The closing of theaters in Japan began in the last days of March when the governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, asked companies to close their theaters on weekends. This measure caused the suspension of the premiere for the film Fate / Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel III. Spring Song.
Although the cinemas will begin to enter circulation again, this will not be possible yet in the metropolitan areas of the Japanese country such as Tokyo, Osaka and their surrounding prefectures. This could further extend the delay period for many anime tapes that had to be suspended.
To combat this, the cinemas that will begin to open in the next few days will offer previously released anime films such as Kimi no Na wa (Your Name), Tenki no Ko (Weathering with You), Promare, Yowamushi Pedal The Movie and many plus. They will also offer titles like Shin Godzilla and Parasite, the Korean Oscar-winning film.
Theaters will have to implement social distancing rules to be able to operate between which they are asked to leave a couple of empty seats between each attendee to their rooms. They will also have to make use of hand sanitizers, ask their assistants to wear masks, as well as deny their services to people who are not from the prefectures where the state of emergency has already been lifted, this measure still does not know how to will apply.
The cinemas that will open from May 15 are:
TOHO Cinemas chain
- TOHO Cinemas Oirase Shimoda (Aomori Prefecture)
- TOHO Cinemas Sendai (Miyagi Prefecture)
- TOHO Cinemas Utsunomiya (Tochigi Prefecture)
- TOHO Cinemas Hamamatsu (Shizuoka Prefecture)
- TOHO Cinemas Sun Street Hamakita (Shizuoka Prefecture)
- TOHO Cinemas LaLaport Iwata (Shizuoka Prefecture)
- TOHO Cinemas Niihama (Ehime Prefecture)
- TOHO Cinemas Kochi (Kochi Prefecture)
- TOHO Cinemas Nagasaki (Nagasaki Prefecture)
- TOHO Cinemas Yojiro (Kagoshima Prefecture)
- Cinema Sunshine Namazu (Shizuoka Prefecture)
- Cinema Sunshine Shimonoseki (Yamaguchi Prefecture)
- Cinema Sunshine Numazu LaLaport (Shizuoka Prefecture)
- Cinema Sunshine Okaido (Ehime Prefecture)
- Cinema Sunshine Kinuyama (Ehime Prefecture)
- Cinema Sunshine Shigenobu (Ehime Prefecture)
- Cinema Sunshine emifull MASAKI (Ehime Prefecture)
- Cinema Sunshine Kitajima (Tokushima Prefecture)
- Cinema Sunshine Aira (Kagoshima Prefecture)
- Aomori Korona World (Aomori Prefecture)
- Fukuyama Korona World (Hiroshima Prefecture)