Ultraman Tiga
Kawasaki began his career with mostly self-financed work, including the "Den-Ace" short films, featuring a parody of kyodai-style Japanese superheroes, before working on Tsuburaya Production's "Ultraman Tiga" (1996-1997). He had his first hit with "The Calamari Wrestler" (2004), about a wrestler who inexplicably becomes a giant squid. He followed this up with "Executive Koala" (2005), about an anthropomorphic koala salaryman who may or may not have murdered his wife, and "Kabuto-O Beetle" (also 2005), another wrestling-themed movie, this time with a giant stag beetle. In 2006, he released "The World Sinks Except Japan", a spoof of Shinji Higuchi's remake of "Japan Sinks", and "Crab Goalkeeper" (also 2006), a film Kawasaki describes as being his "Forrest Gump" (1994).