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Uma Musume: Beginning of a New Era Film Opens at #2
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The film opened in Japan last Friday.
The film follows Jungle Pocket, who wishes to participate in the Triple Crown Classic race, which can only be run once in a lifetime. She faces rivals Agnes Tachyon and Manhattan Cafe.
Ken Yamamoto (Pokémon: Hisuian Snow) is directing the anime at Cygames. Kiyoko Yoshimura (Cardfight!! Vanguard G) is writing the script. Tetsuya Kobari (Uma Musume Pretty Derby Season 3) is credited as scenario director and for series composition. Jun Yamazaki (Uma Musume Pretty Derby: Road to the Top) is the character designer and chief animation director. TOHO is distributing the film.
The anime franchise includes three previous TV anime seasons, the Uma Musume Pretty Derby: Road to the Top net anime, and the Umayon spinoff television anime.
The Uma Musume Pretty Derby game launched in February 2021 for iOS and Android. The game was originally slated for a release in winter 2018, and was delayed in order to raise the game's quality. The game launched on PC via DMM Games in March 2021.
The game's concept begins with Uma Musume (Horse Girls), girls endowed with excellent running capability, and who aim to become top idols and compete in the national sports entertainment show "Twinkle Series." Players take the role of both teacher and trainer for the girls in the Nihon Uma Musume Training Center Gakuen (Japan Horse Girls Training Center Academy) and help them make their debut.
The film is the second film in the franchise to have earned 10 billion yen, but Case Closed: The Million-dollar Pentagram earned it two days faster than Detective Conan: Kurogane no Submarine did. Detective Conan is now the first Japanese-animated film franchise to have two consecutive films pass 10 billion yen in earnings in Japan.
The film ranked at #1 in its opening weekend, selling 2,274,333 tickets and earning 3,352,494,500 (about US$21.7 million) yen in its first three days. The new film has exceeded the opening weekend of Detective Conan: Kurogane no Submarine (Iron Submarine), the 26th film that opened last year, making it the new best three-day opening for the franchise. The new film also has the biggest opening weekend for a film so far this year in Japan.
Case Closed: The Million-dollar Pentagram is the 27th film in the Detective Conan franchise. AIKO performs the film's theme song "Sōshi Sōai" (Mutual Love).
The second film opened on Friday, after it was delayed from April 19.
The first film opened in Japan on March 22, and earned 83,773,890 yen (about US$553,300) in its first three days. The films also have a new television anime version that premiered worldwide last Thursday, with 18 planned episodes airing weekly. Crunchyroll is streaming the anime as it airs, alongside an English-dubbed version.
Production +h. produced the anime film — the first full-fledged anime adaptation of any work by Asano. Tomoyuki Kurokawa (Psychic Detective Yakumo, Break of Dawn, Dragonar Academy) directed the films, and Reiko Yoshida (A Silent Voice, Violet Evergarden, Tamako Market) wrote and oversaw the series scripts. Nobutake Ito (The Tatami Galaxy, Kaiba, Kemonozume) was the character designer and chief animation director, Mika Nishimura (assistant art director for Dorohedoro) was the art director, and Taro Umebayashi (Space Dandy both seasons, Yuri!!! on Ice) composed the music.
The manga revolves around the strange everyday life of the very ordinary high school girl Kadode Koyama, her friend Ouran Nakagawa, and others in a world where a giant mothership has appeared over Tokyo.
The film premiered in Japan on February 16 and is also screening in IMAX. Susumu Mitsunaka (first, third Haikyu!! television anime) both directed and wrote the script for the film.
The film sold 1,529,000 tickets and earned 2,230,465,540 yen (about US$14.83 million) in its first three days of screening.
Opus, a documentary centered on the late composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, dropped from #2 to #3 in the mini-theater ranking in its third weekend. The film opened in Japan on May 10, and ranked at #1 in the mini-theater ranking in its opening weekend. The film had its world premiere at last year's Venice Film Festival on September 5.
The anime film of Kōta Sannomiya's BLUELOCK -Episode Nagi- spinoff of Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yūsuke Nomura's Blue Lock soccer manga fell off the top 10 in its sixth weekend, but still earned 43,580,310 yen (about US$277,900) from Friday to Sunday, and has earned a cumulative total of 1,654,018,550 yen (about US$10.54 million).
The Godzilla vs. Kong film sequel Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire also dropped off the top 10 in its fifth weekend, but still earned 38,260,630 yen (about US$244,000) from Friday to Sunday, and has earned a cumulative total of 1,628,014,180 yen (about US$10.38 million).
Sources: Press release, Kōgyō Tsūshin (link 2), comScore via KOFIC
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