Dragon Ball & Studio Ghibli: Domestic vs. Overseas Success

At the Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood, Calif., last night, new Studio Ghibli film The Boy and the Heron won Best Animated Feature. Director Hayao Miyazaki at age 83 was the oldest person to ever receive this award. He had previously won the same category for 2001 movie Spirited Away.

Another great of the Japanese animation world, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, passed away unexpected earlier this month. His death from a hematoma was confirmed Friday. His most famous creation remains one of Japan's best-selling comics that was turned into TV series and feature-length films that were popular around the world in their 1990s heyday as well as in the 21st century.

Comparing the movies of both creators, Miyazaki and his studio dominate the Japanese domestic box office ranking, while Toriyama's Dragon Ball franchise rules the North American anime market.

Out of the top 6 of anime films which brought in the most money in Japanese theatres, three are Studio Ghibli films - 2001's Spirited Away as well as 1997's Princess Mononoke and 2004's Howl's Moving Castle. The highest grossing anime films are also the highest grossing Japanese films at the country's domestic box office. Looking only at Japanese movies' success in Japan, the first live action film comes in rank 7: 2003's Bayside Shakedown 2, which fittingly advertises itself as the "biggest box office hit in Japanese live action film history". Taking into account both domestic and international releases in Japanese cinemas, Titanic, Frozen as well as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone also make the top 10.

Stateside, on the other hand, the Studio Ghibli film with the highest lifetime gross is 2010's The Secret World of Arrietty by director Hiromasa Yonebayashi - rank 8 at $19.2 million earned. In rank 4 and 6 are the two newest Dragon Ball movies from the Super series, released in 2018 and 2022, grossing $31 million and $38 million. Also very popular with North American audiences are the Pokémon movies, the Yu-Gi-Oh! movie (rank 7), My Hero Academy (ranks 11 and 13) and Digimon: The Movie (rank 15).