TOKYO — “Yo-Kai Watch the Movie 2: King Enma and the 5 Stories, Nyan!,” the second animated feature based on the popular Yo-Kai Watch role playing game, opened bigger than “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in Japan in admissions terms. “Yo-Kai” sold 975,000 tickets for the Dec. 19-20 weekend.
That made it number one in Japan where box office rank is usually expressed by admissions, not revenue. “Yo-Kai” which is distributed by Toho, opened in 358 theaters and grossed $8.71 million.
“Star Wars” bowed on Friday Dec. 18, ahead of the normal weekend Saturday opening, on 958 screens. That was a record for the Japanese market, sparking complaints from online commentators that Disney was “arrogant” and “pushing a series past its sell-by date.” In three days it earned $13.3 million from 1.04 million admissions. Its weekend (Saturday and Sunday) admissions at 800,000, lagged “Yo-Kai Watch,” but were worth $10.3 million.
Toho is predicting that “Yo-Kai” will pass the JPY5 billion ($41 million) mark and could go as high as JPY6 billion ($49 million).
The first “Yo-Kai Watch” movie, released in December last year, finished with $64 million.
