We Are Aliens passes ¥370 million at Japanese box office
NOTHING NEW’s debut feature animation has reached ¥370 million and 230,000 admissions, with new footage and a second making-of exhibition announced.
We Are Aliens (我々は宇宙人), the first feature-length animation from film label NOTHING NEW, has passed ¥370 million at the Japanese box office after 31 days in cinemas. The film has drawn 230,000 admissions as of 25 October, according to Oricon News.1
The distributor has also released footage showing protagonist Tsubasa growing from a high-school student into a university student and then an adult. The new material arrives alongside the announcement of a second exhibition about the making of the film, scheduled to run from 1 to 30 November at Shinjuku Marui Annex in Tokyo.1
A friendship across 30 years
Written and directed by Kohei Kadowaki, We Are Aliens follows Tsubasa, a boy troubled by the pressure to be “ordinary”, and Akitaro, a classmate seen as something special. The pair become friends in a rural town during the Heisei era, but their relationship is changed by rumours, social pressure and an incident that cannot be undone.2
The film’s official trailer frames that friendship as a 30-year journey, asking whether the story is a coming-of-age tale or a memory its characters would rather erase. The English title appears in the trailer alongside the Japanese title, 我々は宇宙人.2
Kadowaki, who graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts and previously worked in animation, stage video and commercials, made the film as his feature directorial debut. NOTHING NEW and MIYU PRODUCTIONS produced the animation, with TOHO NEXT and NOTHING NEW handling distribution.12
The film premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight at the 79th Cannes Film Festival and was selected for the feature-film competition at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival before its Japanese release on 25 September.12
Our opinion
The box-office milestone matters because it gives a clearer sense of the audience finding We Are Aliens beyond its festival profile. The more interesting development, though, is the newly released glimpse of Tsubasa at different ages: it points to a story interested in how one friendship changes when the people inside it keep moving. That is a stronger hook than simply calling the film an awards-season discovery.
The second exhibition should also give curious viewers a useful companion to the film, particularly because Kadowaki’s background spans music videos, commercials and stage imagery rather than a conventional feature-animation career. It is a modest but meaningful update for a distinctive independent animation release.