Monster Strike The Movie: Hajimari no Basho he (To the Beginning Place), the feature film prequel to the 51-episode web anime series based on mixi's popular smartphone game Monster Strike, was released at 314 theaters in Japan on December 10 and dominated its first weekend box office earning a huge 439,612,800 yen from the 390,416 tickets sales. It is expected to make at least 1.5 billion yen by the end of its domestic run.

The film is set in a childhood days of the web anime series' protagonist Ren and his friends and tells their adventure to seek out the mystery hidden in the game app Monster Strike. In addition to its official YouTube channel, the first six episodes of the web series is now also available for Crunchyroll members worldwide except Japan and China. Starting with Episode 7, new episodes will be available every Tuesday at 4pm PST.

While dropping to 5th for the first time, Makoto Shinkai's Kimi no Na wa./your name. climbed one more

step of the Japanese cinema history. Toho today announced the film had earned 20.5 billion yen on 15.78

million admissions, surpassing the box office record of Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone that made

20.3 billion yen in Japan in 2001. Now it ranks 4th in the overall Japanese box office ranking of all-time.

Weekend box office in Japan (December 10-11)

1 (new). "Monster Strike The Movie: Hajimari no Basho he"

2 (1). "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"

3 (new). "Kamen Rider Heisei Generations: Dr. Pac-Man vs. Ex-Aid & Ghost with Legend Rider"

4 (new). "Kaizoku to Yobareta Otoko"

5 (2). "Kimi no Na wa./your name."

6 (3). "Museum"

7 (4). "Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni"

8 (6). "KanColle: The Movie"

9 (5). "Shippu Rondo"

10 (11). "Oboreru Knife"

All-Time Box Office Top 10 in Japan (Japanese & foreign films combined):

1. "Spirited Away" (2001/30.8 billion yen)

2. "Titanic" (1998/26.2 billion)

3. "Frozen" (2014/25.48 billion)

4. "your name." (2016/20.5 billion)

5. "Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone" (2001/20.3 billion)

6. "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004/19.6 billion)

7. "Princess Mononoke" (1997/19.3 billion)

8. "Bayside Shakedown 2" (2003/17.35 billion)

9. "Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets" (2002/17.3 billion)

10. "Avatar" (2010/15.6 billion)

"Monster Strike The Movie: Hajimari no Basho he" trailer

Poster visual

©mixi, Inc.

Source: Eiga.com, Nikkei