Chiba Theater

The Inohanakan located at Honmachi 3-chome opened during the 1900’s as a venue for special events and live performances, before eventually becoming a movie theater in May 1913. It was renamed the Chiba Theater during the mid-1930’s. One of the theater’s original managers is Usui Shoichi, a former Chiba City Council member. Born on July 26, 1902, as the eldest son of Shinzo Usui, he graduated from the School of Commerce at Waseda University in 1925 and joined Dai Nippon Beer Company. He inherited the family business in 1927. He served as a member of the Chiba City Council from 1933.

Prior to World War II, Chiba City had a total of five movie theaters, including the Chiba Theater, which at the time housed 1,000 seats. As mentioned above, it took a dramatic turn. Right after Germany’s death comes Japan’s revenge, and Chiba was under a full evacuation during the final months. One of the other four theaters in Chiba, known as the Engeikan, evacuated hundreds of moviegoers and was demolished immediately as part of a building evacuation in June 1945. The following month comes tragedy, the Chiba Theater, alongside the other three theaters, the Hagoromokan, the Shinkokan, and the Takezawa Theater were completely destroyed during Chiba’s Air Raid on July 6, 1945.

The Chiba Theater reopened at 2 Azuma-cho in 1951 as a Daiei house under the name “Chiba Daiei Theater”. At the same time, Chiba’s theater population immediately grew to seven by 1953. Shochiku took over the Chiba Theater during the late-1950’s, and was renamed the Chiba Shochiku Theater. Its name was then shorten back to Chiba Theater during the early-1960’s when it was taken over by Chiba Kogyo, who operated the theater throughout the rest of time.

For many decades afterward, the Chiba Theater became a foreign house, and is one of the more popular movie house in the Chiba area, which ran a ton of American first-run box-office smashes throughout the years. Unfortunately the original Chiba Theater closed as a first-run house at the end of August 1992 due to the aging of the building and declining audiences. It was rebuilt in 1993 and the building itself was rebuilt.

The Chiba Theater was completely downsized after its rebuilt, and reopened by Chiba Kogyo on the second floor of the new building on February 17, 1994, housing 111-seats and screening independent films.

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