Agetsuchi Cinema Museum: From 1917 Theater to Museum
A short walk east of Matsumoto Castle, the Agetsuchi district is lined with early-twentieth-century shop fronts. The area is associated with Taisho roman, the nostalgic look and mood of Japan’s Taisho era. Among those buildings stands a former movie theater that closed in 2008 and reopened in the summer of 2024 as the Agetsuchi Cinema Museum. The building no longer shows feature films, but its interior, collection, and equipment have largely been kept in place.
A theater that changed its name for ninety years
The theater opened in 1917 in the Agetsuchi district, when residents of central Matsumoto pooled their money to start a cinema called Matsumoto Denkikan. Over the following decades it passed through a series of owners and names. By the 1950s it ran as Matsumoto Orion-za, and by the end of that decade it had become a Toei company house under the name Matsumoto Toei Gekijo. In 1968 the building was renovated into a single-screen, 200-seat theater. In 2002 it left the Toei chain, went independent, and took the name it would close under: Agetsuchi Cinema.
The theater closed in November 2008. The final program included Miyamoto Musashi, Battles Without Honor and Humanity, and Poppoya (Railroad Man). Counting from the Denkikan days, the theater had operated for ninety-one years. The reasons for closing were cited as a changing neighborhood and an aging building.
From empty building to registered heritage
Around 2014 the local shopping-street association began looking into reusing the building. And in 2016 faculty and students from Matsumoto University’s tourism department joined the planning. That same year the city registered the structure as a Matsumoto Modern Heritage building, recognizing it as part of the city’s recent history.
The Taisho-era building still stands. In 2021 the shutters were rolled up to reveal hand-painted closing-event signboards. And in early 2022 the theater served as one of the venues for the Matsumoto Architecture Art Festival, where contemporary artist Tomoko Konoike showed work inside. The years between closing and reopening were not tidy. One person involved in the revival recalled that when he first stepped inside, the building had become a home for cats.
What the Agetsuchi Cinema Museum holds
The reopening on July 20, 2024, was the work of a three-way partnership between the Agetsuchi shopping-street association, a local Taisho-roman town-building council, and a company called Largehill. Rather than gut the interior, they reworked it while leaving the structure in place. The seats and screen remain, with a new stage added so the small hall can be rented and used.
The theater had kept an archive of roughly 7,000 film posters, and a rotating selection appears in the museum’s poster exhibitions. A stone-walled passage is lined with posters, including Godzilla, Seven Samurai, The Fast and the Furious, and Bruce Lee titles. Because the house spent years as Matsumoto Toei, its holdings are rich in Toei material; a 2025 exhibition drew on that with animation posters from the Toei Manga Festival, Doraemon, and early Hayao Miyazaki films including Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke. Students from Matsumoto University catalogued the stored posters to make the exhibitions possible.
Beyond the posters, two film projectors used in the building’s working days are on display, alongside old speakers, film cans, vintage pre-sale tickets, and film magazines decades old. The exhibitions change, so the posters on display vary from one visit to the next.
Practical information
The Agetsuchi Cinema Museum is at 4 Chome-10-12 Ote. It is located a few minutes’ walk from Matsumoto Castle and about a three-to-four-minute walk from the eastern end of Nawate-dori. Hours are 10:00 to 17:00, Wednesday through Monday. It is closed Tuesdays and Thursdays, though it stays open on public holidays and event days. Admission to the poster exhibitions is free. The small hall is available for rent for screenings, talks, performances, and similar gatherings.
Author Profile
