Aeon Cinema Shin-Aomori

The Kameya Mimai chain’s own Hypermall Joycity Mall opened its doors theater-less on June 23, 2000, and nearly nine months later, the Corona World chain would launch their own eight-screen movie theater at the mall, known as the Aomori Corona Cinema World, opening on March 1, 2001 with eight screens and 1,434 seats.

Unfortunately, Christmas Eve 2001 was a disaster for Kameya Minami as the chain went into bankruptcy and the chain immediately withdrew from the mall. Maeda became the anchor tenant on June 27, 2003, who officially changed the name of the mall to Gala Town Aomori West Mall but retained the theater name.

Prior to this theater’s opening, Aomori had a total of four theaters as of 2000, including two triplexes (Aomori Shochiku Amuze and Aomori Toei Cinema) and two twins (Aomori Shochiku 1 & 2 and Cinema Dict). Unfortunately, both the twin-screen Shochiku would close on January 26, 2003, followed by the Aomori Toei Cinema on April 15, 2005. Many of their leftover runs were moved to either the Cinema World or Amuze.

When the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011 happened, it did suffer damage but not badly at all. It reopened on July 1 of that same year. Unfortunately, in June 2021, Corona World announced that the theater will close because of lease expiration, and on August 29, 2021, the Aomori Corona Cinema World ran its last films, blasting their equipment with Dolby Digital 5.1ch, DLP, and RealD installations, and closing after rolling their credits after more than 20 years of Corona’s successful run.

After its closure, this left Aomori with two theaters remaining, but negotiations with the facility owner were not successful, resulting in a lack of roadshow screenings of popular Japanese and foreign films in Aomori. Renovation work on the Corona World site was scheduled to begin in the fall of 2023, and on December 11 of the same year, Aeon Entertainment announced that it would open an Aeon Cinema on the site.

After a little reschedule, the theater reopened under the Aeon name as the Aeon Cinema Shin-Aomori on March 20, 2024. The number of seats downgraded from 1,434 to 1,020 seats at the time of reopening.

Here is the seating capacity comparison between both the Corona and the Aeon era:

• Corona era (2001–2021) – Screen 1 housed 317 seats while Screens 2, 7, and 8 housed 123 seats, Screens 3, 4, and 5 having 178 seats, and Screen 6 having 214 seats.

• Aeon era (2024–Present) – Screen 1 housed 230 seats while Screens 2, 7, and 8 housed 85 seats, Screens 3, 4, and 5 having 128 seats, and Screen 6 having 150 seats.

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