Anime
Live-Action Sakamoto Days Film Opens at #4, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Stays at #1 – News
© 2026 Nintendo and Universal Studios
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — Nintendo, Illumination, and Universal Pictures‘ sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie — stayed at #1 in its second weekend on May 1-3. The film sold 847,000 tickets and earned 1.172 billion yen (about US$7.49 million) from Friday to Sunday. Over the Golden Week holidays until Wednesday, the film has now sold a total of 3.94 million tickets and earned a cumulative total of 5.4 billion yen (about US$34.51 million)
The film opened at #1 at the Japanese box office. The film sold 1.121 million tickets and earned 1,601,093,600 yen (about US$9.96 million) in its first three days.
The film opened in the United States and the United Kingdom on April 1, in other select territories on April 3, and in Japan on April 24.
Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri and Nintendo representative director and fellow Shigeru Miyamoto again produced Illumination and Universal Pictures‘ new film. Directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and screenwriter Matthew Fogel returned from the previous film for the new project. Brian Tyler returned to compose the soundtrack.
© 2026 青山剛昌／名探偵コナン製作委員会
Detective Conan: Highway no Datenshi (Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway), the Detective Conan franchise‘s 29th film, dropped from #2 to #3 in its fourth weekend. The film sold 649,000 tickets and earned 932 million yen (about US$5.95 million) from Friday to Sunday. Over the Golden Week holidays until Wednesday, the film has now sold a total of 7.4 million tickets and has earned a cumulative total of 10.8 billion yen (about US$69.03 million). The film is now the fourth consecutive film in the franchise to earn more than 10 billion yen, beginning with 2023’s Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine film.
The film sold 2,318,009 tickets and earned 3,502,137,800 yen (about US$21.9 million) in its first three days, making a new opening-weekend record for the franchise, and debuting at #1 at the Japanese box office.
The new film centers on the character Chihaya Hagiwara, member of the Kanagawa Prefectural Police and the leader of its motorcycle division. Miyuki Sawashiro now voices the character, replacing the late Atsuko Tanaka. The movie also features Kanagawa inspector Jugo Yokomizo, teenage detective Masumi Sera, Chihaya’s late younger brother Kenji Hagiwara, and Kenji’s Police Academy classmate Jinpei Matsuda.
Takahiro Hasui (Detective Conan: The Black Iron Submarine) directed the film, and Takahiro Ōkura (Detective Conan: The Crimson Love Letter) wrote the script. Yūgo Kanno (Detective Conan: One-eyed Flashback) composed the music for the film. Misia performs the theme song “Last Danced Anata to” (Last Dance With You).
©鈴木祐斗／集英社 © 2026映画「SAKAMOTO DAYS」製作委員会
The live-action film of Yuuto Suzuki‘s Sakamoto Days manga ranked at #4 in its opening weekend. The film sold 346,000 tickets and earned 478 million yen (about US$3.05 million) in its first three days. In its first eight days in the Japanese box office, which spanned the entirety of the Golden Week holidays, the film sold 1.14 million tickets and earned 1.5 billion yen (about US$9.58 million).
The film opened in Japan on April 29. The film is also screening in the panoramic ScreenX format in 27 theaters all over Japan.
Viz Media and MANGA Plus are publishing the manga in English digitally. Viz is also publishing the manga in print. MANGA Plus describes the story:
Taro Sakamoto was the ultimate assassin, feared by villains and admired by hitmen. But one day…he fell in love! Retirement, marriage, fatherhood and then… Sakamoto gained weight! the chubby guy who runs the neighborhood store is actually a former legendary hitman! Can he protect his family from danger? Get ready to experience a new kind of action comedy series!
Snow Man member Ren Meguro stars as Tarō Sakamoto, and Fumiya Takahashi plays Shin Asakura. Aya Ueto plays Tarō Sakamoto’s wife Aoi Sakamoto, while Miyu Yoshimoto plays Tarō Sakamoto’s daughter Hana Sakamoto. Other cast members include Mayū Yokota as Lu Shaotang, Junki Tozuka as Heisuke Mashimo, Akihisa Shiono as Kashima, and Keisuke Watanabe as Natsuki Seiba. Takumi Kitamura, Yūsei Yagi, and Meru Nukumi play Order assassins Nagumo, Shishiba, and Osaragi, respectively.
Yūichi Fukuda (live-action Gintama, Under Ninja) directed and wrote the script for the film. Keiya Tabuchi (Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time, live-action Attack on Titan, Kamen Rider Amazons) directed the action. CREDEUS is producing the film with Avex Pictures.
© コロリド・ツインエンジンパートナーズ
Shingo Yamashita‘s Cosmic Princess Kaguya! (Chō Kaguya-hime!) anime film dropped from #5 to #6 in its 11th weekend after the film’s limited one-week theatrical screening run in Japan was extended.
The film’s limited theatrical run started on February 20. Tickets quickly sold out, with some theaters having to increase the number of screenings to more than 10 times a day. The film earned a total of 223,485,400 yen (about US$1.43 million) in Japanese theaters in its first three days after its run was extended.
Netflix began streaming the film on January 22.
Yamashita (Pokémon: Twilight Wings, opening animation for Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, 2022 Urusei Yatsura) made his feature-length directorial debut with the film in a collaboration between his Studio Chromato and Studio Colorido. Hechima (The Idolmaster Gakuen) and Akihiro Nagae (Drifting Home) designed the characters, with the former in charge of the Tsukuyomi designs and the latter handling the real-world character designs.
The film features songs by Vocaloid producers Ryo (supercell), kz (Livetune), 40mP, HoneyWorks, Aqu3ra, and yuigot.
©Ayano Takeda,TAKARAJIMASHA/Hibike Partners2024
Sound! Euphonium, The Final Movie Part 1 (Saishū Gakushō Hibike! Euphonium Zenpen) dropped from #4 to #8 in its second weekend.
The film opened on May 1 in 201 theaters across Japan at #4. The film sold 77,000 tickets and earned 125,819,900 yen (about US$783,000) in its first three days.
The film includes a newly animated performance scene from the “Sunrise Festival,” the annual in-story marching band event. Additionally, the film features a new scene of Kumiko Oumae as she “takes on the great responsibility of becoming club president.”
TRUE performs the theme song “ToCoda.” TRUE has performed theme songs for the three previous seasons of the anime as well as Sound! Euphonium The Movie – Our Promise: A Brand New Day and Sound! Euphonium: Ensemble Contest Arc.
Taichi Ogawa is directing the anime, and Tatsuya Ishihara is the chief director. Jukki Hanada is in charge of the script and series composition. Character designers include Shoko Ikeda and Kazumi Ikeda, and Kazumi Ikeda is also the chief animation director. Akito Matsuda is composing the music at Lantis and Heart Company, with music cooperation by Senzoku Gakuen College of Music.
© 藤子プロ・小学館・テレビ朝日・シンエイ・ADK 2026
The 2026 Doraemon film, Eiga Doraemon: Shin Nobita no Kaitei Kiganjō (Doraemon the Movie: New Nobita and the Castle of the Undersea Devil), dropped from #6 to #10 in its 10th weekend.
The film opened on February 27 and ranked at #1 in its first weekend. The film sold 621,000 tickets and earned 779,681,350 yen (about US$4.96 million) in its first three days. The film ranked at #1 for six straight weekends.
The 45th 2D anime film (not counting the 3D CG Stand By Me Doraemon films) remakes the classic 1983 film Doraemon the Movie: Nobita and the Castle of the Undersea Devil.
Tetsuo Yajima (Pokémon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle, Pokémon the Movie: The Power of Us, Pokémon XY) returns after directing episodes of the Doraemon television anime and contributing in other capacities to Doraemon the Movie: Nobita’s New Great Adventure into the Underworld, Doraemon the Movie: Nobita and the Steel Troops: The New Age, and Eiga Doraemon: Nobita no Chikyū Symphony. Another veteran of the television anime, Isao Murayama (Witchy Precure!, Star Twinkle Precure, Bakugan), wrote the new film’s screenplay.
Sources: Kōgyō Tsūshin (link 2), Cinema Today
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Multimedia project streams ILLGATOR’s music video, 4th season’s story trailer
The official X/Twitter account for the Paradox Live franchise revealed on Tuesday a new team ILLGATOR for its multimedia project. The franchise‘s official YouTube channel began streaming a music video for the group’s first song “Daru.” (Lazy).
The channel also began streaming the franchise‘s “4th Season” story arc trailer, which had its kickoff launch event on Tuesday. The video previews the story as well as teases ILLGATOR:
© Paradox Live2026
© Paradox Live2026
The members of ILLGATOR are (pictured above from left to right):
The team will have a live performance at the”Animate Girls Festival 2026″ at Sunshine City in Ikebukuro on November 7.
The Paradox Live The Animation series will have an upcoming film project.
Studio GRAPH77 (Tatsuki Fujimoto 17-26‘s “Shikaku”) is producing the film project. Nine teams with 29 characters will appear, including the characters who appeared in the previous television series as well as new characters. (The project’s teaser showed images of members of Visty, Amprule, 1Nm8, and GokuLuck who did not appear in the television series.)
The franchise‘s third stage production run will open with Paradox Live on Stage -Road to Legend- “RAGE” on October 2-11 at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel’s Stellar Ball venue in Tokyo, followed by Paradox Live on Stage -Road to Legend- “FATE” on February 19-28, 2027 in the same venue. Visty, Amprule, 1Nm8, and GokuLuck will also make their stage debut in this run.
Avex and GCREST‘s hip-hop-themed multimedia franchise launched in November 2019. The story is set in the near future, when rappers wear accessories that contain a metallic substance called Phantom Metal. Through the Phantom Metal’s chemical reaction with the rappers’ own DNA, the rapper can create illusions linked to their emotions during their performance. The result is a new type of spectacular concert.
The television anime premiered on the Tokyo MX channel in October 2023. Crunchyroll streamed the anime as it aired in Japan.
The franchise also includes CDs, merchandise, and concert events.
Sources: Paradox Live franchise‘s X/Twitter account, Comic Natalie
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Anime debuts in Japan on Saturday
Aniplex USA started streaming the English-subtitled main trailer for the television anime of Muchimaro‘s Even the Student Council Has Its Holes! (Seitokai ni mo Ana wa Aru!) four-panel manga on Tuesday, and revealed that the anime will stream on OceanVeil on Saturday.
©むちまろ／講談社・アニプレックス
The anime will debut on Saturday and will air on Tokyo MX, BS11, Gunma TV, and Tochigi TV. d Anime Store and AnimeFesta will stream the anime both in its “on air” version and its “unrestricted” version in Japan starting on Saturday.
The series stars:
Naoyuki Tatsuwa (Ōmuro-ke, Gourmet Girl Graffiti, Nisekoi – False Love, Promise of Wizard) is directing the anime at Passione, Ryo Imamura (ONIMAI: I’m Now Your Sister!) is designing the characters and is the chief animation director, and Masahiro Yokotani (Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!, Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Beelzebub, The Devil Is a Part-Timer!) is overseeing and writing the series scripts.
Other staff members include:
Sangatsu no Phantasia performs the opening theme song “Kaze no Naka wa Hashirukkya Inai,” and Akari Nanawo performs the ending theme song “Pi.”
Seven Seas publishes the manga in English and describes the story:
In a student council filled with weirdos, one new member is about to have a hell of a school year! Mizunoe Ume just wanted to avoid repeating a grade when he joined the student council. After all, it seemed like an easy fix to his current academic problems. But then, he met his fellow council members. Each of them is eccentric in their own way—one’s an airhead, another’s scary, one’s secretly a pervert, but all in all, they’re just really weird! Yet somehow, they’re also oddly cute and endearing. Which means Mizunoe is stuck with them and all the chaos they bring to the table. Get ready for a slice-of-life manga that’s irresistibly charming, quirky, and a little bit naughty!
Muchimaro launched the manga in Kodansha‘s Weekly Shōnen Magazine in 2022. Kodansha shipped the 13th compiled book volume on August 17. Seven Seas shipped the first volume on September 8, and will ship the second volume on December 8. K MANGA also publishes the series in English digitally.
The manga received an animated ad in July 2024. The manga won in the print category of the ninth Next Manga Awards (Tsugi ni Kuru Manga Taishō) in 2023.
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The Korean Culture Center Los Angeles, in partnership with the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), is hosting the 2026 K-Comics Origin Los Angeles – Korean Webtoon Experience Exhibition from September 11 through October 17. The exhibition explores the 100-year history of Korean comics, the evolution of webtoons as a distinct format, and their growing role as a source of IP for Korean content.
The exhibition focuses on three internationally popular Korean webtoons: All of Us Are Dead, Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, and Solo Leveling. Visitors can encounter characters and scenes from the works in person and explore their worlds through interactive kiosks. The exhibition also showcases examples of webtoon IP being adapted into dramas, animation, and games, offering a look at how a single story can expand across different media and genres.
A Visit to the Exhibition
Webtoons are rarely presented as a formal exhibition rather than a pop-up event. With three of the most widely recognized Korean webtoon properties featured, including works adapted into multiple forms of media, I visited the exhibition with fairly high expectations.
Visitors first encounter a staircase leading to the second-floor exhibition space, with the Korean titles of the featured works already visible along the way. At the top is a brief introduction to the history of Korean comics, fitting the exhibition’s K-Comics Origin title, followed by displays dedicated to the three featured works.
As an experience-focused exhibition, the displays are broadly divided into two sections. One recreates locations and scenes from the webtoons as photo spots and interactive spaces, while the other takes an archival approach to showing how the original webtoons have expanded into other forms of media.
Examples include the classroom blackboard from All of Us Are Dead, the Oksu Station setting from Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, and life-size character displays from Solo Leveling.
There are also several interactive exhibits. Visitors can play a Solo Leveling game and speak Korean lines into a microphone to trigger corresponding video clips. One of the most memorable displays for me was a machine that allowed visitors to draw Solo Leveling character photo cards. As a fan of Sung Jinwoo, I tried several times until I got the character I wanted.
Although the exhibition space isn’t particularly large, it makes good use of what it has. The emphasis on participation rather than simply viewing the displays makes the experience more engaging. Given that admission is free, the exhibition also offers a lot for visitors to experience.
I saw visitors taking photos at the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint photo spot, and they appeared to be enjoying themselves. In that sense, the exhibition succeeds in both introducing the global reach of Korean webtoons and giving fans a chance to interact with the properties they already love.
There are, however, a few areas where I wanted more.
Given the title K-Comics Origin, I would have liked to see a broader selection of webtoons alongside the three major properties. As a longtime webtoon reader and one of the few journalists in North America who regularly cover the Korean webtoon industry, I was also hoping to see more displays focused specifically on what makes webtoons unique as a medium.
Instead, much of the exhibition explains webtoons’ influence through their adaptations into animation, games, and live-action series. These properties have been successfully adapted across multiple forms of media for a reason: the strength of the original webtoons themselves.
Still, the exhibition could have been even stronger with displays exploring the production process of webtoons or other elements that highlight the medium’s appeal.
Exhibition Information
The Korean Culture Center Los Angeles and KOCCA’s 2026 K-Comics Origin Los Angeles – Korean Webtoon Experience Exhibition runs from September 11 through October 17 at the Korean Culture Center’s second-floor Art Gallery.
Admission is free. The exhibition is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays.
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