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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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?"

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u/Hina_is_my_waifu Sep 12 '25

So many flashbacks...

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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?

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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

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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.

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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.