Note: Originally written for Ghostbusters Inc. in 2015 as part of an unofficial Japanese Ghostbusters month.
Ghostbusters Incorporated’s unofficial Japanese Ghostbusters month continues with a ゴーストバスターズ映画プログラム. Or Ghostbusters Japanese Movie Program.
By the way, if you speak and/or read Japanese and know Google Translate got it wrong, its ok to laugh. We’re just trying something here for Ghostbusters and some level of effectiveness.
I don’t personally know about these days, during the ’80s if you saw GHOSTBUSTERS™ or GHOSTBUSTERS II™ in a Japanese movie theater you’d receive a movie program. Which maybe was or wasn’t meant to be collectible.
The glossy pages Ghostbusters program is more like a magazine. With articles for just about every aspect of Ghostbusters. With great photos overall to accompany the information.
Some of the articles are about what Ghostbusters is, (I think) its story, pages on the cast, and Ghostbusters SFX.
The program also takes fans behind the scenes with production notes. Really, what good are those notes if we don’t know whose behind Ghostbusters.
That’s why their’s bios for Ivan Reitman, Richard Edlund, Laszlo Kovacs, John De Cuir, and Elmer Bernstein. This program also includes production photos that still may not be on-line separately today.
If I’m getting the basic idea around page 18 we even have information on the artists who were chosen for Ghostbusters soundtrack. Which naturally includes Ray Parker Jr. He’s ナンバーワン! He’s number one!
In an age before the internet, early Japanese ghostheads had a credits list near the very end of the program. As the music Japanese ghostheads heard throughout the movie was that good, the Ghostbusters program also has a soundtrack listing. Which was helpful until their records and other merchandise could arrive from the Ghostbusters Japanese movie program.
We’ll talk more about this Ghostbusters Japanese merchandise in a separate blog post. While I even patiently wait for that, I took a copy from the collection, scanned it with very light clean up, and made a large PDF file. Which was then reduced A LOT thanks to ghosthead and associate Matthew Jordan. I didn’t even have to ask, this time. :p
Enjoy!
Ecto-Containment 