Japanese films, Q2 2024: the quarter in review

Released on May 24 by Toei. It is the eighth film based on the TV series Abunai Deka, which began in 1986, and the first new one in eight years. Toshiki "Taka" Takayama (Hiroshi Tachi) and Yuji Oshita (Kyohei Shibata), who have retired from the police and become private detectives, return to Yokohama and take on a request from a young woman who asks them to find her mother. Hirotoshi Hara directed from a screenplay by Toshimichi Okawa and Yoshiro Oka. Atsuko Asano, Toru Nakamura, Tao Tsuchiya and Goro Kishitani co-star.

On August 5, its 74th day in release, it reached 1.627 billion yen, surpassing the previous film, Dangerous Cops: Final 5 Days, and with 1.64 billion yen it is the highest-grossing Japanese live-action film released in the second quarter. It received the Popularity Award (film category) at the 48th Japan Academy Film Prize.

Released on June 14 by Toho. For his daughter, who has been given a limited time to live because of congenital heart disease, Nobumasa Tsuboi (Yo Oizumi), a father who runs a small factory, throws himself into developing an artificial heart. It draws on the story of the family of Nobumasa Tsutsui, who developed an IABP balloon catheter, and is based on Hidetoshi Kiyotake's nonfiction book Atom no Shinzo: "Dear Family" 23-nenkan no Kiroku. Sho Tsukikawa directed from a screenplay by Tamio Hayashi. Miho Kanno plays his wife Yoko, with Riko Fukumoto, Rina Kawaei, Miu Arai, Kasumi Arimura and Hokuto Matsumura co-starring. The theme song is Mrs. GREEN APPLE's "Dear."

With 1.47 billion yen, it is the second-highest-grossing Japanese live-action film released in the second quarter.

Released on April 19 by Warner Bros. to mark the 1,100th anniversary of Abe no Seimei's birth. The young Abe no Seimei (Kento Yamazaki), not yet an onmyoji but still a student at the Bureau of Onmyo, works with the nobleman Minamoto no Hiromasa (Shota Sometani) to uncover the truth behind a murder committed by a curse. Based on Baku Yumemakura's Onmyoji, it was written and directed by Shimako Sato. Nao plays Princess Yoshiko.

It opened at No. 3 with 187,000 admissions and 255 million yen on its first weekend, and on May 19 passed 740,000 admissions and 1 billion yen. Its gross is 1.10 billion yen. All three films Kento Yamazaki headlined in 2024 — Golden Kamuy, The Yin Yang Master Zero and Kingdom: Return of the Great General — grossed more than 1 billion yen.

Released worldwide exclusively on Netflix on April 25. It is the first Japanese live-action adaptation of Tsukasa Hojo's manga. In this origin story, Shinjuku "sweeper" Ryo Saeba (Ryohei Suzuki) is drawn into a suspicious drug case after a request to find a missing cosplayer, and ends up teaming with Kaori Makimura (Misato Morita). Yuichi Sato directed from a screenplay by Tatsuro Mishima, with Masanobu Ando and Fumino Kimura co-starring.

It ranked No. 1 worldwide among Netflix's non-English films and stayed in the Top 10 for three weeks; its best week drew 6.3 million views, and the sum of its weekly views across those three Top 10 weeks was 13.3 million. In the week ending April 28 it was No. 1 in Japan and Taiwan and No. 3 in South Korea. In its earnings report for the second quarter of 2024, Netflix said the film had drawn 16.5 million views from its release through July 14, 2024. From September 27 it was also shown in some theaters for a limited two-week run. On March 26, 2026, Netflix announced a sequel (slated for 2027), the first sequel to a Netflix Japanese original film.

Released on June 7 by Kino Films. Based on a true story reported in an Asahi Shimbun article in June 2020, it follows 21-year-old Ann Kagawa (Yuumi Kawai), who has lived amid poverty and drug dependence, as she meets detective Tatara (Jiro Sato) and weekly-magazine reporter Kirino (Goro Inagaki) and struggles to rebuild her life. Yu Irie wrote and directed, and Aoba Kawai plays Ann's mother.

Yuumi Kawai won Best Actress at the 48th Japan Academy Film Prize for this film, which placed 10th in the Kinema Junpo Best Ten. That same year, Kawai also starred in Desert of Namibia, which placed second in the Kinema Junpo Best Ten.