Jan 31, 2024

Feature Animation Pushes Japanese Box Office to New Post-Pandemic Heights

The Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan has released its box office results for 2023, and anime once again played a major role in Japan's post-covidional recovery.

The highest grossing film in Japan last year was Slam Dunk. Released by Toei, the film grossed $107.7 million (¥15.87 billion) after its December 2022 release. The film, directed by franchise creator Takehiko Inoue, grossed nearly three times as much as the top-ranked live-action film, Kingdom 3: The Flame of Fate.

Coming in second was Illumination's "Super Mario Brothers Movie," which became the highest-grossing imported film of the year, despite the Mario Brothers franchise's Japanese roots. The film grossed $95 million, far ahead of the next highest-grossing foreign film, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, which grossed $36.8 million (¥543 million).

In third place was "Detective Conan: The Jet-Black Submarine," the 26th installment in the long-running "Case Closed" series, which opened on April 14 and grossed $94.2 million (approximately 13.9 billion yen).

Hayao Miyazaki's "The Boy and the Hare" was a historic hit in the U.S. -- the third highest-grossing animated film of all time and the highest-grossing non-sequel, non-franchise animated film -- but only fourth at the Japanese box office. Studio Ghibli's latest film grossed $60 million (8.84 billion yen). In yen terms, it ranks between "Arrietty" and "Gedo Senki" and is the seventh highest-grossing Ghibli film in Japan.

Other "Doraemon" films in last year's top 20 included: "Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's Sky Utopia" at No. 10, "Demonslayer" at No. 10: "Kimetsunoyeiba: To the Village of Swordsmanship" at No. 12 and "Elemental" at No. 18. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" received little attention in Japan and finished outside the top 40 with a box office of $7.5 million (1.1 billion yen).

In 2023, the Japanese box office grew 3.9% to $1.5 billion, with animated feature films taking the top four spots. Nevertheless, last year's growth rate was lower than many had expected, and Japan's box office is still far from its pre-pandemic pace. Japan's 2023 box office total will be 15% below 2019's 261 trillion yen. To make matters worse, the yen is much weaker than it will be in 2019.