“DODES’KA-DEN / どですかでん” (1970) – ORIGINAL JAPANESE STB / TATEKAN FIRST-RELEASE THEATRICAL POSTER – ARTWORK BY AKIRA KUROSAWA P142

“DODES’KA-DEN / どですかでん” (1970) – ORIGINAL JAPANESE STB / TATEKAN FIRST-RELEASE THEATRICAL POSTER – ARTWORK BY AKIRA KUROSAWA

Extremely Rare Two-Panel STB Printing | Original Japanese Release Campaign | Original Artwork by Akira Kurosawa | Kurosawa’s First Colour Film | c. 51 × 145 cm (20 × 57 in) | Excellent Condition

An exceptional original Japanese STB / Tatekan theatrical poster produced for the first release of Akira Kurosawa’s Dodes’ka-den, featuring the director’s own extraordinary illustrated artwork.

This is one of the most personal Japanese film posters of its period. Kurosawa did not merely direct the film represented here: he created the artwork himself, transforming its inhabitants, colours and imaginary landscapes into a dense, expressionistic composition that feels like an extension of the film.

At almost five feet tall, the rare STB format gives the image an extraordinary physical presence. A broad yellow path runs through the centre, flanked by a crowded procession of painted figures. The title 「どですかでん」 appears repeatedly along the route, beginning in smaller pink lettering and gradually becoming larger before changing to vivid blue. At the bottom, the director’s name—「監督・黒澤明」, “Directed by Akira Kurosawa”—is given monumental prominence above his printed Roman-script signature.

This is far more than a conventional photographic movie poster. It is a significant piece of original Japanese graphic art, created by one of cinema’s greatest visual storytellers for his own first colour feature.

Original STB examples of this design are extremely rare, particularly with both panels present and in such strong condition. The far more commonly encountered B2 poster is already highly desirable; this original two-sheet Tatekan printing is substantially more imposing and much more difficult to source.

The poster survives in Excellent condition, with exceptionally rich colour, a remarkably clean principal image and only light age-appropriate handling wear. The two original sections remain unbacked and have not been permanently joined.

Date and Original Japanese Theatrical Release

Dodes’ka-den received an advance opening at Tokyo’s Chiyoda Theatre on 31 October 1970, followed by its wider Japanese release on 21 January 1971. The poster belongs to the original campaign prepared in 1970, as confirmed by the printed Toho copyright line at the lower edge. The film was produced by Yonki no Kai / the Club of the Four Knights and distributed domestically by Toho. 

The original credits printed along the foot of the poster read:

〈カラー作品〉
“A Colour Production”

原作・山本周五郎「季節のない街」新潮社版
“Based on Shūgorō Yamamoto’s A City Without Seasons, Shinchosha edition”

製作・四騎の会
“Produced by Yonki no Kai / the Club of the Four Knights”

配給・東宝株式会社
“Distributed by Toho Co., Ltd.”

The lower-left corner carries the period Eirin approval mark and number 70531, while the lower-right copyright line identifies the sheet as printed in Japan by Toho in 1970.

This is therefore an authentic poster from the film’s original Japanese theatrical campaign—not a later retrospective issue, commemorative art print or reproduction.

The Film and Its Place in Kurosawa’s Career

Kurosawa’s first colour film—and one of the most radical visual departures of his career.

Based on Shūgorō Yamamoto’s novel A City Without Seasons, Dodes’ka-den presents a mosaic of interconnected lives within an impoverished settlement on the outskirts of Tokyo. Its characters endure hardship, isolation and disappointment, yet continue to create fantasies, routines and private worlds through which life remains bearable.

At the centre of the film is Roku-chan, who imagines himself operating a trolley through the settlement. As he follows his daily route, he voices the rhythmic sound:

「どですかでん」

The phrase has no straightforward literal translation. It is an invented onomatopoeic expression suggesting the clickety-clack or rumbling rhythm of a moving tram. The poster turns that sound into its central graphic device, repeating it down the imaginary yellow route as though the words themselves are approaching the viewer. 

The film marked Kurosawa’s first complete feature in colour and allowed him to use highly artificial, emotionally expressive hues rather than naturalistic ones. Landscapes, costumes, faces and buildings were deliberately transformed through paint and colour, creating a world poised between physical deprivation and interior fantasy. 

It was also the first and ultimately only production of Yonki no Kai, the company founded by Kurosawa together with three other major Japanese directors: Keisuke Kinoshita, Kon Ichikawa and Masaki Kobayashi. The group hoped to create an independent structure through which ambitious films could continue to be produced during a period of severe contraction within the Japanese studio system. 

Although initially met with a difficult domestic reception, the film received significant international recognition and was nominated as Japan’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 44th Academy Awards. 

Today, Dodes’ka-den occupies an essential place in Kurosawa’s career. It announced the visionary use of colour that would later reach immense scale in Kagemusha, Ran and Dreams, but here that visual power is concentrated within a smaller, more intimate community.

Design Notes

Kurosawa’s Own Artwork

The extraordinary importance of this poster begins with its authorship. The artwork was painted by Akira Kurosawa himself, making the poster a direct visual statement from the film’s director rather than an interpretation commissioned from an unrelated advertising artist.

The composition possesses the immediacy of a sketchbook drawing while remaining carefully structured. Figures are built from thick black lines, rapidly applied colour and deliberately distorted proportions. Perspective changes from one area to another, while characters appear to emerge from separate memories, scenes or emotional states.

The apparently spontaneous quality of the drawing should not be mistaken for crude execution. Kurosawa controls the image through its powerful central axis, repeated typography and distribution of colour.

The Central Yellow Route

A vast field of brilliant yellow runs from the top of the poster almost to its lower edge.

It may be read simultaneously as a road, a shaft of light, an imaginary tram route and a psychological space separating the surrounding inhabitants. Its narrowing shape creates an exaggerated sense of distance, beginning beneath the wheel-like sun at the horizon and widening dramatically towards the viewer.

Yellow dominates the design but is never passive. It gives the poster its light, its visual direction and its overwhelming sense of artificiality. Against it, the magenta and blue title lettering appears exceptionally vivid.

The Repeated Title

Rather than presenting the film’s title once in a conventional title block, Kurosawa repeats:

「どですかでん」

down the entire length of the central path.

The earliest repetitions are small and relatively compressed. As the words move down the poster, they grow larger, more widely spaced and visually louder. The typography therefore imitates the rhythm and increasing volume of an approaching trolley.

Some repetitions are divided into irregular groups:

どで すか でん
どで・すか でん

This shifting spacing gives the lettering a spoken, percussive quality. The title ceases to function merely as language and becomes sound, movement and rhythm.

The transition from hot pink in the upper section to intense blue in the lower section creates another visual break, almost as though the sound has entered a different emotional register.

The Wheel-Like Sun

At the upper centre is a large circular form rendered in green, pink, yellow, orange and blue.

It resembles several things at once: a sun, a flower, a wheel, a target or the front of an imaginary vehicle. Its radial spokes echo the movement suggested by the title and establish the point from which the central yellow route appears to begin.

The surrounding horizon is no less artificial. Roughly drawn houses, coloured embankments and areas of turquoise and pink transform the settlement into an imagined landscape rather than a literal location.

The Procession of Characters

The residents of the film crowd both sides of the central route.

Some appear full-length; others are reduced to tightly framed heads. Their faces are presented in contrasting combinations of orange, pink, yellow, blue, green and black, with expression communicated through sharply economical lines.

There is no conventional hierarchy. Large figures do not necessarily represent major characters, while smaller portraits can carry equal emotional force. The poster instead suggests a community of interconnected but intensely private lives.

The figures never quite occupy the same physical space. Each appears caught within an individual vignette, memory or psychological enclosure. That fragmentation closely reflects the film’s structure as a series of overlapping stories rather than one continuous central narrative.

The Solitary Figure and Shadow

A small figure stands within the lower part of the yellow route, separated from the surrounding crowd.

Beneath him is a dark, elongated double that reads as a shadow, reflection or second self. The two forms are linked but not perfectly identical, reinforcing the film’s continuing movement between material reality and sustaining fantasy.

Placed on the composition’s central axis, the figure gives the immense yellow field a human scale while also emphasising solitude.

“Directed by Akira Kurosawa”

Near the foot of the poster, the largest conventional text reads:

「監督・黒澤明」
“Directed by Akira Kurosawa”

The choice is striking. The director’s name is given greater formal prominence than any single presentation of the film’s title, which has already dissolved into the repeated rhythm of the imaginary trolley.

Immediately beneath the Japanese lettering is Kurosawa’s Roman-script signature:

Akira Kurosawa

This is a printed signature incorporated into the original poster artwork, not an autograph applied by hand.

Together, the painted imagery, monumental director credit and printed signature make the poster feel almost like a personal exhibition work bearing Kurosawa’s name.

The Colour

The palette is extraordinary: lemon yellow, turquoise blue, deep green, crimson, coral, magenta, orange, black and areas of exposed white paper.

The colours frequently ignore natural appearances. Faces become red, yellow or blue; clothing and buildings are reduced to expressive areas of pigment; and the central route glows with an almost impossible intensity.

This is particularly appropriate for the campaign of Kurosawa’s first colour feature. The poster does not merely advertise that the film is in colour—it makes colour its entire subject.

The uneven painted edges, visible drawing marks and areas that resemble pastel, crayon or rapidly worked pigment are intentional elements reproduced from Kurosawa’s original artwork. They are not abrasions, fading or printing defects.

The STB / Tatekan Format and Why It Is So Rare

The Japanese STB, also known as Tatekan or tate kanban—literally a “standing signboard”—is one of the most distinctive formats used in vintage Japanese cinema advertising.

An STB is normally composed of two separate sections designed to be positioned one above the other, often with a slight overlap. Together they measure approximately 51 × 145 cm, or around 20 × 57 inches. The unusually tall format was intended for vertical signboards and freestanding displays in and around Japanese cinemas.

The present poster retains both of its original sections. When assembled, they create one continuous composition almost five feet tall.

The format is particularly effective for this design. The long yellow route becomes genuinely architectural, drawing the eye through nearly the full height of the display. The repeated title acquires an accumulating rhythm that would be greatly reduced in a smaller format, while the portraits along the sides appear as a procession of almost life-size presences.

STB posters are substantially less commonly encountered than standard Japanese B2 sheets. Their large size made them more vulnerable to handling damage, while their use on standing display boards meant that many were mounted, taped, exposed to light or discarded after relatively brief theatrical campaigns.

There is also the practical challenge of preserving both original panels together. Many surviving STBs are incomplete, permanently joined, backed or damaged at the area where the sections originally overlapped.

This example remains as two separate, original and unbacked sheets, allowing the complete design to be preserved without permanent alteration.

For collectors of Kurosawa, Japanese cinema or twentieth-century graphic art, the combination of original artwork by the director, first-release provenance and rare STB scale is exceptional.

Akira Kurosawa as a Visual Artist

Although internationally celebrated as a filmmaker, Kurosawa possessed a profound and enduring relationship with painting.

His films were conceived visually, and colour became increasingly important throughout the later stages of his career. His painted image boards and preparatory works demonstrate that he did not regard drawing merely as a technical step towards filming. It was another complete form of visual expression.

During the production of Dodes’ka-den, Kurosawa embraced the possibilities of colour with unusual freedom. According to script supervisor Teruyo Nogami, he approached the opportunity with the enthusiasm of a painter, personally working with colour on the set and encouraging the production team to enter into that spirit.

This poster represents that sensibility in concentrated form.

Its rough contours, altered perspective and fierce palette are not attempts to imitate photographic realism. They communicate emotional truth through colour and shape. Characters are differentiated through rhythm, posture and colour as much as through recognisable likeness.

The result sits naturally between several categories: film advertising, illustration, original director artwork and Japanese postwar graphic design.

It is difficult to imagine a poster more closely connected to the visual imagination of the filmmaker whose work it promotes.

Condition Report

Overall condition: Excellent, with exceptionally strong colour and outstanding display appeal. Original two-panel, single-sided and unbacked STB poster.

Both original sections survive and together form the complete continuous design.

The principal artwork remains remarkably clean. The central yellow field retains tremendous brightness, while the pink, blue, turquoise, red, orange and green passages remain rich and highly saturated.

Please review the photographs of the full poster, individual panels and reverses carefully, as they show the exact example offered for sale.

Authenticity

Authenticity: Original Japanese first-release theatrical poster for Dodes’ka-den, printed for the film’s original 1970–71 release campaign.

Artwork: Original illustrated design by Akira Kurosawa.

Format: Rare two-panel Japanese STB / Tatekan, approximately 51 × 145 cm when assembled.

Original printed details: Toho logo, Yonki no Kai production credit, Toho distribution credit, Shūgorō Yamamoto source credit, Eirin approval mark and number 70531, 1970 Toho copyright line and Kurosawa’s printed Roman-script signature.

Presentation: Excellent condition; original, single-sided and unbacked. The two panels remain separate and have not been permanently joined.

Not a modern reproduction, later retrospective poster, commercial art print or hand-signed edition.

An exceptionally rare original STB from one of the most visually important turning points in Kurosawa’s career—a monumental theatrical poster in which the director, painter and graphic artist are one and the same.