Japanese Star Wars movie posters

- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -

Writing over at StarWars.com, Pete Vilmur takes a look at the Japanese posters that accompanied the original trilogy, the Ewok movies and the two Star Wars Story releases, giving a different look at the films we love so much and an insight into how many Japanese fans first became aware of the movies.

During the original trilogy era of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, marketing teams around the world were often given broad latitude to create Star Wars poster campaigns to suit local tastes and sensibilities, resulting in a rich variety of advertising imagery. This tradition shifted during the era of the prequels, however, when the same key advertising imagery was utilized across all markets around the globe, with the exception of — interestingly — the US, which did not enjoy the expanded poster campaigns seen in Europe and Asia. There has been a return in recent years to some regionally exclusive poster designs, including in Japan, again giving fans and collectors an opportunity to add a truly unique poster to their collection. As Star Wars Celebration heads back to Japan in 2025, StarWars.com is revisiting some of those rarities.

The following 12 Japanese Star Wars movie posters feature designs and/or illustrations used nowhere else in the world, making them especially appealing to fans wishing to collect each unique poster from a specific title (or every title!). You will notice that prequel posters are conspicuously absent from the list, as there were no poster graphics created exclusively for Japan during that era.

Sale
Star Wars: Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss
  • Hardcover Book
  • Barnes, Steven (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 416 Pages - 10/15/2024 (Publication Date) - Random House Worlds (Publisher)
Mark Newbold
Mark Newbold
Exploring the galaxy since 1978, Mark wrote his first fan fiction in 1981 and been a presence online since his first webpage Fanta War in 1996. He's contributed to Star Wars Insider (since '06) and Starburst Magazine (since '16) as well as ILM.com, SkywalkerSound.com, StarWars.com, Star Wars Encyclopedia, Build The Millennium Falcon, Geeky Monkey, TV Film Memorabilia, Model and Collectors Mart, Star Trek magazine and StarTrek.com. He is a four-time Star Wars Celebration Stage host, the only podcaster to have appeared on every Celebration podcast stage since the stage began in 2015, the Daily Content Manager of Fantha Tracks and the co-host of Making Tracks, Canon Fodder and Start Your Engines on Fantha Tracks Radio.
- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -

Writing over at StarWars.com, Pete Vilmur takes a look at the Japanese posters that accompanied the original trilogy, the Ewok movies and the two Star Wars Story releases, giving a different look at the films we love so much and an insight into how many Japanese fans first became aware of the movies.

During the original trilogy era of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, marketing teams around the world were often given broad latitude to create Star Wars poster campaigns to suit local tastes and sensibilities, resulting in a rich variety of advertising imagery. This tradition shifted during the era of the prequels, however, when the same key advertising imagery was utilized across all markets around the globe, with the exception of — interestingly — the US, which did not enjoy the expanded poster campaigns seen in Europe and Asia. There has been a return in recent years to some regionally exclusive poster designs, including in Japan, again giving fans and collectors an opportunity to add a truly unique poster to their collection. As Star Wars Celebration heads back to Japan in 2025, StarWars.com is revisiting some of those rarities.

The following 12 Japanese Star Wars movie posters feature designs and/or illustrations used nowhere else in the world, making them especially appealing to fans wishing to collect each unique poster from a specific title (or every title!). You will notice that prequel posters are conspicuously absent from the list, as there were no poster graphics created exclusively for Japan during that era.

Sale
Star Wars: Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss
  • Hardcover Book
  • Barnes, Steven (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 416 Pages - 10/15/2024 (Publication Date) - Random House Worlds (Publisher)
Mark Newbold
Mark Newbold
Exploring the galaxy since 1978, Mark wrote his first fan fiction in 1981 and been a presence online since his first webpage Fanta War in 1996. He's contributed to Star Wars Insider (since '06) and Starburst Magazine (since '16) as well as ILM.com, SkywalkerSound.com, StarWars.com, Star Wars Encyclopedia, Build The Millennium Falcon, Geeky Monkey, TV Film Memorabilia, Model and Collectors Mart, Star Trek magazine and StarTrek.com. He is a four-time Star Wars Celebration Stage host, the only podcaster to have appeared on every Celebration podcast stage since the stage began in 2015, the Daily Content Manager of Fantha Tracks and the co-host of Making Tracks, Canon Fodder and Start Your Engines on Fantha Tracks Radio.
- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -
Close Popup
Privacy Settings saved!
Privacy Settings

When you visit any web site, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Control your personal Cookie Services here.

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.

Technical Cookies
In order to use this website we use the following technically required cookies
  • wordpress_test_cookie
  • wordpress_logged_in_
  • wordpress_sec

Google Adsense
We use Google AdSense to show online advertisements on our website.
  • _tlc
  • _tli
  • _tlp
  • _tlv
  • DSID
  • id
  • IDE

One Signal
For performance reasons we use OneSignal as a notification service.  This saves a number of cookies in order to apply notifcation services on a per-client basis. These cookies are strictly necessary for OneSignal's notification features.  It is essential to the service that these are not turned off.
  • _OneSignal_session
  • __cfduid
  • _ga
  • _gid

Affiliate Links
Fantha Tracks is reader-supported.  When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Media Net
We use Media Net to show online advertisements on our website.
  • SESS#

Decline all Services
Save
Accept all Services
Mastodon