Above, a poster for Yoshio Inoue’s Kawaii Akuma: Iimono ageru, aka Just for You, starring Mari Atsumi and Keiko Takahashi. Atsumi became a major star in Japanese cinema, appearing mainly in Daiei Studios productions, and later transitioning into television and pop music. We have more Atsumi here and here, and we'll feature her again later. Kawaii Akuma: Iimono ageru premiered in Japan today in 1970. 

 

Above, another Japanese promo poster featuring Mari Atsumi, this one for director Yasuzo Masumura’s Denki kurage: kawaii akuma, which was known internationally by the great title Electric Medusa: Lovely Wicked Woman, but which was known in the U.S. as Play It Cool. It premiered in Japan today in 1970. 

Above is a beautiful promotional poster of Mari Atsumi for her 1970 pinku flick (and here we go again with the made up titles, but what can we do?) Night Sea Anemones, or possibly Sea Anemones at Night. We’ve explained this title thing before—i.e., for these films that never had a western release we have to come up with a title without actually understanding Japanese. We recognize some characters, and can look up others, but ultimately what we produce can be, let’s just say, fanciful. On this one, though, we think we’re pretty close. And even if we aren’t, screw it—our title sounds cool. Another Atsumi below, and more here. 

The nice poster you see above is for Yasuzo Masumura’s erotic melodrama Shibire kurage. The title has something to do with jellyfish, but rather than rely upon such an esoteric concept, for its international release the film’s name was dumbed down to something literal: Hot Little Girl. The hot girl in question here is Mari Atsumi, starring as a go-go dancer who runs afoul of the yakuza, and she makes this one watchable even when the ominous strings washing continually over the soundtrack make you wish violins were never invented. You can see the entire movie online here, in Japanese. Shibire kurage opened in Japan yesterday in 1970.