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Kaiji Film Stays at #2, My Hero Academia Rises Back Onto Top 10 Chart

Kaiji Final Game, the new live-action film inspired by Nobuyuki Fukumoto's Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji manga, stayed at #2 by selling 139,000 tickets in its third weekend at the Japanese box office. It earned 198,153,400 yen (about US$1.81 million) from Friday to Sunday. It has sold a total of 1 million tickets for a cumulative total of 1,412,694,800 yen (about US$12.96 million).

The film ranked at #2 in its opening weekend in Japan. The film sold 248,000 tickets and earned 362 million yen (about US$3.29 million) on January 11-12, and sold 437,000 tickets and earned 616 million yen (about US$5.60 million) from January 10-13 (January 13 was a national holiday). The film's opening weekend earnings are 3.5% higher than the opening weekend earnings of the previous 2011 film Kaiji 2 - Jinsei Dakkai Game. While the film sold less tickets than Frozen II (on its eighth weekend in Japan), it earned more yen than Frozen 2 during the weekend.

Kaiji Final Game opened in Japan on January 10 on 333 screens. The film is billed as the "last chapter" of the series, with a completely original story by Fukumoto.

Tōya Satō returned fro the previous two films to direct the new film, and Tatsuya Fujiwara also returned to reprise his role as the titular character.

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, the second film in the My Hero Academia franchise, rose back to the top 10 at #9 in its sixth weekend after one weekend below the top 10. The film's 4DX screenings began on Friday, January 24 in 81 theaters in Japan.

It earned 71,249,800 yen (about US$654,200) from Friday to Sunday towards a cumulative total of 1,553,045,600 yen (about US$14.25 million), with 1.21 million tickets sold. The film opened on December 20 on 313 screens, and sold 224,000 tickets on December 21-22 and earned 283 million yen (about US$2.59 million) on those two days.

As with the previous My Hero Academia: Two Heroes film, manga creator Kōhei Horikoshi had overall supervision of the film, and handled the original character designs. Kenji Nagasaki and Yousuke Kuroda returned from the series and the previous film as the director and scriptwriter, respectively. Yoshihiko Umakoshi returned to design the characters, and Yuuki Hayashi once again composed the music. BONES animated the film. Rock band sumika performed the theme song "Higher Ground."

Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul (Gekijōban Made in Abyss: Fukaki Tamashii no Reimei), the new anime film in the Made in Abyss franchise, dropped from #9 to #10 in its second weekend. The film earned 63,370,400 yen (about US$581,600) from Friday to Sunday, and has earned a cumulative total of 235,741,800 yen (about US$2.16 million)

The film opened in Japan on January 17 in 50 theaters.

Sentai Filmworks licensed the film, and it describes the story:

Dawn of the Deep Soul continues the epic adventure of plucky Riko and Reg who are joined by their new friend Nanachi. Together they descend into the Abyss' treacherous fifth layer, the Sea of Corpses, and encounter the mysterious Bondrewd, a legendary White Whistle whose shadow looms over Nanachi's troubled past. Bondrewd is ingratiatingly hospitable, but the brave adventurers know things are not always as they seem in the enigmatic Abyss...

The High School Fleet anime film dropped off the top 10 in its second weekend.

ON-GAKU: Our Sound, the anime film adaptation of Hiroyuki Ohashi's "ON-GAKU" manga, rose from #4 to #3 in the mini-theater ranking in its third weekend. The film opened in Japan on January 11.

Sources: Eiga.com, Kōgyō Tsūshin (link 2), comScore via KOFIC