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One Piece Film Red Stays at #1, Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai Returns at #5

The One Piece Film Red anime stayed at #1 for a fourth straight weekend at the Japanese box office. The film earned 1,209,188,020 yen (about US$8.732 million) from Friday to Sunday, and sold 832,000 tickets over the weekend. The film has now sold over 8.2 million tickets for a cumulative total of 11,454,050,370 yen (about US$82.70 million).

One Piece Film Red has topped the Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time (Shin Evangelion Gekijō-ban :||) film as the #10 all-time highest-grossing anime film in Japan. It is currently the #29 highest-grossing film of all time in Japan. The only film to earn more than One Piece Film Red in Japan this year is Top Gun: Maverick, which earned 11,807,593,520 yen (about US$85,27 million) as of this week.

The film ranked #1 in the Japanese box office in its opening weekend. The film sold 1.58 million tickets and earned 2.254 billion yen (about US$16.7 million) in its first two days. The film earned 78% more in its first two days than the previous film One Piece Stampede did in its first three days (One Piece Stampede opened on a Friday, as opposed to One Piece Film Red's Saturday opening). It has become the franchise's highest-selling and highest-earning film installment, in terms of both the number of tickets sold and yen earned at the box office.

The film opened in Japan on August 6. The film has IMAX screenings in 27 theaters in Japan that opened alongside regular screenings. The film also had MX4D, 4DX, and Dolby Atmos screenings on opening day. Crunchyroll will theatrically screen the film in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand this fall. The screenings will be available in both Japanese audio with English subtitles, and an English dub.

The film centers on a new character named Uta, Shanks' daughter. Kaori Nazuka is the speaking voice of Uta, while Ado is the character's singing voice. Ado also performs the film's theme song "Shinjidai" ("New Genesis"). Goro Taniguchi (Code Geass, One Piece: Defeat The Pirate Ganzak! special) directed One Piece Film Red. Tsutomu Kuroiwa (One Piece Film Gold, One Piece: Heart of Gold, GANTZ:O, live-action Black Butler) wrote the screenplay, and One Piece manga creator Eiichiro Oda himself served as executive producer.

The theatrical re-release of Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai, the 10th film in the Pokémon franchise, ranked #5 in its first weekend.

Viz Media released the film on DVD in North America and describes its story:

Ash may think he's seen everything when it comes to Pokemon, but is he ready to face the mysterious Darkrai in his latest awesome adventure? While touring Alamos Town - home of the Space-Time Tower - with the beautiful Alice, Ash and his friends discover that the town's special garden has been decimated! Baron Alberto, a dashing but arrogant fellow, immediately blames the destruction on Darkrai. As if it just overheard the accusation, Darkrai appears and confronts our heroes!

Who is Darkrai? Is it an enemy... or a friend in disguise? And as a battle between Legendary Pokemon Dialga and Palkia rages directly above Alamos Town and threatens to tear a hole in the space-time continuum, will Ash and his friends survive this showdown and learn Darkrai's true nature?

The film originally released in July 2007.

Kingdom II: Harukanaru Daichi e (To Distant Lands), the sequel film based on Yasuhisa Hara's Kingdom manga, dropped from #6 to #8 in its seventh weekend. It earned 86,255,400 yen (about US$623,000) from Friday to Sunday for a new total of 4,696,493,100 yen (about US$33.915 million).

The film opened in Japan on July 15.

Shinsuke Satō (live-action Gantz, Death Note Light up the NEW world, Bleach) returned as director. Kento Yamazaki, Ryō Yoshizawa, and Kanna Hashimoto all reprised their respective characters Shin (Xin), Ei Sei (Yin Zheng), and Ka Ryō Ten (He Liao Diao) from the previous film. Tsutomu Kuroiwa (One Piece Film Gold, live-action Black Butler, GANTZ:O) joined Satō and Hara in writing the script, and Yutaka Yamada (Tokyo Ghoul, Vinland Saga, live-action Bleach) composed the music. Mr. Children contributed the theme song "Ikiro" (Live).

The first film opened in Japan in April 2019 and sold 506,861 tickets to earn 690,219,500 yen (about US$6.17 million) in its first three days. The film later sold a total of 4.11 million tickets for 5,471,938,400 yen (about US$50.42 million), and eventually earned a cumulative total of 5.73 billion yen (about US$53.2 million). Funimation screened the film at Anime Expo in July 2019, and began screening the film in theaters in the United States and Canada in August 2019.

The live-action/CG film Sonic the Hedgehog 2 dropped from #10 off the top 10 chart in its second weekend, but it earned 26,041,710 yen (about US$188,000) for a new total of 133,436,980 yen (about US$963,000).

While Tsurune The Movie: The First Shot (Gekijōban Tsurune: Hajimari no Issha) remained out of the top 10, it still earned 22,626,600 yen (about US$163,000) in its second weekend for a new total of 125,321,720 yen (about US$905,000).

The live-action film adaptation of author Shin Sawada and artist Renji Asai's The Violence Action manga dropped off the top 10 in its second weekend.

Sources: Kōgyō Tsūshin, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web, comScore via KOFIC