One Piece Film Z Grosses 750 Million Yen

Bunka Tsushin, a Japanese news company, reported that the new One Piece film sold 600,000 tickets on its 1st day. The film grossed 750 million yen (approx. US$9 million) at the box office and is expected to sell 1 million tickets by Sunday and gross over 1.3 billion yen (US$15,576,340).

If the 1.3 billion yen mark is met, One Piece will top Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo's 1,131,004,600 yen (US$13,913,200) for the title of "Japan's highest weekend box office of 2012."

Hisashi Sasaki, deputy director of Shonen Manga Group, uploaded a picture of the film's staff on the roof of Toei headquarters. According to him, there is a "TOEI shrine" where the film staff gathered "together to pray for success of the movie."