TOKYO (Kyodo) – An animated film based on the huge manga series “Demon Slayer” has become the highest grossing film in Japanese box office history, its distributors said Monday, ending regulation Hayao Miyazaki’s “Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi” (Spirited Away) from 2001.
The film, a story about a teenage boy fighting a human-eating demon, has raised 32.47 billion yen ($ 313 million) in 59 days. Despite the coronavirus pandemic that limited cinema audiences, it passed an Oscar-winning film director Miyazaki, who caught up to 31.68 billion yen in box office sales.
“Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train,” directed by Haruo Sotozaki and the sequel to an anime television series that aired in Japan last year, was the first film in the country. which earned more than 10 billion yen within 10 days of its first release, according to co-distributors of Aniplex Inc. and Toho Co.
Debating on October 16, he passed “Titanic,” the 1997 American film about romance on board the infamous submarine of the same name, as the second highest horror film ever in Japan on November 30th.
In mid-December, with the film “Demon Slayer” on the way to beating “Spirited Away,” Toho revised Miyazaki’s film sales from 30.8 billion yen to 31.68 billion yen with film revenue when screened again in the summer.
“Demon Slayer,” set in Japan about 100 years ago, is the story of a boy fighting demons who eat humans after he kills his family and turns his younger sister Nezuko into a demon . It is based on the manga series by Koyoharu Gotoge published between 2016 and earlier this year.
The manga series, now a global hit, has been translated into 14 languages and is available in 33 countries and regions, according to publisher Shueisha Inc.
The film is based on the efforts of the hero Tanjiro Kamado, along with his sister and fellow demon-killers, to save the lives of passengers aboard the “Mugen Train,” named after the Japanese word for Infinity. , on which countless people have gone missing.
Its English-subtitle versions and subtitles will hit film theaters in North America in early 2021, according to Aniplex. The film was shown in Taiwan on October 30 and earlier this month in Thailand.
The “Demon Slayer” has generated an economic impact of around 270 billion yen, based on an estimate by Toshihiro Nagahama, a senior economist at the Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute, earlier this month.
In another boost to the “Demon Slayer” promotion, the last book of his manga series in book form was sold out earlier this month. Shueisha said that 3.95 million copies were published as the first edition of the last 23rd book, with the cumulative number for all books included in digital format with a peak of 120 million copies.
A novel version of the story was the top seller this year in a ranking compiled by information provider Oricon Inc., while the series’ opening theme song, is sung with LiSA, still a major retailer.
Companies have also gained so much “Demon Slayer” through toys and other products, and the title of the series was chosen as one of the buzzards in Japan for this year.