When it comes to buildings that I became familiar during my first trip to Tokyo, it would be Studio ALTA.
The building made its debut as an entertainment studio back in March 1980 and was 60% owned by Mitsukoshi, 30% owned by Fuji TV and 10% by Nippon Broadcasting System.
It was the home of “Waratte Iitomo” (which was recorded at the location from October 1982 through March 2014). The Space Shower TV show “SONIC TRAIN” was also shot in the building.
Located across from Shinjuku Station East Exit, it was an area where variety shows and commercials were made at the time. In fact, it was used for a studio for about 36 years until March 31, 2016 and the last live broadcast was for weather forecaster Naito Satoko’s graduation.
But on November 2016, ALTA THEATER reopened and it was used as a 3D Theater during the day and music cafe & bar at night. In 2017, it became Alternative Theatre and can be seen as “Broadway in Japan” in Yurakucho and the theatre has 400 seats close to the stage, but also an LED on the ceiling.
The origin of the name was from the word “Alternative” and back then, there was a huge ad sponsor featuring Matsushita Electric, followed by a Panasonic sign, a digital LED clock and a huge Panasonic LED back in 1999. In fact, the first LED vision screen was at this building and was created back in April 1980 (Showa 55).
In fact the current LCD screen is Mitsubishi Electric’s Aurora Vision and is the fourth generation of LED TV’s (debuted in March 2014) at Studio Alta and is 1080p and power consumption was reduced by half. When I went to Japan back in 1999, it featured a 2nd generation LED that featured color.
A lot has changed since then as the Panasonic logo, the digital LED light are gone. The Alta Vision LED screen now has Mitsubishi Electric on top and DHC on the bottom.
But the building is no doubt a building with entertainment memories. Now it’s the home of the Alternative Theatre as of January 2018.
While the heydays of entertainment production of TV shows and CM’s are no longer, at least the theatre still exists. And it also functions as a shopping mall.
If you are coming out of the East Exist of Shinjuku Station, definitely pay a visit to Studio ALTA.
