Without the tireless efforts of special-effects guru Eiji Tsuburaya, the world would be missing quite a lot of things.  Although he is most famous as the creator of the incredibly popular Ultraman, without him there would be no Godzilla, Mothra, Ghidorah, or any of the other giant colorful characters that make up the kaiju world.  After all, it was Tsuburaya who, after watching King Kong in 1933, got the idea for the suitmation “guy in a rubber suit stomping through a model city” style of special effects that people know and love today.  It’s only right that Tsuburaya’s home city of Sukagawa in the prefecture of Fukashima, Japan, honor him with a series of silhouettes on electrical transformer boxes.

While it is a bit of an unusual tribute, can you think of something better for a fellow whose creations are so ubiquitous than to decorate something so ubiquitous with his wonderful creations?  I can’t!  Those electrical transformer boxes are everywhere, and Tsuburaya’s wonderful creations have likewise spread throughout the world thanks to the magic of a guy in a spandex outfit and cool mask and giant rubber monsters.

Think about it this way:  suitmation is so effective it’s still being used in movies to this day.  The monsters in the upcoming live-action version of Where The Wild Things Are are going to be a combination of CGI and suitmation.  Toho still makes suitmation kaiju movies to this day, and every kid is enthralled with Godzilla at some point in his life.  Some of us, like me, never grow out of it.

Tags: graffiti, murals, monsters drawn on transformer boxes, unusual art, silhouettes, Ultraman, Sukagawa, Japan, Eiji Tsuburaya, special effects artists, entertainment, kaiju, Godzilla

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