This Week in Japan: Thirteen Years for One Night

Four things from Japan this week, and the big one took thirteen years to show up.

On the desk

No new dispatches this week. The Chainsmoker Cat ranking is still cooking, the new Ghost in the Shell is still on deck, and the Interspecies Reviewers verdict is pending. The desk reports when the desk reports. All three loops stay open, on purpose.

Thirteen years for one night

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Walpurgisnacht Rising opened in Japan on August 28, thirteen years after Rebellion left the story on a cliff in 2013. It was announced in 2021, delayed more than once, and picked up the nickname the GTA 6 of anime somewhere along the way. It debuted at number one at the Japanese box office with an opening around 5.9 million dollars.

Thirteen years is long enough for a middle schooler who saw Rebellion opening weekend to walk into this one with their own kid. Was it worth the wait? Japan bought tickets first and asked second. Real.

Jujutsu Kaisen season 4 shows Sukuna

The Culling Game Part 2 dropped its first teaser visual this week, built around Sukuna. If you have been rerunning JJK like some of us have, the timing feels less like coincidence and more like homework paying off.

A teaser visual is one image. The internet will produce ten thousand words about it anyway. Cool.

The mascot that ran the box office

Before Madoka took the crown, the number one film in Japan for weeks running was Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island. A round little mascot character out-earning everything else in the country until a thirteen-years-in-the-making magical girl epic showed up to dethrone it.

Somewhere a studio executive is staring at a whiteboard that just says BE ROUND. Japan's box office runs on cute and grief, alternating.

Gachiakuta season 2, first look

The trash-heap action series put out its first season 2 footage this week. Season one made scavenging in a literal garbage abyss into appointment viewing, which this shop respects on principle. Treasure in the trash is not a metaphor to us, it is a Tuesday.

That is the week. Thirteen years for one movie. Some waits end.