At its peak of popularity roughly four decades ago, the form of soft-core pornography known as pinku eiga (pink films) utilized more than 1,000 theaters to screen short, low-budget, erotic films churned out mainly by independent studios.

"Around each station of private rail lines there was a pink theater," chuckles industry veteran Akira Mori, the general manager of distributor Shintoho, who, facing a room jammed with stacks of silver film canisters, chats from his offices in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.

Though currently in their twilight years, pink films, initiated by the introduction of home video in the 1980s, provide a colorful look back to an important period of Japanese cinema. As a tribute to the genre's 50th anniversary, Ginza Cine Pathos in Tokyo's Chuo Ward is offering "Pink Film Chronicle 1962-2012," a 28-film retrospective extending through Sept. 9.