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The story
Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island has grossed ¥13.89 billion and drawn 9.6 million admissions in the 45 days since its release, making it the top-grossing film released this year. It has surpassed the currently-running Detective Conan: Highway Fallen Angel (¥13.7 billion gross) and lands at No. 23 on the all-time box office rankings — a certified smash hit. On the thread, the scale of these numbers sparked heated comparisons with Demon Slayer, with many pointing out possible COVID-era box-office boosts and confusion between domestic and worldwide grosses. Discussion also touched on why Toho keeps cornering the market on major hits in recent years, and speculation over how much money is flowing back to the original creator.
Oricon
Published 9/7 (Mon) 16:03
Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island (released July 24) has surpassed ¥13.89 billion in box office gross and 9.6 million admissions over 45 days since release. That figure makes it a smash hit, surpassing both the currently-running Detective Conan: Highway Fallen Angel (released April 10, ¥13.7 billion gross) and Jujutsu Kaisen 0 (released 2021, ¥13.89 billion gross), landing it at No. 23 on the all-time box office rankings. It has become this year’s top-grossing hit film (according to Kogyo Tsushinsha). While the all-time ranking shows the same figure as Jujutsu Kaisen 0, the company clarified in an interview that Chiikawa has in fact already surpassed it, and that rounding to the nearest million yen puts the gross at ¥13.9 billion.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Conan's gross (as in creepy, not box office).
What's even in this Conan movie for fujoshi to latch onto? Is it packed with people simping for Jugo?
Demon Slayer fanboys, so pathetic.
That was the COVID boost talking.
Movies basically run on repeat viewers anyway.
Even back then it was impossible without repeat viewers.
In the Showa era there were even schemes where theaters strong-armed people into buying advance tickets just to pad the box office numbers.
CDs just get thrown out unlistened to, but at least movie repeaters are actually watching the film.
Movie bonus-goods schemes top out at like 10 viewings, with a rare few hitting 20. Handshake tickets routinely run in the hundreds, and even higher isn't unheard of.
Surveys actually showed there weren't that many bonus-chasing repeat viewers to begin with. Even for Demon Slayer, the overwhelming majority watched only once. 13% watched twice, and just 0.8% watched six or more times. There was an article on this back in 2023 — think there was a thread here too. It's only a tiny minority who clear every bonus tier, posting about it to feed their ego.
Demon Slayer: Mugen Train — ¥40 billion
With nothing going on:
Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle — ¥120 billion
It went UP lol
Why are you mixing up domestic and worldwide box office?
Fine then…
COVID boost!
Demon Slayer: Mugen Train — ¥40 billion
Nothing going on:
Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle — ¥40 billion
Same number lol
If you standardize on worldwide gross, Mugen Train is over ¥50 billion. COVID wasn't just a Japan thing, so either way Infinity Castle still comes out ahead.
The source material for this movie took half a year to serialize, so at best they could manage one every 3 years.
Could go the Crayon Shin-chan or Doraemon route — an annual franchise movie.
Owning their own theater chain is apparently one big reason.
And TOHO Cinemas locations are all prime real estate, putting them a couple tiers above everyone else. Being able to handle everything in-house from production to distribution is a strategy other companies can't easily copy, or so they say.
Also, they simply have more theater seats, so they don't hit a ceiling — meaning fewer lost opportunities.
Also, Toei basically only handles its own productions, and Shochiku's really just got Gundam. That's the whole picture.
That common line about 'no matter how big a movie hits, the creator only gets original-work royalties' doesn't really apply here, since they're heavily involved all the way from the screenplay to overall supervision. Not sure what the profit split looks like, but combined with merchandise rights it's probably a serious amount.
Toho's mostly just distributing though — barely any of it is actually their own production.
Even so, this has to move the stock price, right?
Wish they'd bring back the Toei Manga Matsuri (a classic anime-movie festival event).
They still do it periodically, it just doesn't get any buzz (though admittedly it's quite different from the old days).
Slam Dunk's a lock, the rest is anyone's guess.
Wait… a butt as the main character… somehow that's kind of wholesome.
Re: #102
Yeah. Dragon Ball too.
Demon Slayer's stuck with this pressure to always deliver high production quality, which is brutal. They push the studio to its limits over long stretches to make it — being able to crank films out quickly like Conan or Chiikawa is way better.
Compared to all that, even the entire movie's box office take is basically just a bonus.
Up until now it's mostly stayed within Japan and parts of Asia, but with the movie as a springboard, the odds of a full worldwide rollout are rising.
Honestly it's baffling that people who post here don't know about the My Hero Academia collab from four years ago, or the Hankyu Railway collab from three years ago. You'd think that given how much manga, trains, and reselling get talked about here… well, I guess if you're not interested in something it just doesn't register.
Chiikawa:
Serialization → X (not usable by under-13s)
Collected volumes → published under Morning
Given the sheer number of collabs, they clearly took the risk and went all in.
Advance ticket sales let you predict it to some extent.
In Taiwan the movie's even rated R-12 lol
Re: #168
There's no way they threw that stuff together last minute.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Because the box office rankings are preliminary figures from Kogyo Tsushinsha rounded to the nearest million yen, the “identical figure” shown for Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is just a rounding artifact — in reality, Chiikawa has already pulled ahead. The thread’s confusion over Demon Slayer’s ¥40 billion versus ¥120 billion came from comparing domestic gross to worldwide gross; measured on a consistent basis, the actual increase is much smaller. An often-overlooked factor behind Toho’s recent dominance of major hits is the structural advantage of owning its own theater chain (TOHO Cinemas), letting it handle everything in-house from production through distribution and screening. Also, how much money flows back to the original creator varies enormously depending on the contract — since the creator is involved here in the screenplay and overall supervision, the payout is likely well above the usual “original-work royalty only” rate.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “‘Chiikawa the Movie’ Tops ¥13.89 Billion — This Year’s Biggest Hit, Surpassing the Latest ‘Conan’ Film.”
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