An animated movie based on the blockbuster "Demon Slayer" manga series has broken box-office records in Japan as the first film ever to rake in over ¥10 billion within 10 days of opening, its distributors said Monday.
The movie, a sequel to an anime television series that aired last year, has generated box-office sales of over ¥10.75 billion at 403 theaters, drawing 7.98 million viewers from its Oct. 16 premiere through Sunday, according to co-distributors Aniplex Inc. and Toho Co.
The previous record was held by director Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," which took 25 days to pull in box-office sales of ¥10 billion, eventually chalking up ¥30.8 billion.
Fans are watching closely to see if the movie from anime studio Ufotable Inc. will overtake Miyazaki's 2001 animated film as the highest grossing Japanese movie in history.
The movie, titled "Demon Slayer — Kimetsu no Yaiba — The Movie: Mugen Train" and directed by Haruo Sotozaki, also set a ticket sale record of ¥4.62 billion in the first three days.
The film, which is set in Japan around 100 years ago and tells the tale of an adolescent boy fighting human-eating demons after his family is slaughtered and his younger sister Nezuko is turned into a demon, is based on a 2016 manga series by Koyoharu Gotoge.
The movie centers on the hero Tanjiro Kamado's efforts to save the lives of passengers aboard the "Mugen Train," named after the Japanese word for "infinity," on which countless people have gone missing.
Its English-dubbed and subtitled versions are slated to hit movie theaters in North America in early 2021, after a similar launch in Taiwan from Oct. 30, according to Aniplex.