[KineJapan] KineJapan Images Tweak ///// New (and improved?) Kabukicho

[Markus Nornes]

Greetings all,

We have tweaked KineJapan to allow for attachments up to a meg in size.
When KineJapan started up we disallowed attachments; connections were so
incredibly slow a single image could require _forever_ to download.
Obviously, things have changed. And we've seen how powerful Facebook can be
when images are combined with posts, and how useful being able to share
pdfs can be. So from here on our, feel free to include attachments (up to 1
meg in size).

So in honor of the tweak:

[image: Inline image 1]

Yesterday was what could be a fateful day for Shinjuku's Kabuki-cho
district. Toho opened up their new cinema complex in a brand new sky
scraper in the heart of Kabukicho. It's located across the plaza from the
old Milano, which was shut down earlier this year. The slim, new building
is striking, especially as you enter the district down the one main walking
street. A rather ominous, black monolith sits on top of a dynamically
geometric, silvery base, which is the height of the surrounding buildings.
There is a patch of metallic slats with plants in the gaps on on the Milano
side (below), and tan stripes facing the approach from the station (above).
At night black building disappears into the night and the glow from the
city lights illuminates the tan stripes; it looks as if they are floating
in space. It's a pretty interesting building, although the ritzy Gramercy
Hotel on the upper floors look as though it has only slits for windows.
Regrettably, a sculptural Godzilla head sits on a balcony glaring down at
you as you arrive from the station. Worse, on the Milano side they painted
a huge Godzilla head on the silver ornamentation.

The first floor is all restaurants, and the top floors hotel. In between is
a new cinema complex from Toho. It has IMAX, Dolby Atmos (their state of
the art system, with 128 tracks and tons of speakers—some mounted in the
ceiling), screens that apparently stretch ceiling to floor and wall to
wall, front row reclining seats, premium seats that electrically recline
and have foot rests, and box seats they compare to first class seats in
airplanes. There are 12 screens and a total of 2,300 seats.

I dropped in last night to check out the circus, and a circus it was. The
place was packed with long lines for tickets. The lobby is big and grand,
and they're clearly putting more effort into concessions compared to other
theaters (clearly a good idea, since this is one of the main revenue
streams for American theaters).  I'm curious about the theaters themselves,
but not enough to pay 1,800 yen for Furious 7. Another day.

I'm writing this much because on the run-up to yesterday's opening, there
has been much speculation about how the theaters will affect Kabukicho.
I've gone past the construction site several times a week since last
summer, and now that's complete I can tell you that this part of Kabukicho
feels very different already. It used to be the seediest part of the
district. And that's still there if you walk a couple hundred feet towards
Golden-gai. But the area around the building is clean, open to the sky, and
even a little slick. The last issue of Bunka Tsushin Journal had a special
section on the Toho theater and how it might affect the entire exhibition
scene in Shinjuku. There are a number of theaters in Shinjuku that have
already closed or are closing soon, and this could leach customers from the
others—which really aren't that great to begin with so they do indeed have
serious competition now.

But there is also speculation that the building could transform Kabukicho
itself, which echoes ominously against the many conversations going down in
Golden-gai that predict its demise in the inevitable cleanup for the
Olympics. I'm all for state of the art projection, but let's hope that
doesn't happen.

Markus


[image: Inline image 2]

-- 
*Markus Nornes*
Department of Screen Arts and Cultures
Professor of Asian Cinema, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
Professor, School of Art & Design

*Department of Screen Arts and Cultures*
*6348 North Quad*
*105 S. State Street*
*Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285*
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