Date night

Movies.
The place where every teenage queen will find herself on a Friday night.

Also one of the most ludicrously expensive places in Japan. Recently I went to the movies for the very first time in Japan. I had the pleasure of seeing Star Wars Episode I in 3D (holy poo was the dialogue and Anakin's always that bad and how was it that I didn't tear a screen the first time I heard Jar Jar talk?). The ticket I bought from a street vendor. If you live in Japan and don't know about them, you can buy lotto tickets from them as well as movie tickets at a cheaper discount price as they often order them whole sale and sell them a few hundred yen cheaper. The ticket total was 1500 yen. A little more than 18 bucks. Yeah already expensive. We get to the theater and have to pay the cinema another 100 for the umm service of their theater? And on top of that you have to purchase your own 3D goggles at the price of 100-500 yen a piece. If you are a family the size of mine, then at this point you have already spent over a hundred US dollars for the family to see a movie. Tad insane no?

To add salt to a festering wound, the movie is never a new release. I don't mean they are all like Star Wars being premiered for the second time or anything. I mean that the premiere date for nearly ANY movie in Japan is insanely late. To use Star Wars as an example, it came out in February in the United States and It cane out at the end of March, such that I actually saw it in April here in Japan. You might be thinking well that is really only two months. You want more proof. The Hunger Games came out in March in the US. There was a CM for it in Japan back in November. Granted a Japanese person had to tell me about the CM and how America was coming out with their own version of Battle Royale ( and arguably similar Japanese movie). Since I don't watch T.V. at all I have not and never did see it. But I also confess that no one has told me of it since. In other words I believe it was either pulled from the air or he was watching an American channel and they let some of the commercials and broadcasts slip. Regardless, it is now May and there is not chatter of it coming. It is very possible and even likely that it will be released here. But as of now the posters at the cinema do not predict its eminent coming.
One easy argument is that the Japan market waits to see how well it does in America before it puts the funding and resources for subtitles to back it in Japan. Well the former is plausible. However the Hunger Games grossed 155million US dollars on it opening weekend in America. Clearly did pretty well. Still no word. And guaranteed blockbusters like the Avengers? You might think they would have the the forethought and know for certain that it would clearly be a box office success.
As for the marketability in Japan. Well they clearly like the idea of people killing people (the Hunger Games). They came up with the idea first with Battle Royale. And they have Universal Studios park with is a constant over flowing attraction with its Marvel themed rides. So it is likely not that either.
Subtitles? How many people take Japanese in your college or university? More than the Chinese students. How many gaijins living in Japan do translation work and could easily have a movie translate for a company in less than 3 months ( the usual difference between an American premiere date and a Japanese one)? Several thousand. Translating here is a pretty common job for many a gaijin. Mangas. Magazines. Television series (both White Collar and Pretty Little Liars seem to be recently popular here in Japan). Websites. And of course movies.
It is not just Japan in this aspect of late arrivals. There are many a Asian country with them. And just try tell me that China doesn't have enough subtitlers for any English movie.

So what takes so long for movies to be released in Japan?
I have no effing clue