Wednesday, Bandai Namco Holdings released their financial highlights of the fiscal year, which ended on March 31, 2024. The conglomerate reported that the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise earned 145.7 billion yen across the group’s subsidiaries, a first for the iconic mecha franchise.
This marks a 10.97% increase from the previous year, when it earned 131.3 billion yen, and a 7.93% increase from the Bandai Namco‘s initial 135.0 billion full year projections. Bandai Namco now projects that the franchise will earn 145 billion yen in the next fiscal year.
Interviewed for the company newsletter in March, Bandai‘s President and Representative Director Masaru Kawaguchi cited the Gundam franchise’s recent success is due to Mobile Suit Gundam the Witch from Mercury and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom. “Mobile Suit Gundam THE WITCH FROM MERCURY enabled us to secure new fans and was linked to favorable sales of Group products and services… Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM is a theatrical work that opened in January. It has been very well received, and in the first 18 days after its opening, it was seen by 1.63 million people and registered box-office revenues of over ¥2.68 billion.” Since then, the film has amassed a cumulative total of 4,523,412,680 yen and selling 2,697,025 tickets.
The tagline of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom is “The wings of freedom to seize the future”. The film is directed by Mitsuo Fukuda, featuring a script by Fukuda, Chiaki Morosawa, and Ryu Goto. Hisashi Hirai returns for character design, while the mechanical design team includes Kunio Okawara, Kimitoshi Yamane, Kazutaka Miyatake, Junichi Akutsu, Manabu Shintani, Zenseava, Takuya Io, and Hiroyuki Taiga. Satoshi Shigeta returns as mechanical animation director. Toshihiko Sahashi is the composer for the film’s music, and the theme song “FREEDOM” is performed by Takanori Nishikawa with Tetsuya Komuro.
Mobile Suit Gundam the Witch from Mercury is directed by Kiznaiver‘s Hiroshi Kobayashi, and penned by Code Geass scribe, Ichiro Ohkouchi. The tagline of the series is “This witch…rides a Gundam”. The series began broadcast October 2, 2022 on twenty-eight of MBS and TBS TV networks on their 5pm “Nichigo” anime block, as well as simulcasted internationally. The Witch from Mercury completed its two season, twenty-four episode run on July 2, 2023.
Source: Press Release(Financial Highlights), Newsletter
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