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Among the anime releases of the year so far, The First Slam Dunk film has been an exciting event, which has steadily become one of the most popular anime projects of the year. Along the way to this incredible success amongst fans, the film has also performed commercially well in theaters within Japan and internationally.
Several countries are now waiting for The First Slam Dunk to hit domestic theaters, meaning it still has much of its theatrical run left overall. With this in mind, it can be expected that the film will find the same continued success in the United States and Canada this summer as it has in several other countries.
Speaking of continued success, the film has also recently climbed even higher on the list of highest-earning anime films in Japan of all time. What's more exciting is that The First Slam Dunk is now trailing behind Makoto Shinkai’s latest film Suzume no Tojimari after overtaking the director's last movie, Weathering With You.
The First Slam Dunk film poised to overtake two Shinkai films back-to-back
As of Sunday, May 28, 2023, The First Slam Dunk had earned 14.33 billion yen in Japanese theaters, roughly equating to 102.1 million USD. With this, the film has surpassed the lifetime domestic earnings of Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering With You film. This makes it the 15th highest-earning film of all time in Japan, and the ninth highest-earning anime film in Japan.
On both lists, the film now sits behind Shinkai’s Suzume no Tojimari film, Shinkai's latest project that ended its run in Japanese theaters on Saturday, May 27, 2023. The film sold 11.15 million tickets and earned 14.79 billion yen, which is roughly 105.4 million USD.
The film ranked at #1 in its opening weekend, selling 847 thousand tickets and earning just under 1.3 billion yen (about $9.5 million USD). The film won Animation of the Year at the 46th annual Japan Academy Film Prizes. Toshiyuki Matsui, who produced the film, received 2023’s general award for Eiga Engeki Bunka Kyokai’s (FIlm Theater Culture Association) 42nd annual Fujimoto Awards.
This summer, GKIDS is set to release the film in the United States and Canada with both an English dub and the original Japanese version, the latter having English subtitles. The film is based on Takehiko Inoue’s Slam Dunk manga, with the mangaka personally directing the film at Toei Animation and writing the script. Inoue is otherwise best known for his Vagabond and Real manga series, both of which are considered some of the most critically successful manga of all time.
Be sure to keep up with all anime, manga, film, and live-action news as 2023 progresses.
