'Frozen' Sets Disney Animation Opening Weekend Record in Japan

Even though Disney's animators had wrestled with braids for 2011's Tangled, the hair for Elsa was vastly more complicated: While Rapunzel carried 27,000 extralong strands on her head, the Frozen team found themselves dealing with upward of 400,000 CG threads -- a feat that required the invention of a new program, called Tonic, to execute.

UPDATED: Disney Animation scores its biggest opening weekend ever in the world's third-largest market as "RoboCop" opens in fourth place and "12 Years a Slave" holds on at 10th in its second weekend.

TOKYO – Frozen opened in Japan at the top of the box-office chart this weekend with a big $9.6 million (?986.4 million) three-day take from 792,636 admissions, the biggest-ever weekend bow for an animated Disney movie in the market.

VIDEO: 'Frozen'-Crazy South Korea Spawns Countless K-Pop Covers of 'Let It Go'

Frozen's bow is more than triple that of Warner Bros. release The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which took in just over $3 million (?313 million) at the beginning of the month when it became the first imported film to top the box office this year. The Hobbit dropped to fifth on this weekend's rankings.

Released locally as Anna to Yuki no Jou (Anna and the Snow Queen) in a 3D subtitled version and 2D dubbed edition, Disney hasn't compiled a breakdown of figures for the two prints yet. The Japanese-language version, featuring Takako Matsu (Confessions) as the voice of Elsa and singer of a do-over of the Oscar-winning Let It Go, has been widely praised.

STORY: 'Frozen' Crosses $75 Million in South Korea, Breaks Local Records

The latest Doraemon anime film, the most watched series in Japanese cinematic history, dropped to second place after a $5.9 million (?600 million) opening last weekend. The Pretty Cure All Stars New Stage 3: Eternal Friends, another anime series title, took the third spot on its bow.

Animated films dominated the box office in Japan last year, with Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises, which was beaten by Frozen to the best animated film at the Oscars this month, topping the 2013 chart, with Disney's Monsters University in second place.

RoboCop opened in the fourth spot in Japan this weekend with $1.4 million from just over 300 screens.

Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave, showing on fewer than 50 screens, hung on to the 10th spot, in which it had opened last weekend.

Twitter: @GavinJBlair