Japanese Box Office Analysis

I just saw Marnie Was there a few weeks ago and it makes me wonderhow well Ghibli films, and other anime for that matter, did in the box office in previous years. For the analysis, I am using Box Office Mojo’s data between 2002 and 2014 for this analysis. Here are the results of top Japanese films:

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Rank	Movie Title	Year	Type	Franchise	Total
1	Hauru no ugoku shiro (Howl’s Moving Castle)	2004	Anime	Ghibli	190,000,000
2	Gake no ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on a Cliff)	2008	Anime	Ghibli	164,565,997
3	Odoru daisosasen the movie 2: Rainbow Bridge wo fuusa seyo! (Bayside Shakedown 2)	2003	(blank)	(blank)	155,138,312
4	Kaze tachinu (The Wind Rises)	2013	Anime	Ghibli	119,513,192
5	The Borrowers (Kari-gurashi no Arietti)	2010	Anime	Ghibli	110,013,058
6	Umizaru 3 (The Last Message)	2010	(blank)	(blank)	94,786,753
7	Umizaru 4	2012	(blank)	(blank)	91,331,832
8	Rookies: Sotsugyô	2009	(blank)	(blank)	87,999,688
9	Eien no zero	2013	(blank)	(blank)	81,133,182
10	Terumae romae	2012	(blank)	(blank)	74,091,903
11	Hero (2007)	2007	(blank)	(blank)	73,109,846
12	Odoru Daisôsasen the Final: Aratanaru kibô (The Bayside Shakedown the Final)	2012	(blank)	(blank)	72,834,411
13	One Piece Film Z	2012	Anime	One Piece	72,822,122
14	Sekai no chûshin de, ai o sakebu (Crying Out Love, in the Center of the World)	2004	(blank)	(blank)	72,719,040
15	Hana yori dango: Fainaru (Boys Over Flowers: Final)	2008	Adaptation manga	(blank)	70,821,405
16	Gedo senki (Tales from Earthsea)	2006	Anime	Ghibli	63,786,538
17	Okuribito (Departures)	2008	(blank)	(blank)	61,010,217
18	Limit of Love: Umizaru	2006	(blank)	(blank)	60,136,488
19	Evangelion Shin Gekijôban: Kyu (Evangelion 3.0)	2012	Anime	Evangelion	59,891,241
20	Kokuriko-zaka kara	2011	Anime	Ghibli	56,029,615

Miyazaki’s films dominated whenever they came out, Ghibli films by other directors less so

• Four of the 5 highest grossing Japanese films over the last 12 years are Ghibli’s and 3 of the 4 (Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo and The Wind Rises) and Miyazaki’s films
• Highest non-Miyazaki film is One Piece Z

Anime movies are dominated by Ghibli and franchises

• Only 2 movies in the top 50 grossing anime films are not Ghilis or franchises (Conan, One Piece, Pokemon, Doraemon, Evangelion, Lupin)
• The highest ranking non-Ghibli, non-franchise anime movies are:

1. Wolf Children (by Hosoda Mamoru) – 52,5mn [ranked 10 among all animes]
2. Madoka III: The Rebellion Story – 19.2mn [ranked 47 among all animes]
3. Summer Wars – 17.4mn [ranked 51 among all animes]

Ghibli remains the undisputed brand name when it comes to Japanese animation films in Japan

Rank	Franchise	Number of films	Average gross per film
1	Ghibli	9	90,028,901
2	Evangelion	3	38,512,857
3	Pokemon	14	36,758,768
4	Doraemon	13	33,034,705
5	Conan	12	29,792,663
6	Hosoda	3	23,399,055
7	One Piece	9	21,195,967
8	Gintama	2	13,095,791
9	Madoka	2	12,402,449
10	Shin-chan	12	11,907,453
11	Kitaro	3	11,638,260
12	HxH	2	9,987,364
13	Naruto	9	9,609,088
14	FMA	2	8,557,058
15	Precure	17	8,337,218
16	Inuyasha	3	6,744,939
17	Gundam	5	5,433,230
18	Bleach	4	5,166,450
19	Beyblade	2	4,476,710
20	Nanoha	2	3,697,342

• The 9 films Ghibli has released over this 12 year span gross an average that is 3 times higher than any other anime movie franchises.

Saying that, box office-wise, Ghibli will really have a hard time in the post-Miyazaki era

• On average, Miyazaki’s 3 films averaged $158m while other films by other directors averaged $61m
• Even more worryingly, the last 3 non-Miyazaki films grossed $33m (Marnie was There), $23m (Princess Kaguya) and $56m (Up on Poppy Hill). Combined, those are less than Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises at $120m

When it comes to animation, Ghibli still rules over Disney and Pixar, but as a movie, Frozen rules them all

Studio	Median gross per movie ($mm)
Ghibli	74,147,580
Pixar	59,898,718
Disney	46,143,543

• Disney’s low total is even skewed by Frozen’s $249m gross (median is in fact ~$10m only)
• Frozen’s gross is actually the highest among all films in the last 10 years in japan

Other observation

• As steady and unspectacular as Conan manga is doing, its movies have actually been doing really well through time, beating even One Piece and Naruto.
• Personally I was hoping that Berserk would do a lot better and I am sad to see that the movies from this series is no where near the top
• Say what you want about Evangelion, It definitely have enough hardcore fans to make it the second highest grossing franchises in the list.
• Of all franchises with more five or more films, Shin-chan is the most steady across time with the lowest standard deviation (variation between top grossing films and lowest grossing. All 12 films fall within the range of USD 9 – 14 m). On the other hand, One Piece has the biggest disparity, with the more popular one (One Piece Film Z) making 10 times of the least popular one (One Piece: Karakuri Shiro no Mecha Kyohei) (USD 72.8m vs. USD 7.0)
• Surprisingly (to me at least), Precure is the franchise with the most released movie over this 13-year period, more than Pokemon, Doraemon, Shin-chan and Conan. Granted, its average gross ($8.3M) is by far the lowest among those titles
• The grossing amount for Evangelion also goes up from the first one (15mn) to 2nd (40mn) to 3rd (60mn). That does at least correlate with the amount of new stuffs in each films

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LAST WORD

I can see that Ghibli will struggle making the gross in the post-Miyazaki era. Let’s hope the studio proves this wrong and keep producing more films that make a lot of money! As for other animes, they seem to be ever-present within the Japanese moviescape without making too big of a splash.

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NOTE:

• Results are not inflation-adjusted (though considering it is Japan, there is probably barely any inflation around anyway…)

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