Nice to see you back Corpse!

Why, hello!

Apologies in "abandoning" this thread so suddenly and unannounced. I haven't "abandoned" it exactly, though, but it's not going to be the same as before. I needed to cut something out of my daily/weekly routine earlier this year, and this thread/forum was something I could step away from. With everything going on, just generally busy with limited free time, keeping everything updated here was definitely entering chore territory over the summer.

If having to schedule time on certain days is required to put together the weekend actuals and update all the various charts, which I was having to do, it turns an interest and hobby into work.

I've been doing this for thirteen years, of which the last ten or so has had me putting in several hours every week to do it. Which is fine. I enjoy doing this and had such a strict method and routine going for so long that I didn't want anyone else really "messing" with that. So I probably made it become closer to work than a hobby as time went on.

And life has just gotten busier, and it seems as more time goes on, every year, month and day has less time in them. So I needed to step away for a while. It felt weird at first, then it felt like I wasn't getting my "work" done by doing it after a few weeks, and that's what told me I had indeed allowed it to become more work than hobby. I thought I was going to come back just out of routine, but thankfully I started to believe I didn't have to and would be okay if I never did. Not my intention, of course, but it's also not healthy to be so linked to something that if it disappeared suddenly that it'd have an impact on you.

So I think I'm in a good place now to "let this go" if I ever wanted to, be it just stopping entirely or if something happens to the forum. And I'm not ready to return to the day-to-day or weekly updates yet either. If anything, I'll just update the Yearly Charts once in a while. This might sound strange to discuss this like it's something really important or matters, but spending nearly every day over thirteen years doing something related to made it apart of my daily life.

Anyway, I won't disappear again. And if I would decide to fully call it quits, I'll make a post to let it be known. (It'll be MUCH SHORTER than this post has become!) I'll still be posting in the forum itself, too.

This is also "permission" for someone, any individual or group of posters, to post and update anything they want here from now on too. I can provide links to where I get the actuals, admissions, etc., too. This is by far the most informative and source of data on the Japan Box Office on the internet. Having it continue on in some form would be nice.

So just post away if there's interest among anyone here, and feel free to ask or PM me for anything you may need, like a specific chart or something (although you can search for them here, e.g., "Biggest October Opening Weekends" using the search will get you the most recent update and any other from the past).

I’m pretty sure I found Corpse’s twitter, he is active on it/fine.

I hope Corpse is fine. This is (was?) one of the most useful threads on the english language web for japanese box office.

I noticed he was already midway through his absence before coming back to comment on a wrestler's death, so he is probably just busy or something.

Is Corpse okay?

This forum has gone really quiet. I don't think 'How Do You Live' will gross much more than 53 million in Japan even though a teaser trailer has been made public for its North American release and seems to be getting good reviews in America. Its box office takings have flatlined a bit unless there is some sort of resurgence. I hear from Ghibli that it might not even be Miyazaki's last film as he keeps on coming up with new ideas. We'll see!

https://twitter.com/ghiblipicture/statu ... 1050356015

Yep I def feel it might happen 15 Billion yen for Suzume and hopefully so.

¥15 billion?

What's the chance that Elemental is #1 at the box office this weekend, seeing as it's holding up well on weekdays.

Looks like Elemental will win the last Monday of summer vacation in Japan. In admissions, if not Yen as well.

That's always going to be the question: If the decision to not release any information about it and not market it benefitted or hurt it?

The opening weekend was strong, but that 50% second weekend decline was awful. The norm (for past Miyazaki films and other comparable films) is to drop 10-20% over the second weekend. Pretty much every comparable film dropped in that range. So,, why did it drop 50%? Was it because only the biggest Ghibli/Miyazaki films came out on opening weekend, and the lack of marketing contributed to casuals being unaware of it to cause it to drop that much? Is it mixed/poor WOM? Subsequent holds haven't been notable, usually in the 30/35% range which is very average.

The hold THIS weekend is good. It's probably in second place. It's just that its daily/weekly numbers have dropped enough at this stage where good holds can only get it so far now. ¥10 billion isn't impossible, but it's going to require something more than achieving good holds now.

Good news. If not a trilogy, then at least a Part 1/Part 2 release.

Will be fun to see what it/they can do.

Correct. So weekdays for younger-skewing films will be strong for a while longer. Not as strong as during Obon of course, but still above average.

@eigarankingnews
``How Do You Live '' estimated box office today... 108 million yen for 20th August.
Cumulative total... 6.943 billion yen ( ※ estimated value)

'Keeping the number at a high level of 82% compared to last week, is there a possibility that the ranking will rise?
After all, it seems that the increase in the number of mobilizations can be greatly expected due to the lifting of the information ban!'

Perhaps 'How Do You Live' could reach second or first place this weekend?
People are commenting that if Ghibli had advertised 'How Do You Live' from the start it might've reached 10 billion yen already.

By the way, Corpse, it was leaked today that DS will return to theaters with the fortress arc. Probably a trilogy.

Also, schools are out in Japan for all of August, right?

Not sure about the video game. But the way the video game market works in Japan, if it doesn't have a big debut, it won't sell a lot. People rush out to buy games in Japan, or at least they did when I paid attention to the market 10 years ago.

I'm a little disappointed in Elemental's performance this weekend. But I guess because schools are out in Japan, it does better in the weekdays.

The volume did ok for what it is...a new release of a kanzenban/decades old oneshot. And if people can't be bothered to show for the film I assume the console game will tank completely.

Oof. Sand Land actually declined on Saturday... Finished a more clear 5th place for the day.

The holdovers should perform better on Sunday vs Saturday than Sand Land will, so Sand Land might be looking at a very disappointing 5th place debut this weekend. Sub-¥200 million opening weekend very likely, which is going to make reaching ¥1 billion tough.

I don't know how it's doing outside the box office, but this feels like an end to a franchise before it really even began to me. I appreciate trying to start a new franchise, but at the same time this feels like a waste of a lot of money on this project too.

As for the holdovers, Kingdom III is going to reign atop the box office for a fourth straight weekend. How Do You Live? had the best hold vs last week and may rise up to second place in its sixth weekend. Good sign for it, though the numbers have dropped too far for good holds to matter too much, I feel. MI7 likely coming in third. Elemental probably fourth, but if it has a bigger Sun. bump, it could take third. Sand Land in fifth as mentioned. And then Crayon Shin-chan in sixth (but a big Sun. bump could allow it to challenge Sand Land for fifth...).

FranSpeech is estimating, as no official daily estimates are released in Japan unless a studio releases figures. Keep that in mind with the many Twitter users to post Japan numbers. They're usually close, of course, but they're not official.

I'd estimate Sand Land to be higher though. It's avg. ticket price should be a little on the high end (or at least upper-mid) given the premium showings. And I assume most of its audience consisted of Toriyama fans, which would be adults. Nothing really high, but high enough that being so close in admissions to the others should give it at least third place in revenue I'd think. I'd estimate second place myself. Having Elemental in second is unlikely since it has the second lowest avg. ticket price of the big films in release right now, so being close in admissions probably puts it in 3rd-5th.

The top 5 are super close overall though. Only 4k admissions separated them on mimorin, so nationally, they could be <10k admissions of each other.

FranSpeech is reporting 'How Do You Live' is still in 4th place on the 18th of August.

1. Kingdom3
2. Elemental
3. MI7
4. How Do You Live
5. Sand Land
6. CrayonShinchan
7. Barbie
8. Transformers
9. Super Mario

Sand Land didn't make a huge Friday gross

Maybe? Although doing this now on the backend of summer will probably have a minimal effect.

I don't want ¥10 billion to be seen as a mark of disappointment here. If it misses it, yeah, I'd say this film disappointed. But if it gets there, it'll be a success. Not a huge one, not as high as some expectations were, but it's still a success. (Although I don't know how much of a profit that gives it, if any, since it's believed to be the most expensive film ever, which will be a budget over ¥5 billion.)

But ¥10 billion is still that gold standard in the market. It's a little easier to reach now as avg. ticket prices gradually increases (largely thanks to the popularity of premium showings), but it's still the big milestone to shoot for when possible.

You were right. It's really too close to say what film came out on top on Friday, my prediction is Kingdom III again, but for Sand Land to be in third on mimorin and in a 5-way race for #1 against holdovers that range from 3 weeks to 6 weeks old is embarrassing for it.

Not winning Friday, or maybe coming out just barely on top thanks to its premium showings, probably means it's not winning the weekend in its debut. Holdovers tend to see bigger gains over Sat/Sun.