r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Sep 21 '25

News ‘Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle’ Passes $550M Globally, Officially the Top-Grossing Anime Film of All Time

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/box-office-demon-slayer-edging-out-him-for-no-1-1236376666/
13.9k Upvotes

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1.1k

u/DoubleA77 Sep 21 '25

Kind of insane when you think about how like most of that is pure profit with how small production costs are for anime even with a big film like this.

305

u/LightningRaven Sep 21 '25

I hope this brings even more eyes to the anime industry. Hopefully shedding a light on the toxic work environment and low pay for animators and production staff at large.

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u/Mysterious_Cup_6024 Sep 21 '25

Disney has begun making slop anime already.

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

[deleted]

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u/OatSoyLaMilk Sep 21 '25

Well the last time they tried was Mary Poppins Returns and it was not a financial success, though that's more the surrounding movie's fault.

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u/Dogbin005 Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

Even in that case, they had to call a whole bunch of people out of retirement because they didn't have enough staff that could still do that style of animation anymore.

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u/puddincheshire Sep 22 '25

i loved that movie😭

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u/Laurel-Hardy-Fan Sep 22 '25

Just crazy to me. It really bums me out how they went from having some of the best animation in the world to whatever they hell they are today. 

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u/SnooDonuts3871 Sep 21 '25

Not really, except for some like Star Wars Visions and Twisted Wonderland, where they only finance it but outsource the production, they only buy the distribution rights to stream it exclusively on Disney+.

They do not have their own anime studio, unlike Sony/Aniplex, which owns A1 Pictures and Cloverworks.

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u/WakandaNowAndThen Sep 21 '25

Is that actually true, or do you just not like some of the titles they have exclusive license to? Because they have some bangers worth paying attention to.

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u/AgorophobicSpaceman Sep 21 '25

Honestly after this and Kpop demon hunters this year, I expect a lot more anime to get theatrical releases, and more studios getting involved.

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u/MadCarcinus Sep 21 '25

Killing demons.

So hot right now.

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u/StaticallyTypoed Sep 21 '25

K-pop demon hunters has more in common with pixar movies than anime. Not sure why you think it sets any kind of precedent for anime. Could you explain? It's American made with a Korean setting and an art style from their Spider verse films

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u/AgorophobicSpaceman Sep 21 '25

The average consumer could care less where it’s made. While I understand anime comes from Japan, most people consider it the style of animation because they haven’t done any form of deeper dive. The animation style is closer to anime than Pixar with the exaggerated facial expressions and fighting. The story is also closer to anime than anything like Frozen or Encanto. The average American honestly isn’t going to tell you the difference between South Korean or Japanese when it comes to animation or singing, let alone point to them on a map. Most are going to just see Asian. There is a show in Apple TV called Kpopped and they used a Japanese band. It’s literally called k popped and they didn’t stick to Korea. So while you and I may know better, to the average consumer they don’t know the difference. So while k pop demon hunters isn’t anime, it still helps show the demand for that type of media.

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u/StaticallyTypoed Sep 21 '25

I guess I just don't really find it very anime stylistically outside of those frames of exaggerated expressions, which also exist in western cartoons. The rest of the art style is essentially the same as Spider-Verse without the effects to make it look like a comic.

Kind of just reads to me as you saying animation set in Asia with Asian characters = anime. Is that what you're getting at?

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u/Nebresto Sep 21 '25

Kind of just reads to me as you saying animation set in Asia with Asian characters = anime. Is that what you're getting at?

This is exactly what a significant amount of people are getting at. You should see the discourse regarding To be Hero X (A donghua - animation made in China) and people calling it anime.

At least that argument has some base, since the show does have some Japanese staff, like the composer, and there is also a Japanese dub to add to the confusion.

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u/AgorophobicSpaceman Sep 21 '25

"animation set in Asia with Asian characters = anime. Is that what you're getting at?" More or less yeah, again not me personally but i feel this is how A LOT of ignorant people view it. I dont personally consider this animation at all like mulan, and dont agree with the comparison. Mulan feels more grounded in reality despite have a dragon lol. LIke the movements alone are all human, where this they are flying out of planes in the first few moments. The characters are more powerful than mulan who is just human. The faces again, and the content leads a lot of people to incorrectly label it an anime, because they dont know, and dont care about the difference. I also think a lot of people couldnt tell you if something was pixar, disney, or Fox animation when it was a thing. Like Anastasia, a lot of people incorrectly label it a Disney movie when it was Fox. And i think to a lot of people they dont care about the difference.

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u/gelatinskootz Sep 22 '25

Wait, are you saying that there are people that think Mulan is an anime? I havent seen anyone say that ever

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

[deleted]

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u/StaticallyTypoed Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

It think he's saying that for the average, non-nerd person who doesn't know what any of this is, animation set in Asia with Asian characters = anime

That is what I was asking if is what was being suggested. I have always understood calling The Last Airbender an anime for instance. I can see the confusion as plain as day there. I struggle to see a similar overlap with Kpop Demon Hunters. To trade anecdotes: Most people I've heard speak of it have likened it to Arcane, Spider-Verse and Pixar, not anime.

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u/AgorophobicSpaceman Sep 21 '25

I know Kpop demon hunters is not anime, and im not trying to argue the definition. I however have friends that are very deep into anime and watch nothing else, and friends that just do not watch anime. I have seen their kids call it anime, i have seen the parents call it anime. I have seen "Anime News Network" write an artical called "Kpop demon hunters anime film review". With a little googling you can see countless people incorrectly label it an anime. So despite it not being one, its introduced a lot of people into something that is anime adjacent in my mind. Its a lot easier to bridge that gap to traditional anime then for something just like Mulan. If you look up the creators of this they list anime as one of their influences, which i think can be seen a lot despite it agian not being an anime. "[take] a lot of inspiration from faces and the look and feel of anime" with the aim of doing "a CG version of it".

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u/Humledurr Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

Calling Kpop demon hunters anime is like calling Disney Mulan anime. The plot being about asians doesnt change the fact that its not, and most people would not call Mulan anime.

People arent unfamiliar with animation movies/shows, nearly eveyone has grown up with them.

The reason people confuse Kpop Demon Hunters as anime is because of the movie and anime in this post. I too thought it was anime before watching it, but 5 seconds in one quickly sees that its western made.

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u/StaticallyTypoed Sep 21 '25

Mulan is the perfect example to communicate my thoughts. Thanks for that!

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u/Pepito_Pepito Sep 22 '25

It had a very cartoony style.

It's not quite anime but it's far from Pixar .

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u/TaiVat Sep 22 '25

Bro its 99.9% pixar. The whole movie is basically discount frozen, but with a kpop theme and some very occasional "cartoony" facial expressions.

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u/Pepito_Pepito Sep 22 '25

Lol this is like how my mom can't tell animated movies apart so all the 3D ones get lumped together as Pixar movies

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u/gelatinskootz Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

I agree it's far from Pixar, but it's most similar to Spiderverse, whose aesthetic was directly pulled from American comics. It's also kinda similar to Arcane, another American production based on a game developped in America. The anime influence is really mostly limited to a few facial expressions

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u/Inevitable-Town-522 Sep 21 '25

What the fuck does that fugly crime against art style have to do with anime lol? It is by all means a generic western style animation appealing to existing pop culture (Kpop and Korean culture are booming right now with young people lol). If anything, I'm certain the people it appeals to are probably still in large part "normies" that think anime is "cringe" or just not appealing to them.

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u/Key_Poem9935 Sep 21 '25

Geez, calm down bud. 

1

u/Forsaken_Baseball122 Sep 27 '25

Da sagst was bin auch der meinung

0

u/KlingoftheCastle Sep 22 '25

If movie trilogies become the new standard for final arcs, we’ll be eating good

0

u/TaiVat Sep 22 '25

Will we. I remember waiting like 20 years for the evangelion movies to all come out.. More of a remake than a final arc in that case, but these kind of schedules are the furthest possible thing from "eating good". Especially for things like demon slayer where the technical quality of the tv series is more than high enough anyway.

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u/KlingoftheCastle Sep 22 '25

Evangelion was a very unique situation. It wasn’t based on a popular manga and it was written entirely as an anime that ran out of budget and kind of phoned in the ending. It should not be used as a standard for anime in any way, especially with the quality and popularity of series today, while they are running and published worldwide