September/8/2018
Today I went to Fukui Cinema, a movie theater in Fukui City, Fukui prefecture, Japan. I’d heard that Fukui Cinema was going to close on September 10th, so I went there one last time.
The first Fukui Cinema was a theater built in 1919 as Fukui’s first movie theater. Fukui Cinema has a roughly 100-year history. There are big theaters in shopping malls, and you can watch movies online, so the number of people coming to Fukui Cinema has been decreasing.
Theaters are a mystery. I’ve watched movies lots of times in the theater, but I also have a lot of other memories of the theater, such as scenes and conversations with friends and family.
I have lots of memories of Fukui Cinema. I’ve watched movies with my nieces three times there. All of them were Doraemon movies.
When one of my nieces heard the news of the theater closing down, she got angry and said, “Where can I watch Doraemon after it closes down?”
I’m a fan of Dragon Ball and saw two Dragon Ball movies at Fukui Cinema. Lots of animated movies were shown there. A lot of kids came to the theater with their parents to watch animated movies. I was able to remember the excited children running toward the theater.
Today I came to watch the movie Hitsuji to Hagane no Mori (A Forest of Wool and Steel). The movie is based on the novel written by Natsu Miyashita. She was a writer born in Fukui. I’ve read and enjoyed the novel.
I bought a ticket and entered the theater, sitting in a corner of the last row. The theater was big enough for 100 people. It wasn’t a very big room, and it seemed that the screen was large, even though I was sitting in the last row. There were about 30 people. A student and her mother were sitting in front of me.
The movie was very artistic. I was glad to see this movie on my last trip to the theater.
The Fukui Cinema building will disappear, but the memory of Fukui Cinema will live in the hearts of lots of people.