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The Pros and Cons of Being a Hollywood Movie Fan in Japan
Moving to Japan doesn’t mean leaving your love for Western films behind
Although far from being a professional film critic, I’ve enjoyed the cinema experience for as long as I can remember. I appreciate creativity and imagination across all mediums, and film is no exception. When daily life pushes you to your limits, a Hollywood blockbuster is a fantastic way to abscond from reality, albeit just for a couple of hours.
My last couple of years in the United States were an exciting time to be a movie fan. In 2008, large, flat-screen TVs and stellar surround-sound systems to accompany them were more affordable than ever before. High-definition Blu-ray discs had won the format war to succeed DVDs, and blockbuster films, formatted in glorious 1080p, filled the shelves of the local Best Buy. We had entered an era where, in many ways, the home-theater experience had started to eclipse the theatrical one.
However, after moving to Japan in 2009, it didn’t take me long to realize that the situation had reversed. Not only was high-definition hardware prohibitively expensive (at least on an English teacher’s salary), but even if I could have afforded a large TV and surround-sound system back then, my thin-walled, shoebox-sized apartment was far too miniscule for…
