Born to a Kyoto family that ran a long-standing wagashi store, Inabata attended the Kyoto-fu Shihan Gakkō (now the Kyoto University of Education) and in 1877 earned a scholarship to attend the La Martinière technical school in Lyon.

[5] Achieving success, Inabata later served as president of the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI) from 1922 to 1934,[1] and became a member of the House of Peers.

[7] When Inabata returned to France in 1896, he met Lumière again and learned about the motion picture apparatus that he and his brother Louis had developed.

Interested in the business opportunity, Inabata returned to Japan with a cinematographe, fifty reels of film, and François-Constant Girel, a Lumière technician.

[3] They then offered "the first paid exhibition of what was then called 'jido shashin' [moving pictures]" at the Nanchi Enbujo Theater in Osaka on 15 February 1897.