Oshi-Katsu at the Cinema: How Cheering Screenings and Bonuses Bring Fans Back

Japanese cinemas now schedule screenings where you can cheer out loud, along with admission bonuses that change week by week. Both give fans who watch the same film again and again a reason to come back.

This article looks at three things: cheering screenings, admission bonuses and live viewings of stage greetings. For each, we trace how it brings fans back and how it wins new audiences.

“Event Screenings” Have Become Part of the Lineup

According to an interview by Nikkei Cross Trend (in Japanese), TOHO Cinemas, one of Japan’s major multiplex chains, expanded its lineup of “event screenings,” cheering screenings included, to more than 130% of the previous year’s level in 2025. It planned roughly 700 for the year. TOHO Cinemas Shinjuku alone has run 36 event screenings a month (stage greetings, live viewings, cheering screenings and more), and the company said offers from distributors were rising too.

Seven hundred a year means event screenings are no longer a special slot for creating buzz. They are a product built into the everyday schedule. A theater is an equipment business whose inventory is seats, and as long as it sells the same film in the same seats, its audience has a ceiling. Adding screening formats lets it sell more showings without adding inventory.

Event screeningsA product in the everyday schedule

• Cheering screeningsChange which side you watch from
• Admission bonusesMake another week to come back
• Live viewingErase distance for a stage greeting

About 700 event screenings a year were planned at TOHO Cinemas in 2025.

Mechanism 1: Cheering Screenings Divide the “Side You Watch From”

Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle: Two Sides, the Demon Slayer Corps and the Demons

For Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle, Part 1: Akaza Returns, the blockbuster anime’s cheering screening from the heroes’ point of view, “Demon Slayer Corps,” ran on December 28, 2025 at 10 theaters nationwide and was added again on January 24, 2026 (in Japanese). Next came a cheering screening from the enemy’s point of view, “Demons” (in Japanese), on January 31, 2026 at 10 theaters in eight areas (Hokkaido, Miyagi, Tokyo with three theaters, Kanagawa, Aichi, Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka), with an additional date on February 15 (in Japanese).

• Aim: Give fans a reason to see the same film from different positions, and so more than once
• Approach: Separate dates by side, with shouting and penlights allowed
• Result: Only the announcements have been published, and attendance hasn’t been disclosed. Both sides did get added dates, though
• The Oshi Lab’s view: That both sides earned extra dates is evidence of demand. The cleverness of the split is that anyone who missed one side still has a reason to go to the other. Making two kinds of tickets out of one film is an idea other genres can borrow

Detective Conan: Penlights That Turn Into Your Oshi’s Color

The film Detective Conan: The Fallen Angel of the Highway (title in our translation) opened in April 2026, and on May 22 it got a cheering screening with automatically controlled penlight effects. The penlight color changes by character: blue for Conan, pastel blue for Chihaya Hagiwara, light green for Kenji Hagiwara, purple for Jinpei Matsuda and red for Masumi Sera. Screenings with audio commentary, SCREENX and ULTRA 4DX ran alongside.

• Aim: Bring longtime fans of the series back with staging that lets them feel their oshi character’s scenes
• Approach: The production side controls the light in the audience’s hands and presents the oshi color from the work’s side
• Result: The film had the best start in the series’ history, with 2.31 million admissions and ¥3.5 billion (roughly $23 million) at the box office in its first three days (in Japanese). It passed ¥10.88 billion at the box office in the 27 days through May 6, 2026 (in Japanese), and Conan became the first film series in Japanese cinema history to top ¥10 billion in four consecutive films
• The Oshi Lab’s view: Penlights are normally something fans bring themselves, and choosing the color was the fans’ right. Having the production side take that over draws mixed reactions, but “the moment your oshi’s color lights up across the whole theater” is something you can’t reproduce at home. The real test is whether the staging adds value that works only in a theater

2.31 million

Admissions in the first three days

¥3.5 billion

Box office in the first three days

¥10.88 billion

Box office in the 27 days through May 6, 2026

4 in a row

Films above ¥10 billion

Penlights that change color by character were part of the staging.

Sources: eiga.com (first three days, in Japanese); eiga.com (box office through May 6, in Japanese)

Idolish7: Splitting by Time of Day

Idolish7 the Movie: First BEAT!, a compilation edition of the male-idol franchise, opened in two parts: Part 1 on October 3, 2025 and Part 2 on December 5, 2025. For Part 2, screenings from around 5 p.m. onward on the designated dates were held as “Cheering Screening Night!,” with cheering goods, shouting and applause allowed. Before the film, a lecture video by Wataru Hatano, Soma Saito and Takuya Sato played.

• Aim: Serve both cheering and regular audiences, and lift attendance at evening showings
• Approach: Designate screenings from around 5 p.m. onward on the designated dates as “Cheering Screening Night!”, and put a lecture for first-timers before the main feature
• The Oshi Lab’s view: A plain rule like “Cheering Screening Night! for screenings from around 5 p.m. on the designated dates” is cheap to communicate and easy to run. The lecture video answers a real problem: first-timers at a cheering screening who just sit in silence

Mechanism 2: Admission Bonuses Create “Another Week to Come Back”

Jujutsu Kaisen: Shibuya Incident Special Edited Version x Culling Game Early Screening opened on November 7, 2025 with several rounds of admission bonuses. At TOHO Cinemas Shibuya in Tokyo, it ran a limited-time “Jujutsu Kaisen THEATER” in November 2025.

• Aim: Maximize the opening by pairing a compilation with an early screening of new material, and create a return visit with each bonus round
• Approach: Split bonuses (tokuten) into weekly rounds and run in-theater programs alongside
• Result: It started at more than 300% of the previous film (in Japanese). Admissions reached 460,000 in the first four days, 740,000 in 10 days and 1.01 million in 18 days as of November 24, while box office grew in step: ¥710 million, ¥1.12 billion and ¥1.51 billion. Given the popularity, “Jujutsu Kaisen THEATER” was extended through November 27
• The Oshi Lab’s view: The growth from day 10 to day 18 is the part to watch. The opening alone reflects the pull of the early screening, but the later build-up was probably driven by multi-round bonuses and in-theater programs. Bonus design has side effects, though: people who take the bonus and leave right away, and people who come only to resell it. The distribution conditions get tested every time

460,000

Admissions in 4 days

740,000

Admissions in 10 days

1.01 million

Admissions in 18 days (Nov 24)

¥1.51 billion

Box office in 18 days

Multi-round bonuses and in-theater programs kept the build-up going.

Source: Movie Walker Press (in Japanese)

Mechanism 3: Live Viewing of Stage Greetings Erases Distance

For Project Sekai: The Movie (Japanese title Kowareta Sekai to Utaenai Miku; in the English release, A Miku Who Can’t Sing), two stage greetings were held at Marunouchi Piccadilly on October 25, 2025. Five voice actors (Ruriko Noguchi, Mayu Yoshioka, Fumiya Imai, Daisuke Hirose and Minori Suzuki) took the stage with jin, who wrote the lyrics and music, and performed the ending theme “Worlders” live. The event was streamed as a live viewing (in Japanese) to theaters showing the film across the country.

• Aim: Draw fresh attention to a film some time after release, and set off a long run
• Approach: Broadcast an event at one venue to theaters nationwide in real time, with live singing as “supply available only for that show”
• Box office record: When the film opened in January 2025, it ran regular and cheering screenings at the same time, and passed 1.1 million admissions and ¥1.4 billion at the box office in about four months
• The Oshi Lab’s view: The essence of live viewing is not the relay technology but the fact that people across the country watched the same thing at the same time. Stream archives can’t replace that simultaneity, and it is what remains the theater’s advantage

The same pattern is spreading to live-action and sports titles. Rather than do it once on opening day, distributors now repeat nationwide relays of thank-you stage greetings as they watch how a hit develops.

For Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Final Chapter Part 1, released on September 6, 2024, a set of a release-commemoration stage greeting, a cheering screening and nationwide live viewing was included from the first week (in Japanese). The second of the September 8, 2024 stage greetings at Marunouchi Piccadilly (the 14:10 show) was held as a cheering screening at theaters nationwide, and about 50 minutes of it was live-viewed nationwide as is. Tickets went on sale in stages through the theater system from 12 a.m. on September 3, at a flat ¥2,500 including tax.

The Prototypes: The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Haikyu!!

The template for all this did not originate in Japan. Cheering screenings are said to trace back to the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (in Japanese), released in 1975. Audience-participation screenings, where viewers dress up, use props and copy the characters’ actions on screen, became established as a worldwide cult culture.

What fixed the current format in Japan was Haikyu!! The Movie: The Dumpster Battle (released in 2024). It passed 6.99 million admissions and ¥10 billion at the box office in 75 days (in Japanese). During its run, cheering screenings with automatically controlled penlight effects and screenings with audio commentary were also held. It continued to grow, surpassing 8.06 million admissions; its 2024 box office was ¥11.64 billion (according to statistics from the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan). Since then, cheering screenings of sports and shonen-manga anime films have been built almost entirely on this template.

1. 1975Rocky HorrorAudience-participation screenings begin
2. 2024Haikyu!! filmPenlights and audio commentary
3. Sep 2024Love Live! filmGreeting, cheering and live viewing
4. Dec 2025Demon Slayer CorpsSide-based cheering screening
5. May 2026Detective ConanAuto-controlled penlight effects

Each step added a new reason to see the film again.

What Works and What Doesn’t

The failures are mostly holes in operations, not faults of a particular film. Disputes have been reported between fans and ordinary audience members who walked into a cheering screening without knowing it, and insufficient advance notice is blamed. People have also filmed other audience members without permission during cheering screenings and posted the footage to social media. At cheering screenings in some genres aimed at women, disruptive behavior has become a talking point. In both cases the film is not the problem; communication and operations simply haven’t kept pace.

For Corporate Teams: Steps for Designing a Screening Program

1. Narrow it to one reason to return: Decide first whether the “second visit” comes from side, time of day, staging or bonus. Throw in everything and the announcement falls apart
2. Write the screening format into the booking flow: State it not only on the film page but on the seat-selection screen and on signs at the theater entrance. Most trouble can be prevented here
3. Build an entrance for first-timers: Prepare a pre-screening lecture video, a note on what may be brought, and a guide to when to shout
4. Tie bonus distribution to viewing: Time the handouts so they can’t be completed by just picking up the bonus, and announce quantities and periods for each round in advance
5. Decide the criteria for adding dates first: Agree before release on what you will look at in the opening and at what level you will add dates
6. Always provide at least one route for people outside big cities: If you hold a stage greeting, consider nationwide live viewing; if you hold a cheering screening, consider simultaneous runs in several cities
7. Work backward from rights clearance: Live singing requires coordination with music rights holders, and character-color staging with the source side. Whether shouting is allowed varies widely by theater, so it won’t be uniform across all venues

On costs, a cheering screening may need support for sound and lighting equipment (automatically controlled penlight effects and so on), and a nationwide live broadcast of a stage greeting is expected to add streaming and line costs. Estimates should follow the screening method and the venue’s equipment. On lead time, it is usual to schedule and announce multiple bonus rounds before release, and it is also common to add dates after seeing the response to the opening, as with the Demon Slayer cheering screenings.

Notes From The Oshi Lab: The Theater Has Gone Back to Being a Device for Sharing the Same Time

Explaining why cinemas became venues for oshi-katsu as a response to streaming is only half right. It isn’t picture quality or sound. What theaters uniquely hold is watching at the same time, in the same space, together with other people. A cheering screening is permission to make noise, live viewing is a mechanism that cancels distance, and a side-by-side screening was a game of sharing positions with others. All three assume you are not watching alone.

In that sense, what is happening in cinemas now is a re-import of what live-music genba have long done. You hold a penlight, match colors and shout at the set moments. The difference is that when the screening ends the seats empty and the next show begins. Because theaters hold rotating inventory, they can mass-produce events, and the roughly 700 event screenings a year that TOHO Cinemas plans show the scale of the effort.

But mass production also mass-produces friction. Disputes with audience members who mixed up cheering and regular screenings, and the ballooning spending that multi-round bonuses cause, are not by-products of a program but results of design. What the lab is watching is not how many more will be scheduled, but whether programming can build in how to treat those who miss out and those who came without knowing. The more ways to take part there are, the more people there are who can’t. We believe the works that design for that as well are the ones that will pile up records like four straight ¥10 billion films.

Related articles: What Is Oshi-Katsu Marketing? / How to Plan an Oshi-Katsu Event / What Is Fan Marketing? / What Is a Stream Archive?