The biggest story this holiday season in Japan is Howl's Moving Castle, though its lead -- "Miyazaki triumphs again at local box office" -- could have been written months in advance. Everyone knew that, when distributor Toho shifted the release date of Hayao Miyazaki's latest animation from mid-summer to late October, it would dominate the charts for the remainder of the year and beyond -- but few could have guessed how overwhelming that domination would be.
After all, Miyazaki is still working in a medium -- 2-D animation -- that is now about as popular in Hollywood as oil on velvet. Also, his heroine spends much of the film hobbling about in the body of a ninety-year-old woman -- not the most dynamic choice, one would think, for the centerpiece of a blockbuster entertainment. Finally, Miyazaki himself is getting up in years and making noises about retirement. Might the master's hands be slipping from the wheel?
Instead of slipping, Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli animators have just recorded the biggest opening weekend ever for a Japanese film -- and now Toho is predicting a Y50 billion ($480) million gross on 40 million admissions. Such numbers are beyond stratospheric -- they are out there with the Voyager as it plunges into the seas of Titan.
And the season's second-biggest story? Be With You, a weepy family drama based on best-selling novel by Takuji Ichikawa, topped the box office chart the second week after its October 30 release. Helmed by freshman director Nobuhiro Doi, this film about a woman, a year dead, who returns in the flesh to her husband and young son for one last reunion is expected to gross Y3.2 billion ($31 million). This in a market that considers Y1.0 billion ($9.7 million) the mark of a hit.
Backed by the TBS network, Be With You is riding the wave started by Crying Out for Love In the Centre of the World, a hanky-wringing drama of love and loss that earned Y8.35 billion ($81 million) on 6.25 million admissions -- the highest total for a Japanese film this year. No surprise that other distributors are scrambling to add what the Japanese call "pure love" (junai) dramas to their line-ups, foreign as well as domestic. No surprise also that Howl's is Miyazaki's first attempt at a poor-girl-meets-handsome-prince (or rather wizard) romance. These days, if you want to succeed at the Japanese box -- spread the love.
