映画興行発祥の地 at Namba Marui

Plaque at Namba Marui marking the site of Japan's first commercial cinema screening in 1897.

The "Birthplace of Cinema Exhibition" is a commemorative bronze plaque set into the wall beside the TOHO Cinemas Namba elevator on the first floor of the Toho Nangai Building, which also houses Namba Marui. It marks the site of the former Nanchi Enbujo (South District Dance Hall), where, from 15 to 28 February 1897, the Lumiere brothers' cinematograph was screened in what is widely regarded as Japan's first commercial cinema exhibition. The screening was organised by Inabata Katsutaro, a Kyoto-based dye merchant and future head of the Osaka Chamber of Commerce, who had studied in France and brought the filming-and-projection equipment back with him. The plaque itself was erected in 1953 by Kobayashi Ichizo, the founder of Toho, who discovered through historical records that this was the birthplace of Japan's film industry and wished to preserve that legacy when he built the Nangai Kaikan cinema on the same plot. The site has since housed the Nangai Eigagekijo (1938), the Nangai Kaikan (1953) and, from 2006, the current Toho Nangai Building, with Namba Marui on floors B1 to 7 and TOHO Cinemas Namba on floors 8 to 11. The neighbourhood of Sennichimae, whose very name derives from the "thousand-day" Buddhist chanting once performed at nearby Hozenji, subsequently grew into one of Japan's most famous cinema streets. For film enthusiasts and history-minded visitors, this modest plaque offers a remarkable connection to the moment moving pictures first flickered to life in Japan, hidden in plain sight beside a busy department-store elevator. It is a quietly thrilling stop for anyone tracing the cultural history of Osaka's Minami district.