According to various news sources, Google has apparently decided to celebrate Kurosawa’s 100th (March 23) with one of its legendary doodles, which replace the company’s logo on its search front page. I cannot see the picture myself, so I assume that it is only shown in certain regions of the world, but here it is:
While it’s great to see one of the world’s largest companies acknowledge Kurosawa (and in doing so drive quite a bit of traffic to this website, by the way), I personally think that they could have done a better job with the picture. This one makes me think of Chairman Mao, who is about to be murdered by a stalking camera (you can see the axe blade on the right).
But what do you think about the picture? And what are you planning to do to celebrate Kurosawa’s one hundreth?
It would also be interesting to hear if you actually see the Kurosawa doodle when you go to the website’s front page. Also, if you click the image, it should take you to search results for “Akira Kurosawa” — where on that list is this website for you? (It varies slightly depending on where in the world you are.)
Finally, in case you are interested in more Google doodles, you find them on Google’s logo page.
Interestingly enough, because iGoogle is set as my home page, that’s what I see instead of Google’s front page when I click that link.
You’re right, the drawing looks like a cross between the older Kurosawa and Chairman Mao, though I always noticed some resemblance. I think the shape of his face is wrong, but Coco will probably have more insightful comments to make.
Nevertheless, I’m impressed by what Google is doing. Now I have to post a Kurosawa tribute to my LiveJournal. If I’m not feeling too lazy, I may post a link here too. I’ll also have to see where this website appears on the Google list of search results.