Second only to the pages devoted to the C.A.M.-label-releases, the pages devoted to Japanese soundtrack LPs are most in quantity! Why so? In fact the answer is not only that a lot of Italian (and other European) soundtracks did receive an accompaning or even Japanese-only LP-release, but also that I am a huge fan of Japanese monster-movies (Godzilla and "friends"; smile) and their composers, especially Akira IFUKUBE and Masaru SATO (sometimes: Masaruh SATOH). That is why I could not resist the temptation to also include these many waxings into the pages of this site (please accept my apologies, that I have not yet had time to put them into an own sub-section).
Also, as far as non-Italian soundtrack-releases are concerned, I decided to abandon the label-based presentation due to the fact that (with the possible exception of the Japanese Tam/7seas-label) no other country than Italy had any comparable number of soundtrack-only labels with such a prospering output.
Therefore the following pages do simply show what is part of my collection (= appealed to my musical tastes) and what I consider worth presenting (as far as the cover artwork is concerned; smile) to interested fellow-collectors.
Still, a "few" more things could and should be said: Japanese pressing quality is nearly unmatched (only some early RCA SP-pressings are equivalent), Japanese artwork is in most (but not all) cases preferable and the items´ print-runs are actually unknown (but is is safe to say that they certainly were small in number: further info below).
The composers, scores and/or movies chosen for a Japanese soundtrack-release are eclectic and in fact there is no distinctive pattern as to why some have been issued in Japan and others not, except the speculation on their assumed sales-potential. Obvious is only the prevailance of Italo-western soundtrack-releases in the 45 rpm-format (usually two tracks, but sometimes also EPs were manufactured; nevertheless, the main "EP-country" was France!), but as far as LPs are concerned, only very few Italo-western scores received a Japanese release ("Vivi o preferabilimente morti" by Gianni Ferrio (a Butch and Sundance-clone), "Sabata" my Marcello Giombini, "Shanghai Joe" by Bruno Nicolai, "Valdez Horses" by Guido e Maurizio DeAngelis, a US/Italian co-production starring the always reliable Charles Bronson, and the usual Ennio Morricone-scores for the Eastword/Leone-collaborations plus "A professional gun" aka "Il mercinario").
Regarding leading actors, at least "Love-and-bullets" Charlie, who was real BIG in Japan and still is in my VHS-collection (smile), because his stone-faced "acting" as Mr. Bishop in "The mechanic" is one of my top-favourites and still unmatched (although Mr. Schwarzenegger, Mr. Stallone, Mr. Willis and their low-key clones Mr. Norris and Mr. "funny-hairdo" Segal tried real hard, indeed), was considered a sure seller, so his movies had quite a couple of Japanese soundtrack-releases: "The stone killer" by Roy Budd (twice on FML/7seas-label), "Valdez Horses" (more info see above), "Red Sun" by Maurice Jarre (a fold-out!!), "The Valaci papers" by Riz Ortolani (another fold-out!) plus a great compilation featuring a scene from "Chatos land", ... Virile, but homely in a stable marriage with actrice and often co-star Jill Ireland, who died of cancer and diminished Bronsons life-appetite so sadly, Mr. Bronson was what Japanese men obviously needed in the early 70ies of Japanese "Wirtschaftswunder". Regrettably, these times are long gone as well as "our Charlie" has long vanished from the movie-scene with two or three really pityful TV-"movies" at the end of his so prosperous career (weep).
OK, back to the main subject (smile): Although no print runs are known regarding Japanese soundtrack-releases, a few words can be said nevertheless: Japan did (and does!) have an "intersting way" to handle copyrights: they are bought for certain amounts of time, usually - at least in the soundtrack market - for two years! This is in fact the reason for the two "strange" dates usually printed on the - another Japanese speciality - so-called OBI-strip (or nowadays on the CD OBI-strip aka paper on the CDs back spine plus on the CD back-cover-artwork). The first date is the official release date, in other words: the day from which on the CD was legally allowed to be sold, the second date is the expiry date of this allowance/legal right. In between that period LPs (and nowadays CDs) were allowed to be sold in accordance with the copyrights acquired by the issuing label. And after that date all unsold copies had to be returned to the label (by the record stores) and to be destroyed, which is in fact exactly what happened in most of the cases, since all not returned copies were considered sold and the non-returning record store was unable to get a refund for his unsold copies or (if he had not yet) had to pay the wholesale price for them, if the remaining copies were not returned in a certain time-span after the expiry of the copyright period.
So what is the precise difference between Japan and in fact the rest of the world? In Japan NO cut-out items do exist precisely due to the system discribed above! When an LP could not be sold at regular retail price in the USA, it was, after the item was deleted from the catalogue (= it was not going to be repressed anymore and the available stock was depleted), "cut-out" (regarding books: their covers were brutally "torn/ripped off"!!), which means the cover did receive a "punch hole" (ph) or a "clipped corner" (cc) or some other kind of damage (sometimes only a stamp was used) and the item was subsequently sold at reduced "junk" price ("cut out-price": usually 0,99 $ or 1,99 $ or seldomly 2,99 $). Today this brutal method of devaluing an item is still used for CDs: their back spines are cut! But ... they are not sold at such afforable "junk prices" anymore ... CDs then still cost some 6,99 $ or 7,99 $ (at least these are the prices I saw at "Footlight records", NY, and decided to pay the "full price", since the difference did not strike me as high enough to take a damaged item!). This "method" was obviously also "exported" (weary grin) to Canada, unfortunately.
Such "barbarian practics" were however NOT used in Japan (and none other countries aside the USA and Canada, as far as I know ...)! Whereas nothing gets thrown away in the USA and in Canada, moreless precisely that happened in Japan: after expiry of the copyright-period unsold copies were simply returned to the issuing label and destroying was not partly done but completed (actually the vinyl was melted down and is said to have been re-used for other purposes)! So, whereas it is possible to say that if some 1000 copies of an item were made in the USA, most of them still exist somewhere in various condition (either sold at normal or reduced resale price or still sitting on some shelves in some warehouse(s)), this can not be said regarding Japanese issues, since the number of copies that would have been sold at reduced "cut-out prices" in the USA went into the melting pot (vinyls) and into the shredder (covers) in Japan! And it is actually impossible to make any guesses whatsoever on how high or how low this figure was (which, of course, was different for each and every recording)! Furthermore, additional factors shade the scene: the ODEON-label, mainly known for its Japanese Beatles releases (and its sometimes use of red vinyl!), is said to even have "called back" (rumour!) some releases, including the famous Roy Budd-score "Get Carter", starring Michael Caine in one of his best performances (advertisement slogan on British buses, when the movie was shown in GB: "Caine is Carter and Carter is Caine"!), to melt them down due to a vinyl shortage and in order to repress some Beatles LPs ... Most likely only a rumour, but at least a scaring one and considering the amounts, Japanese "Get Carter"-copies went before its vinyl and CD-re-issue by the British Castle-label, a possible explanation for its incredible scarcity ...
As a conscluison, low print runs of most likely just a few hundred copies, like in Italy, were further diminished by the above discribed consequences of Japanese copyright-handling, which lead to LP-values even outshadowing the ones of Italian soundtrack LPs ... (by the way, cut-outs were uncommon in Italy, too, but what actually happened to the unsold overstock is unknown ... there were no established routines regarding the handling of such items, so the labels themselves did what they considered necessary to do ... I do not really want to follow that road any further ... However, this is of little and more theoretical than practical importance, since most Italian 60ies soundtrack-vinyls were mainly manufactured for promotional use and the few copies sold through record stores hopefully found their buyers ... Considering the main reason for these releases having been promotional purposes, these were served first and what was still left over after all "people inside the relevant movie and music industry" had received their copies, was most logically given to the few specialised record stores like "Bon Giovanni").
In addition to that it has to be taken into account, that the high price level for Japanese soundtrack LPs simply reflects the general price level and price structure in Japan. Where living expenses, rent and income (at least in major cities like Tokyo and Osaka) are as high as they are, also other things (like e.g. vinyl) are generall higher priced than in "low(er) cost"-countries. In other words: Japanese LPs did already cost much more in Japan when they where issued, much more thnan US-LPs when issued in the US or Italian LPs when issued in Italy (just compare Japanese CD-prices, which are also higher than CD-prices in other countries), the only exception being RCA Italians LP-prices in the 60ies.
Now on to some of the items themselves: it is in fact amazing how many Italian scores received a Japanese issue (usually with completely different and very often improved cover artwork). Dozens of Italian scores (and also US-scores, eg. Goldsmith-scores such as "STAGECOACH", "THE SAND PEBBLES" and many more ... such as Dave GRUSINs "Winning" with multiple pages inside the fold-out cover!) were (also or only) issued in Japan, such as - in addition to the already mentioned - "The Amazons" (F/O!), "Traitement du choc" (F/O!), "La belissima estate" (an Italian RCA SP-release), "Lo scandalo" (F/O!), "Oceano" (F/O!), "Le regine" (F/O, again!), "Valdez horses", and many more ... As with OST-LPs manufactured in Italy also the Japanese editions were never exported outside Japan (in fact the allowance to do so was in most cases not part of the copyright contract; this is also the reason why SLC and Avantz-CDs have only been available in very limited quantities outside Japan, actually having become "illegal" that way, since they were not allowed to be exported, because the copyright contract only allowed them to be sold within Japan!). This was and is in fact another difference coming from Japanese copyright contracts and the reason behind it was and is in most cases that the copyright holders did not want to spoil their right and ability to release these scores on the European or US-markets either themselves or through other labels. The right to release a score on LP or CD was therefore only bought for the Japanese market (and not for world wide marketing), and the items were not legally allowed to be exported outside Japan! This is also reflected on their cover artwork: the movie-title was usually printed in "readable writing" (smile), wheras all other info on these LPs and CDs was only presented in Japanese writing without any translation, since there was no need for having any non-Japanese buyer understand this info, since non-Japanese buyers were not assumed/allowed to exist (unless they bought the item(s) in Japan!) and since these editions were not supposed to ever show up outside their country of origin!
To have additional space available for photos and often very extensive liner-notes, quite a lot of Japanese releases are highly collectible fold-out editions or sometimes do feature an additional LP-size piece of inlay-paper (inside the cover) containing stills and lots and lots of writing, probably to spare the back cover for additional photos. What more could anybody ask? (well, smile, lamination ...: in fact Japanese LPs were never laminated, but always manufactured by using strong cardboard). Cover artwork on most of these releases does speak for itself: very appealing collages and cool on-the-point artwork (just have a look at the Japanese "Get Carter"-cover and compare it to the English Castle version: well, which one would YOU prefer ...?) wet every soundtrack collectors appetite!
Having now said a lot about Japanese issues of Italian scores, exactly the same is true for Japanese issues of French scores. Do I have to say more on items like "La piscine", "Madly" (F/O!), "Un peu de soleil dans l´eau froide" (F/O!), "Boulevard du Rhum", "Les petroleuses", "Viva Maria", ...?
Please enjoy and if you have any questions, that have been left unanswered (and I am sure there are some ...), please do not hesitate to drop me a line e-mail! I answer all questions as fast as possible, plan to collect them and want to put them into a FAQ-section (which is planned for 2003!). The same goes of course, if you have any info or items for sale or trade available!! In this context I especially want to encourage Japanese readers of these lines to also get in touch with me with any piece of ("trivia"-)information (smile) they might have available, as well as with trade or sale-offers of Japanese soundtrack-items, of course! Every piece of info is welcomed to put some light into the many unknown mysteries surrounding Japanese soundtracks on vinyl, so I can publish this info as soon as possible!
AVAILABLE items (visually graded: cover/record; play-graded upon request):
Canyon Y-1012: Oceano (F/O) (Ennio Morricone), M/M 7seas King FML 13: Tony Arzenta (aka Big guns) (Gianni Ferrio), M-/M 7seas King FML 97: Zorro! (Guido e Maurizio DeAngelis), M/M EMI Odeon EOP-80544: Catlow (1 side) & famous film themes (Roy Budd), M/M EMI Odeon EOP-80144: Lacombe Lucien (Django Reinhardt), M/M EMI Odeon OP-80312: The railway children (F/O) (Johnny Douglas), M/M RCA-xxxx: La belissima estate (Alberto Pomeranz), M/M Columbia YX-7067-MK: Dersu Uzala (Isaac Schwarz), M/M Seven Seas GP-66: Red Sun (F/O) (Maurice Jarre), NM/NM ECPM-22: La prima notte di quiete (F/O) (Mario Nascimbene), M/M Columbia YS-2228-AX: Winning (F/O, multiple pages!) (Dave Grusin), M-/M- Columbia YS-2335-AX: Le passager de la pluie (Francis Lai), M/MPlease note: of all the listed items I have only one spare copy available; wants-lists welcomed (trade preferred!). WANTED: La piscine (UA SR 300), Hour of the gun (orig. Jap. pressing, Goldsmith), Get Carter (orig. Jap. pressing, Roy Budd), Valdez Horses (7seas FML, Guido e Maurizio DeAngelis), Boulevard du Rhum (orig. Jap. pressing, Francois DeRoubaix), Madly (orig. Jap. F/O, Lai), ...