Honki-za

[Aaron Gerow]

In another unfortunate case of film history disappearing in Japan, 
officials at the Hokkaido Kaitaku Kinenkan have decided against trying to 
save the Honki-za, a theater that featured both movies and live theater 
which was built in the mid 1920s in Tsubetsu in Hokkaido.  While the 
theater closed down in 1961 and since has been used as a warehouse, it is 
one of the few remaining examples of such an old-style movie house in 
Japan.  Locals asked the Kaitaku Kinenkan, which preserves important 
buildings by moving them to their expansive grounds in Sapporo, to 
investigate preserving the building, but after an investigation, 
officials announced that the building had degenerated too much from 
misuse to be preserved.  Instead, the Tsubetsu local government has 
decided to preserve the posters still remaining in the building.

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
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