Kaguya-sama Film Puts an End to Weathering With You’s 8-Week Box Office Domination

Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering With You (Tenki no Ko) has been dominating the Japanese box office, raking in 12.17 billion yen in ticket sales since it opened on July 19. Its dominance in the box office was not halted even by the likes of One Piece Stampede nor by Konosuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World! Crimson Legend films, making it seem that Shinkai’s latest film will be ruling for quite a long time—that is, until the arrival of one Shinomiya Kaguya.

You read that right, folks—the live-action film of rom-com manga Kaguya-sama: Love is War has earned an impressive 310 million yen in its opening weekend, finally ending the eight-week weekend box office domination of Weathering With You, which earned 253 million yen over the weekend. The Shinkai film did not end its reign without a bang, though—it has recently become the top-grossing film in Japan for this year, finally surpassing Disney’s live-action adaptation of Aladdin which earned 12.09 billion yen.

Sho Hirano, a member of Johnny’s & Associates idol group King & Prince, plays student council president Miyuki Shirogane. On the other hand, student council vice-president and Shirogane’s love interest/eternal rival Kaguya Shinomiya is played by Gintama live-action actress Kanna Hashimoto.

The movie is directed by Hayato Kawai, who also directed the live-action films of My Love Story! and Nisekoi. Script is written by Yuichi Tokunaga, who also handled the scripts for the live-action of Tonde Saitama and Princess Jellyfish series.

Kaguya-sama: Love is War (or known in Japan as Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai – Tensai-tachi no Ren’ai Zunousen, literally, “Kaguya Wants to be Confessed to: The Geniuses’ War of Love and Brains”) is a seinen manga series written and illustrated by Aka Akasaka. The English licensing rights to the series is held by Viz Media, who describes the manga’s story as such:

"All’s fair when love is war!

Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane are two geniuses who stand atop their prestigious academy’s student council, making them the elite among elite. But it’s lonely at the top and each has fallen for the other. There’s just one huge problem standing in the way of lovey-dovey bliss—they’re both too prideful to be the first to confess their romantic feelings and thus become the “loser” in the competition of love! And so begins their daily schemes to force the other to confess first!"

Source: Crunchyroll News