The number of visitors to movie theaters and the box office decreased 6.7% and 6.0% to 160 million and \19.816 billion, respectively, according to the statistics on the Japanese movie industry compiled by the Motion Pictures Producers Association.

These decreases were attributable to the decline of the number of hit movies. Nevertheless, the box office at the Japanese movies increased 3.4% to \81.78 billion, resulting in making the ratio of Japanese and foreign films 41.3%: 58.7%. The ratio of the Japanese movies exceeded 40% for the first time since 8 year ago.

Since “Howl’ Moving Castle,” which was released in November 2004 and has still been popular, ranked No.1 at the box office of \19.6 billion, and “Pokemon,” a new anime film of its series designed for the theater, ranked No.2 at the box office of \4.3 billion. Therefore, Japanese anime films made a strong showing among all of Japanese films.

In spite of this, however, the number of hit animation works with the box office of \1 billion decreased from 11 in 2004 to 7 in 2005. In addition, total box office receipts of over \1 billion decreased from 36 billion in 2004 and \29 billion in 2005. This declining trend symbolizes the performance of serial animations. For instance, although the box office receipts of “Crayon Shin-chan” and ”POKEMON” remained almost unchanged compared to the previous year. The box office receipts of “Case Closed,” “Onepice The Movie,” and “NARUTO” decreased from \2.8 billion to 2.15 billion, from \1.8 billion to \1.2 billion and from \1.37 billion to \1.18 billion, respectively, compared to a year ago.

The fall in the whole anime films was attributable to the lack of a theater edition of “Doraemon” in 2005, which has contributed to
a stable box office every year. Instead, the anime-originated movies such as “NANA,” “ALWAYS-Sunset on the Third Street,” and “Touch,” made good performances, posting box office receipts of \4.03 billion, \3.23 billion and \1.2 billion, respectively.

The theater editions of “Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam,” and “Pretty Cure MaxHeart,” performed well although their box office receipts did not reach \1 billion. Among the foreign animation films, the revenue from “The Incredibles” remarkably reached \5.35 billion, but remained about a half of the box office of “FINDING NEMO” released in 2004.

The box offices of both Japanese and foreign animation decreased compared to 2004. Almost anime films were targeted for children.

2005 YEARY BOX OFFICE （Animation） unit：Billion yen
1. Howl’s moving castle \19.60
2. The Incredibles \5.26
3. Pokemon: Advanced Generation \4.30
4. Madagascar \2.25
5. Conan: The Movie Vol. 9 \2.15
6. Shark Tale \1.88
7. Robots \1.40
8. Crayon Shinchan Vol. 13 \1.30
9. Full Metal Alchemist \1.22
10. Onie Piece 6 \1.20
11. 2005 Naruto \1.18
12. Corpse Bride \1.00
Suouce: Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Inc http://www.eiren.org/