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