イタリア産天然溶岩石を使った溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ「オンザショア」

イタリア産天然溶岩石を使った溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ「オンザショア」

Tachikawa Cinema City Guide: Tokyo’s First Multiplex and Its Big Sound

A cinema that polishes even the electricity

According to the official news, from the films released on 12 December 2025 onwards, the supreme-sound and thunderous-sound screenings were renamed with the suffix “02.” The theatre installed in-house-developed sound equipment that allows more precise tuning, and put its chief projectionist, Koji Amemiya, in charge of sound adjustment. The theatre introduces him as someone with an unusual career for a projectionist, having worked for over a decade with many sound directors and specialists. Prices stayed the same, with the note: “Please see more films.”

From 29 May 2026, a “stabilised clean power supply” was installed in each studio of Cinema Two in turn. The headline of the announcement began: “[Occult?]” Pursue sound quality far enough and in the end you arrive at the electricity itself. Laying out graphs of the voltage measured before and after installation, the theatre wrote that this clean, powerful electricity produces sound like a clear mountain stream, and then added in brackets: “(probably).” It casts doubt on itself, and spends the money and effort anyway. The same notice declares that continuing to spend effort and cost is nothing less than proof of a “love” that cannot be seen.

In summer 2026 the b studio was reborn with Meyer Sound’s latest “ASTRYA” speakers and Dolby Atmos. The official news describes the screens in both the a and b studios as ultra-premium screens costing twenty times as much as ordinary ones. Boasting about price is a little unrefined; but once you have read “twenty times,” it is only human to want to see one at least once.

The rules for the live-style screening of Bohemian Rhapsody, held to celebrate the b studio’s relaunch, are a delight. Clapping, cheering and singing along are fine. Whistles, tambourines and other noisemakers are banned, and the reason given is: “Leave the playing to Queen.” And at the end: “Growing a moustache, or wearing one, is recommended.”

The obsession with sound has reached the makers of the equipment, too. In the AV Watch article, the sound designer says that Meyer Sound’s top executives came to inspect Cinema City, praised its environment, and that afterwards a cinema in Italy installed the same line-array speakers. The sound in front of Tachikawa Station became a reference for a cinema across the sea.

初日の汗は、予約した人だけが持ち帰れる。

体験レッスンを予約体験専用 03-6665-0898LINE

A cinema full of young people, and the 100-yen membership

Researching this cinema, the other surprise was how young its audience is.

The theatre’s planning manager writes a column called “Designing Entertainment” for the film news site Real Sound. In the September 2019 instalment, he asked whether it was true that “young people are drifting away from cinemas,” and gave the age breakdown of Cinema City’s customers: university students 25 percent, people in their twenties 23 percent, thirties 15 percent, forties 13 percent, fifties 10 percent, sixties 7 percent, seventies and over 3 percent. He notes himself that these do not add up to 100. Still, students and twenty-somethings together make up nearly half. The assumption that cinemas are kept alive by older customers does not, at least in front of Tachikawa Station, hold true. The writer does carefully point out that this is an unusual cinema, drawing customers from a wide area and selling itself on the quality of its screenings.

Behind those figures lies the theatre’s thinking about pricing. According to the same column, in April 2019 Cinema City changed its price structure. It raised the age for the senior discount to 70, dropped the couples’ discount, and set six months’ membership for those aged 24 and under at 100 yen. It called this the “Next-Generation Film Fan Development Plan.” Under the system at the time, members could see films for 1,000 yen on weekdays and 1,300 yen at weekends and on holidays. For six months’ fees costing about as much as a can of juice, the door into film-loving is held open for young people. A scheme to raise tomorrow’s regulars while they are still young.

The naming of the buildings also shows consideration for the audience. According to Wikipedia, in July 2013 the original “Cinema City” building was renamed “Cinema One,” and its screens, previously called “city 1” to “city 6,” became studios f to k. This was to stop visitors going to the wrong building. Across the two buildings, the letters a to k run in one continuous sequence. Look at the letter on your ticket and you know which building to head for. For someone with no sense of direction, like me, there is no greater kindness.

The sound rooms have never stopped being improved, either. According to an official post from February 2019, the thunderous-sound screenings, until then held only in the a studio, were extended to the b studio by moving four subwoofers there. The b studio has 303 seats. According to Imatama, a website about the Tama area, from 4 December 2020 the a studio was fitted with “Helmholtz resonators,” sound-absorbing devices that soak up unwanted sound so that the bass can be reproduced more accurately. Effort goes not only into adding sound but into taking away the sound you do not want.

Customers’ voices survive online. A personal blog by someone who saw the thunderous-sound Garupan in 2016 wrote that at the very first sound “I just started laughing,” and went on to say that the amazing thing was that, though the air trembled like a shock wave, it was “not noisy.” Screenings were sold out day after day even after the Blu-ray came out, the writer saw. And the post concludes that it is well worth making the trip all the way to Tachikawa. Even when the same film could be watched at home, people came to Tachikawa.

In spring 2026 something else happened. According to the official news, Cinema City’s name was originally missing from the list of cinemas showing Michael, released on 12 June. The theatre negotiated repeatedly and won the right to show it as a supreme-sound screening. For a theatre that had invented the supreme-sound screening with This Is It in 2009, leaving out a film about Michael Jackson was presumably not an option. The announcement is full of wordplay on his song titles to express its joy. The theatre was more excited than its customers.

Why did a local cinema survive in front of Tachikawa Station?

Let us return to the opening question. Surrounded by the big chains, and facing the age of streaming, why did a local cinema survive in front of Tachikawa Station?

Half of the answer that emerged from the documents is the depth of this cinema’s roots. There was a cinema opened by a silent-film narrator; there was a theatre built with money from the town’s shopkeepers and residents; and the “landlord and tenant” relationship of renting that theatre continues today. When the land was readjusted, the three cinemas did not leave town; they gathered into one building on the same spot. Cinema City is not a multiplex that arrived from outside. It is a cinema that has lived alongside the town at Tachikawa’s North Exit for more than seventy years. After the short winter when the city had not a single cinema, Tachikawa today has four cinemas with 23 screens. The Machi Archives writes that Tachikawa can be said to have revived as “the town of movies.” The first light of that revival was lit by this cinema, standing on the site of a theatre built with the town’s money.

The other half is in how it chose to compete. When it was surrounded by the big chains, this theatre stopped competing on numbers on the same terms, and chose to polish its sound for “people who love films.” The supreme-sound screening, with the sound tuned for a single film, was born in this town in 2009; the thunderous-sound screening that shakes the building, in 2014. Filmmakers come to tune the sound themselves and give it a name every time. Cinemas like that are not found everywhere. That is why people come all the way to Tachikawa to see a film they could see anywhere. Precisely because films can be streamed, people will pay the train fare for a sound they could never make at home.

I thought Tachikawa was a town to pass through when changing trains. But this town has Tokyo’s first multiplex, the first THX theatre built by Japanese hands, and a cinema that filmmakers visit to polish their sound. In July 2024 TV Tokyo’s Adomachikku Tengoku featured Tachikawa and introduced Cinema City as the Tama area’s famous cinema that invested 100 million yen in its sound equipment. The line “When you say Garupan, you mean Cinema City” could just as well be rewritten as “When you say thunderous sound, you mean Tachikawa.” If I had thought this was a dull town, it was only because my ears had not reached it.

One straight ride on the Chuo Line from Shinjuku, or on the Nambu Line from Kawasaki. As a place to go on a weekend night to bathe in a sound your television at home could never produce, Tachikawa’s North Exit is at just the right distance.

The film ends and the seat lights come up slowly. After two hours of taking the bass in the pit of my stomach, my body is stiffer than I expected.

Quiz answer

The answer is B, Tachikawa-ryū. The official news puts a footnote on 立川流 that says: “Please read this as Tachikawa-ryū. Otherwise the story becomes strange.” How the story would become strange if you read it some other way, it does not say. That, each reader can find out for themselves.

Before you go

  • Cinema One: 2-8-5 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo. 5 minutes on foot from JR Tachikawa Station, 3 minutes from Tachikawa-Kita Station on the Tama Monorail (per the official site). Leave by the station’s North Exit and head into the Faret Tachikawa district.
  • Cinema Two: 2-42-26 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo. 6 minutes on foot from JR Tachikawa Station, 2 minutes from Tachikawa-Kita Station. Most thunderous-sound screenings are held in its a and b studios.
  • From Shinjuku: take the JR Chuo Line (Rapid) to Tachikawa without changing trains, a ride of thirty-something minutes. From Kanagawa Prefecture, the JR Nambu Line runs from Kawasaki to Tachikawa without a change (about an hour). Either way, use the North Exit.
  • Time to allow: the running time of the film plus about five minutes of trailers (per the official FAQ). Late entry after the screening starts is not allowed, and every screening clears the house, so aim to arrive early.
  • Tickets: online booking is available. Prices, discounts, the “Cinema Citizen” membership, and which films get thunderous-sound screenings and when, all change; check the official site for the latest.
  • Food and drink: only food and drink bought inside the cinema may be taken into the auditorium.
  • Age rule: under a Tokyo ordinance, under-18s may not attend screenings that end after 23:00, even with a parent or guardian.
  • Official site: https://cinemacity.co.jp/ — official news, including thunderous-sound and supreme-sound schedules: https://ccnews.cinemacity.co.jp/
  • Combine with: Cinema One stands in Faret Tachikawa, so before or after a film you can walk around a district dotted with 109 public artworks (see this series’ piece on Faret Tachikawa). Head north along the deck and GREEN SPRINGS and Showa Kinen Park (the Showa Memorial Park) are close. You can plan a day with a park walk in the late afternoon and a thunderous screening at night.
  • General tips: carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO for trains and the monorail. Schedules change often, so check the official site before you set off, and check whether the film you want has English subtitles.
The Sun Sun Road pedestrian walkway, with Cinema Two on the left and the Tama Monorail overhead
The Sun Sun Road pedestrian walkway, with Cinema Two on the left and the Tama Monorail overhead
Photo: 深鸣 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons

After the thunder, over to Tachikawa Station’s North Exit

After a thunderous-sound screening, the body feels oddly tired. For more than two hours you have sat in one position, shaken from the pit of your stomach. A one-minute walk from the North Exit of Tachikawa Station brings you to On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店), on the third floor of the Etoile Building, 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, in the same Akebonocho district as Cinema City.

It is a hot yoga studio with heated lava-stone floors. It also offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30, so you can take a morning lesson before a midday film, or drop in after an evening screening.

For first-timers there is a trial yoga lesson for ¥1,980 including tax, with two bath towels, one face towel and mat rental included. You can come empty-handed.

Pregnant guests cannot join lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

  • On the Shore: https://ontheshore.jp/
  • Book a trial lesson: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

In the town where a narrator once breathed life into films with his voice, the bass now makes the night air at the North Exit tremble, ever so slightly.

Cover photo: The glass-fronted exterior of Cinema Two, with CINEMA TWO spelled out across it (December 2016) (Photo: B4takashi / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

More Tachikawa Walks

All Tachikawa Walks (English)

初日の汗は、予約した人だけが持ち帰れる。

体験レッスンを予約体験専用 03-6665-0898LINE

💬 ご質問がある場合はこちらからどうぞ

オンザショアのチャットで質問する（24時間受付）

レッスン内容・料金・体験のご予約など、気になることをお気軽にお尋ねください。

1

2


Warning: Attempt to read property "show_author" on false in /home/c1531448/public_html/ontheshore.jp/wp-content/themes/heal_tcd077/single.php on line 165

関連記事

PAGE TOP

TEL

体験レッスン

ご予約

質問する
ご体験予約