The day is practically over in Japan so I'll do a quick and dirty day-to-day comparison for my own sake.

Sunday August 6 Mimorin (not including independents):

84430: Kingdom 3
64035: Crayon Shin-chan
53653: Elemental
53160: Mission Impossible
51253: How Do You Live
41548: Transformers

Monday August 7 Mimorin (not including independents)
as of 22:40
36650: Kingdom 3 (57 percent drop from Sun)
32800: Crayon Shin-chan (49 percent drop from Sun)
31289: Elemental (42 percent drop from Sun)
25349: How Do You Live (51 percent drop from Sun)
23100: Mission Impossible (57 percent drop from Sun)
19501: Transformers (53 percent drop from Sun)

It might have been a foregone conclusion that Elemental would have the best hold of all movies but I think this is a good sign. Maybe one day this week it will be #1!

Super Mario's weekend gross (and total) has already been reported, so I'm going to go ahead and update the Biggest 15th Weekend Chart.

It fell a bit hard this weekend, lots of new competition cutting into its seating, but it's still in the top 10 (8th in admissions, ~7-9th in revenue) and is going to reach Obon Festival next week while still in wide release and probably with just enough seating to boost its total a decent bit further. Might be able to overtake Last Samurai, TGM, and JJK0 on the all-time chart.

Biggest Fifteenth (15th) Weekends (2000-):

¥364.1 million ($3.6 million), -08%, ¥23.76 billion ($233.0 million) - Frozen (2014)
¥359.3 million ($3.2 million), +22%, ¥25.97 billion ($213.0 million) - Spirited Away (2001)
_________
¥245.8 million ($2.2 million), +16%, ¥19.96 billion ($192.8 million) - Your Name. (2016)
¥200.3 million ($1.5 million), +10%, ¥11.92 billion ($89.7 million) - The First Slam Dunk (2022)*
________
¥183.6 million ($1.8 million), -10%, ¥36.55 billion ($349.7 million) - Demon Slayer: Mugen Train (2020)
¥147.2 million ($1.1 million), +20%, ¥18.25 billion ($132.7 million) - One Piece Film Red (2022)
¥128.2 million ($1.4 million), -23%, ¥15.08 billion ($159.7 million) - Avatar (2009)
¥121.9 million ($1.1 million), -54%, ¥9.33 billion ($85.4 million) - Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time (2021)
¥121.3 million ($0.9 million), -21%, ¥12.10 billion ($90.5 million) - Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
¥116.9 million ($0.9 million), +02%, ¥13.60 billion ($102.0 million) - Suzume (2022)*
¥113.4 million ($1.0 million), -21%, ¥11.67 billion ($104.6 million) - Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
¥113.0 million ($1.1 million), -11%, ¥18.11 billion ($176.2 million) - Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
_______
¥70.3 million ($0.5 million), +04%, ¥765.6 million ($5.8 million) - RRR (2022)*
¥57.4 million ($0.4 million), -32%, ¥13.53 billion ($98.4 million) - The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)*
¥52.9 million ($0.4 million), -25%, ¥13.23 billion ($119.0 million) - Jujutsu Kaisen 0 (2021)

2-Day (Past-2022)
*3-Day (2023-Present)

That's Makoto Shinkai of Your Name fame saying Elemental is a great movie.

Anecdotally, I'm looking at some Toho cinema listings and I see Elemental is moving to some bigger auditoriums this weekend. So we might expect to see a bigger seat count for it when the data comes in.

With the release of the 'How Do You Live' pamphlet, the film is being shown in more IMAX screens in Japan from Friday. I wonder if this will increase its box office potential slightly?

AEON seating allocations
rank seats shows avg seats theater count title
*1 162042 509 318.4 93 Kingdom_Flame of Destiny
*2 123124 507 242.8 93 Shin Jigen! Crayon Shin-chan THE_MOVIE_Eccentric Great Decisive Battle_ ~Smoky Temaki Sushi~
*3 *78388 496 158.0 94 My Element
*4 *71538 488 146.6 94 How Will You Live?
*5 *59133 372 159.0 94 Mission: Impossible/Dead Reckoning_PART_ONE
*6 *54995 390 141.0 87 Revolver Lily
*7 *54120 370 146.3 83 Barbie
*8 *48994 342 143.3 86 Transformers/Beast Awakening

Elemental lost seats, just like everything. But I think the mimorin-tracked theaters kind of skimped on Elemental seats compared to AEON so who knows what mimorin will say.

Also Barbie looks to have a middle of the road debut if this is an indication. Maybe in the 300m-350m yen range like all the other movies last weekend, but I could be wrong.

I don't expect Barbie to do too much here. The Aeon seating is an indication there's not much interest in it.

It's a Western comedy with two relatively unknown lead actors. None of the supporting cast are known actors either. That's very hard to overcome, and when combined with the controversy surrounding its questionable marketing, it's just another hurdle it needs to cross. And I don't even know if "Barbie" is a known brand in the market?

We'll know more in a couple days once reservations are in effect, but I wouldn't expect a lot from it. Aeon is 1/3 of all seating, so nationwide it's only got around 150k seats I'd say. I don't think it'll get in the top 5 this weekend. The top 5 looks set to be Kingdom, Crayon Shin-Chan, Elemental, HDYL?, and MI7 this upcoming Obon Festival.

IMAX is very popular, so it should. It needs it too because the drops are still in that "good but not great" territory, so it needs something to help it some over Obon Festival.

Lots of movement on the All-Time Charts.

The First Slam Dunk is still doing near unprecedented numbers in its 36th week of release (12th for the weekend), and with Obon Festival this upcoming week, as well as its end date (Aug. 31st) approaching, I don't think it's going to slow down. There is a good chance it ends up outgrossing Ponyo and possibly even Avatar too. It also overtook Avatar and Frozen II in admissions, and might be trying for 11 million. I assume Toei has events/giveaways planned to send it off, so it might take down to the very last day of its release (the 31st) to know what happens. It has already earned a spot somewhere on the most impressive runs ever, and overtaking a few more films on the charts just adds to its many feats.

Super Mario and Detective Conan are nearly tied in gross after their 15th and 17th weeks, respectively. Both films leaped over the three films tied with ¥13.5b as well as Bohemian Rhapsody to enter a tie for #20 all-time (with Mario technically ahead). Super Mario just barely took the lead in revenue (which is why I have it above it in their tie), while Detective Conan maintains a small admissions lead. Super Mario will surpass it in admissions over upcoming week, and should remain ahead of it in both revenue and admissions... but I don't want to call it yet because Toho usually does a late expansion for the Conan films that add a decent amount to their totals.

I know it's not technically a movie (it's definitely more of a theatrical OVA than anything else), but the Sound Euphonium Ensemble Contest release earned 123,099,160 yen in its first three days in only 74 theatres. Definitely wanted to highlight it as that's incredibly good for something where you could buy the Blu-ray at the theatre and re-watch it at home. It's almost grossed over the total gross for the second Euphonium film already in just a few days. There's a lot of pent-up demand (first release in 4 years for the franchise) and newcomers alike.

Similarly, you might also want to include the Super Sentai title, Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger: Adventure Heaven, with the Kamen Rider movie. It's a double-pack screening of both films.

Thanks for mentioning Sound Euphonium Ensemble Contest Arc! It wasn't included in any of the reporting yet (besides being ranked 7th in admissions) when I updated everything and forgot about it. It's been added since, and I'll add it here later today. (OVAs and pretty much anything else always gets included in the weekend rankings, by the way. If they're released in theaters, it's counted as a theatrical release.)

And yeah, I know Kamen Rider is a double feature with Super Sentai, it's just that the title is so long! Haha. I can edit the second title in though.

Elemental is inching closer and closer to #1 with each passing day, sure looks like it's getting strong WOM imho. It will do quite well during obon.

Barbie is...interesting, it's quite strong in some urban locs (shinjuku, ikebukuro, roppongi), really weak in others, but it's not being given the big screens it would need in those urban locs. Ironically the location I saw giving it big screens was miyoshi where it's basically DOA.

Elemental is indeed doing very well. I can see it take #1 over some of the upcoming Obon Festial weekdays. Kingdom 3 will probably still take the weekends though.

I think Barbie can take this weekend actually as long as it's not particularly frontloaded on friday. I'm a bit unsure because it doesn't really have much in terms of screens, but the urbans do look pretty good to me honestly, probably enough to beat the competition unless elementals increases or something.

Barbie looks odd. Many marked (50%+ full) showings in some urban locations as you mentioned, but it's also on just one screen at them, and that screen is a relatively small one (~200 seats). The more you go outside of Tokyo, the weaker it looks. Sales look rather poor in Osaka at the moment as well.

It's not going to disappoint, but it's also hard to gauge what it's capable of given the low seating and how sales appear so focused on the Tokyo area.

Kingdom 3 is probably going to be around ¥400m this weekend. We'll see what happens, but I don't think Barbie can do that with its seating, especially if sales outside Tokyo don't pick up. But it's early.

MI7 pacing behind Fallout, might not catch up unless Obon Festival boosts it a fair amount

Fallout opened the first weekend of August, so it would have received the Obon Festival bump before Dead Reckoning. We should see Dead Reckoning catch it this upcoming week and probably outgross it in the future. And while summer vacation doesn't benefit more adult-driven films too much, it still can just a bit so having that extra week to bank on (by opening in July) is helpful too.

Not 100% guaranteed, of course, but still more likely than not, IMO.

I expect Barbie to be pretty frontloaded, like Transformers. But I could be wrong.

Mimorin Seats for August 11th, Friday

*1　277499　944　294.0　2.7　172　376　45.7%　キングダム 運命の炎
*2　194000　815　238.0　3.8　170　366　46.4%　しん次元！クレヨンしんちゃんＴＨＥ ＭＯＶＩＥ 超能力大決戦 ～とべとべ手巻き寿司～
*3　153995　856　179.9　5.4　173　386　44.8%　君たちはどう生きるか
*4　151560　825　183.7　5.0　171　325　52.6%　バービー
*5　139765　774　180.6　5.0　172　364　47.3%　マイ・エレメント
*6　131002　748　175.1　5.5　174　384　45.3%　ミッション：インポッシブル／デッドレコニング ＰＡＲＴ ＯＮＥ
*7　122331　821　149.0　6.3　167　333　50.2%　リボルバー・リリー
*8　110227　729　151.2　6.3　172　347　49.6%　トランスフォーマー／ビースト覚醒
*9　*90745　571　158.9　6.3　123　222　55.4%　ミンナのウタ
I guess Barbie does better here than it does at AEON.

Elemental lost seats but I think the average number of seats per show went up. I think the theaters are strategically giving it more shows around the afternoon, when it's strongest.

Also How Do You Live is hanging in there I think because of the IMAX push.

Overall looks like another dead heat weekend at the box office.