Cinema Today reports that the new film Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods has passed an attendance figure of 500,000 viewers and over ¥680 million in its opening weekend (the two days of March 30th & 31st).

While Variety had previously reported $7 million, this updated figure of ¥683,925,000 puts it at roughly $7.26 million based on the 561,098 people attending the viewings across Japan. This equates to 49.9% of the numbers One Piece Film: Z did over the same period this past December. Cinema Today expects that the movie will reach a final gross of ¥3 billion — it does not say “pass” that point as other sources have, but it does not imply that it will not exceed that amount either.

Ticket prices are comparable to One Piece Film: Z, which makes the money side of things fairly easy to compare. The article notes, however, that this is comparatively expensive for a family-oriented film. On top of being popular with children, even though it has been over 15 years since the serialization ended, it can be inferred that there is a strong base of support among older fans from back then, a demographic Toei Animation was specifically shooting for in addition to the younger audience that has become familiar with the franchise through older siblings, parents, and video games.

Based on its first-day attendance alone, the new film Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods is on track — “expected” (Oricon) and “seen as certain” (Nikkan Sports) — to beat the ¥3 billion box office goal originally planned and expected over its six-week-long theatrical run.

According to Oricon, its box office take by 1:00 p.m. on 30 March was already 47.3% of One Piece Film Z‘s first-day gross this past December; that film reached a gross of ¥6.85 billion over its entire run. If it maintains this pace, it should surpass its target by a substantial margin.

Oricon notes how Toriyama’s involvement with the work generated a lot of buzz, and fans who had been waiting for the film’s opening came to theaters in droves. The audience seems to be centered around parents bringing their children, with adults ranging from their late 20s to their 50s.

There was a first-day event at the Marunouchi Toei theater in Tokyo, with Masako Nozawa (Son Goku, et al.), Kōichi Yamadera (Birus), Masaharu Satō (Kame-Sen’nin), Ryō Horikawa (Vegeta), Toshio Furukawa (Piccolo), and special guest Shōko Nakagawa (Oracle Fish), celebrating the launch of the new film. Each was asked about what they would wish for if they collected all 7 Dragon Balls; Nozawa answered, “that as long as there is an earth, Goku will never die”. Nakagawa also expressed her pleasure at standing between Goku and Vegeta, considering it the “most sacred place in the universe”. She also requested that Vegeta get angry at her, so Horikawa responded with a “KORA!” to which she said that something that has been just a fantasy of hers all her life has come true.

It has been only a few days since we first learned the name puns behind “Birusu” and “Uisu” from the movie’s scriptwriter, Yūsuke Watanabe, in his recent GetNavi interview. As it turns out, the back story behind their name puns goes much deeper than that. In fact, it comes down to simple confusion on Akira Toriyama’s part.

As a point reference, Watanabe established in his GetNavi interview that while he had named Birus after the word “virus”, Toriyama was the one who actually named Birus’ attendant. Watanabe did also confirm in an interview with DVD & Blu-Ray Vision that in his first incarnation of the story, Birus could implant evil into people, like a viral infection, which is where his original name pun comes from. He did not delve into it much more than that, which reasonably led us to assume both were virus-based name puns that were carried over from this initial story development stage. However, in an interview released this morning with the news website Asahi, original author Akira Toriyama gives a little bit more insight into the characters’ name puns:

ビルスという名前はあらすじにあったものをそのまま使いました。どうやらビールスというかウイルスから取った名前だったようですが、僕は酒のビールからと勘違いし、付き人の名前はウイスキーから取ったウイスと名付けてしまいました。

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The name “Birusu”, I used as-is from the story outline. Anyway, it’s apparently a name that was taken from “virus”, but I mistakenly thought it came from “beer”, and gave his attendant the name “Uisu”, which I took from “whiskey”.

This certainly explains why Watanabe has been so adamant on Twitter that they were not alcohol-based puns. The interview goes on to note that Shueisha seems to officially disagree with him, though:

集英社から正式に「ビルス→ビール」「ウイス→ウイスキー」に由来すると補足説明あり。

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Shueisha gives a supplemental explanation that officially, “Beers” comes from “beer”, and “Whis” from “whiskey”.

Our own Julian (“SaiyaJedi”) has confirmed that the movie’s theatrical program does in fact use the romanizations “Beers” and “Whis” for the two characters.

So there we have it: two sets of “official” name pun sources, confirmations, and justifications. As is always the case, there are certainly two sides to every story!

Stay tuned for extra analysis of the movie, additional interviews and production insight, and more right here on Kanzenshuu…!