I have bought and sold multiple copies of the coveted Amelie B1 size "red bed" version over the years. I’ve bought a few fakes, too, and I know what a big disappointment this can be, even if you haven’t spent hundreds of dollars. Even long time dealers get fooled, so I thought it would be useful to collectors to have a definitive guide on how to tell the difference between a real red Amelie B1 and a fake. If you can get even halfway decent pictures of a poster before buying it, using this guide you will be able to avoid buying a fake.

First, we’ll start with measurements: the real poster is a little over 28 5/8″ wide.

…while the fake is about 26 3/4″ wide. Note that there are many fakes out there and I wouldn’t be surprised if some were different measurements… but this is a very common one if not the only style of fake out there.

The real poster is about 40.5″ in height…

…while the fake is a little over 38.5″ in height. This is a huge difference and if you have one on hand, this is a very quick and easy test.

Next we check the art at the borders. On the real poster there is about 1.25″ of space between the border and the picture frame on the left side.

But on the fake, there is only about an inch of space there:

Moving over to the far right corner, we check the placement of the Eirin mark. On the real poster the Eirin has margin to the right and to the bottom. There’s about a quarter inch of margin in both directions:

Here’s where it gets interesting. As we so often see on fake movie posters, there is less art to the right of the Eirin mark — the art has been cut off in the duplication process. But below the Eirin mark, there is MORE — art has been ADDED below so that there is more margin than on the real poster, resulting in about a half inch of space between it and the border. Note also that the Eirin is visibly fuzzier on the fake than on the real poster:

Moving up the right edge, there’s another picture frame that is visible to the right of the bed. Again, on the real poster there is more art than on the fake. You can see roughly a half inch of picture frame on the real poster:

…while on the fake there is only a sliver of the frame present, perhaps an eighth to a quarter of an inch.

Back to the left side. There is a group of objects on the left side of the bed. Pay attention to the clock and the vase on the left side. On the real poster the center of the clock is about 7/8″ to 1″ from the left edge. You can also see a vase behind the clock — pay attention to how much is visible:

On the fake the center of the clock is about 5/8″ to 3/4″ away from the left edge. And a lot of the vase behind the clock is gone. You can also observe how the fake is grainier than the original.

At the top left there is about 3/8″ to 1/2″ of space between the left edge and the title/credits:


While on the fake there is almost zero. The color is also very different here — brown on the fake versus deep red or burgundy on the original:

There is the same kind of margin cutoff on the right side of the credits.

Similar to the situation we observed under the Eirin, there is a differential at the top of the poster as well. On the original there is about 1/4″ of space between the top edge and the French title:

and on the fake there is a good half inch there. Again, more art has been added to the fake!

Whatever the reasons for creating the fake — to sell as a repro to someone who likes the art, or to sell to a collector for a high price — these posters have created a lot of confusion in the hobby. Even those with many years of experience get faked out by these, and they have definitely started crossing back over into the Japanese market. So just because a poster comes from Japan does not mean it is the real deal! In your efforts to do your homework before buying an expensive poster like this, please refer to this guide to be sure you don’t make a big mistake.

One last note: there are many more differences on the real poster versus the fake, but these are some of the most easily observable. Once you’ve seen a real one it is very very easy to tell the difference and when you have them side by side you could spend a long time documenting every little difference. The colors are different, everything is a different size, the image is grainy, there are faults/differences in the lettering. If you know of more differences I’m happy to hear about them, but I think this guide is sufficient for figuring out real vs. fake.

Japanese movie posters

First, a picture of the FAKE LOST IN TRANSLATION B2:

Looks pretty good, especially in a typically tiny eBay advertisement. However, as soon as you put it next to a real poster:

It’s obvious it’s fake. First, notice the color discrepancy — the real Lost in Translation poster is on the top. Night and day different. Also, notice that I’ve aligned the top borders of the posters. Now look at the bottom — the fake is substantially shorter, probably by a full centimeter. It is also substantially narrower as you can see here:

Here are some more detail photos:

Be sure to click through to see the large photo available on Flickr. Part of the challenge on this poster is that the original poster has a grainy photo as the main image. However, as you can see the letters are easily distinguishable as authentic on the real poster. On the real poster the characters are crisp, sharp, and black. On the fake they are fuzzy and dull, and barely even gray.

At the bottom, the credits area has a deep dark color on the original. On the fake it is much lighter and grainy. The credits lettering is also fuzzy, although that may be difficult to distinguish in this picture.

Moving back to the right side, we use the old authentication trick of checking the art at the border. Sure enough, an easy difference to spot is right above Scarlett Johannson’s head. There is a dark piece from the umbrella at about 2 o’clock above her hair that is completely missing on the fake.

And moving to the left side, just above and to the left of the red arrow you can see a semi-circle. There is much more of that semi-circle present on the real poster:

Lastly, there’s just much more color depth and a completely different color balance on the real vs the fake (real is on the left):

This is an easy authentication. As I stated above, it was clear to me that this was a fake even before I had the real one next to it for comparison. That said, I have going on a decade of experience collecting Japanese posters so it might not be so obvious to a casual buyer. There ARE fakes and repros of Japanese posters out there being sold by unscrupulous sellers. Anyone who is at the point of selling posters should know better — claiming ignorance is a non-starter if you ask me.

I hope this is helpful. We must remain careful and vigilant about exposing fakes and I hope this article achieves that purpose.

REAL Japanese movie posters are at posterdemic.com