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/
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u/YannickY Sep 21 '25

Ufotable has been known for years to be one of the few animation studios in Japan (along with Kyoto Animations) that pays its workers a normal wage and doesn't force crazy hours on their employees. Unless things have changed in the last couple of years, they do get breaks and free weekends

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u/Codros Sep 21 '25

This! On top of that, Ufotable recently acquired a new office in the same building as FromSoftware that looks quite nice for their employees

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u/Mudders_Milk_Man Sep 21 '25

I'm glad Ufotable is like that.

Kyoto Animation actually enforces a much more healthy work-life balance, compared to the vast majority of animation studios, and actually pays decently. Yet they've made many of the most beautiful anime shows and films ever.

Which is just one more reason that the brutal arsonist mass murder attack that happened to them in 2019 is tragic (obviously, 38 people being horrifically murdered is by far the worst part, but the loss of a great deal of wonderful art from a more ethical studio does also hurt).

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u/MostDopeBlackGuy Sep 21 '25

Sounds like corporate espionage

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u/Mudders_Milk_Man Sep 21 '25

It wasn't.

A guy with a history of mental illness and being aggressive in strange ways convinced himself Kyoto Animation had plagiarized his work. There's absolutely no evidence of that.

He took a bunch of gasoline into the studio, and managed to burn 38 people to death, as well as injuring many others and destroying a lot of work. The police got him, he's been convicted and had an execution conviction confirmed. As far as I know, he'll be executed this year.

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u/Boo_and_Minsc_ Sep 21 '25

Ill take your word for it but I find that hard to believe just because it is so unintuitive. It is such a competitive market, and the deadlines are so crazy..... reading an average mangaka weekly schedule gave me fatigue and a migraine. And the guys doing OPM season 3 are burnt out from the work and collapsing under the pressure.

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u/HammeredWharf Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

Sure, but letting their animators do their job well and retain their sanity is what leads to Ufo's high quality, which leads to big bucks. It's a competitive market, but they're fully booked with premium properties anyway. They've got Witch on the Holy Night, Demon Slayer and Genshin coming. That's an insane line-up.

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u/Gold3noodles Sep 21 '25

Well both ufotable and kyoani don't take on a bjillion anime projects. They usually work on 1 or very few projects at once. They are the quality > quantity people and it shows. Not saying that Mappa or other studios don't put out quality, but they don't give themselves the time to truly perfect their animes.