The Boy and the Heron breaks another record

The Boy and the Heron has more than lived up to years of hype, and it’s recently broken another record for anime films in the United States.

It’s been no secret that Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron has been the company’s biggest success in over a decade. In addition to receiving a Golden Globe nomination, The Boy and the Heron took first place in its opening weekend in the United States box office, the first 2D original animation to do so since 2009’s The Princess and the Frog.

The Boy and the Heron is truly one of the biggest anime films in recent years, and it’s managed to reach another big milestone. As of December 17, 2023, The Boy and the Heron’s domestic gross stands at US$23.1 million, giving it the highest domestic gross for an anime film that’s a wholly original property and not part of an established franchise.

The Boy and the Heron still lags behind many other anime films, domestically or otherwise, but regardless, it’s still an amazing feat and a true testament to how great of a film The Boy and the Heron managed to be.

With The Boy and the Heron being such a success at the box office, let’s look at comparisons to other anime films. While it does have the highest domestic box office for a domestic property, The Boy and the Heron only has the seventh-highest domestic gross for an anime film, in general, and with a worldwide gross of approximately US$106 million, it’s the 23rd highest-grossing Japanese film of all time. Both of those statistics show that it does fall short compared to other similar films, but The Boy and the Heronis still a major success in its own right, regardless.

There are plenty of other noteworthy statistics about The Boy and the Heron’s domestic gross. Just from its opening weekend, The Boy and the Heron was both the first-ever Hayao Miyazaki film to top the domestic box office and the first fully foreign production to do so since Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero in 2022. Even if The Boy and the Heronwon’t finish its run as one of the biggest anime films to be released, it’s still done a lot to make a name for itself and revitalize Studio Ghibli as a brand, and that’s exactly what the film needed to do after spending so many years in production.