Many movie-lovers are likely to say that the Japanese movie industry doesn’t have the spark it once used to during the reign of legendary filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu. For most current movie distributors, the significance of the commercial aspects of a film greatly outweigh the artistic, and they are thus more prone to working on films that probably won't be an extraordinary cinematic piece, but aren’t terrible enough to upset most movie-goers either. This ultimately results in a tendency for Japanese movies to become rather similar and quite bland.

Well, it appears that even Japanese movie posters may have lost their magic touch, too. Sure, they’re clean and simple, but they’re also a tad lackluster.

Remember during the Showa Period (1926-1989) when both movies and their posters were anything but bland? Japanese screenwriter, art designer, and critic Yoshiki Takahashi does. That’s why he turns ordinary official movie posters into kick-ass posters reminiscent of the 70s.

His unofficial movie posters have made it onto magazines, but when he’s not making them for fun, he makes posters professionally for B-movies.

His movie posters aren’t just appreciated by fans, either — even the great Quentin Tarantino himself is quite fond of them. Of his Kill Bill Vol.1 poster, Takahashi revealed:

Other artists have been influenced by Takahashi, too, like Tohru Mitsuhashi, who created this “faux Yoshiki Takahashi style” poster of The Revenant.

We can only wish Takahashi will work on posters for all the movies playing in Japan, because frankly, his artistic creations are much more impactful and dramatic than any of the official movie posters we’ve seen in Japan in a very long time.