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Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, Noise Live-Action Films Debut at #3, #5

The Gekijō-ban Jujutsu Kaisen 0 anime film stayed at #1 in its sixth weekend. The film sold 169,000 tickets and earned 239 million yen (about US$2.07 million) over the weekend. It has sold 7,191,107 tickets for 9,839,644,200 yen (about US$85.1 million) in the 38 days since it opened on December 24.

The film is now the 39th highest-earning film in Japanese box office history, after topping such films as The Adventures of Milo and Otis, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire, and Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.

The film earned 2,694,128,150 yen (about US$23.5 million) in its first three days, and topped the box office chart for its opening weekend. The film also has IMAX screenings. The film will open with English subtitles and with an English dub in the U.S. and Canada on March 18.

The film is based on Gege Akutami's Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Tokyo Toritsu Jujutsu Kōtō Senmon Gakkō (Jujutsu Kaisen 0: Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School) manga prequel story, with MAPPA animating again and TOHO distributing. Viz Media released the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 manga in January 2021, and it describes the story:

Yuta Okkotsu is a nervous high school student who is suffering from a serious problem—his childhood friend Rika has turned into a Curse and won't leave him alone. Since Rika is no ordinary Curse, his plight is noticed by Satoru Gojo, a teacher at Jujutsu High, a school where fledgling exorcists learn how to combat Curses. Gojo convinces Yuta to enroll, but can he learn enough in time to confront the Curse that haunts him?

Megumi Ogata voiced the main character Yuta Okkotsu, and Kana Hanazawa voiced the character Rika Orimoto.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, the first live-action film reboot of CAPCOM's Resident Evil survival horror game franchise, sold 104,000 tickets and earned 161 million yen (about US$1.39 million) over the weekend to rank at #3 in its opening weekend. The film opened in Japan on Friday, January 28.

The film opened in the United States on November 24, delayed from its originally scheduled September 3 release.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is set in the late 1990s with the following story introduction:

In the once booming home of the pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corporation, Raccoon City is now a dying Midwestern town. The company's exodus left the city a wasteland…with great evil brewing below the surface. When that evil is unleashed, the townspeople are forever…changed…and a small group of survivors must work together to uncover the truth behind Umbrella and make it through the night.

The live-action film of Tetsuya Tsutsui's noise manga sold 77,000 tickets and earned 109 million yen (about US$948,000) to rank at #5 in its opening weekend. The film opened in Japan on Friday, January 28.

The suspense manga is set in a rural hunting town that has been suffering from a steadily shrinking population due to aging and migration over the course of many years. But when the town begins producing a product known as the "black fig," it begins bringing money and opportunity back to the town. The story begins when Keita Izumi, a caretaker of a black fig plantation, meets a man with an air that is ill-fitting for the town.

The film stars Tatsuya Fujiwara as Keita Izumi and Ken'ichi Matsuyama as Jun Tanabe. The two actors previous co-starred in the live-action Death Note films. Ryunosuke Kamiki plays Shinichirō Moriya, a rookie police officer in the film's remote island setting. His accidental killing of ex-convict Mutsuo Omisaka begins the story. Daichi Watanabe also has a role in the film. Haru Kuroki plays Kana Izumi, Keita's wife. Masatoshi Nagase plays Tsutomu Hatakeyama, a skilled police detective tracking Keita and the others.

The first part of The Orbital Children (Chikyūgai Shōnen Shōjo or Extra-Terrestrial Boys & Girls), director and writer Mitsuo Iso's first new original anime since 2007's Dennō Coil, ranked at #1 in the mini-theater ranking in its opening weekend.

The anime is screening in two parts theatrically in Japan. The first part opened on January 28, and the second part will open on February 11. Each part will screen for two weeks only in theaters. The theatrical project also has a simultaneous release on Blu-ray Disc and DVD.

Netflix also debuted the anime outside of Japan on January 28 as a six-episode series.

Netflix describes the anime's story:

The story begins in the year 2045, when AI has advanced and anyone can travel into space. Children born on the moon and children from Earth who are on a trip to space meet at the Japanese-built space station, "Anshin." But their future is decided by the Seven Poem. This new six-episode series, a youthful, futuristic anime reminiscent of “Coil - A Circle of Children,” will start streaming worldwide from Friday, January 28, 2022!

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