The Prestige Japanese B2 movie poster, originally uploaded by japanese-movie-posters.

The Prestige Japanese B2 movie poster

Can anybody tell that I am a Scarlett Johansson fan???

Japanese movie posters

Twilight Samurai / Tasogare Seibei Japanese B1 movie poster, originally uploaded by japanese-movie-posters.

JAPANESE MOVIE POSTER INVENTORY UPDATE

Big post tonight. First, the poster above is for one of my favorite Japanese movies (although I’m no Japanese film scholar), Twilight Samurai. If you are a Japanese film neophyte, this one is very easy to watch, is not focused on swordplay, and is, yes, touching. Highly recommend this one as well as The Hidden Blade.

Now, on to the new arrivals…

Japanese B1 movie posters

• Azumi
• Twilight Samurai (2 styles) on very interesting thick iridescent paper BOTH SOLD
• Lust, Caution
• Burn After Reading

Japanese B2 movie posters

• Baisers volés / Stolen Kisses (Truffaut)
• Towering Inferno
• Pulp Fiction (white background)
• Ichi the Killer rare Style C SOLD
• Persepolis
• Shortbus
• The Prestige
• Scoop SOLD
• Big Wednesday (cast style)SOLD
• Return of the Jedi (2 styles)SOLD
• Moonraker
• Cannonball Run 2 (free to anyone who wants it, just pay shipping or buy something else)
• True Romance
• Twilight
• Usual SuspectsSOLD
• Emmanuelle
• Innocence / L’ecole (France – not related at all to Ghost in the Shell series)
• To Catch a Thief R60s
• I am Curious Yellow Style C (original release)SOLD
• Army of Darkness
• Andy Warhol’s BadSOLD
• Memento (2 styles!)BOTH SOLD
• Silence of the Lambs
• Spirited Away Advance
• 400 blows / Quatre cent coups R80sSOLD
• Hiroshima Mon Amour R78
• Kill Bill (2 styles)
• Kill Bill 2 (Bride)
• Pierrot Le Fou R80s
• La Dolce Vita R80s
• 2 ou 3 Choses Que Je Sais D’Elle R80s
• Devil Wears Prada (2 styles, one quite sexy)ONE SOLD
• Unforgiven (Eastwood)

Japanese 2 panel (tatekan) movie posters

• Le Mans

Whew! It’s a lot and it took a long time to take all the pics. I have some other mystery pieces, too, and other freebies. You’ll be seeing some of them here… and if you want to see a picture NOW and want to buy something NOW, of course let me know!

Original Japanese movie posters

The Other Boleyn Girl B2 Japanese movie poster, originally uploaded by japanese-movie-posters.

The Other Boleyn Girl Japanese B2 movie poster

Another nice poster with a couple of my favorite actresses — Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman — I couldn’t pass this one up given both of them are in the image — although I could do without the Eric Bana bear in the background… One interesting thing about this poster is that the names of the actors across the top are in the exact opposite order versus the photo. So “Eric Bana” is right above Natalie Portman’s head!

Overall a nice poster to throw in the vault for 10 years to age. Nice matte paper too.

Original 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

Another one I have been after for quite a long time — the elusive Lost in Translation Japanese B2. Yes, I would love a B1, but this B2 is pretty rare indeed. I’ve only seen a handful. This one is excellent — no folds, not even any ‘waves’ as we so often see in B2’s, and on thick matte stock. Lovely.

Buy Japanese movie posters at posterdemic