Shinjuku Koma Theatre, the hall of enka, closed for a Godzilla hotel

The Shinjuku Koma Theatre opened on 28 December 1956 in the heart of Kabukicho with 2,750 seats and its famous triple revolving stage — concentric rings that turned and lifted, like the spinning top ('koma') it was named after. For decades it was Japan's hall of enka: Hibari Misora and Saburo Kitajima played long resident seasons, and at its 1970s peak more than a million people a year passed through.

By the 1990s enka's audience was ageing and multiplexes were pulling crowds away. A restructuring plan in November 2003 failed to turn the theatre around, and the losses kept coming. On 28 May 2008 the operator Koma Stadium — part of the Toho group — announced the theatre would close: the building was over fifty years old, and Toho, which owned the land, had a redevelopment deal ready.

The final production was a Takarazuka revue on 22 December 2008; NHK aired a farewell special, and the very last performance came on New Year's Eve, the 41st Year-End 'Nippon no Uta'. Demolition began in March 2011. On 17 April 2015 the Shinjuku Toho Building opened on the site — a 31-floor tower with a 12-screen cinema, a 1,030-room hotel and a Godzilla head on its terrace. The new building deliberately included no theatre: the economics no longer worked.