Eiji Tsuburaya Museum Opens In Fukushima

Above, Eiji Tsuburaya on the set of King Kong vs. Godzilla. Photo by Toho Co., Ltd.

There is now another place in Japan that Godzilla fans will have to add to their "bucket list" of Godzilla-related places to visit.

The new Eiji Tsuburaya Museum has opened in Fukushima.

According to Stars and Stripes:

Experience the world of Godzilla, Ultraman and their co-creator, Eiji Tsuburaya the God of Special Effects in Sukagawa, Fukushima, as the region continues to rebound from the Great Eastern Earthquake. On Jan. 11, after five years in the making, the Sukagawa Citizens Exchange Center tette building opened to hundreds in attendance. 

During the opening ceremony, Mayor Katsuya Hashimoto said, “Our brand-new community center tette (hands) is Sukagawa city’s main place for cultural exchange and citizens’ activities and we are committed to nurturing citizens here long into the future. We also honor tokusatsu (special effects) master, Eiji Tsuburaya, born in Sukagawa city, for his accomplishments at the Eiji Tsuburaya Museum, an archival center that will disseminate Japanese special effects to the world.” 

The dreaming spirit of Tsuburaya, who was inspired by Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong (1933) to make his own monster movies, is chronicled in detail on the 5th floor of the tette Exchange Center. Before his untimely passing in 1970, Tsuburaya worked on more than 250 military and science fiction movies and TV programs with Toho Studios and his own Tsuburaya Productions. With a tight-knit team of 60 innovative artists, he debuted Ultra Q (1965) and Ultraman (1966) to unsuspecting Japanese homes, spawning the first kaiju boom. 

All over Sukagawa you can celebrate Tsuburaya’s universe of characters at the town’s city hall, train station, post offices, stores, airport, and the community center with its five modern floors of: classes, music rooms, event halls, libraries, and childcare spaces. The tette building also includes cultural meeting rooms, an Ultra FM radio station, stores, Ultraman kaiju statues, and the museum focused on the aspiring airplane pilot who flew south, ascended to photographer, and became an unequaled director of special visual effects, utilizing miniatures and suitmation, co-inventing Japan’s most iconic monsters and heroes.

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