‘Demon Slayer’ becomes Japan’s highest grossing film

An animated film based on the blockbuster manga series “Demon Slayer” became the highest grossing film in Japan’s history, its distributors said on Monday, ending Hayao Miyazaki’s “Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi” reign (” Spirited Away “) from 2001.

The film, the story of a teenager battling human-eating demons, amassed ¥ 32.47 billion on Sunday and has attracted more than 24 million to theaters since its October 16 debut, according to co-distributors Aniplex Inc. and Toho Co.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic limiting cinema audiences, the film grossed ¥ 32.12 billion on Saturday, surpassing the Oscar-winning director Miyazaki’s film, which grossed ¥ 31.68 billion at the box office.

Miyazaki’s film took 253 days to eclipse the ¥ 30 billion mark in box office sales, but “Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train” did just that in 59 days.

The film, directed by Haruo Sotozaki and the sequel to an anime series shown in Japan last year, became the country’s first film to gross more than ¥ 10 billion in 10 days of its premiere.

He overtook “Titanic,” the 1997 hit American film about a romance aboard an ill-fated cruise ship of the same name, as the second highest-grossing film of all time in Japan on November 30.

In mid-December, while “Demon Slayer” was on its way to breaking the “Spirited Away” record, Toho revised sales of Miyazaki’s film from ¥ 30.8 billion to ¥ 31.68 billion in movie revenue when aired again in the summer.

“Demon Slayer”, which takes place in Japan about 100 years ago, is the story of a boy forced to fight demons after his family was slaughtered and his younger sister Nezuko became one. It is based on the Koyoharu Gotoge manga series published between 2016 and earlier this year.

The manga series, now a global success, has been translated into 14 languages ​​and is available in 33 countries and regions, according to publisher Shueisha Inc.

The film focuses on the efforts of the hero Tanjiro Kamado, along with his sister and other demon slayers, to save the lives of passengers aboard the “Mugen Train”, which was named after the Japanese word for infinity, in which countless people have disappeared.

Its English dubbed and subtitled versions will hit North American theaters in early 2021, according to Aniplex. The film was shown in Taiwan on October 30 and earlier this month in Thailand.

The Demon Slayer boom had an economic impact of around ¥ 270 billion, based on an estimate by Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at the Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute, earlier this month.

In another boost to the “Demon Slayer” boom, the final volume of its manga series in book form went on sale earlier this month. Shueisha said 3.95 million copies were published as the first edition of the 23rd volume, with the cumulative number for all volumes, including digital sales, reaching 120 million copies.

A new version of the story was this year’s bestseller in a ranking compiled by information provider Oricon Inc., while the series’ opening theme song, sung by LiSA, continues to sell a lot.

The companies also profited from the popularity of “Demon Slayer” through toys and other products, while the series title was also chosen as one of Japan’s keywords this year.