The Force may be strong in the United States, the Philippines and other countries… but in Japan, Yokai still ruled the box office.
Despite the heavy promotion, including a press tour stop and premiere in Tokyo, the latest film in the Star Wars saga, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, lost out in number of tickets sold to the latest movie of the Yo-Kai Watch media franchise.
According to the latest in Japanese Box Office, The second Yo-Kai Watch movie, Yo-Kai Watch the Movie 2: King Enma and the Five stories, Nyan!, took in a total of 974,557 admissions in 434 screens for the past two-day weekend (December 19 and 20), or a total of JPY1.057 billion in total gross (PHP41.3 million).
Meanwhile, Star Wars: The Force Awakens had only 800,258 admissions in 958 screens for the same weekend, but it outranks the anime film for overall ticket sales in the same weekend, generating JPY1.25 billion in total gross (PHP48.62 million)
The much-awaited “Episode 7” sequel, which was directed by J.J. Abrams, starring Harrison Ford, Luke Hamill and Carrie Fisher, alongside newcomers Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Adam Driver, took in a total of 1.04 million admissions in 958 theaters for the three-day weekend, which is equivalent to JPY 1.6 billion (PHP62.49 million)
Yo-kai Watch is a popular role-playing (RPG) video game franchise, which was developed & published by Level-5. The franchise has launched multiple video games for the Nintendo 3DS, as well as manga and anime adaptations, which is being considered to be the biggest game franchise in Japan since the Pokémon game and media franchise.
The anime adaptation is currently airing on Cartoon Network Asia and Toonami Asia.
Yo-Kai Watch the Movie 2: King Enma and the Five stories, Nyan! is the second animated movie adaptation of the franchise, which was released last December 19.
