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Live-Action Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku Film Opens at #1 in Japan

The live-action film of Fujita's Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku (Otaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii) manga debuted at #1 in its opening weekend. The film sold 169,000 tickets for 229,400,150 yen (about US$2.08 million) from Saturday to Sunday, and sold over 220,000 tickets for over 300 million yen (about US$2.73 million) from Friday to Sunday. The film opened on Friday, February 7 in 304 screens. The film earned 18% more in its opening weekend than the live-action The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. film, which also starred Kento Yamazaki and was directed by Yūichi Fukuda.

The Eiga.com website is projecting that the film will eventually earn more than 1.5 billion yen (about US$13.66 million). Pia's exit poll of filmgoers on opening day reported a satisfaction rating of 83.9 from a survey sample of 85.

The manga inspired an 11-episode television anime that premiered in April 2018. The anime streamed on Amazon Prime Video inside and outside of Japan.

The Gekijōban Kishiryū Sentai Ryusoulger VS Lupinranger VS Patranger Super Sentai film ranked at #5 in its opening weekend. The film earned 100,037,910 yen (about US$911,000) from Friday to Sunday.

Kaiji Final Game, the new live-action film inspired by Nobuyuki Fukumoto's Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji manga, dropped from #4 to #8 in its fifth weekend at the Japanese box office. It earned 66,122,600 yen (about US$602,100) from Friday to Sunday. It has earned a cumulative total of 1,824,650,350 yen (about US$16.61 million).

The film ranked at #2 in its opening weekend in Japan. The film sold 248,000 tickets and earned 362 million yen (about US$3.29 million) on January 11-12, and sold 437,000 tickets and earned 616 million yen (about US$5.60 million) from January 10-13 (January 13 was a national holiday). The film's opening weekend earnings are 3.5% higher than the opening weekend earnings of the previous 2011 film Kaiji 2 - Jinsei Dakkai Game. While the film sold less tickets than Frozen II (on its eighth weekend in Japan), it earned more yen than Frozen 2 during the weekend.

Kaiji Final Game opened in Japan on January 10 on 333 screens. The film is billed as the "last chapter" of the series, with a completely original story by Fukumoto.

Tōya Satō returned fro the previous two films to direct the new film, and Tatsuya Fujiwara also returned to reprise his role as the titular character.

ON-GAKU: Our Sound, the anime film adaptation of Hiroyuki Ohashi's "ON-GAKU" manga, rose from #5 to #4 in the mini-theater ranking in its fifth weekend. The film opened in Japan on January 11.

Sources: Eiga.com, Kōgyō Tsūshin (link 2), comScore via KOFIC