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The story
In the box-office rankings released after the Silver Week holidays, “Chiikawa the Movie: Secret of Mermaid Island,” now nearly two months into its run, held on to the No. 1 spot. “Bayside Shakedown N.E.W.: Dash Through Metropolis,” the franchise’s first new film in 14 years, debuted at No. 2 but failed to seize the top spot. Weekend attendance over three days was reportedly a close 643,000 for Chiikawa versus 605,000 for Bayside Shakedown. On the thread, comments ranged from “Japanese movies can’t beat anime” to harsh criticism of the script, differences in bonus-goods marketing, and the aging fanbase of the older franchise.
Yahoo! Original Article, Fri, Sep 25, 10:15 AM
With Silver Week over, the movie attendance rankings have been released, and “Chiikawa the Movie: Secret of Mermaid Island” remains in first place. “Bayside Shakedown N.E.W.: Dash Through Metropolis” debuted at No. 2.
As strong as “Chiikawa” is, it’s already nearly two months into its run, so many expected “Bayside Shakedown” to seize first place with a strong opening rush. But the newly released weekend three-day figures show “Chiikawa” at 643,000 admissions versus “Bayside Shakedown” at 605,000. Attendance over the following three holiday days appears to have been roughly even between the two.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
The Chiikawa movie was actually a Fuji TV project, so honestly Fuji TV has zero problem with this outcome.
After one last big farewell sale, the owner passed away, the shop was torn down, and 15 years went by.
One day, in a totally different town, a Chinese restaurant opened with the exact same name.
After choking down ramen that tasted like gutter water, a little side dish of mini fried rice came with it.
It tasted exactly like it used to.
I love this review.
Not totally sure I follow, but I think it means: only the fried rice tasted like the old days = only Aoshima (the franchise's lead detective) hasn't changed. Is that the read?
Case closed.
20s: "What's that?"
30s: "I feel like my parents mentioned it once."
40s: "Wasn't that popular a while back?"
50s: "Oh yeah, there was something like that."
60s: "I think the young folks used to watch it."
70s-100s: "I think my kids were watching something like that."
Those were good times.
No. 2: "Bayside Shakedown N.E.W.: Dash Through Metropolis"
No. 3: "Detective Pretty Cure the Movie! The Mysterious Garden and the Secret of Two"
No. 4: "The Odyssey"
No. 5: "The Village of Eight Gravestones"
No. 6: "Super Kaguya-hime!"
No. 7: "Swan and Bat"
No. 8: "Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Walpurgisnacht Rising"
No. 9: "Backrooms"
No. 10: "Look Back"
Pretty Cure's got real strength, huh — movies the whole family tags along to really rack up the head count.
That's a movie that's not for everyone — you probably need to know the source story to some degree to get it.
This season's Pretty Cure was good. It's made for little kids, but there's something in it that pulls adults in too.
Is that right? My kids outgrew the Pretty Cure age so I stopped watching, but I guess they're working in stuff that appeals to adults too, to keep the series going.
Huh?
And the new members they added aren't exactly inspired casting either.
I pointed out that Bayside Shakedown has bonus goods too, but for some reason nobody replied.
The value of the bonuses is on a completely different level. To scalpers, resale value goes Chiikawa >>>>> Bayside Shakedown's Yuji Oda.
Why would it still lose even if the bonus goods made the ticket effectively free?
Can't reach him, so that's not happening.
But isn't Bayside Shakedown itself locked into the Aoshima character too? It's all spin-offs, and new characters never get to lead the main series — meaning it's basically the same "push Aoshima and it'll sell" logic…
Not a reboot exactly, but when Dangerous Detectives (Abunai Deka) was remade by a younger generation of staff, it became a smash hit. If Bayside Shakedown were handed to someone from director Motohiro's son's generation, it probably would've turned out better too.
Background and Points of Discussion
“Bayside Shakedown” began as a TV drama in 1998, and this marks the first entirely new theatrical film since 2012’s “THE FINAL.” The sheer length of this “14-year gap” is itself what drove thread comments pointing to a failure to bring in new fans. Meanwhile, “Chiikawa” has already been in theaters for nearly two months and is still holding a top ranking — meaning this isn’t a simple comparison of opening performances, but a match-up between a film on a long run versus a brand-new debut, a nuance the article text alone doesn’t make obvious. The thread split between opinions criticizing the quality of the content and opinions noting that some audiences turn out purely for nostalgia toward the series, with quite a few comments also pointing to differences in the resale value of bonus merchandise as a factor in the box office gap.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Entertainment/Sports News+) thread ““Chiikawa” Holds Its Fortress, “Bayside Shakedown” Fails to Debut at No. 1… A New Film After 14 Years — Is This a Fair Result Given the Mixed Reviews?.”
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