Chiikawa Film Earns 15.84 Billion Yen; TV Anime Streams English Dub on YouTube on October 1
The official X/Twitter account for Eiga Chiikawa: Ningyo no Shima no Himitsu (Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island), the first anime film adaptation of Nagano's Chiikawa manga, announced on Monday that the film has earned over 15.84 billion yen (about US$100 million) and sold about 10.86 million tickets at the Japanese box office, securing its spot as the top film in Japan's box office this year. The account's reported earnings surpass both The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Makoto Shinkai's anime film Weathering With You (Tenki no Ko). In related news, the official English YouTube channel for the Chiikawa franchise opened on September 19, and it announced that full English dub episodes of the anime adaptation of Nagano's original manga will start streaming on October 1.
Eiga Chiikawa: Ningyo no Shima no Himitsu (Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island)opened in Japan on July 24 and ranked at #1 for its opening weekend. The film earned 990 million yen (about US$6.05 million) on its opening day. The film sold 1,508,500 tickets and earned 2,240,333,500 yen (about US$13.70 million) in its first three days.
Kōgyō Tsūshin had reported on September 7 that the film sold 9.60 million tickets and earned a cumulative total of 13.9 billion yen (about US$89.1 million), surpassing Detective Conan: Highway no Datenshi (Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway), the franchise's 29th film's 13.7 billion yen (about US$87.8 million) cumulative earning, and is currently the biggest film in Japan this year.
The Chiikawa anime premiered in April 2022, and it previously aired every Friday within Fuji TV's morning news and entertainment program Mezamashi Terebi, before it began airing twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays in April 2023. Sentai Filmworks licensed the anime, and is streaming it on HIDIVE with English subtitles. ODK Media's North American streaming platform Amasian TV started streaming in August a selection of 20 episodes of the anime with English subtitles and Japanese audio in the United States.
The anime's new series premiered in July 2025. Before that, the anime had been rebroadcasting older "pivotal" episodes after its previous series ended regular airing of new episodes in April 2025.
Nagano originally started serializing the manga under the title Nanka Chiisakute Kawaii Yatsu on X (then Twitter) in January 2020.
Sources: Chiikawa film's X/Twitter account, Chiikawa franchise's official YouTube channel, Cinema Today
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