[KineJapan] The marketshare of Japanese films in Japan

[Mark Roberts]

So, a follow-up question would be: since Eiren is padding the numbers, which sources give a better breakdown of jishu eiga, pinku, anime, ODS, etc.? The Japanese Film Database has some of this information, but not all.

As for foreign films coming to Japan late, I have seen this again and again. For international distribution, Japan is very often dead last in the entire world. 

My hypothesis is that there are at least two things going on here. 

First, I suspect that foreign films "arrive" late in Japan because the major distribution companies are giving priority to their stuff, and there are not enough independent companies to pick up the slack. I have heard people in distribution companies say that a major foreign film was bought at Cannes, almost two years before it opened in Tokyo. The second factor is simply that the general public are not very engaged in new films. I don't have the impression that large numbers of people are accessing films via the Internet. That kind of culture seems more marginal here. Rather, people are just not watching them at all. Frequentation statistics in theaters would seem to bear this out.

Simply put, compared to the US, the UK, France, South Korea and Hong Kong, cinema just isn't very important in Japan today.

M.

On Nov 18, 2013, at 10:05 AM, Gregory Johnson wrote:

> This is just a guess for which I have no proof, but I wonder if the extent to which Japanese are watching foreign films without going through the box office is rising. It takes a while for foreign films to get to theaters in Japan. Many times I've already seen something on an international flight before it appears here. And despite various barriers, people often can access them on the internet before they officially arrive. Are there any grounds for this idea?
> 
> Greg Johnson
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