"Star Wars: Town Mook (Noriyoshi Ohrai Star Wars fold-out poster", Original Science Fiction Special Issue Japanese Magazine / Book 1978, Size (21 x 30cm)
STAR WARS / 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY / CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
Original Japanese science-fiction special issue with Noriyoshi Ohrai Star Wars fold-out poster and additional bound-in / loose SF poster material
Town Mook — 「決定版 スペースSF映画の本」 / “An Invitation to the Fantasia of Space SF Films”, 1978
Japan, 1978
Magazine size (closed): 21 × 30 cm (approx. 8.25 × 11.75 in)
Star Wars / 2001 fold-out poster (opened): 28 × 52 cm (approx. 11 × 20.5 in)
A wonderfully evocative survival from the late-1970s Japanese science-fiction boom: an original Town Mook special issue published in 1978, just after Star Wars exploded into Japan and transformed the visual culture of international SF collecting. Part magazine, part book, this substantial 132-page Japanese publication surveys major space and science-fiction cinema from the early twentieth century through the then-current blockbuster era, with extensive illustrations, stills, and features on key titles including Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Planet of the Apes, War of the Worlds, and many others.
What elevates this issue far beyond a standard film magazine is its extraordinary poster content—above all the fold-out Star Wars poster featuring artwork by Noriyoshi Ohrai, one of the most celebrated Japanese illustrators ever associated with cinema and fantastical imagery.
This is exactly the kind of crossover piece that appeals simultaneously to collectors of Star Wars, Noriyoshi Ohrai, Japanese SF paper, and late-1970s visual culture.
The Noriyoshi Ohrai Star Wars fold-out poster in this copy
This issue is prized above all for its Star Wars fold-out poster, a compact but highly displayable example of Ohrai’s early Star Wars imagery, issued in Japan at the moment the franchise was beginning to establish its visual mythology there.
1) Star Wars fold-out poster: Noriyoshi Ohrai artwork
The highlight is the fold-out poster tucked inside the publication, featuring a dramatic Star Wars composition by Noriyoshi Ohrai. Even in this smaller magazine format, the artwork has the epic, painterly density that made Ohrai such a natural fit for space opera: monumental machinery, layered figures, deep atmospheric contrast, and a sense of scale that feels cinematic rather than merely illustrative.
The composition brings together iconic characters and spacecraft against a brooding science-fiction backdrop, with the Millennium Falcon dominating the foreground and Darth Vader looming in the distance. It is vintage Ohrai in embryo: already showing the grand, operatic sense of mass and spectacle that would later make him world-famous.
2) Reverse side: 2001: A Space Odyssey imagery
The reverse of the same fold-out presents imagery from 2001: A Space Odyssey, creating an especially desirable pairing of two defining monuments of screen science fiction within a single original Japanese insert. The juxtaposition is extremely appealing from a collector’s perspective: Kubrick’s austere futuristic vision on one side, and Ohrai’s painterly Star Wars dynamism on the other.
3) Additional SF poster material inside the issue
This Town Mook is also notable for including further poster matter beyond the Ohrai insert. As described, the magazine contains a double-sided bound-in poster featuring 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as well as a loose fold-out 2001 poster. That layered structure—magazine plus multiple poster elements—gives the publication an object quality closer to a deluxe special issue than to an ordinary paperback cinema magazine.
Historical context: Star Wars arrives in Japan
This issue belongs to the first great wave of Japanese popular response to Star Wars, when the film’s arrival in Japan reshaped the market for imported science-fiction cinema and catalysed a wider appetite for “space SF” as a category. Rather than treating Star Wars in isolation, the editors place it into a broader lineage of international fantastical cinema, linking it to earlier classics such as 2001, Planet of the Apes, and Close Encounters. That editorial framing now feels quintessentially late-1970s: Star Wars is presented not simply as a hit film, but as the newest summit in a long history of cinematic imagination.
Within that context, the Town Mook becomes more than a magazine. It is a period Japanese document of how science fiction was being curated, explained, and visually canonised for a domestic readership at precisely the moment the genre was being redefined.
Noriyoshi Ohrai: early Star Wars significance
The Star Wars insert is particularly important because it captures Noriyoshi Ohrai at an early and exciting point in his relationship with the franchise. Ohrai would later become internationally renowned for his painted poster art for The Empire Strikes Back, and his sweeping, high-drama visual language is now inseparable from the imagery of late-20th-century fantasy and science-fiction marketing.
Collectors value pieces like this because they preserve that relationship in a distinctly Japanese format: not a later reproduction, and not merely a book illustration, but an original release-era printed insert embedded in the magazine culture of the time.
The artist’s technique—refined through years of painting book covers, magazine illustrations, and major film imagery—gives the composition tremendous depth and theatricality. As noted in exhibition commentary, the printed version appears darker than Ohrai’s original painting, a characteristic attributed to the printing process itself; far from diminishing the image, this darker tonal register gives the poster an especially moody and powerful presence in printed form.
Japanese Star Wars / Ohrai print ephemera of this type is highly desirable
While posters for Star Wars exist in several better-known formats, Japanese magazine-insert material featuring original Ohrai artwork occupies a particularly attractive niche within the market. Pieces like this combine several collecting categories at once: Star Wars paper, Japanese cinema and publishing ephemera, Noriyoshi Ohrai material, and late-1970s SF design.
Because these inserts were often lost, detached, damaged, or discarded, complete or well-preserved examples of the Town Mook issue with its key poster content are much scarcer than ordinary surviving magazines. The appeal is enhanced by the fact that the publication does not focus on Star Wars alone, but frames it within a larger golden age panorama of science-fiction cinema.
Condition
Excellent overall condition for a 1978 Japanese magazine / mook of this type.
Cover: strong colour, attractive gloss, and very good visual presence overall; light wear consistent with age and handling; presents beautifully.
Interior: the publication remains highly presentable, with only light general wear noted. Pages appear clean overall, with expected minor age handling.
Poster material: highly desirable poster content present, including the Noriyoshi Ohrai Star Wars fold-out; visually striking and very well preserved overall. The unfolded poster displays impressively.
Spine / back cover: only light wear noted for age. As always with vintage Japanese paper items of this sort, please study the photographs closely for the most granular assessment of condition and completeness.
