Star Detective Precure! sets a series-best ¥440m opening
The Star Detective Precure! film sold 357,000 tickets and took ¥440 million across its first three days in Japanese cinemas, the best start in the series' 23-film history, with the film's own site now framing a franchise-first ¥2 billion as the target.
Star Detective Precure! has handed the Precure film series its strongest opening on record. The film sold 357,000 tickets and took ¥440 million across its first three days, from 18 to 20 September, according to figures published on the film's own site on 21 September.
A franchise-best start for a 23-film series
The film opened at 348 cinemas across Japan on Friday 18 September. The site describes the three-day total as the best start in the history of a movie series that now runs to 23 films, and it arrives during the Silver Week holiday weekend rather than a standard release slot.
The number the distributor is chasing
The same update frames ¥2 billion as the highest box office in the series' history and says the opening weekend puts that figure within reach. It is a target rather than a result: the site gives no second-weekend figure and no per-cinema breakdown, so the pace is what is being reported, not a final total.
What the first day looked like
A separate report on the site, published on 20 September, covers the stage greeting held the previous day. It records a first-day box office above ¥100 million, which the site calls the best opening Friday for the series, and describes cast members appearing alongside the suits of their own characters and the film-original character Karin.
A new illustration from the Kamikita twins
The 21 September update also brings an illustration drawn for the film by the Kamikita twins. It gathers the Star Detective Precure! cast with characters from You and Idol Precure and Wonderful Precure, adds the film-original characters Karin, Alan and Rain, and hides a message: the letters printed on the cards the characters are holding rearrange into a clue the site leaves for readers to solve.
Where the cinema run goes next
The film is in its second week of Japanese screenings. The site confirmed on 20 September that a 4DX version follows on 2 October, the first in the series' history, along with a second admission gift called the Hanamaru Discovery changing card. International distribution has not been announced, and nothing suggests a release outside Japan in the same window.
Our opinion
A record opening for the 23rd film in a series is worth reading carefully. Precure films open on a fixed weekend each year and this one landed on the Silver Week holiday, so a three-day figure measures how well the release was scheduled as much as how many people wanted to see it. The ¥2 billion target is the more revealing number, because reaching it means holding attendance past the school-holiday weekend. That is where the 4DX version on 2 October does real work: it hands the film a second opening, to an audience happy to pay a premium for motion seats, three weeks after the first. If the film crosses ¥2 billion, the lesson will not be that the franchise suddenly grew but that a limited effects-theatre run now counts as a genuine second release window for Japanese animation. If it falls short, the record weekend will look like exactly what it was: a very good holiday.