Shopping Guide
From games to TV anime to toys, Yo-Kai Watch has swept through Japan, and now it seems this whirlwind will blow into theaters next. The series’ first animated movie, Yo-Kai Watch the Movie: It’s the Secret of Birth, Meow!, is slated for release on Dec. 20, and advance ticket sales for the movie are smashing records. Sales of advance tickets began on July 19, and since then, customers have been flooding into stores to buy tickets. The series really shows just how popular it is by the fact that distribution of 500,000 “Youkai Medal: Fuyunyan” bonus items included with the advance tickets ended in a flash.
Even after that, the number of advance tickets sold continued to climb. Just shy of eight weeks after the start of sales, ticket sales broke through 720,000. Currently (Oct. 26), in a span of 99 days since the start of sales, ticket sales are at 721,422. This is the highest total in the history of film company Toho Eiga, which has a proud 82-year history. Even now, this pace continues to climb at a rate of about 10,000 tickets sold per week. There is a strong chance more records will be broken by the time the movie releases.
This number does not include special advance tickets sold at convenience stores and the like. Including this number would make the overall even higher. By this stage in ticket sales, we can expect a huge hit.
Meanwhile, there’s even more big news on the Yo-Kai Watch movie. The release of Part 2 of the movie has already been confirmed. The movie will release in winter 2015.
This announcement of the release of Part 2 of a movie being confirmed before the release of Part 1 is extremely unusual. A series is being created in anticipation of the first movie being a huge hit. There is a lineup of popular series when it comes to animated movies aimed at kids and families including Doraemon, Crayon Shin-chan, Detective Conan, and Pokémon. Now, Yo-Kai Watch joins this lineup.
The release of Part 2 is still a ways off, and detailed information on the movie is forthcoming. Maybe it will be a big surprise for fans?
© 2014 LMYWP
Source: animeanime
