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Gintama 2 Rises to #4, Hibiki Falls to #9 at Japanese Box Office
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Gintama 2: Okite wa Yaburu Tame ni Koso Aru (The Law is Surely There to be Broken), the second live-action film based on Hideaki Sorachi's Gintama manga, rose from #5 to #4 in its sixth weekend. The film sold earned 85,194,200 yen (about US$751,066) from Friday to Sunday. The film has earned a cumulative total of 3,361,974,500 yen (about US$29.64 million), and has sold more than 2.6 million tickets.
The film opened in Japan on August 17 in 345 theaters. The film earned over 800 million yen (about US$7.27 million) from Friday to Sunday to rank #1 in its opening weekend.
The film's story covers both the "Shinsengumi Crisis" and the "Shogun Reception" arcs, the latter of which features the introduction of the Shogun. The film stars Shun Oguri as Gintoki Sakata, Masaki Suda as Shinpachi Shimura, Kanna Hashimoto as Kagura, Masami Nagasawa as Tae Shimura, and Masaki Okada as Kotarō Katsura.
The live-action film of Mitsuharu Yanamoto's Hibiki: Shōsetsuka ni Naru Hōhō (Hibiki ~How to Become a Novelist~) manga fell from #6 to #9 in its second weekend. The film earned 57,355,200 yen (about US$505,479) from Friday to Saturday, and has earned a cumulative total of 350,328,300 yen (about US$3.09 million).
Shō Tsukikawa (live-action Kurosaki-kun no Iinari ni Nante Naranai, I Want to Eat Your Pancreas) directed the film, with a script by Masafumi Nishida (Tiger & Bunny).
In the manga's story, a handwritten novel manuscript is sent into a rookie contest, but it doesn't meet the conditions and is thrown in the trash. Still, an editor named Hanai picks it up by chance and believes it is a revolutionary novel. The author's name is Hibiki Akui, but there is no contact address on the submission. Meanwhile, Hibiki – a 15-year-old student – joins her school's literary club, not knowing that Hanai is trying to track her down.
Yanamoto launched the manga in Big Comic Superior in August 2014. Shogakukan released the manga's 10th volume on August 30. The manga won the 10th Manga Taisho award last year.
Non Non Biyori Vacation, the anime film of Atto's Non Non Biyori manga, remained at #1 in the Japanese mini-theater rankings in its fifth consecutive weekend. The film opened on August 25.
Sources: Eiga.com, Kōgyō Tsūshin (link 2), comScore via KOFIC
