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stories are simple, are tampered with through fear of censorship, show no ideological profundities, and are buried in a welter of generalities.
Our film theatres too possess curious features which one never sees in Europe and America. Up to a few years ago the seating arrangements were divided into three sections, one for men, another for women, and the third for family groups. The family section was thus a place where lovers could sit together. Tokyo has a theatre street in Marunouchi, its most fashionable amusement centre, and a row of theatres in another part of the city called Shinjuku. But the most outstanding feature of all which deserves mention here is the fact that Asakusa — still another section of Tokyo, the like of which exists nowhere else in the world — boasts a marvellous spectacle wherein its streets are lined with film theatres that nestle and face each other, displaying myriads of colourful banners and animated electrical illuminations. It is a gay quarter resembling New York’s Broadway. Kyoto has its Kyogoku and Osaka its Dotombori; and men and women, both young and old, gather at these places not only on Sundays, but throughout the year, and amuse themselves from ten in the morning up to a late hour at night. The theatre patrons are all good and conscientious people. It is certainly amazing how they have be¬ come familiar with the names of practically all the film actors of Europe and America and with all the pictures that are shown here.
The number of Japanese film actors is also great. Many of them have a good reputation, are well-liked and popular. The newspapers publish criticisms of new films which are rather harsh and severe, but I have yet to see any dissenting manifestation on the part of theatre-goers, for this is a day and age when movie-fans cry and laugh over the pictures they see but otherwise remain apathetic. Young, rising authors are striving to produce avant-garde pictures, but as in any other country today these men are not yet widely known among the people. The new movement, together with its experimental work, is progressing slowly, without making itself conspicuous or asserting its leadership, as though it were all a secret, pending the arrival of its future day of success; and no doubt its ceaseless efforts will in due course of time produce a tremendous effect upon the cinema world of Japan.
Such organizations as the International Cinema Association, the Society for Interna¬ tional Cultural Relations, the Board of Tourist Industry, and the Railway Bureau are also independently engaged in the making of numerous films year after year for the purpose of introducing and disseminating abroad the culture of this country. Nevertheless, to pre¬ sent the contemporary phase of the culture of swiftly progressing Japan in its existing form would be no different from the procedure followed by Europe and America and hence devoid of interest. And as an artist I consider it particularly regrettable that, regarding as they do that the peculiar customs and manners of Japan are already passe, they are given rather to wrestling with the problem as to what sort of standard they should
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