Live-Action Gintama Film Sells Over 2 Million Tickets for 2.73 Billion Yen

The live-action film of Hideaki Sorachi's Gintama manga has earned a cumulative total of 2.73 billion yen (about US$24.7 million) as of Sunday in its fourth weekend. It reached this milestone faster than any other live-action Japanese film so far this year. It sold over 2 million tickets as of Saturday, its 23rd day at the box office.

Beginning last Thursday, the Shinjuku Piccadilly, Osaka Station City Cinema, Midland Square Cinema, T-Joy Hakata, and Sapporo Cinema Frontier theaters started showing a special talk video with the film. In the video, actors Shun Oguri, Masaki Suda, Kanna Hashimoto, and director Yūichi Fukuda give a special message to fans.

The film opened in Japan on July 14, and it earned 980 million yen (US$8.9 million) in its first four days. The film also inspired a live-action net show that debuted on Docomo's dTV streaming service on July 15, one day after the film's opening.

Sorachi began the manga in 2004 and it continues to be ranked among the top-selling manga in Japan. The manga has more than 50 million copies in print in Japan. Viz Mediapublished the first 23 volumes in English. Shueisha published the manga's 69th volume on July 4. The manga entered its final arc last July.

The manga inspired a television anime that premiered in 2006 and continued (with several extended hiatuses) until 2013. The fifth and latest Gintama television anime series premiered on January 8, and the show began airing reruns in April. Crunchyroll streamed the most recent series as it aired in Japan, and is also streamingEnglish-dubbed episodes. The television anime's official website is listing that the anime will return in October on Tokyo TV with a "Porori Arc."

The manga also inspired two anime films, including the "final" Gekijōban Gintama Kanketsu-hen: Yorozuya yo Eien Nare film that opened in 2013, and various OVAs and event anime.