Anime at the cinema

Southampton has become a wasteland for anime films! Used have 4 different cinemas plus the one in Eastleigh nearby and at least one would have at least one showing when an anime film came out. The Odeon and the Cineworld shut and it seems Showcase (none in the list) have shied away from showing them and in this case neither the Picturehouse nor the Vue (Eastleigh) have picked up the slack!
 
Quite a considerable amount of screenings of Look Back at my local Odeon in Colchester. All daytime screenings. But I'm probably going to wait until the SLA Glasgow screening.
 
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This has been a rollercoaster. I was really excited to get SLA tickets, then the mainstream cinema release was announced (which is the first time ever an anime film has actually been showing at a cinema within an hour of me!) and now Prime. I'll still go to the SLA screening but what a bizarre series of choices on the part of the distributors. The really annoying thing is that I don't want to see it twice but I'd like to support my local screening. Why couldn't they be in the opposite order?

R
 
This surely must be the all-time record year for most anime releases in 12 months, right? It feels like there's been anime/tonokatsu at the cinema almost every other week for the past year.
  • 15 Dec (2023) - Godzilla Minus One
  • 26 Dec (2023) - Boy & The Heron
  • 31 Jan - Blue Giant
  • 23 Feb - Demon Slayer: to the Hashira Training
  • 23 March - Gundam Seed Freedom
  • 26 April - Spy x Family Code White
  • 31 May - Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle
  • 3 July - Blue Lock The Movie
  • 2 Aug - My Neighbour Totoro (re-release)
  • 20 Sept - Macross Plus (re-release)
  • 27 Sept - Detective Conan: The Million-dollar Pentagram
  • 7 Oct - Bocchi The Rock Recap
  • 18 Oct - My Hero Academia: You're Next
  • 26 Oct - Look Back
  • 1 Nov - Godzilla Minus One (re-release, with Godzilla Minus Colour)
  • 7 Nov - Overlord
  • 10 Dec - Solo Leveling
  • 26 Dec - Spirited Away (re-release)
I think that's everything (excluding festivals and maybe a few I'm forgetting?). If I could be bothered I'd be curious to crunch the numbers from all the weekly BFI reports to see just how much anime has grossed over the past year.
 
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I was looking at this a week or 2 ago.

for the first week/weekend, the BFI numbers are like this

December 2023:
Godzilla Minus One £816,891
The Boy And The Heron £1,640,667

2024:
Blue Giant £21,819
Demon Slayer: To the Hashira Training £641,878
Gundam Seed Freedom £37,580
Spy x Family: Code White £280,729
Haikyu!!: The Dumpster Battle £270,095
Blue Lock The Movie - Episode Nagi £118,115
Dan Da Dan - The First Encounter £40,518
My Neighbour Totaro £69,996
Macross Plus £10,806
Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram £35,133

(Bocchi wasn't mentioned on the BFI numbers, not sure why)

Though, those numbers do miss out several things and aren't perfect. Is also just the first week, but for many thats more or less it. The Boy and The Heron made more money this year (thats not the 1.6 million here, since that was last year) than anything else though.
 
RaeDra said:
I was looking at this a week or 2 ago.

for the first week/weekend, the BFI numbers are like this

(...)

Though, those numbers do miss out several things and aren't perfect. Is also just the first week, but for many thats more or less it. The Boy and The Heron made more money this year (thats not the 1.6 million here, since that was last year) than anything else though.
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Dang, interesting stuff.

Thanks for putting that together. Can't believe I forgot both mecha releases.... 😅
 
My first reaction was definitely being a bit miffed by the rapid Prime release but I still like to show what meagre support I can when anime gets a cinema release, especially when it's in Blackburn and only down the road from me instead of miles away.
 
William278 said:
This surely must be the all-time record year for most anime releases in 12 months, right? It feels like there's been anime/tonokatsu at the cinema almost every other week for the past year.
  • 15 Dec (2023) - Godzilla Minus One
  • 26 Dec (2023) - Boy & The Heron
  • 31 Jan - Blue Giant
  • 23 Feb - Demon Slayer: to the Hashira Training
  • 26 April - Spy x Family Code White
  • 31 May - Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle
  • 3 July - Blue Lock The Movie
  • 2 Aug - My Neighbour Totoro (re-release)
  • 27 Sept - Detective Conan: The Million-dollar Pentagram
  • 7 Oct - Bocchi The Rock Recap
  • 18 Oct - My Hero Academia: You're Next
  • 26 Oct - Look Back
  • 1 Nov - Godzilla Minus One (re-release, with Godzilla Minus Colour)
  • 7 Nov - Overlord
  • 10 Dec - Solo Leveling
  • 26 Dec - Spirited Away (re-release)
I think that's everything (excluding festivals and maybe a few I'm forgetting?). If I could be bothered I'd be curious to crunch the numbers from all the weekly BFI reports to see just how much anime has grossed over the past year.
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Thanks for listing all those.
Unfortunately where I live in Aberdeen, despite having two cineworlds and a Vue cinema, only a fraction of those made it this far north.
We definitely got Godzilla (not anime of course, but amazing nonetheless), The Boy and The Heron, Demon Slayer, Spy Family, and My Hero Academia. I went to all of them. I’d don’t think any others from the list showed north of Edinburgh/Glasgow, perhaps some may have turned up at Odeon in Dundee?
At least I’m going to see Look Back at Scotland Loves Anime, but I’d really like a showing of Overlord near me that doesn’t require a lengthy, expensive bus or train ride…
I’m very happy to pay to see anime at the cinema, but they have to actually show the bloody things…
 
I think the only ones out of the list that were shown in Dundee and not Aberdeen were My Neighbour Totoro, Detective Conan and (soon to be) Look Back, it's gotten a lot worse recently now that the DCA aren't showing as much anime and the Odeon was always pretty crap at showing anime.

I'm not sure whether it's Cineworld specifically or just general cinema chains, but we seem to be getting more releases that are a lot narrower in scope, which is a shame I guess, because anime screenings are generally pretty busy.
 
I'm happy to see Look Back at SLA and probably would have still chosen to see it there instead of locally even if we'd known in advance. It is obviously a mess and unhelpful situation for a lot of people who've wanted to see it, though.

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As far as anime in cinemas this year generally, I do worry we're going into oversaturation of it. I mean I'm into a lot of the big franchises and have had the opportunity to see everything locally, but I only went to see MHA of those listed above. (and will see Lookback next month even if not here). Blue Giant I suppose I would have seen as well had I not seen it at SLA the previous year. 😅

I probably would have seen Haikyuu!! and Spy Family had I not reviewed those (probably not Blue Lock as I knew it was mostly recapping), but everything else I've skipped for one reason or another either because they're compilations (Bocchi, Demon Slayer, Dan Dan Dan) or franchises I don't like such as Overlord and Solo Levelling.
 
xp_version1 said:
Thanks to whoever posted about the Look Back cinema release. Just seen it this afternoon and an absolutely beautiful film with a gorgeous soundtrack. Definitely helped knowing next to nothing about it going on.

Also made the girl on the row in front of me cry bless her.
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I'm going to watch it this afternoon and am now glad that I managed to hold off reading the manga I'd ordered to accompany the experience heh. Can't wait!
 
One more here for the Look Back fan club - what a beautiful movie and source manga. The story is a wonderfully understated, or shall I say concise, look at the relationship and motivations of two creatives and the movie is such a faithful adaptation, accentuating just the right scenes with emotion, gravitas and humour, further aided by a beautiful score. I look forward to re-watching and re-reading, which is very possible given the brevity and succinctness of the story that could just as easily have made for an entire anime series. On another note, I now really need to move up flip flappers on my watchlist and the more recent adaptation of chainsaw man too.
 
Geriatric hedgehog said:
One more here for the Look Back fan club - what a beautiful movie and source manga. The story is a wonderfully understated, or shall I say concise, look at the relationship and motivations of two creatives and the movie is such a faithful adaptation, accentuating just the right scenes with emotion, gravitas and humour, further aided by a beautiful score. I look forward to re-watching and re-reading, which is very possible given the brevity and succinctness of the story that could just as easily have made for an entire anime series. On another note, I now really need to move up flip flappers on my watchlist and the more recent adaptation of chainsaw man too.
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I loved Flip Flappers and highly recommend it, just keep in mind it's quite fanservicey in places with the transformation sequences and maybe some other moments :)
 
RadFemHedonist said:
I loved Flip Flappers and highly recommend it, just keep in mind it's quite fanservicey in places with the transformation sequences and maybe some other moments :)
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Yeah I've been meaning to watch it for aaages as I read it's amongst the best of anime. After kill la kill, and others, I'm now more surprised if there are transformation sequences that are not fanservicey!
 
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