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Gintama The Final Film Tops 1 Billion Yen in 1st 16 Days
posted on by Alex Mateo
Gintama: The Final, the new anime film of Hideaki Sorachi's Gintama manga has earned over one billion yen (about US$9.6 million) at the box office in its first 16 days — the fastest a film in the franchise has reached that milestone.
The film's audience was 40% male and 60% female, and ranged from the late teens to people in their 30s.
Gintama: The Final opened in Japan on January 8. The film is based on the finale of the original manga, combined with new story elements.
The film ranked at #1 in its opening weekend — ending Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train's 12 consecutive weekends at the top of the Japanese box office.
Japan began screening the film with audio commentary by the cast on January 22. Viewers can listen to the second audio channel with commentary by downloading it from a "Hello! Movie!" app and listening on their smartphones with headphones. The commentary features six voice actors: Tomokazu Sugita, Daisuke Sakaguchi, Rie Kugimiya, Susumu Chiba, Kazuya Nakai, and Kenichi Suzumura.
Sorachi's original "science-fiction period-drama comedy" manga began in 2003 and ended in June 2019 with over 55 million copies in circulation. The latest anime series premiered in July 2018. The manga has also inspired various original video anime (OVA), event anime, two live-action films, and two live-action net spinoffs. Viz Media published the manga's first 23 volumes in English.
The first 49 episodes of the first television series began streaming on Hulu with a new English dub in December 2019. Sentai Filmworks released the anime's first 49 episodes on DVD in 2010 and 2011, but that release did not include an English dub.
The manga also inspired a new net anime special titled Gintama The Semi-Final, which is a two-episode prequel to the film. The net anime premiered exclusively in Japan on the online dTV service on January 15.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web
