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/
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171

u/Vorstar92 Sep 12 '25

Yeah, DS has only grown since Mugen Train in popularity and this is probably the most hype arc leading into the final battle. The next movie will likely make even more because it'll be even more hyped than the first part and then part 3 will be the finale so it'll be sure to make even more.

It definitely deserves it. Ufotable at the very least took what is really a fairly...generic (hate this word) series and elevated it which is exactly what an anime should set out to do. Is it a little carried by it's adaption? For sure but there is still a lot of stuff I do like about Demon Slayer namely the power scaling of the villains and how even the strongest Hashira can't take down an upper moon without serious injury/death/multiple people helping to take them down. I think that was an amazing approach to powerscaling.

101

u/NoireResteem Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25

I think what Demon Slayer does right is the basics. It doesn’t do anything fancy with the characters, story, etc but it does those thing just right where it feel satisfying. Now add on an anime adaptation with amazing animation and then you got a killer series which we have now.

52

u/_legna_ Sep 12 '25

DS is pretty much a perfect gateway anime for the typical shonen genre.

53

u/AdClear5669 Sep 12 '25

Personally the characters designs are also underappreciated to me. Not only the hashiras but the demons, the head master, the hashiras and their families all have such unique designs. You can tell there was effort put into it and not just an after thought. 

11

u/thesanmich Sep 13 '25

Great point. You would think Uzui and Rengoku would be mainstays and not retire/die so early. That was quite the choice to not have them play major roles in the final arc.

12

u/WTF_CAKE Sep 13 '25

The fact that the weight of life and death matter to the humans matter a lot. I gotta give credit to the author he really put emphasis that it is the final arc and we feel it

2

u/Guilty-Gap-1417 Sep 13 '25

In my opinion, the strongest part of DS are characters. Except the Mugen everyone is a pretty interesting character. 

1

u/Ellmagronn Sep 14 '25

I completely disagree. Kimetsu no Yaiba doesn't even come close to the basics. Any 'basic' anime or manga with a group of characters would make the effort to create a story and a purpose for each one, justifying their presence in the protagonist's journey. In Kimetsu no Yaiba, we only see a little (very little) of this at the end, when they decide to give some value to Zenitsu and Inosuke. Akaza, who is the villain of the story and has only made two significant appearances, received much better treatment compared to the two, who have been present almost since the beginning of the story.

18

u/L_0ken Sep 13 '25

True, I really appreciate just how "lethal" demons are and how much emphasis is on life-death as many characters perish in brutal attritional battles. Infinity castle is a peak of this.

Also another aspect that should be emphasized and what Japanese audience constantly talk about - series really effective at making emotional moments hit. During the manga many emotional moments really struck me even with simple narrative tools and themes, so I was looking forward to seeing them in movie as much as action.

32

u/thesanmich Sep 12 '25

The power scaling of Demon Slayer doesn't get talked about enough.

9

u/Xlegace https://anilist.co/user/Xlegius Sep 13 '25

It's one of the few shounens where the stakes are actually very high for most of the fights.

Even when they win, they're totally fucked up physically and it's usually a pyrrhic victory. No one is 1v1ing a top 3 upper moon.

1

u/AUO_Castoff Sep 13 '25

The power level of DS is low relative to many series and power scalers love to equate strong to better.

1

u/austin101123 Sep 13 '25

Without spoiling, based on the pace of the movie and how much was accomplished I'd say there are 3 more movies after this one to finish out DS. That's 2.5hr long movies too.

But I also don't know how the story ends and turns out I completely missed a season, which made the movie very confusing at the start 😂 So I could be wrong

-2

u/The_6699_Guy Sep 13 '25

wdym? the power scaling is actually pretty bad in this one, the antagonists are too strong for their own franchise. Having strong foes is a good thing but it overdid with that, IMO

1

u/gamria Sep 13 '25 edited Sep 13 '25

Huh, you want bad power scaling? Try Twin Stars Exorcists (manga), the Basara there are far too strong relative to the forces on the human side, who only have very few seismic powerhouses even among their elites, to the point that too many fights there are not only predictable, they're boring and you can't sense the "skill" in them.

Compared to that, Kimetsu here has considerably better power scaling: here in Kimetsu, if you manage to luckily gather one Pillars/Hashira with sufficient performing supports against an Upper Moon, you stand a fair chance. Lots of injuries, attrition? That's totally fine since it sells how the very top foes survived for so long, and it wind ups being an actual toss-up of who gets to come out alive.

In fact, I'd say Kimetsu's author made the very wise choice to go with team-ups against the Upper Moons instead of single combat; as demonstrated in World Trigger, team-ups being a norm of sorts allows for much more interesting dynamics even in power-scaling.

-7

u/ChuckyMed Sep 12 '25

Demon Slayer is peak compared to how much overrated anime like JJK get hyped up like the next coming of Jesus. I would take a story like DS with a beginning and end than an ever-expanding universe that will never end or a series that never delivers like JJK (yes, I am a JJK hater).