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Movie theaters in Japan recorded about million visitors in 2024. The number of moviegoers declined by more than ** million compared to the previous year.

The changing popularity of movie theaters in Japan

Movie theaters in Japan enjoyed their highest popularity in the , which are also regarded as the golden age of Japanese cinema. Back then, the most successful years saw more than * annual visitors. The number of visitors decreased considerably when television became widely affordable in the early . After a low point in the , with just about *** million visitors in 1996, the number of moviegoers increased again and reached almost *** million in 2019, which was the highest figure recorded since 1971. Movies such as the Makoto Shinkai hits "Your Name" (2016) and "Weathering With You" (2019) were especially popular among young people and played a significant role in increasing theater admissions. In 2020, "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train," which was released in October of that year, managed to draw many people in despite the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on theaters. The movie, which was directed by Haruo Sotozaki, overtook Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" as the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time in Japan.

Movie theaters in comparison with other forms of entertainment

A survey on the most popular video content media that was conducted prior to the pandemic showed that about ** percent of people in Japan watched movies in cinemas, making cinemas one of the more popular forms of video consumption. A comparison with the most popular video content media among subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) users showed that SVOD users were more likely to visit cinemas than the average population. Commentators point out that cinemas constitute an opportunity for people to meet and socialize in a time of increasing single households, while interactions on social media have come to play a significant role in creating hypes around movie releases.