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Doraemon, Chihayafuru, Precure Stay in Top 10 at Japanese Box Office

Eiga Doraemon: Nobita no Takarajima (Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's Treasure Island), the Doraemon franchise's 38th film, dropped from #1 to #3 in its fourth weekend, after three consecutive weeks at the top of the Japanese box office rankings. The film earned 322,159,200 yen (about US$3.05 million) from Friday to Sunday. The film has now sold a cumulative total of 2.80 million tickets for 3,266,478,500 yen (about US$30.93 million).

The film sold 717,000 tickets for 843,148,500 yen (about US$8 million) at #1 in its opening weekend. The film earned 22% more than the first weekend of Eiga Doraemon: Nobita no Nankyoku Kachi Kochi Daibōken, the previous year's film, which is the highest-earning film in the franchise with around a US$42 million gross, and was the second highest-grossing domestic film in Japan last year.

The latest Doraemon film is inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island novel. In the film's story, Doraemon, Nobita, Shizuka, Gian, and Suneo set out on an adventure in the Caribbean Sea. Nobita is the captain of a ship and fights his enemies on board. Shizuka gets kidnapped, and a storm impedes their journey. Mini-Dora robots help Nobita and friends on their journey. When the adventurers finally find the mysterious Treasure Island, they discover it is more than just an ordinary island.

Chihayafuru: Musubi (Chihayafuru: Conclusion), the third live-action film of Yuki Suetsugu's Chihayafuru manga, dropped from #3 to #4 in its second weekend. It earned 170,891,500 yen (about US$1.62 million) from Friday to Sunday, and has now earned a cumulative total of 779,337,200 yen (about US$7.38 million). The film sold 210,000 tickets for 257 million yen (about US$2.42 million) to rank #3 at the Japanese box office in its opening weekend. It earned 18.8% more in its first weekend than the previous Chihayafuru: Shimo no Ku film, which eventually earned 1.22 billion yen (about US$11.4 million). The new film opened on March 17 in 306 theaters.

The film takes place two years after the first two films, and depicts Chihaya, Taichi, and Arata in their third year of high school.

The Precure Super Stars! anime film dropped from #4 to #6 in its second weekend. The film earned 94,722,700 yen (about US$897,900) from Friday to Sunday, and has now earned a cumulative total of 491,475,200 yen (about US$4.65 million). The film sold 202,750 tickets for 226,236,600 yen (about US$2.13 million) to rank #4 at the box office on its opening weekend. It earned 43.5% more in its opening weekend than last year's Eiga Precure Dream Stars! film, which eventually earned 700 million yen (about US$6.6 million). The latest film also has the highest-earning opening weekend for Precure films in eight years, since the 2010 Precure All Stars DX2: Kibō no Hikari—Rainbow Jewel o Mamore! film. The new film opened in Japan on March 17 in 213 theaters.

The film centers on the characters of the new Hugtto! Precure television anime series, and also features characters from Kirakira ☆ Precure a la Mode as well as Maho Girls Precure!. The film is part of the 15th anniversary celebrations of the Precure franchise.

The new #1 film in Japan is Pixar's Coco.

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