Matt Schley
November 19, 2020 
It will be no shock to hear this, but Japanese movie theaters have had a hard year. As with most cinemas worldwide, Japan’s had basically no customers for months in the early part of the year. Unlike most other places (minus New Zealand and Taiwan, I suppose), they opened back up in the summer. But restrictions like spacing between seats and a lack of new films meant theaters were still doing pretty poorly compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Until Demon Slayer came around, that is.
New data released on movie theater sales in October shows that Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie — Mugen Train smashed October versus 2018 and 2019. There’s virtually no comparison: just look at the graph below.
In your average year, the top months in Japan are May, during the country’s Golden Week holiday, and August, when children are on summer break.
But this year, it’s October all the way, baby.
And October it will likely stay. A resurgence of cases this week (and, y’know, a lack of another Demon Slayer film) virtually assures that much. The film is currently the 5th highest grossing film of all time in Japan, with 23.35 billion yen in the bank. It’s even sneaking up on Your Name, which made 25 billion yen in its run.
Source: Otakomu
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