This is a Japanese “chirashi’ I bought recently as a birthday present for my wife.

“Chirashi” are doubled-sided B5 flyers which were printed in limited runs to be handed out in movie theatres in Japan upon a movie’s release. They are relatively cheap to collect and being small are easy to store and display.  

My wife had previously spent time living in Japan at university and she told me she had a Reality Bites poster bought from Tower Records on her wall for the whole time and that she associated this with happy memories from her time there.  So I had tried to track down a Japanese poster for this movie (which typically comes in a size called “B2”) but it proved impossible to find.

I eventually found a chirashi a year ago online and I ordered it as a birthday present for her, only it got lost in the post from Japan and never arrived. It took me a year before I found one again, and this time it arrived safely and on time – phew!

Even though I spent 3 years living in Japan myself, I don’t own any Japanese movie posters. (I was ‘on a break’ from my collecting hobby at the time plus in those days as a ‘gaijin’ (foreigher) in Japan it was relatively hard to track down shops in Tokyo selling original posters, as they tend to be tucked away down small alleys or hidden in big shopping complexes.)

I did recently get so far as to trying to bid on this Japanese James Bond poster at auction in the UK, but the price quickly crept up beyond what I was prepared to pay for it.

For those who are interested in vintage Japanese movie posters, one place in Tokyo that is a ‘must visit’ is Yakitori alley near Ginza. Here, in between the many tiny and fascinating yakitori stores catering to both tourists and Japanese ‘salarymen’ are various very old posters decaying on the walls underneath the train tracks. I’ve no idea what these movies are but I snapped this picture on my last visit back to Japan.

I’ve seen Reality Bites, I think, but honestly I remember nothing about it. My wife, however, remembers everything! It seems thankfully that this small present has helped her reconnect with some very happy and memorable moments in her life, so I’m very glad I managed to track this down for her. It’s always nice, I think, when a simple poster holds a special memory and meaning for someone.