This Week in Anime
An Anime Night at the Movies

by Monique Thomas & Christopher Farris,

Chris and Nick head to the cinema to see Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and The Heron and discuss why seeing an anime film in theaters is the preferred viewing experience (if you can find a showing, that is).

The films discussed in this column are streaming via subscription or rental on Crunchyroll, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Max, Tubi, and PlutoTV. The Boy and the Heron is currently in theaters in the United States.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.


@Lossthief @BeeDubsProwl @NickyEnchilada @vestenet

Chris
Nicky, everyone's talking about the theatrical release of Hayao Miyazaki's latest "final" movie, so algorithms demand we've got to get to it somehow in TWIA! We should be able to make it work with our regular format. I'm sure staff won't take issue with us snapping shots of the film on our phones through its whole runtime.

Nicky
Just kidding! This isn't going to be a camrip column. That wouldn't be up to our quality standards. We did think it was an excellent opportunity to talk about something we usually wouldn't, which is what it's like to see anime in the theaters. December is one of the busiest times for movies. The holiday means a lot of people are rushing to the theater, so many studios plan to release movies around this time of year. It turns out that some of our favorite Japanese properties are no exception, with both a Ghibli and a Godzilla film out in theaters this month.
Streaming and simulcasts made series more accessible than ever. You could watch many Miyazaki masterpieces on your phone if you wanted to, for some unfathomable reason. But the big screen experience has stuck around because there is something special about the scale and communal setting of seeing films this way.

Sometimes, it's an even bigger big screen, too, as The Boy and the Heron (or How Do You Live? if you like titles that aren't objectively terrible) netted IMAX releases for its North American distribution!
Yet, even before the pandemic, ticket sales for the theaters were dropping. It's theorized that the ease of streaming has made people less motivated to go to theaters, and now certain movies, including anime, end up as streaming exclusives. It's so easy to watch things on our screens at home. Why bother going out of our way? This week, we'll review the pros and cons to consider before planning your next movie night. Don't forget the popcorn!
I joked about it initially, but sometimes, the motivation to see something only in theaters is all about the zeitgeist. A new movie by Miyazaki is an event, so if you want to talk about it with all your friends and mutuals, you have to get out to see it. On that same note, seeing everyone buzzing about how good Godzilla Minus One certainly has me interested in checking it out while the giant lizard is in theaters.

I'm not immune to FOMO, and one of my big regrets upon finally watching Shin Godzilla was, "Damn, I wish I'd taken the opportunity to see that in the theater."
Coincidentally, I did see Shin Godzilla in theaters, and I'm grateful for it. Not only was it entertaining to discuss and talk about with other people, but it also allowed me to finally confess my feelings for a certain special someone at the time. Movies can be a great way to connect with others online, but they're also just a good excuse to get out of the house and hang out with friends, family, or partners. You never have to worry about conversation because you can always talk about the movie you just watched. Other than the romantic potential of giant city-destroying lizards, one of the movies I saw this year was a screening of Kaguya-sama: Love is War -The First Kiss That Never Ends-, which had a particularly packed showing for Valentine's Day.
Kaguya-sama's release highlights the quirks of scheduling Western releases for these movies after their Japanese showings. Valentine's Day is the perfect time to release a movie about our favorite competing couple of doofuses. But The First Kiss that Never Ends is actually a Christmas movie released in Japan in December.

I'd say my well-publicized aversion to out-of-season Christmas media was why I didn't go out to see this one in theaters when it was released here, but I just couldn't make the time.
December is an important romantic holiday in Japan and a bigger excuse for movie dates. I don't think most people minded seeing it in February, as there were many happy couples in the audience as far as I could see.

As you mentioned, this is a good opportunity to bring up some of the "quirks" of anime theatrical releases. Something big like Ghibli's The Boy and the Heron is popular enough to deserve a regular wide release, but most anime films aren't so fortunate. Some only screen as special events for one or two nights at specific theaters. While I'm fortunate to have many theaters close to me willing to show anime, Aniplex's The First Kiss that Never Ends distribution felt too small for how popular the series has been among anime fans. Other people have described similar booked-out situations for it or not being able to find theaters near them, leading me to believe that the audience was severely underestimated.
Similar misgivings were reported for Hideaki Anno's Shin Masked Rider earlier this year. I can almost understand that one since Kamen Rider still isn't quite a household name here. But Anno had previously packed houses with Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time, and anecdotally, showings for Shin Kamen Rider (including my own) were pretty packed. Prospective audience members petitioned distributor Fathom Events for additional screenings.
It took a long time to see Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time the "proper" way after Amazon Prime's exclusive streaming premiere, but it was worthwhile to view the conclusion of Anno's epic franchise on a huge screen. However, I will still gripe that it should've received a properly-sized release in the first place. While I don't mind waiting for movies to be available, especially regarding the pandemic at the time, I feel like some anime are more prominent than most distributors anticipate.

There's pretty good evidence for this. The Boy and the Heron is currently flying at a 12.8M U.S. opening, and big shōnen action films like the Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen movies ended up being blockbusters and a welcome entertainment alternative as live-action filmmakers struggled with rampant COVID outbreaks.
I remember Demon Slayer dominating the box office at the time to the point that my parents asked me about it. You would think that might compel distributors to push for bigger releases for films that could hit that same level of popularity. Fate/Stay Night is the basis for the most popular mobile game in the world. They could probably have managed theatrical releases for the Heaven's Feel movies for more than a couple of nights apiece.

Fun fact: I got to see the second one in theaters with my sister. I was somehow the only person in the world still unaware of the twist regarding Sakura and Rin, so when it came up in the film, my sis turned to see me as the one viewer in the theater who went, "Holy shit, what?!"
Oh man, that's hilarious, though I'd also consider many of the examples I just used as outliers, as most of the films I go to aren't connected to established properties. It's easy to draw an audience for fans of an existing series, but there are still lots of anime films that are released throughout the year, and most of the time, the theaters for them are practically empty. I go out of my way to see anime films subbed on a weeknight, and I don't even see all of them. Sadly, I missed out on Blue Giant this year, as a coming-of-age jazz film directed by Mob Psycho 100's Yuzuru Tachikawa seems extremely "my jam."
Those more niche anime movies will naturally be harder sells to mainstream Western theatergoers. In the case of Miyazaki or Makoto Shinkai, you could argue that those creators are franchises unto themselves. But if Fate/Stay Night can't get more than one random Thursday, what hope would there be for something like Pompo: The Cinéphile? That's why it's extra cool when one of those limited releases breaks out, like what happened with Studio Trigger's Promare late in 2019.
Hell yeah! I saw Promare when it premiered at AX, but I was elated to nab a theater seat among an equally excited audience. Having a good crowd can charge an already intense movie. Being able to laugh, cry, or cheer collectively with others can be an incredible sensation. However, that depends, as not everyone appreciates their screening taken over by people who have already seen the movie and start calling out all the best lines. Please remember to be mindful of other people. Being too loud or distracting can hinder other moviegoers' enjoyment.

Though it is good that you brought up Shinkai. This year's Suzume was certainly a crowd-pleaser and already available on Crunchyroll.

The breakout success of Promare was one thing, but it's been another to see Shinkai inching toward Miyazaki levels of mainstream notoriety. He's not the level of household name that ol' Hayao is yet, but his movies getting those wider theatrical releases despite ostensibly being originals says a lot. It's wild to see the chair-smooching movie side by side on box-office listings with the Dungeons & Dragons movie and (checks notes) The Pope's Exorcist.

It marks things as having come a long way from when the only anime we'd get in theaters were Pokemon entries and Disney's releases of Ghibli pictures.

Nick and I documented Shinkai's success story earlier this year before watching Suzume, but I was fortunate enough to see Your Name and unfortunate enough to see Weathering With You in theaters, as well.
That's one downside of the anime-in-theaters arrangement. Sometimes, your planning and payment lets you spend an evening out enjoying Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island, and other times, you wind up subjecting yourself and your friends to the sunk cost of sitting through Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative.
I don't always love everything I buy tickets for, but I like to think seeing it in the theater is an enhancement. For one thing, having a huge screen means catching a level of detail I wouldn't otherwise. All of Shinkai's films are drop-dead gorgeous pieces of animation with breathtaking color work and attention to detail that can only be achieved through feature animation. There were times when the sheer beauty made me cry.

However, some people may have pretty big TVs nowadays, so if a big visuals doesn't seem like a big deal, hearing the full power of a film's score through a theater's sound system might be worth your dollar. Listening to the sound envelope the entire room is more immersive and emotional than pretty pictures alone. Screens are now better than ever, but trying to recreate a similar surround sound environment would cost thousands of dollars, assuming you account for all the acoustics.
Film is an audio-visual medium, after all! That kind of presentational power is what fuels a lot of my FOMO. One of my biggest regrets about a film I didn't get to see on the big screen was the Revue Starlight movie since that is a movie-ass movie!

But it was screening for close to one night, and I was working, so I missed it! When I got to watch it months after it was added to HIDIVE, I loved it, of course, but I also immediately said, "Aw man, I missed out." It's just the type of thing you have to live with. This isn't like the Ghibli catalog, where Fathom can trot out a whole festival of theater reruns regularly. However, if Sentai wanted to try a "Bushiroad-fest" with Revue Starlight and the BanG Dream concert movies? I wouldn't complain about that.
I still have FOMO over Blue Giant and The First Slam Dunk. But I forgot when they were coming out with how little promotion was done for the films. I probably would have tried to see them if they had been out another week.
However, sometimes re-screenings happen, like with Promare, or there might be a screening of a con. One year, I managed to see Penguin Highway during Crunchyroll Expo after I had missed it. Occasionally, other anime movies might get re-showings by local or indie theaters. One of my best experiences was re-watching the abstractly animated On-Gaku: Our Sound in a teeny, tiny old theater in San Francisco. Earlier this year, the same theater also showed the highspeed racing movie Redline, one of my favorite movies ever.
That does bring up another point about the availability of these releases based on your area. I'm based in Fresno, which gets most of those Fathom and GKIDS showings. But we got fewer screens for those refreshed Promare showings than my friends in Oakland did. And smaller places showing reruns, forget it (unless there is an indie theater scene in Fresno that I am wholly unaware of). All this to say, it's nice if you're near an urban center where you have robust options, but for others, that release of The Boy and the Heron might be their only chance to catch an anime flick on the big screen all year.

You mentioned conventions, which often hold premieres ahead of their wider North American release. It is an attractive reason to make those trips and meet up with fellow nerds to watch them.
I know people out in the Midwest who had to drive two hours to see bigger movies like Promare and Your Name. In some areas, people might not have many theaters, if any.
My Lupin-loving friend and I probably would have driven a couple of hours to see The Castle of Cagliostro when it came back into theaters several years ago. We didn't have to because Miyazaki's a proven moneymaker!

As with getting longer runs, it would be nice if things like Miyazaki's films' proven success or the Demon Slayer movie motivated distributors to give other anime movies a wider release area. But then, that might not be feasible from a profit standpoint, especially with the struggles of theaters overall in recent years.
I wouldn't consider all hope lost, as I've seen quite an uptick in re-showings, and if you ever dreamed of seeing your favorite anime movie on the big screen, you could always check theaters around you to see if they'd be open to hosting a private screening with you and your friends. I've heard successful stories of people hosting their favorite anime for birthday parties or anime clubs. Based on some quick research, prices are much more than your average ticket, ranging roughly between $99 to $500. Still, that price could be split into something affordable, assuming the people you invite will pitch in.
Getting creative with the experience and sharing it with your friends is a large part of the appeal of these sorts of trips. That same buddy I saw Lupin with has a homemade projector screen in his backyard that I've told him I will eventually use to watch Gunbuster. As nice as IMAX's visual and sound equipment is, the communal experience is also a key element of this sort of thing. You can get that from watching The Boy and the Heron in a multiplex, but you can also get it from seeing Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture in a convention screening room.
Some of the theater experiences I mentioned weren't quite as fancy as IMAX, and prices varied significantly by the theater and the time I saw them. IMAX can be expensive, not including the additional popcorn and drink, but I consider that a splurge. It may not seem worth spending tens of dollars for only a few hours' worth of entertainment when the same money could be used on video games, books, or food, but I want to emphasize that movies can be made into extraordinary memories. Even if you prefer to watch movies alone, you can always consider it an excuse to relax and let yourself be taken in.

Part of the problem with watching things at home is that we get distracted by everything in our environment. While you may never get the total experience of a dark theater room, you can probably do a few things to improve your enjoyment of media at home. Putting away your phone might be a good place to start.
You don't have to tell me twice. I already refuse to multi-task when I'm watching anything at home. That is, save for grabbing screenshots and posting about them on social media. Okay, you're right; the theater experience probably reinforces the purity of taking in a piece of art. I know watching The Boy and the Heron this weekend, it was a relief not to feel compelled to smash that screencap button every time an especially amusing image of that messed-up-looking tooth-bird came on the screen.
I should know; I was with you, bro. It was my idea to see it together this weekend, independent of the column. I treasure it as a special memory I now share with everyone reading this.
Same! Getting to hang out was a great reason also to see a pretty neat movie. And hey, we could get a column out of the theatrical experience, too, without dubiously legal camera capturing!
Now it's your turn, readers; tell us your special movie memories! What anime films have you had the privilege of watching in theaters? What's the best time you've had watching anime with a crowd? What films are you looking forward to seeing? Tell us in the comments, and keep spoilers to currently showing films out of it or we'll catch you!
We'll be here to cover this topic again when Miyazaki's next last movie gets its theatrical release.
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