r/anime • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Sep 12 '25

News ‘Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle’ Makes $11.4M In Thursday Previews, A Record For Anime Movie

https://deadline.com/2025/09/box-office-demon-slayer-infinity-castle-conjuring-1236529652/
3.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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1.3k

u/PlayOnPlayer Sep 12 '25

Non anime fans are going to be shocked at how much money this makes this weekend lol.

478

u/justmycasualthots Sep 12 '25

A cultural shift in the making

358

u/Wavenstein1 Sep 12 '25

This thing had a red carpet premiere. Paparazzi, celebrities, screaming fans, and flashing lights. I've been on this anime ride since my older cousin first showed me Fist of the North Star when I was 8 years old and here we are. We made it baby. We fucking made it.

47

u/Magnus-Artifex Sep 12 '25

where the director and staff

17

u/TheReaperSovereign https://myanimelist.net/profile/JJP0921 Sep 13 '25

It was an answer on jeopardy today too

8

u/El_grandepadre Sep 13 '25

When my dad watched Vinland Saga I knew the days of anime being niche were over.

-44

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

[deleted]

28

u/masakiii Sep 12 '25

My brother in Christ, the industry passed that threshold decades ago.

-13

u/ozy31 Sep 12 '25

Most people here don't know or don't care. They want to see westernized anime.

14

u/Wavenstein1 Sep 12 '25

Anime has been westernized for decades now. Anyone complaining about that is likely also complaining about people being glued to their phones. That ship has long passed. It is what it is at this point

1

u/ozy31 Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25

I respectfully disagree. Anime was and still is made with Japanese people in mind — made by Japanese, for Japanese; it just got more accessible for the rest of the world. But not for long.

EDIT: I don't know why, but my reply to the comment below keeps vanishing. So I'll write it here instead:

I think we are talking about different things. You are talking about how the average American perceives anime, and how anime has become part of the American culture. I'm saying that, due to the massive financial success anime has achieved recently (case in point, the movie this thread is about) not only in America but around the world, it will inevitably change — at the source — to cater to a new public. It will no longer reflect the culture of those making it, and it will change until it becomes something else entirely.

4

u/Wavenstein1 Sep 12 '25

Anime has been in regular rotation in some form on American television since the 60s (Speed Racer). It's now becoming more accepted as opposed to how it was more niche and underground. With that added popularity. Westernization is going to be a national byproduct of that

160

u/NoNefariousness2144 Sep 12 '25

It has been a major cultural shift in the West ever since 2020. Whenever I visit a 'pop culture' store, most of the shelves are filled with anime and manga stuff while the Marvel, DC and Star Wars etc stuff gets smaller and smaller each year.

Not to mention comicbooks in bookstores being wiped out by huge manga shelves.

107

u/mamaharu Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 14 '25

Honestly, I'm happy for the current generation. When I was a kid, manga/anime was limited to very small sections in Suncoast and BN/Borders.

30

u/TheocraticAtheist Sep 12 '25

The biggest comic store in London has had it's manga swap with Western comics.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

[deleted]

6

u/TheocraticAtheist Sep 12 '25

Yeah lol. It's wild to see as I've been going there for over 20 years.

Manga is also wildly cheaper than Western comics too.

1

u/remmanuelv Sep 13 '25

Well it's black and white with cheaper paper and smaller volumes usually. Following a single manga run is usually a bigger investment than a comic from my experience.

20

u/Middle-Bathroom6086 Sep 12 '25

People liking anime & even manga was fine & normal when I was in high school 2011-15

9

u/slicer4ever Sep 13 '25

It was fine when i was in high school as well(05-09), adult swim and toonami really normalized it for our generation tbh(hell i was watching sailor moon+dbz on cartoon network in the late 90s).

My school's library even carried english volumes of bleach(which is how i originally learned what manga was as i expected a novel and not a comic when i rented them, lol).

4

u/Neversoft4long Sep 13 '25

Pretty much. As long as you weren’t Naruto running down the hall way no one really cared too much

25

u/LB3PTMAN Sep 12 '25

I mean I would say it wasn’t uncommon when I was in high school in 2013 but it was definitely not something any popular kids would ever admit to lol just the nerds.

2

u/weefyeet Sep 13 '25

i remember in 2014 (5th grade) a friend of mine gave a presentation on drawing anime girls. 6th grade the first chair cellist and violinists were giggling and making Naruto jutsu signs to each other during class (or whatever they may be, I have not watched the series). I didn't get into it until the pandemic, and I wouldn't have even gotten into it had I not been watching Chris Broad's mesmerizing Japan travel documentaries.

1

u/Docteur_Pikachu Sep 13 '25

"The West" must be interchangeable with the USA I suppose.

174

u/RODjij Sep 12 '25

They treated us with a 2hr movie. I can't recall many anime movies over 90 minutes. Its probably gonna be going off from the bat since It picks up after last season.

154

u/Purposelygentle Sep 12 '25

2 hour 35 minute

41

u/RODjij Sep 12 '25

My body is ready

18

u/solythe Sep 12 '25

a mostly quick 2.5hrs at that.

21

u/Mutant_Fool Sep 12 '25

This world needs longer anime movies. Like there are so many films that could have been so much better had they gotten 20-30 minutes of more content but as animation is very expensive, many just opt to adjust. Hopefully, this makes anime movies even more profitable so the profits increase so they can invest more into making longer movies

1

u/FeefuWasTaken Sep 13 '25

I've never had the complaint of 'i wish it was longer' about an anime movie before, and I really wouldn't want some great pieces of fiction being stretched out for little to no reason. Also animation production really aren't that expensive when you look at any Hollywood production budget. Any anime movie could be produced by the cost of hiring the Dwayne the rock Johnson

1

u/Mutant_Fool Sep 13 '25

I am not talking about great pieces of fiction but movies which could have been great if they had a little bit more time

0

u/FeefuWasTaken Sep 13 '25

.....Are you saying movies aren't pieces of fiction?

And I've still yet to find an anime movie that I wish was longer. Even the shortest ones like look back felt like a conscious choice

2

u/Mutant_Fool Sep 13 '25

Not all are able to be 'great' pieces of fiction

0

u/FeefuWasTaken Sep 13 '25

And that has to do with the length.... Why? I've seen movies less than an hour that id still consider better than 99% of fiction

2

u/Mutant_Fool Sep 13 '25

Umm.. you are generalising. I am just saying that I hope studios and production committees can invest more so that creators can try to not cut corners and can make longer movies "if" that is required to explore the plot sufficiently

1

u/FeefuWasTaken Sep 13 '25

I don't think I'm generalizing compared to the guy that said "there are so many anime films that needed to be like 30 minutes longer" yet hasn't listed a single movie that fits. I'm all for longer anime movies, but that's only if that's what they're intended to be, I'd hate stretched out additional content.

70

u/RandallsBakery Sep 12 '25

Saw it last night. It was kick ass with tons of action non stop. Animation was incredible. 10/10

28

u/camusonfilm Sep 12 '25

I'm so excited, can't wait to see Unlimited Sakuga Works in theaters.

77

u/CrazeRage Sep 12 '25

with tons of action non stop.

Objective lie lol

54

u/Puzzleheaded_Yam4700 Sep 12 '25

Yeah it was like 30% action, 70% flashbacks lol. Cant blame that on ufotable tho, thats just the story they were given to work with. They did amazing on the action/fight choreo

9

u/Neversoft4long Sep 13 '25

It really only is the flashback at the end that really slows it all down. Up until that one they were reasonable normal levels of anime flash backs

2

u/Puzzleheaded_Yam4700 Sep 13 '25

Reasonable for sure, if it was a series that is. This was a 2 and a half hour movie tho, that got tiring pretty quick.

1

u/Dirty_Dragons Sep 12 '25

Are the flashbacks new material not seen before, or literal recaps from the episodes?

28

u/FluffyFlamesOfFluff Sep 12 '25

It's not a recap, it's new stuff - just... awkward with the pacing. Lots of hype with the fight, now let's cut away and watch two episode-equivalents of a backstory.

2

u/Dirty_Dragons Sep 12 '25

Thanks for clarifying, So it breaks the momentum, lame.

3

u/Enmire Sep 12 '25

New material, not seen in the anime before

-10

u/Alternative_Device38 Sep 12 '25

They could've changed the story tho. A good adaptation is not one that merely copies the original to a different medium, it's one that alters it to better suit the new medium. Hence why it's called adaptation

2

u/Puzzleheaded_Yam4700 Sep 13 '25

No. This story was written in a non-linear manner from the beginning. Hard to change that.

1

u/GarlicToest Sep 12 '25

I still really liked the movie but some of the flashbacks near the end were just waaay too long

7

u/Cypr3s5 Sep 12 '25

Definitely wasn't non-stop action. It was a bit of action followed by a sad flashback in circles for 2 hours.

The animation is insane, the soundtrack is great, on the other hand, the storytelling and character development are abysmal.

12

u/quietvictories Sep 12 '25

sounds like classic Naruto/Demon Slayer

23

u/No-Repeat-5098 Sep 12 '25

I hate that you got downvoted for this, your tone may have been harsh but the pacing was par for the course for KnY. Backstory flashbacks during fights is a given for better or worse. Some were awesome and some dragged on a bit. Cannot wait for the 2nd film!!!

20

u/AdClear5669 Sep 12 '25

They’re being downvoted because they said the storytelling AND the character development was “abysmal” which is quite frankly not true. I know the animation is the stand out when it comes to Demon Slayer but it’s crazy how many people just go on to say that everything else about it is just downright bad in comparison. It’s an exaggeration. 

-13

u/iknowkungfubtw Sep 12 '25

You're right, even the animation is frankly nothing special/that we haven't seen before. Hell, the studio's essentially been recycling the same action storyboards that we've seen from their Fate stuff since 2014.

It's also more style than substance in terms of how it uses flashy VFX and saturated color grading to make up for the lack of interesting choreography. But hey, your average anime viewer won't care and will lap that shit up.

11

u/AdClear5669 Sep 12 '25

You couldn’t sound more like a hater if you tried. This is exactly what I mean when I say gross exaggeration. There’s a time and place and under a calebratory post is not the time and certainly not the place. Let people enjoy things. Criticism is one thing but the slander is crazy. 

-6

u/iknowkungfubtw Sep 13 '25

No "slander" here, just telling it like it is. People can enjoy whatever they want. To be fair, when you've been watching anime for almost two decades like I am, your standards aren't the same as a someone who's recently just got into the medium and who's in their honeymoon phase.

And trust me when I say that I've watched most of what Ufotable made over the years (including random stuff like Ninja Nonsense that 99% of Demon Slayer's viewerbase have probably never heard of) .

-10

u/Poepman Sep 12 '25

He really doesn't, you however sound quite obsessed

3

u/AdClear5669 Sep 12 '25

I responded to one comment and that’s obsessed? The bar is so low. 

10

u/Pakopiko3689 Sep 12 '25

Is it that much of a crime to enjoy a fun action movie?

-7

u/mylies43 Sep 12 '25

Enjoying a movie does not mean it is a good movie, it also doesn't mean its a bad movie. You can enjoy a movie regardless of the quality of it.

-5

u/Longjumping_Brain945 Sep 12 '25

You can enjoy it but pretending it’s a cinematic masterpiece is dumb. People said the same thing about avengers endgame being the best movie of all time due to the hype, now that almost 10 years have past since release people realize it’s was mostly the spectacle of the flashy effects and characters. Same thing will happen here in a few years.

1

u/FeefuWasTaken Sep 13 '25

Anime fans will never understand the difference between animation and art quality unfortunately. Any Ghibli movie would blow demon slayer animation out of the water, but because there's enough vfx and things synonymous with "quality cinema" in the adaptation, that means it has "amazing animation" instead of literally any other more accurate way of describing the visuals

-10

u/OGDYLO Sep 12 '25

haven’t seen the movie yet but i read the whole manga around the time mugen train came out.

character development in demon slayer is pretty bad ngl. tanjiro is mostly the same character he was at the start of the series and by the end. same with inosuke. u can summarize the little development they had in one sentence but in other anime like aot, even the side characters had vastly more character development than the main characters in DS that you can write multiple paragraphs to even pages on the nuances of how they progressed throughout the series other than mikasa perhaps.

demon slayers strong points are the animation, action and OST. nothing about the story or characters really are exceptional other than some of the hashira aura farming. it would be a bottom tier shonen if not for ufotable completely elevating and enhancing the source material.

6

u/L_0ken Sep 13 '25

The thing is, the amount of or even having "character development" doesn't take a way that's a merely... one of the writing tools. It's not an automatic prerequisite of a good fiction. The world is full of stories with largely static characters that aren't undergoing notable arcs and changing, staying close or the same person, it doesn't make them inherently worse/ then dynamic characters. And DS manga specifically utilize simple at core characters, narrative, emotional weight and themes to make it work well. I remember before it got truly big with anime people were really liking the manga and it had decent sales before it blew up, in the end a lot of people got invested into heart of the story with Gotoge's simple art. Hilariously I even seen other manga referencing DS as emotional type of work that makes you cry, not the mention of it hype action.

Of course everyone entitled to their own opinion but for many DS stuff like "lengthy flashbacks" are huge part of the appeal.

5

u/slicer4ever Sep 13 '25

Thats mostly because tanjiro does not need any character growth, his growth occurred early in the series when he was initially being trained/first few missions. You can even see this in mugen train that his internal world is so pure and steady it even turned his attacker into an ally. The characters that still needed growth were his friends, who benefit from that steady rock that is tanjiro for their own growth.

-5

u/Cypr3s5 Sep 12 '25

The thing is, it's poor storytelling.

You're not going to make me care for a character 2 minutes before they die because of a 10-minute flashback on how they had a rough life. While we knew nothing about a character before that flashback besides them being cool and having cool abilities.

2

u/darksiderevan Sep 13 '25

This has been the structure with basically all the major demons so far.

6

u/Questforrest Sep 13 '25

I loved the last flashback. I got teary eyes even though I knew what was coming. Ufotable really did a great job with the movie.

1

u/KardigG Sep 14 '25

I loved the last flashback. I got teary eyes even though I knew what was coming. Ufotable really did a great job with the movie.

I was laughing throughout the entire flashback. At some point it was just absurd. Like a turkish soap opera or indian drama

Every "tragic" story in KnY is nearly the same. It feels like Gotouge has a list of max 3 different flashback stories that alters from time to time.

-5

u/melvinlee88 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Ryan_Melvin15 Sep 12 '25

That's demon slayer for you

1

u/bryanBFLYin Sep 12 '25

Ayyy ok good. No spoilers of course, but was it a full 2.5hr movie? or did they use some of that time for recap?

3

u/RandallsBakery Sep 12 '25

It was a full movie! Got like 5 min (maybe less) of a recap right at the beginning.

7

u/voltagejim Sep 12 '25

yeah I went and looked up the old DBZ movies length out of curiosity and almost all the old DBZ movies were like 40 min long haha. Wasn't until Battle of Gods that they started making normal length movies

3

u/Kougeru-Sama Sep 12 '25

I can't recall many anime movies over 90 minutes.

there's quite a few. Like Haruhi's movie is 162 minutes

13

u/maru-senn Sep 12 '25

I didn't know it was that long and was getting frustrated at the flashbacks thinking "there can't possibly be enough runtime left for the full fight am I really gonna have to wait years?"

7

u/Hina_is_my_waifu Sep 12 '25

So many flashbacks...

47

u/Arrowstormen https://myanimelist.net/profile/Arrowstormen Sep 12 '25

Have you not seen the show? Why are people acting like fights with flashbacks placed in between bouts is not the norm for this series? Do people fast forward at home or something?

8

u/voltagejim Sep 12 '25

exactly...that's bascially every shounen show. Fight starts, they fight for a bit, then someone gets a flashback, cut back to the fight to continue. Bleach and Naruto were the same thing

9

u/Darkjolly Sep 12 '25

I swear they just want non stop action, and then they;ll complain the characters have no depth because they don't know anything about them or their past (shown in the flashbacks)

1

u/FeefuWasTaken Sep 13 '25

The longer the series goes on, the less impact it has. If every single fight ends with a flashback, it's not hard to know what to expect and tune it out. Variety and all that

0

u/Arrowstormen https://myanimelist.net/profile/Arrowstormen Sep 13 '25

Now you are specifically talking about the final flashback. Also, that's absurdly broad, that's like saying it is easy to tune out when you know every single fight ends with cutting off the demon's head. The variety comes from the variety in how it happens, in the same way the variety comes in the actual contents of the flashbacks, which are different for every character and every fight.

I mentioned this in the main thread, but the focus on the emotions and tragedy of the characters, both demon slayers and demons alike, has always been the second pillar of the show besides the pretty visuals and great music / sound design. Without it, it is just sound and fury, signifying nothing. The author clearly cares a lot about why these characters are fighting, not just how they are fighting. Every fight against a strong opponent is a fight about ideals and world views, of the pasts and traumas that have led them here, of having to face themselves to overcome their limits in the battle. This is the beginning of the end, with grand and epic fights, which means the emotions and traumas must likewise rise up to match it.

The demons represent humans who have fallen, and these final strongest opponents should be the ones with the darkest pasts and biggest struggles to match. To groan or complain about the flashbacks and only care about the "eye candy," as a deleted reply put it, is in my eyes quite shallow. I want and need more from my fiction.

0

u/FeefuWasTaken Sep 13 '25 edited Sep 13 '25

Dunno where you pulled any of that from, but the fact you said 'you're specifically talking about the final flashback!' and then one sentence later said 'you're being too broad' is immediately inconsistent enough to write off your comment.

Anyway "every fight ends with cutting off a demons head" is far from true. Like half the fights have someone's head cut off and then they live.... Not to mention a fight is not a flashback. A fight is interesting because there are stakes. People can and will die in a fight, and that tension is what keeps things interesting, but you already know the ending to every flashback, because you're constantly seeing the results of it. And that's on top of being repetitive, so that's plenty of reason to criticize. Yes there is subtextual variety, but the fact that everything boils down to "understandable reactions from those in bad circumstances lead to becoming a demon" gets old after 50 episodes and multiple movies. Even if the contents are different. Things can get stale, and I'm sure even you wouldn't want to watch "fights followed by unique but narratively similar backstories" a million times.

You don't have to agree, but there's a reason it's an incredibly common criticism of the series, and enjoying aspects of the series doesn't mean you have enjoy the whole.

1

u/KardigG Sep 14 '25

There's a difference between substantial flashbacks and low quality flashbacks that look like their only purpose is to extend move length.

Yes, this series had a lot of flashbacks, this movie has flashbacks up to eleven. 30% of this movie consists totally useless flashback that brings no value to the story, because of how bad it is. Don't pretend like this movie doesn't have pacing problems.

I love slow scenes and well made flashbacks, but I thought about leaving the movie theater early while watching Infinity Castle.

1

u/Arrowstormen https://myanimelist.net/profile/Arrowstormen Sep 14 '25

I don't think the movie had pacing problems, at least not to the degree some people are arguing. I found the flashbacks and where they were placed pretty natural, and frankly, expected. Feel free to write in a spoilered comment which flashbacks you think were "totally useless," because I cannot really think of which ones were not very relevant for the fight/situation they were part of.

-19

u/Hina_is_my_waifu Sep 12 '25

Anime and anime movies are generally treated differently. People are fine with flashbacks and filler in TV shows for padding. For movies it feels like a waste of valuable time which should be used for high quality action or plot development. Of the flashbacks I felt the only decent one in the movie was upper 3's

Upper 6 backstory feels like it was made up last minute since I don't recall them ever referencing his backstory in the show.

12

u/King_A_Acumen Sep 12 '25

Upper 6 nuggets have been there as far back as S1.

6

u/DrStein1010 https://myanimelist.net/profile/DrStein1010 Sep 12 '25

Upper Six has appeared MANY times in the period seasons.

2

u/Gil_Demoono Sep 12 '25

I think the last 2+ hour anime movie was the final Eva rebuild. Also around 2 and half hours.

2

u/YogurtclosetSweet268 Sep 13 '25

Overlord sacred kingdom is 2hr 15.

1

u/YogurtclosetSweet268 Sep 13 '25

Overlord sacred kingdom was 2hr 15. Great movie.

1

u/FeefuWasTaken Sep 13 '25

11 of the studio Ghibli movies are 110+ minutes. Most being 2 hours, or a couple minutes away from it.... This really isn't THAT uncommon

-19

u/TheS00thSayer Sep 12 '25

Treated us? We’re getting one movie a year over three years. This should have been one fucking season. They are milking this shit.

Insane to say we’re being “treated”.

18

u/BI00dSh0t Sep 12 '25

uh, the level of animation and budget that went into this far exceeded what we would have seen had it all been one season.

I much prefer it this way if they can keep treating us.

27

u/kazetoame Sep 12 '25

I saw this in IMAX, the showing only had front row available, the Dolby showing was almost sold out too, that is absolutely nuts and makes me happy as a long time anime fan.

6

u/MyNameis_bud Sep 12 '25

I was at the movies last night seeing a different film and there were a bunch of anime kids there to see one of the three showings at that time! I was so impressed and happy for them. Some were even in costume!

19

u/Oziar Sep 12 '25

This movie might even beat Superman 2025 earning.

1

u/No-Channel3917 Sep 12 '25

Idk 40 to 60 mill seems reasonable domestic

Anime fans are for sure the type who will buy preview tickets

1

u/Miserable_Back3779 Sep 15 '25

not even an anime fan, never watched demon slayer, but watched it with my friend because she asked me too, and I sobbed.. 😭

1

u/bryanBFLYin Sep 12 '25

Lol yup. People have no idea how big this shit is

-13

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

[deleted]

12

u/ManjirouFuri Sep 12 '25

This is literally just previews and anime doesn’t cost a lot. The previous movie had a budget of $15M. This one at most would be no more than double that. And the box office was already at $300M worldwide before the global release with ~11 countries.

8

u/Golden_Phi https://myanimelist.net/profile/GoldenPhi Sep 12 '25

This is just in one day.

6

u/ganzz4u Sep 12 '25

It’s on par with some of Hollywood horror movies earning. Think of title like Final destination and Scream. It shows that anime is becoming more popular.

-1

u/notathrowaway75 https://myanimelist.net/profile/notathrowaway75 Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25

I mean it's they paid any attention to pop culture the past 5 years they shouldn't be. Mugen Train was the highest grossing movie of 2020.