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On May 27th, Shinkai Makoto’s hit new anime film, Suzume no Tojimari (すずめの戸締まり, called simply Suzume in English-language markets) ended its impressive run at the box office in its home country of Japan. The movie, which released on November 11th, 2022, was in theaters for an extended 198 days; even in its last weekend in theaters, it managed to gain 8th place at the box office. In all, Suzume has brought in ¥14.79 billion in Japan – equivalent to around $105.4 million USD. [1]
This puts Suzume snuggly in the top box office rankings in Japanese history, coming in at 14th. This means Suzume out-grossed Shinkai’s second-most-recent film, 2019’s Weathering with You, which raked in ¥14.23 billion. Sitting directly above Suzume at 13th is Miyazaki Hayao’s beloved 2008 anime film Ponyo.
While ¥14.79 billion is a strong showing, it still pales in comparison to Shinkai’s 2016 mega-hit Your Name (君の名は). That film made a massive ¥25.17 billion, and was the first-ever anime film not by Studio Ghibli’s Miyazaki to make over ¥10 billion in Japan. All-in-all, Suzume now ranks as the 8th biggest anime box office hit in Japanese history. Ahead of it are the gigantic covid-era breakaway hit Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train (¥40.43b), Miyazaki’s beloved Spirited Away (¥31.68b), the aforementioned Your Name (¥25.17b), Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke (¥20.18b), One Piece: Film Red (¥19.70b, also in 2022), and Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle (¥19.60b) and Ponyo (¥15.50).
Suzume’s Dual Success
Suzume has engendered both financial and critical success; while the beautifully animated film strikes some similar beats to recent Shinkai fare, its focus on rural Japan’s population decline and the emptying of the countryside has won it laudits, both in Japan and abroad. In a compilation of reviews from the latter, Rottentomatoes.com ranks Suzume at 96% for critic reviews and 98% for audience score.
The story involves the titular Suzume, a high school student in rural Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu. One day, she encounters Souta, a college student who asks after the location of ruins near her town; she later witnesses him undertaking a dangerous ritual to seal away supernatural “worms” that emerge from abandoned spaces, threatening the areas around them. Suzume and Souta end up on a cross-country road trip to seal away these dangerous apparitions in the declining towns and villages of depopulating Japan.
The film’s box office accomplishments aren’t limited to Japan alone. In China, it’s the most successful Japanese film of all time, raking in the equivalent of over $112 million. In South Korea, Suzume made over $35 million, similarly becoming the biggest Japanese film ever in that country. [2] Overall, the total cumulative worldwide box office for Suzume is nearly $320 million. This makes it the 4th biggest Japanese film of all time worldwide, behind only Mugen Train, Spirited Away, and Shinkai’s own Your Name.
A Banner Year for Theatrical Anime?
Suzume isn’t the only 2022 anime film to break out at the box office. The year’s surprise mass hit is perhaps The First Slam Dunk, based on Inoue Takehiko’s mega-popular Slam Dunk manga from the early ’90s. The film is now 15th in the JPN historical box office, coming right behind Suzume; meanwhile, it’s the 5th biggest anime film of all time internationally with over $258 million.
One Piece, which was long the perennial highest-selling manga each year over the past two decades, scored even bigger with its newest theatrical outing. One Piece: Film Red is the 15th entry in the film series following pirate Monkey D. Luffy’s quest to find the fabled “One Piece”; while other films in the series have done well, this entry blew them all out of the water. Taking in a major ¥19.7 billion ($140,374,000) domestically, Film Red was the biggest movie at the Japanese box office in 2022. It’s also the 5th highest-grossing film in Japanese history and 6th highest-grossing Japanese film worldwide.
What to Look Forward to Next
The success of these films played a large role in expanding the Japanese theatrical film market in 2022. The industry is still recovering from the COVID pandemic’s effects but is closing in on pre-COVID numbers. 2022 saw the Japanese box office rise to 80% of its 2019 pre-COVID stature. [3] But while the success of these films is a good sign for Japanese theaters, the fact that so many hits come from franchise films has implications regarding the direction of anime on the big screen.
Suzume could expect great success based on its coming from the highly popular Shinkai; the next non-franchise anime film with a shot at breaking out, in the same way, is Miyazaki Hayao’s upcoming How Do You Live. The first Studio Ghibli theatrical film in nearly a decade, the movie is building some real anticipation before its July 14th release.
Movies from the famed Studio Ghibli (from which came Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, and more) were for many decades shoo-ins for being the most popular Japanese film of any year they released in. The last few films Ghibli released from last decade didn’t quite accomplish this, however; we’ll soon see if Miyazaki, one of the world’s most beloved directors, still has that old magic. We here at UJ will be on the scene to deliver a review as soon as that movie releases. For many fans of anime, animation, and Japanese film, it’s really something to look forward to.
What to read next
Suzume no Tojimari: A New Shinkai Masterpiece?
Sources
[1] MANTANWEB編集部. (2023年05月29日). すずめの戸締まり：最終興収147.9億円 1115万人動員 歴代興収14位. Mantanweb.
[2] Hodgkins, Crystalyn. (2023-04-15). Suzume Becomes Highest-Selling Anime Film of All Time in China, Korea. Anime News Network.
[3] ( Feb 27, 2023). “One Piece” Tops Japan’s Box Office in 2022. Nippon.com.
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