Western Drive-In

In October 1961, the Japanese staff at the Toyopet Odawara Service Center experimentally created a drive-in theater model to test audiences across Japan in connection of the previous major drive-in boom that was going on in America and all over the world.

It was a major success, and in November 1962, the Toho Cinemas Ltd. chain opened Japan’s first drive-in theater, known as the Western Drive-In, which was a typical American name and was located in Tachikawa City (which was previously known as Sunagawa-cho, Kitatama-gun, Tokyo).

There was not a lot of info about it so its opening and closing dates were not yet to be found as well as information about the Western Drive-In, but any additional information about it would be greatly appreciated, and will be updated as soon as we get information.

Since then, it was the only drive-in theater to operate in Japan for almost two decades, but since the early-1980’s, everything spread. More drive-ins began popping up beginning with the “CINE-FI LaLaport PIT” at the Funabashi LaLaport (now LaLaport Tokyo-Bay) in August 1981, but since the 2000’s, nearly all drive-ins were vanished. Prior to that, it had over two-dozen drive-ins across Japan.

In the late-2000’s, Japan was left with one drive-in theater, which was the Oiso Drive-In near the Oiso Prince Hotel in Oiso, Kanagawa Prefecture. After its closure on October 11, 2010, Japan was left with no drive-in theaters until the launch of “THEATER0” off of Nishihara Village in the Aso District of the Kumamoto Prefecture on July 24, 2018. On May 15, 2021, a second drive-in, the Jusco Drive-In in Noda City in the Chiba Prefecture “reopened” after being abandoned for 13½ years since closure on August 31, 2007. As of August 2023, those two drive-ins were the only ones left in Japan.

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