A long while back we shared a couple of shots of Japanese actress Terumi Azuma wearing a cool yellow visor. She must have liked visors because here she is circa 1975 wearing another one, this time made of leather. We're thinking these should come back into fashion. 

You know by now that roman porno is a Japanese softcore film genre, and that the “roman” stands for “romantic.” So it's fitting that the poster for the roman porno flick Seishojo: hitontasu no keiken has a romantic image. That isn't usually the case, but this one, with the colors and flowers, is pretty. The English title of this was One Summer Experience: Sexy Virgin, or sometimes Sex Virginity Hito: Natsu's Experience, and what happens is a man named Nobuyuki who collects butterflies meets a girl named Ruri who thinks she's the incarnation of a butterfly. Turns out she's a mental patient, but nuts never looked as good as Terumi Azuma, so Nobuyuki has to be be forgiven for violating the tenets of the hot/crazy matrix. This one gets pretty weird. There's a scene where Ruri experiences sexual pleasure from being stabbed with insect pins, and all we can say is, you know, it's roman porno. The movie has immense importance, at least to us, because it was Azuma's first lead role, and she gave the cinema world plenty of enjoyable material over the years. Below you see a beautiful promo shot—reversed by the lithographer, which we know because in real life Azuma's torso mole is actually on her left—and a nice alternate poster. Seishojo: hitontasu no keiken premiered today in 1976.

This cool poster is for the Japanese roman porno flick Bakeneko Toruko furo, aka A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse, a movie you should think of as an off-the-program addition to the website today, as it is not playing at Noir City. Obviously, the poster reveals that this is a ghost cat movie, and the title does too—a bakeneko is a cat that has changed into a yōkai, or supernatural creature. They made plenty of these ghost cat flicks in Japan, including Kaidan nobori ryu, aka Black Cat’s Revenge, which we talked about a while back.

Dokufu oden kubikiri asa is known in English by many titles—officially it's aka Poisonous Oden and Decapitator Asa or Samurai Executioner. But in our efforts to locate it we discovered it's known online also as Decapitation of an Evil Woman and Vamp and Samurai. Do we even need to tell you about this one, considering how much info is given away by the titles?

A country girl played by Terumi Azuma goads a country boy into theivery and they and two partners quickly become notorious bandits hunted by the authorities. The story is derived from the real-life Oden Takahashi, who in 1879 became the last woman executed by decapitation in Japan. Despite this inspiration, much of the movie is played for laughs, with quite a bit of slapsticking, bungling, and yelling. Of course, it has to take a serious turn eventually, and indeed all four gang members soon become seasoned killers—just in time to start being whittled down by those annoyingly persistent authorities.

We were surprised by the comedic tone saturating much of the film, but since Japanese audiences already knew the story of Oden Takahashi, maybe some foolishness was needed to keep them interested. We could have done without it, but the movie is still pretty good, and at sixty-one minutes you don't lose too much life to it. The poster above is exceedingly rare, never before seen online we're pretty sure. The one below is more common, but still very nice. Dokufu oden kubikiri asa premiered in Japan today in 1977.

Hakkin nikubuton, aka Banned Book: Flesh Futon, for which you see a poster above, has one of those strange titles you come across occasionally in Japanese cinema. “Banned book” seems straightforward enough. But “flesh futon”? Hmm… Based on an erotic novel by Chinese writer Li Yu and starring Hajime Tanimoto, Maya Hiromi, Terumi Azuma, and Rei Okamoto, the movie tells the story of a poor writer named Mio who unexpectedly authors a bestselling erotic novel called—and this will clear up the title weirdness—Flesh Futon. See? Mio takes to fame quite easily, living in the fast lane and generally having a good time.

But his wonderful life begins to fall apart due to various unexpected misfortunes. These run the gamut from having a prostitute spread a rumor that his penis is “like a guppy,” to having to his house robbed and (now that we understand the title, we know this next part is coming) his book banned. When Mio later encounters the house thief this dodgy character reveals that it’s possible to have one’s penis enlarged. How? Let’s just say it’s a pretty ruff procedure. Mio opts for the surgery, but alas, quickly learns that being a big fish isn’t everything, as his previous misfortunes turn out to be only a taste of what is to come. Hakkin nikubuton premiered in Japan today in 1975.

There are many good photos of Terumi Azuma—entire books of them, in fact, and we’ll get to one of those later—but for our money this is one of the best images ever made of one of the most photogenic Japanese stars of the 1970s. It comes from a collection called Holiday of Terumi Azuma, which is appropriate because today is a holiday in the U.S. You also may have noticed that we vanished for four days without a peep last week. That was holiday related too—we went on a spontaneous island jaunt with a few friends. Consider the above awesome image an apology for our absence, and rest assured next time we’ll at least get up an intermission card before we disappear. We have many posters for Azuma’s movies that we’ll share at some point, but in the meantime see more of her here and here. And what the heck, here too. 

Well, it’s been awhile since we shared any 1970s Japanese actress promos, but today seemed like a perfect occasion. Above is roman porno star Terumi Azuma, and it just happens that today is her birthday. Azuma appeared in such films as Niizuma jigoku (Newlywed Hell), Ikenie fujin (Wife To Be Sacrificed), and Ikenie no onna-tachi (Harry and His Geisha Girls). Because it was illegal to show pubic hair in Japan when this photo was made in the mid-1970s, Azuma covers the offending area with her hand. You see this trick over and over in ’70s Japanese promos, and while it never ceases to bemuse, it also makes these shots infinitely better than something more graphic. Not that we’d mind if she moved her hand, but you know what we’re saying. Anyway, Terumi Azuma is fifty-seven years old today.