‘Chiikawa’ Movie Scores Japan’s No. 1 Opening, Outpaces ‘Detective Conan’

Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island debuted atop the Japanese box office, selling 1.51 million tickets and earning ¥2.24 billion ($13.7 million) over its first three days.

The film opened in 447 theaters on July 24 and earned ¥990 million ($6.05 million) on its first day alone. That narrowly surpassed the ¥960 million opening day of 2024’s Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram and ranks as the seventh best opening day in Japanese box office history.

Directed by Kei Oikawa and produced by Cygames Pictures, Secret of Mermaid Island is the first feature based on Nagano’s popular manga. The story follows Chiikawa, Hachiware, and Usagi as they travel to a mysterious island after winning a vacation package. Nagano wrote the film’s screenplay, adapting the manga’s Mermaid Island arc.

The Chiikawa manga began online in 2020 and has since grown into a major Japanese character franchise spanning books, merchandise, and a television anime. The series follows its small, animal-like characters through adventures that combine cute imagery with unexpectedly dark turns.