Movie theaters in Japan is an interesting topic to write about. You might think that movie theaters are the same all around the world (at least I did before coming here), but you would be mistaken. Unfortunately, I would have to say movie theaters are better here than they are in Canada. No, not because of the smaller selection of foods at the food counter, but because of number of things like...

Surprisingly, one of the smartest things in Japan has to do with movie theaters. And that is reserved seating. When you go into a movie theater, you go up to the counter like any Joe Smith or Takeshi Kawasaki and interestingly enough, you get a seating chart and you must pick your seats from the available seats that the theater attendant suggests. This makes filling up the theatre much more organized and there's no people placing their coats and belongings on all the seats like in Canada.

Number 2 would be the actual size of these theaters. I never thought having 20 theaters was useful, as seen at the AMC Kanata back in Canada. Here there's probably max 12 at any place I have seen. There's also less seats but they are comfier.

Next would be the price hike. I remember in Canada that there was some kind of debate about movie prices and then suddenly they all dropped down to $9.99. That definitely did not happen here. Tickets range from $15 CDN for students and $20 and up for everyone else. Pretty crappy I'd say.

Finally, there is a small minority of independent movie theaters mainly scattered in Shibuya and Shinjuku. These theaters house internationally acclaimed films, experiments by directors, and very unique experiences that only places like I MAX would show you in Canada. Here though, it is very common and the choices are from Indian movies to Iceland movies. I know we have these in small quantities at some small theatres in Ottawa, but this is of course nowhere to the extent of a major city like Tokyo. Oh yeah and of course the regular movie theaters have all the Hollywood movies so these small theaters rarely ever carry more than 1-2 Hollywood flicks.

Anyways, that's my quick low-down of Japanese theaters. It's quite interesting and I would like to see more smaller theaters (no more ByWard Cinema =p) and reserved seating in Ottawa.