Japan box office reaches $1.6bn in 2022 led by ‘One Piece Film Red’

Japan showed strong recovery at the box office in 2022 with takings of $1.6bn (¥205bn) approaching pre-pandemic levels, bolstered by a string of local animated film hits.

Cinema admissions reached 146.9 million across the year compared to 182 million in pre-pandemic 2019, according to Comscore. Box office receipts were $1.6bn (¥205bn), down 15.3% on the $1.9bn (¥242bn) taken in 2019. For comparison, last year’s US box office was down 34% on 2019.

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Japan, which was one of the few countries to largely keep cinemas open during the Covid-19 pandemic, is the world’s third-biggest box office and cinemagoers turn out for domestic titles. Top Gun: Maverick was the only Hollywood title in the country’s top five best box office performers, which were dominated by big-budget animated features.

The top title was anime blockbuster One Piece Film: Red from Japanese studio Toei, which made nearly $149m (¥19bn) from 13.75m admissions. Released on August 6, it marks the 15^th feature in the One Piece film franchise, based on the manga of the same name by Eiichiro Oda.

Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick ranked second, taking $106m (¥13.5bn) from 8.36 million admissions following it release on May 27 by Towa Pictures.

The top five was rounded out by Suzume, Detective Conan: The Bride of Halloween and Jujutsu Kaisen 0 – three anime features, all released by Toho.

The only other US titles to make the top 10 were Jurassic World Dominion, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore and Minions: The Rise Of Gru.

Japan box office 2022 (Jan 7, 2022 – Jan 5, 2023)

Source: Comscore

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