Hatchoza Ichi-Ni Theatres

This started life as the Nipponkan Theatre in 1916, but has nothing to be confused with one of the earliest Shochiku theaters in both Tokyo and all of Japan. The Nipponkan was renamed the Toyoza Theatre in December 1950 after renovation and had a capacity of 1,000 seats. Alongside its movies they’ve shown, it also housed a concert venue for some of the top Japanese music artists. On April 2, 1954, the Toyoza became a premiere theater for Shochiku, but closed in November 1972. Its Shochiku premiere chain immediately moved to the nearby Hiroshima La Scala Theater for a time.

On the site of the older Toyoza is the then-newer twin-screener, known as the Shochiku Toyoza Theater and the Hiroshima Masterpiece Theater. Both theaters were located on the eighth floor of Fukuya Hatchobori East and opened their doors on April 26, 1975. The Masterpiece was the only auditorium that opened with an American movie, which is Clint Eastwood in “Magnum Force”. The twin-screener itself had a total capacity of 492 seats, with the Toyoza housing 342 seats and the Masterpiece (or Meigaza in Japan) housing 150 seats.

Both the Toyoza and Masterpiece theaters are the only Shochiku movie theaters in Hiroshima City throughout its entire life, and was once the only Shochiku movie theater in Hiroshima itself following the 1978 closure of the Onomichi Shochiku in Onomichi City. Unfortunately that didn’t last long and the twin-screener closed its doors for the final time on April 30, 2008. This was likely because of the popularity with nearby multiplexes, including the Hiroshima Ward 11 and the 109 Cinemas Hiroshima.

The building sat abandoned for two years, but it wasn’t until mid-2010 when mini-theater operator Johakyu that announced that they’ll reopen the twin-screener on the site of the Toyoza. It did, and the former twin-screener relaunched as the Hatchoza on November 26, 2010, screening independent films as well as classic movies from both the Japanese and foreign libraries.

Its reboot as the Hatchoza Ichi-Ni Theatres sliced the total capacity of the former Shochiku theaters in half from 492 seats to 240 seats, with 170 seats in the former Toyoza and 70 seats in the former Meigaza. Both auditoriums were named the Ichi and Ni, and all of the seats were manufactured by locally-based furnishing company Maruni Woodworks, measuring 80cm wide and 87cm deep.

When film critic Masami Hanamoto passed away in May 2011, his family donated his belongings to the Hatchoza Theater itself. The chain launched its own library to the public on September 19, 2013 on the tenth floor of the Fukuya. Its library, known as the Hatchoza Movie Library, sits in the center of Hanamoto’s belongings with over 10,000 items, including thousands of classic movie scripts, 3,000 movie-related books, 4,000 pamphlets, more than 1,000 posters that Johakyu’s president Junko Kuramoto had collected since her father’s generation, including a dozen on display. Libraries that specializes in movies are very rare nationwide across Japan, and was said to be the first ever in the west side of Japan. There was also two 35mm movie projectors manufactured in both 1951 and 1953 by Chuo Seiki in Sakamachi.

Some notable moments that the Film Library had later in its history includes a “Marilyn Monroe Exhibition” which contains a total of 30-to-40 exhibited works that were sold at an auction in August 2015, and in December, a total of 40 Star Wars related works including posters and dolls were exhibited in connection of the release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”.

Unfortunately because of renovation on the 10th floor, the Film Library closed its doors for the final time on February 21, 2016 after a grand total of 7,500 visitors from its entire run, and the former library was converted to a restaurant under the name “Under The Sky”.

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