A magnetic resonance imaging apparatus is provided with a sequencer for executing a rapid imaging sequence of up to 100 ms at a full scan, a parallel measurement system for executing a partial encoding measurement in which the number of phase encoding operations performed for the measurement is reduced, an image processing system for reconstructing images from the information obtained though parallel measurements and composing reconstructed images of a plurality of areas to make one image, a display system for displaying the obtained images at a rate of 50 frame/second or more, and an image renewal system for taking in coordinate information of the cross-section to be imaged from position and pointing devices at intervals of about 0.1 second, and renewing the cross-section to be imaged in real time. Thus, imaging on the cross-sections indicated by a device can be performed in real time with high spatial and high time resolution.