Whither *Pia*?

[Anne McKnight]

Pia, the weekly info-magazine with indispensible but really
hard-to-decipher listings of stuff going on in-and-around Tokyo, seems to
be undergoing a really souped-up series of cosmetic changes.  

I noticed the newest new way of maping out movie listings about films --
especially "off cinema" productions -- is especially boggling to the mind
and eyes.  

Since I've been keeping a particularly steely eye on what is shown in the
adult movie theatres, I happened to notice that the ??????(seijin eiga
kan) section disappeared a few weeks ago.  Does this mean that Pia is
moving up in the world, or that attendance at adult movie theatres is
swindling?  

Has anybody been reading Pia long enough to give any kind of sweeping
account of the chronology or logic of changes in the way that Pia dishes
out information, roughly in terms of form & content?  Especially in
relation to film?  (The tie-up with the Pia film fest is another topic that
might be worth pursuing...)

My ???????Taishuu bunka jiten, maybe a bit out of date, published in 
1994) says that Pia was spawned from a 'zine-like (dojin zasshi)
publication in 1972.  It notes that Pia's distinction is to 1) dispense
only "information" and not evaluations; 2) to treat blockbusters and
self-made productions equally in listing form.  Citing 1983 Pia scholarship
(!) it quotes a circulation figure of 46 man (460000) units for the greater
Tokyo metropole.  

Thanks for any information.

Anne McKnight
Comp Lit, UC Berkeley