Nowhere to see a movie!

[Aaron Gerow]

An article that just hit the wires confirms that not everything is rosy 
when it comes to seeing movies in Japan. Those who live in Tokyo or 
Kansai enjoy a large variety of movies, but when you move out of those 
areas, sometimes it takes hours just to get to the closest theater.

The article said the last movie theater in Maebashi City in Gunma 
Prefecture will close on the 29th, making Maebashi the first 
prefectural capital without a movie theater. Luckily, a multiplex is 
scheduled to open in April, but until then this city of over 300,000 
people will not have one single movie screen. Currently, there are four 
other cities in Japan with populations over 300,000 that have no 
theaters.

The number of screens in Japan hit a low of 1743 in 1993 (after a peak 
of 7457 in 1960), but has risen to 2926 at the end of 2005 with the 
spread of multiplexes. I would suspect, however, that the number of 
actual theaters is now actually lower than 1743 (anyone with figures on 
that?).

Aaron Gerow
KineJapan owner

Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University

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