News

Made in Abyss, High School Fleet Films Debut at #9, #10

Kaiji Final Game, the new live-action film inspired by Nobuyuki Fukumoto's Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji manga, stayed at #2 by selling 154,000 tickets in its second weekend at the Japanese box office. It earned 225,010,600 yen (about US$2.04 million) from Friday to Sunday. It has sold a total of 730,000 tickets for a cumulative total of 1,042,728,200 yen (about US$9.46 million).

The film ranked at #2 in its opening weekend in Japan. The film sold 248,000 tickets and earned 362 million yen (about US$3.29 million) on January 11-12, and sold 437,000 tickets and earned 616 million yen (about US$5.60 million) from January 10-13 (January 13 was a national holiday). The film's opening weekend earnings are 3.5% higher than the opening weekend earnings of the previous 2011 film Kaiji 2 - Jinsei Dakkai Game. While the film sold less tickets than Frozen II (on its eighth weekend in Japan), it earned more yen than Frozen 2 during the weekend.

Kaiji Final Game opened in Japan on January 10 on 333 screens. The film is billed as the "last chapter" of the series, with a completely original story by Fukumoto.

Tōya Satō returned fro the previous two films to direct the new film, and Tatsuya Fujiwara also returned to reprise his role as the titular character.

Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul (Gekijōban Made in Abyss: Fukaki Tamashii no Reimei), the new anime film in the Made in Abyss franchise, ranked at #9 in its opening weekend. The film earned 102,284,000 yen (about US$929,300) so far.

The film opened in Japan last Friday in 50 theaters.

Sentai Filmworks licensed the film, and it describes the story:

Dawn of the Deep Soul continues the epic adventure of plucky Riko and Reg who are joined by their new friend Nanachi. Together they descend into the Abyss' treacherous fifth layer, the Sea of Corpses, and encounter the mysterious Bondrewd, a legendary White Whistle whose shadow looms over Nanachi's troubled past. Bondrewd is ingratiatingly hospitable, but the brave adventurers know things are not always as they seem in the enigmatic Abyss...

The High School Fleet anime film ranked at #10 in its opening weekend. The film earned 67,113,338 yen (about US$610,300) so far.

The film opened in Japan on Saturday in 96 theaters.

Takaaki Suzuki was once again credited for the original concept. Jun Nakagawa directed at A-1 Pictures with the television anime's director Yuu Nobuta as chief director for the film. Suzuki and Kunihiko Okada returned as the scriptwriters from the television anime.

Naoto Nakamura also returned to adapt Atto's original character designs for animation, and to serve as chief animation director. Keisuke Watanabe was the sub-character designer. Kenji Teraoka was in charge of the mecha design, and Hisashi Tojima designed the props.

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, Kiss Me at the Stroke of Midnight, and Eiga Yōkai Watch Jam: Yo-kai Gakuen Y - Neko wa Hero ni Nareru ka all dropped off the top 10.

ON-GAKU: Our Sound, the anime film adaptation of Hiroyuki Ohashi's "ON-GAKU" manga, dropped from #3 to #4 in the mini-theater ranking in its second weekend. The film opened in Japan on January 11.

Sources: Eiga.com, Kōgyō Tsūshin (link 2), comScore via KOFIC