On the Wild Success of “Your Name” (Kimi No Na Wa) the Movie
The Creator Already Speculating On Next Film
Anime is a struggling field (especially with being so dependent on the sales of expensive blu-ray discs), but movies have an advantage that series do not – all of the theatre ticket sales.
One recent movie has been an explosive hit, Your Name (Kimi No Na Wa) is being held up as a beacon of hope and a success for anime done right.
It has launched to critical acclaim and high profits, which fueled its popularity further. The film is a “story of miracles and love” revolves around Mitsuha and Taki, two adolescent protagonists. Read details about its success below!
Makoto Shinkai’s Kimi no Na wa./your name. topped Japan’s weekend box office in its seventh week with 700 million yen on 513,000 admissions, earning twice of the opening weekend gross of Matt Damon’s latest actioner, 345 million yen.
As of October 10, the total domestic gross of the 107-minute film reached 14.56 billion yen. It is expected to top the total gross of Hayao Miyazaki’s 2008 film Gake no Ue no Ponyo/Ponyo, 15.5 billion yen, very soon, and to become the fifth top-grossing Japanese film in history. There is a high possibility that the film will cross the 20 billion yen mark by the end of this year and break the box office record of Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke (1997/19.3 billion) and Howl’s Moving Castle(2004/19.6 billion).
At the press conference in the 21st Busan International Film Festival in Korea on October 9, Shinkai answered to the question about his next film, “(As with your name.), it will probably feature a boy and a girl in their adolescence. I feel like to make the new film at Toho within three years.”
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