Box office top 10 in 2005

Eiga.com reports the top 10 box hit among Japanese movies in 2005 on Dec. 13.  This ranking does not include the recent big hit "YAMATO", which probably will be included in 2006 figure, just as "Howl" is included in this year's list.  Please note the list also includes animations.  Here are the 2005 top hit movies;

1.  Howl's Moving Castle (Toho, animation)   19.6 bil. yen

2.  Pokemon Advanced Generation (Toho, animation)  4.3 bil. yen

3.  Negotiator Mashita Masayoshi  (Toho)  4.2 bil. yen

4.  NANA (Toho)  4.03 bil. yen

5.  Suspect Murio Shinji  (Toho)  3.83 bil. yen

6.  Train Man  (Toho)  3.7 bil. yen

7.  Year One in the North  (Toei)  2.7 bil. yen

8.  Always  - Sunset in the Third Street (Toho)  2.5 bil. yen (estimate)

9.  Lorelei  (Toho)  2.4 bil. yen

10.  Shining Boy and Little Randy  (Toho)  2.3 bil. yen

If "YAMATO" goes as is estimated, it will be No. 2, 3 or 4.  It is notable that 9 out of the top 10 is by Toho studio.

As a side note, their report on top foreign movies says that the No. 1 is "Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of Sith" which made 9.2bil. yen.  So again this year, over all top box office goes to Hayao Miyazaki's animation.