Morioka Central Cinemas

This started life as the Central Theatre, opening on June 4, 1935 as a 750-seat single-screener (with 500 seats on the first floor and 250 seats on the second floor). The Central Theatre is also the first movie theater on the Morioka Cinema Street which were owned by Shochiku, and was the largest in the city.

The city of Morioka used to have a grand total of 16 movie theaters in its history, including the city’s first theater, the Memorial Hall (opened 1915). Three years after the Central Theatre opened comes the Daiichi Theatre in 1938 located right next door to the Central Theatre. However after the war comes many more. There’s also the Central Hall (opened 1950), the Morioka Bunka Theatre (opened 1954), the Morioka Toei Theatre (opened 1956), the Morioka Shochiku (opened 1958), and the Morioka Toho (opened 1959).

The Daiichi Theatre nearby closed in the 1990s and was demolished to make way for another movie theater called the Central 2 & 3, which opened in December 1997 on the fifth floor of the theater. Unfortunately right after the March 3, 2000 opening of the Warner Mycal Cinemas Kitakami (later Aeon Cinema Kitakami) comes trouble, and the cinemas on “Morioka Movie Theater Street” were affected by a decline in the number of moviegoers.

The Warner’s popularity immediately forced the Morioka Toei Theater to close on January 9, 2004, the Morioka Meigeki to close on January 31, 2009, and the Morioka Piccadilly to close on the same day as the Meigeki.

Both the Central Cinema and the Morioka Toho Theaters held on for a little longer with a total of 371 seats (212 in Central and 159 in Toho) until April 3, 2012 when they both closed its doors for the final time. On that same day, the Morioka Central Cinemas name immediately went to the Central 2 & 3, and retained as a twin-screen movie theater with 173 seats in Screen 1 and 74 seats in Screen 2.

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