Courtesy of Sony Pictures Animation, ufotable, Aniplex, Shueisha and Crunchyroll.
The movie poster for, "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Infinity Castle" that was released on Sept.12.
Spoilers ahead for the film.
The long-awaited manga turned anime “Demon Slayer” just stunned the U.S. fans with the first movie installment of its final major story segment called “Infinity Castle”.
“Demon Slayer”, a beloved anime by many, is inching closer to its finale. The franchise blew up in 2021 with the release of its anime series. The series blew up due to its amazing animation and eye-catching visuals.
The series has six different major story segments known as arcs and “Infinity Castle” is the first part of the final arc.
This movie broke anime movie records grossing $70 million on its opening weekend beating “Pokémon: The First Movie” who previously held the title for 26 years.
The film was produced by Ufotable, a Japanese animation studio and directed by Haruo Sotozaki and Hikaru Kondo.
This movie had everything an anime movie could have. It included drama, action, suspense and sometimes even comedy even though this arc had a more serious tone than the previous arcs.
The film finally started answering plot points and digging deeper in the backstories of the main antagonists also known as the Upper Moon demons.
Their backstories are finally flushing out their characters and humanizing them by making us feel sympathy, especially with the backstories of Upper Moon Three: Akaza and Upper Moon Two: Doma.
Questions that viewers anticipated, like “Why was Zenitsu so serious?,” “Why did Kagaya Ubayashiki sacrifice his family?” or “Who was Shinobu Kocho’s sister?,” were finally answered in this film.
This movie was phenomenal and it’s just the first of the three more films to come.
I enjoyed this movie, being a fan of the “Demon Slayer” franchise for the past five years now. I loved witnessing the characters’ development from the beginning to the final few chapters of the story.
Having only 2 hours and 35 minutes, Ufotable only included these three fights— Shinobu and Kanao vs. Doma, Zenitsu vs. Kaigaku and finally Tanjiro and Giyuu vs. Akaza.
Shinobu and Doma’s fight was really personal due to Doma being the murderer of Shinobu’s sister Kanae Kocho.
Zenitsu’s fight was also really personal to him. This once goofy character became serious because his former peer Kaigaku betrayed their thunder breathing master and accepted demon blood to become an Upper Moon.
I found it really clever that for some scenes they had to change the pacing from the manga or sometimes they just copied the manga directly, which is called one-for-one.
I think changing the pace of some parts was a great move by ufotable and Sony Animation Studios because it gave the viewers some time to digest information.
A great example of them going one-for-one with the manga was during the Zenitsu vs. Kaigaku fight. The choreography and also just the sheer amount of hype that was built around that fight was really amazing, especially seeing it move rather than reading a comic panel.
Some people may have disagreed especially with some of the battles that had backstory sequences in the middle of the action-packed fight. IGN critics said that this movie had horrendous pacing issues with never-ending backstories that took them out of the battle.
I for one, didn’t mind it at all because it just made the story of these characters and what their motives were more impactful.
I think a great example for the pacing was during the Giyuu and Tanjiro vs. Akaza fight. The transitions were great with this sequence. It went from this insane battle to this really dramatic backstory where we finally got to know Akaza.
The animation in this film was very eye-catching. The film utilizes the use of CGI and 2D animation in a harmonious way. It wasn’t like some anime having really bad chemistry with the CGI.
A great example of CGI usage was during the Akaza fight, there was a scene where Akaza “aura farms” while he stood on a CGI pillar that emerged from the ground. Akaza blended perfectly with the pillar, and it didn’t stand out.
Like always, Ufotable, the seemed to deliver one of the greatest musical scores in this movie, with moments that gave the audience goosebumps.
YouTube critic, Penguinz0 even said that the soundtrack felt like, “You were watching an anime music video” because it just enhanced the film so much.
All in all, this movie was spectacular. If I had to give it a rating it’d probably be an 8/10 because we haven’t even gotten into the crazier parts yet.
If you are a fan of “Demon Slayer”, I recommend watching this film. Even if you read the manga, it doesn’t do it justice. This movie was amazing.
“Demon Slayer” has stunned us once again with this movie and fans cannot wait to see the next. This film has set the standard high for the upcoming movies.