bunraku terminator top

It’s quite the summer of 90s nostalgia at the movies this year. Just this past month we had a new Jurassic Park movie, an original Pixar movie, and next month is bringing us the latest Terminator outing in the form of Terminator Genisys.

Anticipation for the film has been high in Japan, but one group you may not expect to be fans of machines killing each other seems to have taken a special liking to it. The Japanese National Bunraku Theater took the poster for the Terminator movie and transformed it into an advertisement for their traditional puppet theater, making it one of the most confusing yet oddly satisfying collaborations we’ve ever seen.

Here’s the poster in all its glory:

The puppets in the poster on the right are all real bunraku puppets, and the placing of them is spot on with the original poster’s protagonists. Even the taglines are all on-point: the Japanese Terminator poster reads “mirai wo torimodose” (take back the future) and the bunraku one reads “mirai e odoridase” (dance to the future).

But the parodies don’t end there. The Terminator poster’s title reads “Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terminator Shinkido (reboot),” and the bunraku one says “Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage, Bunraku Shinkido (reboot).” Even the date at the very bottom of the bunraku poster reads “since the 17th century.”

Now you may be wondering what would inspire such a collaboration. As it turns out, the Osaka National Bunraku Theater opened in 1984, the same year the original Terminator movie came out, so there’s already a special bond between the two entities. Aside from that, the theater believes that the film’s tagline “shinkido” (reboot) is exactly what they’re trying to do as well, reboot interest in traditional puppet theater.

So what do you think? Is the poster inspiring you to go out and see some bunraku theater? Personally, if they were to do a bunraku version of a Terminator film, I’d be there in a heartbeat.

Source: Twitter (@terminator_JP) via Net Lab
Featured/top image: Twitter (@terminator_JP)