Baseball melodrama "Rookies" tops at the Japanese box office for 2009

by Chris MaGee

Here's the first of many Top Lists of 2009 that we'll be posting in the coming weeks here on the Pow-Wow (Including our fav films of 2009 and our top picks of the past decade - Keep checking back!) The folks at Anime News Network have posted the top ten biggest earners at the Japanese box office, and what can I say... There aren't that many big surprises here. Well, actually there is one. It definitely looks like the Oscar win for Yojiro Takita's 2008 bittersweet crowd pleaser "Departures" gave it continued longevity in 2009, making it number three on the list. Besides that the fact that the big screen crossover film of TBS baseball drama "Rookies" topped the list is a given even though a chat with Pow-Wow writer Eric Evans today revealed to me what I had already expected... it's a crappy film. Check back on Friday for Eric's full review.

Well, enough of my gabbing. Here's the list of the top ten biggest films at the Japanese box office for 2009:

1. Rookies - dir. Yūichirō Hirakawa/ ¥8.42 billion ($90.5 million)

2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - dir. David Yates/ ¥8 billion ($86 million)

3. Departures - dir. Yojiro Takita/ ¥6.44 billion ($69.2 million)

4. Red Cliff Part II - dir. John Woo/ ¥5.55 billion ($59.7 million)

5. Pokémon: Arceus and the Jewel of Life - dir. Kunihiko Yuyama/ ¥4.58 billion ($49.2 million)

6. Michael Jackson's This Is It - dir. Kenny Ortega/ ¥4.42 billion ($47.5 million)

7. 20th Century Boys 3: Redemption - dir. Yukihiko Tsutsumi/ ¥4.34 billion ($46.7 million)

8. WALL-E - dir. Andrew Stanton/ ¥4 billion ($43 million)

9. Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance - Hideaki Anno/ ¥4 billion ($43 million)

10. Amalfi - Hiroshi Nishitani/ ¥3.58 billion ($38.5 million)