Anime Everywhere Helps Bring Japanese Box Office Back to Highs
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We saw better news than anticipated for the Hollywood box office last year, but the return of theatrical audiences wasn’t just a US victory. Japan also saw a record year at its box office, with major anime releases and local fare bringing some very welcome upward movement. Our Blake & Wang P.A., one of the entertainment attorney in the USA operating in all states, Brandon Blake, looks at this welcome bit of news.
Past Pre-Pandemic Peaks
With ticket sales jumping by a full third, leading to a record of $1.79B in takings, two mega-hits particularly stand out: Demon Slayer and Kokuho. This saw what is now the world’s third-largest market for films surpass its 2019 pre-pandemic levels, something the domestic box office has yet to quite do.
It’s excellent news for the global theatrical business, as well as Japan itself. Yet another indicator that theatrical isn’t just recovering or surviving, but is actively moving back into position to thrive.
What made up this success? Anime mega-blockbusters and high-quality local hits. Kokuho is probably the most surprising. Although the most success certainly went to Demon Slayer, no one expected a kabuki drama with over 3 hours of runtime to become Japan’s highest-grossing live-action release domestically. Yet again, we see high-quality and local releases being a big driver for box office attendance, a trend that we saw through all of the successful movies in Japan this year.
Admissions Also Rose
Admissions went up as well, again by almost a full third (there seems to be a pattern here). Ticket price increases, of course, played a role, but it was mostly the result of more audiences coming back, across all age groups.
As with the local box office, whether or not that interest can be sustained will depend heavily on what (and how consistently) is released through the next year. But, with the news that Sony has not just one, but two, more Demon Slayer releases in development, that’s looking good.
That leaves us with one final question: how did Hollywood do? It was a more modest showing, although several Hollywood titles did push over the 1B yen ($6.5M) mark. Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, from Paramount, took the lead, although Moana 2 was very close behind, with Jurassic World: Rebirth following.
Oddly, we only then see A Minecraft Movie, which was one of the top releases in the Western world last year, with Wicked Part 1 and the live-action Lilo and Stitch following behind. The last stragglers among the Hollywood release top performers were Mufasa: The Lion King and F1, as well as Conclave and Captain America: Brave New World. And in a pleasing pattern, foreign film revenue overall rose by, you guessed it, just a little under a third.
While the bulk of this recovery was, unsurprisingly, able to be laid at the door of strong local releases, the overall uptick in everything from audience numbers to profits puts the Japanese box office in a very good place for the new year.
