doctordazza.bsky.social
Two-time Award-Winning Anime Journalist | Senior Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News | Video at @anitrendz.com | Pokémon Master | 日本語OK! | 🇦🇺 in 🗼
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I had one of the lemon ones in Australia and it was awful. Legit just tasted bad.
CC lemon it was not.
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I absolutely adore snow but it’s worrying that it was like 20 degrees and T-shirt weather yesterday and now cold as balls.
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I’ve got my best dress on to sneak a watch
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Fun connect I have with Jet Lag, not only have they been to my local train station TWICE in different games, probably minutes after I walked through.
They used the same bus I used to get to high school every day.
This is two different continents btw.
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Only if you do a shot of you being like “this is Shinjuku Face, the holy ground”
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Been playing this for three weeks and this is still the only question that gets me. My Sakura Taisen knowledge is lacking
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You’re missing 50 Shades of Gray at the end, otherwise I’d agree on a book persceptive.
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Even waking up at 8 am on a Sunday to trek down there is tough. I just wanna sleeeeep
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For the past few months all my son has been singing is “Jan jaka jaaaaan”
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I’m interested to see what the series does, whether it skips a part of this advance screening, cuts it up for flashback or just plays it straight.
Gonna be a weird first episode if it’s the latter for sure.
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This was supposed to have a gif attached and worked int he preview but apparently not in the post?! 🫠
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Maybe but even then, Q hooks in the old guard while blending with the new. It also helps to have Evangelion talent attached to it (and Yonezu!)
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On Friday, ironically during the showing I was in, the film passed 1 million tickets sold. After this weekend, that’s now 1.18 million with a total gross of 1.93 billion yen (US$1.24 million).
Gundam is now officially tracking higher than Demon Slayer: To The Hashira Training from last year!
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big if true
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Katawa Shojo
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For perspective, -Beginning- is an advance screening of the upcoming TV anime and is tracking like a Demon Slayer advance screening. If Gundam keeps up pace with repeat viewings and its word of mouth, it should overtake To The Hashira Training in the same time frame. So cool!
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@gkids.com you know what you're doing and doing it well!
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So back to the main point, Sonic is well-known in Japan, people just aren't keen on the films (or the games, but with the Sonic franchise, can you blame people being hesitant?)
It's not like a Hello Kitty movie would break box office records either.
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Being said, Sonic 3 has increased its box office in Japan despite fewer theatres than Sonic 2 and what feels like much less media spend, making nearly double than the second film. Reviews are better than the past two films, though mainly from Sonic fans (who exist!).
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Detective Pikachu faced these same issues but was able to get over better because Toho backed it, the biggest film distributor and theatre owner in JP, Ken Watanabe, and its Pokémon. Nothing competes with the juggernaut that is the Pokémon machine in Japan.
I also think Pokémon would do worse now.
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There was never a place for the Sonic films to build an audience in Japan:
It's too American,
There are no appeal for Japanese audience,
Not enough of an "experience,"
Japanese audiences are different than those in the West.
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An “event film” in this context would be one that needs the cinema for the full experience. A musical like Film Red used cinema speakers to full effect. Haikyu!! also used sound but also the big screen to full effect, also how it was a full sports game in one film, much like The First Slam Dunk.
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For me, Sonic 3 was a great experience in Australia, and at least from reviews online from Japanese people, they loved the film despite being called “Mission Tokyo” and only being in Tokyo for like 5 minutes, Sonic isn't seen as an "event film" like One Piece Film Red or Haikyu!! was.
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JP film audiences typically fall into three categories:
Families, who would see Nintama or Moana
Artsy, those who would see international films
and Event-Goers, those who see the biggest thing for the experience.
Sonic doesn't appeal to any of these audiences.
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It also doesn't help that Western films, in general, don't do as well as domestic Japanese films. The only MCU films to do well are Avengers and Spider-Man, both of which I'd classify as "event films" rather than just normal films.
Which brings the main point...
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I personally saw Sonic 3 in Australia last month, so I can't say how it was, but those who saw it in Japan weren't thrilled about it. I did see Sonic 2 in Japan, and the subs were pretty straight. This is why localization exists!
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One of the biggest issues is the translation, which I've seen quite a lot with Western films lately. The subs are played literally rather than localized, killing any jokes. Barbie was particularly bad about this when I saw it last year, which is likely why it didn’t do well.
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Now, onto the Sonic films. I'll start with the most obvious: They were always going to be a hard sell in JP.
It's because the films are very American. Selling points like Jim Carrey don't cross over. Carrey has fans, but they're the Kojima types (who didn't even post about the films!), not fans.