Kimi no Na wa.: Over Ten Million Visitors, Ranks 5th Among Past Japanese Anime Movies!

Makoto Shinkai’s smash hit movie Kimi no Na wa. has attracted over ten million visitors in just 39 days, from August 26 (the release date) to October 3. The movie’s box-office revenue has already swollen up to over 13 billion yen and it reached to the fifth place of the Japanese anime movies’ box-office ranking, after Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. It kept the first place of the Kogyotsushinsha weekly film ranking for 6 weeks straight!

Its revenue of 13 billion yen overtakes The Wind Rises and comes after Ponyo on the Cliff , both Hayao Miyazaki films. There has been a growing number of fans visiting the movie’s featured place Hidano in Gifu prefecture. and the success of the film is building a momentum that expands to the movie’s original novel as well as the side-story publications.

‘I have wanted to create the very center of entertainment that anyone can enjoy one day,’ says Shinkai, ‘Two people unknown to one another, living in unknown places but they may have a fate to meet with each other. They don’t meet with each other in real life but come in contact in some other ways. This is simple but I have wanted to put such a story into shape.’

According to Shinkai, this idea has led him to create the movie. Kimi no Na wa. was born after incorporating Masashi Ando’s incredible drawing skills and RADWINPS’s distinctive world view into the story. There is a mixture of a joy and melancholy that Shinkai says has been his life-long theme.

The production has announced that the long-awaited commemorative fourth visual is scheduled to appear on morning newspaper ads on October 14 (Friday).

Stay tuned for more updates on Shinkai’s world.

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