Do discount theatres exist?

In America, there is a dollar theatre concept, with snacks at regular price. and I wanted to know if this concept existed it Japan. Im not expecting the cost to be 100 yen, but maybe around 500 yen?

The movies shown in the dollar theatre seems to be in interim--- They are out of the normal theatres, but not released to DVD yet. If they are released to DVD, they soon stop showing it in the theatre.

Just curious, because I would like to see it on big screen rather than rent the dvd. But maybe I should just buy a huge big screen tv... lol.


In america, movies are released to dvd every tuesday. Whats the dvd release day in Japan?

and what's the time frame from theatre to DVD release?

The biggest discount you will find is 1000 yen tickets.
Toei theaters (and perhaps others) has a members' card that allows 1000 yen tickets on 1 day of the month.
There's also movie day (1st day of month) on which tickets are 1000 yen.
There are lady's days, senior discounts, student prices, etc. But for the average adult, 1000 yen is the cheapest it gets.
If you consider the current exchange rate, that's actually much cheaper than movie prices in NY, for example.

Movies seem to go to DVD sooner here than in the US but maybe that's just my perception.

Reina Jess,

Some of the smaller and older theaters often show something like "2 movies for 1000 yen."

At least up to the early 90s, there used to be more theaters that showed several old movies all night long for one cheap ticket, or 3 classics for a certain cheap price during the day, but nowadays things seems to have changed due to the cinema-complex theaters being popular.

Ask around for ni-hon-date (2 movies in a row) or san-bon-date (3 movies in a row). And if you can specify a location, maybe someone can find a theater or event for you.

I wouldnt know where they are. But I live in adachi-ku, tokyo. maybe there some random old ones in saitama or yokohama..

Hi again.

From a very quick internet search on "adachi-ku 2hondate" in Japanese characters, I found Ginrei Hall which is a theater near Iidabashi and Kagurazaka stations.

The theater always show 2 movies for one entrance. Like every other theater, they let everyone in for only 1000 yen per person on the 1st of every month. There are other discounts 1000 yen and over depending on your status, etc.

Note that these type of small theaters often offer passes which let you see as many movies during a certain period of time by paying a certain fee. If you're a real movie-goer it may be worth it. For example, this theater has a year pass for 10500 and other similar passes for couples or groups.

This particular type of theater where they mainly show old movies is so-called meiga-za, literally meaning "classics theater." There used to be a lot of them, but now this is among the very rare ones.

I just happened to spot a website that covers all meiga-za schedules in greater Tokyo. The system and prices vary depending on the theater. http://www.h2.dion.ne.jp/~mizurin/joho.htm

You can try copy-and-pasting the movie titles and searching them on your favorite search engine. That will lead you to each movie's official website where details are more illustrated and easy to view for those with language barrier.

Lastly the following are the details for Ginrei Hall.

http://www.ginreihall.com/index.html
http://www.ginreihall.com/hallinfo.html
http://www.ginreihall.com/schedule/index.html
http://www.ginreihall.com/cinemaclub.html

Enjoy the show!

there's a theater in west ikebukuro, near the restaurant with the live puffer fish in the window. it's pretty small, but they often have all-night shows for cheap. i think they run marathon weekends where you can go in and watch 6-7 movies in a row on a saturday night for around 1000yen.

the movies are almost always oldish japanese ones though, or independent movies or anime. not all of them are good but i have seen some fantastic independent anime in that theater before.

Winterwolf must be referring to Shin-Bungeiza.
http://www.shin-bungeiza.com/theater.html
http://www.shin-bungeiza.com/

I used to go to the original Bungeiza which was a really crummy old place showing the best cult classics you can think of.

uco's got it right, i like that theater :)