(Yicai) April 9 -- Box office earnings in the Chinese mainland for The Boy and the Heron, an anime movie expected to be the last from Japanese manga artist and anime director Hayao Miyazaki, has exceeded the total in Japan in only one week.

The Boy and the Heron, which won the Oscar for best animated feature film at the 96th Academy Awards, sold over CNY534 million (USD74 million) in cinema tickets in the Chinese mainland between April 3 and today, according to movie ticketing platform Beacon.

In comparison, the anime grossed JPY8.3 billion (USD54.6 million) in Japan in the two months following its release in the country on July 14, last year, Japanese media Mantan Web reported.

Many popular Japanese anime have been released in China over the past 40 years, winning the hearts of at least two generations of Chinese moviegoers, said Sun Jiashan, associate researcher at the Central Academy of Culture and Tourism Management. Because of the cultural similarity between China and Japan and the fact that there have not been many China-made animations, the demand of Chinese audiences for Japanese anime was very strong, Sun added.

The first Japanese anime to land in the Chinese mainland was Astro Boy, a television series that debuted on China Central Television in 1980. Since then, many other anime have hit the theaters, including Suzume, which achieved box office earnings of CNY800 million last year, becoming the highest-grossing Japanese anime in the mainland.

The Japanese anime industry is relatively mature, as movies attract not only youngsters but also adults, Xiang Kai, a young Chinese playwright and director, told Yicai.

However, it will be difficult for Japanese anime to keep performing so well in the Chinese market because of the decrease in the number of creative new-generation Japanese artists and the facts that the market competitiveness of China-made animations has increased and that many Chinese anime lovers are more inclined to watch works inspired by traditional Chinese culture, Sun noted.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione