On July 9, Toho announced its own movie box office revenue and its own movie sales division’s box office revenue for the first half of this year (January-June 2021). Both increased significantly year-on-year, but are still significantly lower than the year before last (2019). It can be said that this is due to the continued contraction of sales in response to the new corona infection.

The box office revenue of the movie will be the total box office revenue of the works screened at Toho affiliated theaters such as TOHO Cinemas. Since it includes works other than those distributed by Toho, it is possible to infer the trends of the entire domestic movie box office.
Cumulative box office revenue in the first half was 21,022 million yen. It increased by 46% year on year, showing a large increase. However, in the previous year, there was a large reaction to the response to the new coronavirus infection due to closures and business contractions. In fact, it is still 44% lower than 2019, which makes us feel that there is a long way to go to recover to normal times.
In addition to the in-house distributed works such as “Shin Evangelion Theatrical Version”, “Detective Conan Scarlet Bullet”, and “Character”, “Rurouni Kenshin Final Chapter The Beginning”, “Mobile Suit Gundam Flash Hathaway”, and “The Fable There were works distributed by other companies. Also, because there are few large-scale works, it is also a feature that the number of big hits in Western movies is decreasing.
The movie sales department is the total box office revenue of works distributed by Toho. This includes entertainment at other companies’ movie theaters. The cumulative total for the first half was 35,646 million yen, 4.25 times that of the previous year. The reaction of the new corona is also large here, and it will decrease by 13% compared to 2019.
It seems that the two big hits, “Detective Conan Scarlet Bullet,” “Shin Evangelion Theatrical Version,” and “Theatrical Version” Devil’s Blade “Infinite Train Edition,” stand out from the sales department.
Although the numbers seem to be on a recovery trend compared to last year, the environment surrounding movie entertainment continues to be harsh. This is because there is no sign that the spread of the new corona infection will subside. In fact, in May and June, there was a state of emergency in the Tokyo area, and the numbers have fallen again. Furthermore, the extension of the state of emergency from July to August is a concern because it overlaps with Obon during the summer vacation during the customer attraction season.
Source – Animation Business Journal via Animenewsnetwork