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The Surprisingly Different Experience Of Japanese Movie Theatres

As a Gundam fan, you can imagine that I was quite curious about how Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway, the newest film in the Gundam franchise, would do both critically and financially. While keeping an eye on the box office news, I noticed an article from Anime News Network called “Gundam: Hathaway Film Sells Over 53,000 Blu-ray Discs Just in Theaters“. This news made me think about how surprisingly different the experience of going to Japanese movie theatres can be and so I thought I’d take a look at it.

Understandably, the basics are the same. You go to a movie theatre, select your film and then watch the movie on a large screen with a crowd of people. However, various other aspects can feel quite different or unusual. Beyond the staff seeming exceptionally nice compared to the staff of so many other countries, some of the larger movie theatres allow you to select which seat you wish to be seated in.

The Japanese poster for Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway.

With regards to food and beverages, something that I’ve come across that seems to catch quite a few people off guard is the fact that beer is offered at the concession stand! It had never occurred to me before but I can’t recall any cinema I’ve ever been to selling alcohol which I assume is due to a risk of people getting rowdy. Additionally, I was very surprised to learn that a movie theatre called “Shinjuku Wald 9 Cinema” offers free blankets to moviegoers who are cold! I wasn’t quite able to figure out if they have to return said blankets but if they do, I could only imagine that they would have to take hygiene exceptionally seriously!

Besides that, another interesting aspect of the Japanese moviegoing experience are “Chirashi“. Chirashi are flyers that also act as mini-posters for films that have been released or are upcoming. These are printed on high-quality paper and are sold at movie theatres for a very cheap price. Due to the fact that they can only be bought for a limited period of time, they are quite popular for people to collect. Additionally, many Chirashi made for foreign films feature new artwork that was produced for the Japanese release, further increasing their value and interest to collectors the world over.

An example of a Chirashi poster for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.

Returning to the reason why I became interested in the surprisingly different experience of Japanese movie theatres, I’m sad to say that I was unable to find much information. In a later article that mentions that Gundam Hathaway has sold over 90,000 Blu-rays at the cinema, they note that other Gundam films such as Gundam NT, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin and Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn have previously sold Blu-rays during their run in theatres. Additionally, the recent Space Battleship Yamato movies have also sold Blu-rays at the cinema. Besides that, I’m unaware of other films that do this and, while I’m sure there are other examples of films selling their Blu-ray at the theatres, it’s clear that it’s not the standard, especially since the many other articles I’ve found discussing Japanese movie theatres don’t mention anything about DVDs or Blu-rays being sold.

While I wasn’t able to answer my original question as well as I hoped, I still ended up finding quite a bit of interesting information about Japanese movie theatres. Let me know your thoughts on the surprisingly different experience of Japanese movie theatres, whether you’ve ever been to one, what other differences you’ve noticed, if you know anything more about DVDs and Blu-rays being sold in cinemas and any additional information you might have on the topic.

Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!

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