Godzilla creator Eiji Tsubaraya honoured in 7 July Google Doodle

Google has honoured Godzilla creator - and wartime Japanese propagandist - Eiji Tsuburaya in its 7 July doodle. The doodle invites surfers to play a game to make monster movie settings, including destroying tanks and spaceships.

His special effects in propaganda movies in the Second World War were considered to be so realistic that they were passed off as real in American propaganda films.

Heavy.com says Tsuburaya was a special effects innovator and is considered one of the most influential movie visionaries of all time.

After the war, Tsuburaya's wartime propaganda films made it hard for him to find work. He set up own production company, Tsuburaya Visual Effects Research), before returning to Toho Tokyo studios - where he had worked before the war - in the early 1950s.

For his work on Godzilla, Tsuburaya won his first Film Technique Award. Instead of using the stop-motion technique of Willis O'Brian's 1933 iconic King Kong, Tsuburaya put a man in a rubber suit to create his giant monster.

He worked on around 250 films in total and died on 25 January 1970 in Ito, Japan.