Makoto Shinkai's Weathering With You earns number one film in Japan this year

After the huge success of Your Name three years ago, Makoto Shinkai's new film Weathering With You (Tenki no Ko), released on July 19th this year, has become the highest grossing film this year in Japan, grossing over 13 billion yen and selling almost 10 million tickets in just two months. The last Japanese film to gross over 10 billion yen was Shinkai's previous work Your Name. The film is now the 7th highest grossing Japanese film of all time and the highest grossing anime film of all time, earning more than classic Ghibli films like Spirited Away, the previous number one.

Worldwide release for 140 countries has been decided, actually surpassing Your Name's 130 and a North American cinema dub has already been licensed, and has been predicted to win awards. The film has yet to surpass Your Name's 25 billion Yen in earnings but due to how early in it's release it is, it would not be surprising to learn that it surpasses Your Name but the time it leaves cinemas. On October 11 the film is set to have a general screening in India and will be one of only three Japanese films to release in cinemas in India. The premiere last Friday ended up having to turn away about 500 people.

The film also has plans for a 2020 English dub and if the sub follows Your Name's release schedule it will come to streaming services and DVD/Blu-ray in January or February 2020.

Weathering With You is Shinkai's 12th work and as he is just 46 and in recent years he has released one film every three years, fans are already speculating that his next film will come in 2022, which seems like a long wait from now but realistically is a relatively short amount of time for a full-length animated movie.