“Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode” (仁義なき戦い 頂上作戦), Original Japanese Movie Poster 1974, B2 Size (51 × 73 cm) O693

This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster printed in 1974 for “Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode” (仁義なき戦い 頂上作戦), directed by Kinji Fukasaku (深作欣二)—the concluding chapter of the era-defining jitsuroku (“true-account”) yakuza series that permanently rewired Japanese crime cinema with its documentary urgency and raw postwar politics.

Film background
By the early 1970s, Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor and Humanity cycle had shattered the romanticised ninkyō yakuza image and replaced it with something harsher and truer: power, money, betrayal, and survival in the wreckage of postwar Japan. The Final Episode brings the saga to its bleak endpoint—where the violence no longer feels personal, but systemic—played out through shifting factions, public spectacle, and the grinding logic of organised crime.

Poster design
This B2 is one of the most confrontational designs from the entire series—built like a piece of investigative evidence. A vertical strip of grim, cropped faces reads like mugshots or newspaper cuttings, while the grainy high-contrast imagery carries the texture of reportage rather than studio gloss. A blood-red geometric slash cuts through the composition, punctured by a small colour still—like a signal flare inside the monochrome brutality. The title 仁義なき戦い appears in thick, distressed lettering, while 「頂上作戦」 is stamped in red like an official seal—final, absolute, and ominous. It’s pure jitsuroku: a poster that hits like a headline and feels uncomfortably real.

Condition
Excellent / Close to Near Mint. Please review the photos—they show the exact poster for sale.

It is not a reproduction or a reprint.

It is over 51 years old!

Certificate of Authenticity included.