Live-action anime adaptations continue to pop up in the entertainment world thanks to discovering some major success in recent years. Netflix has provided perfect examples of this with series like One Piece and Avatar: The Last Airbender, as both television shows were renewed for future seasons. While North America has its fair share of live-action anime projects that are hitting both the small and silver screens, Japan itself is diving far further into this new medium. At Japanese theaters this past weekend, an unexpected live-action anime adaptation has once again claimed the top spot, beating some big competition in the marketplace.
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For those who might not know, this live-action adaptation isn’t one that features mech or world-ending battles, but rather, is a story of two friends trying to make it big in the business world. Trillion Game might not be as well known as the likes of One Piece, Gundam, and/or Rurouni Kenshin, but this live-action adaptation is still doing big numbers for Japan on the big screen. For its second weekend, the film has once again claimed the top spot by bringing in close to $2 million USD in ticket sales. This once again places the film over the likes of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- and Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World.
[RELATED: Live-Action Anime Movie Defeats Captain America: Brave New World At The Japanese Box Office]
What is a Trillion Game?
If you’re unfamiliar with Trillion Game, the series first arrived as a manga from creators Riichiro Inagaki and Ryoichi Ikegami in 2020. To this day, the manga is still releasing new chapters and the first season of the anime adaptation from Studio Madhouse is still underway. So popular did the franchise become in fact that it received a live-action television series prior to the film’s release in 2023.
At present, the live-action version of Trillion Game has yet to confirm a North American release, but you can catch the current anime adaptation on Crunchyroll. Here’s how the streaming service describes the recent series, “Old schoolmates Haru and Gaku will do anything to achieve success. And success to them means earning a trillion dollars! But to do so, they’ll need to take full advantage of their own unique skills. Haru is a persuasive and confident speaker who can connect with anyone, while Gaku, although awkward, is an expert programmer. Will their combined talents be enough to make their dream a reality?”
The Live-Action Anime Boom
Trillion Game is far from the only project that is making up the live-action anime boom. In the future, projects like live-action takes on the worlds of Gundam, My Hero Academia, Naruto, and more are in the works from various Western studios. Ultimately, it will be interesting to see if these projects will hit the same heights as the Straw Hat Pirates or if they’ll go down in infamy like Ghost in The Shell and Dragon Ball Evolution.
Want to see what the future holds for live-action anime projects? Follow along with Team Anime on ComicBook.com for the latest updates and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.
