There is no denying that Demon Slayer’s second foray into cinemas with a feature film, Infinity Castle, is a smashing success, with over $70 million made in its opening weekend. Everything that made the franchise so popular is still there in Infinity Castle: animation quality on a level rarely seen today, exciting battles, and emotional backstories that add depth to characters. However, Infinity Castle is not just the latest installment in the Demon Slayer franchise, it’s also a movie. At least, that’s how it’s being marketed and sold, which raises the question: Is this a good movie?
If I have to judge Infinity Castle as a movie, it has one big issue: pacing. The action, which should be the focus of this specific arc of the story, is constantly interrupted by flashbacks, memories, reflections, visions, and digressions. As a manga and anime consumer with 25 years of experience, I am aware this is the bread and butter of the shonen genre. Demon Slayer’s secret is that it did not reinvent the wheel. The manga followed in the footsteps of classics such as Naruto and Bleach, where, even during the most apocalyptic duels, the action is interrupted to let the characters tell more about themselves and their motivations. It’s how you make them relatable, and Demon Slayer is a masterclass, making readers and viewers feel empathy even for flesh-eating monsters.
However, what works in manga and anime format does not necessarily work in a movie. There’s a reason anime and manga are so intrinsically related. Manga are usually created in chapter form, designed for episodic publication. Anime is episodic television (whether they air on TV first or directly on streaming platforms). At least for the shonen genre and its adjacents, the storytelling techniques and tricks are the same: You build tension in a crescendo and end on a cliffhanger, making readers and viewers want to come back next week for more. If there is a pause in the action, such as a flashback, it typically lasts for an entire chapter/episode or more. This works because both manga and anime are playing the long game.
A movie, however, is different by definition. Regardless of length, movies are usually treated as compact and self-contained pieces. They benefit from having an uninterrupted pace — especially action movies like Infinity Castle. It’s not just a matter of the story they tell in those precious hours, but also of its rhythm. Watching Infinity Castle feels like driving a powerful sports car with an engine that overheats every few minutes. The car starts and you feel the thrill of high speed, then it stops to let the engine cool off, again and again. This doesn’t build tension, but frustration.
Let’s be clear: Infinity Castle is a faithful reproduction of Demon Slayer creator Koyoharu Gotoge’s narrative style, but at certain points, it also felt like a way to make the manga chapters adapted here (140 to 156) last long enough for a feature movie. (For reference, the entire first season of Demon Slayer adapted 54 chapters of the manga.) This was to be expected when it was announced it would take three movies to adapt the remaining 66 chapters. The box office results prove this was clearly the right move, commercially speaking, but I still feel it would have worked better as an anime season.
That’s not to say Demon Slayer can’t become a good movie. The franchise’s first feature movie, Mugen Train adapted 13 chapters of the manga — that’s even less than Infinity Castle. So why does Mugen Train feel much more like a movie?
The Mugen Train Arc from the Demon Slayer manga was perfect for a movie adaptation. It’s short, compact, and self-contained. There are few characters involved, and the location is geographically limited. This results in a much tighter pacing, and the story flow is not interrupted as often. Infinity Castle, on the other hand, follows 20-plus characters, separated into small groups and lost in the endless, shifting landscape of the Infinity Castle, a gravity- and space-defying pocket dimension. It’s a chaotic battle for survival that also replicates a common trope in shonen: the heroes splitting up and facing powerful foes at the same time. We also don’t get to see the end of this battle, as it will continue in the next movie.
Infinity Castle noticeably improves in its second half, where the focus is all on Tanjiro and Giyu’s battle against Akaza. There are breaks in the action here, too, but they are better paced. Tanjiro and Akaza’s flashbacks are long but meaningful, providing pauses that feel like rests in a symphony, periods of silence contributing to the piece’s rhythmic structure, rather than frustrating stops at a red light.
I’m a fan of the franchise and I’ve read the entirety of the Demon Slayer manga, which likely had an impact on my viewing experience. I watched the movie along with a friend who hasn’t touched the manga, and she cried the entire time, which made me reflect on our different perspectives.
After thinking about it for a while, I realize now why my friend bawled her eyes out while I was often bored and frustrated. I knew the story already. Being already familiar with the emotional beats, I was watching for the action and visual spectacle. The sequence of pauses and flashbacks felt more frustrating to me because I already knew what they were trying to communicate — the complex character relationships and heart-wrenching backstories. What I felt as shortcomings in the movie were actually highlights for anime-only fans, and that speaks volumes about the quality of the franchise.
However, I still believe this would have been much better as a season of anime. With the occasional exception, Gotoge’s storytelling style is not suited for the movie format — if we have to judge these as movies and not merely as extra pieces of the anime. In the manga, the frequent breaks in the action can be conveyed through a handful of panels. In anime/movie form, these can be stretched for many long minutes, which leaves a heavier impact on the pacing. Mugen Train was an exception because of the peculiar characteristics of that arc.
Turning Demon Slayer’s Final Battle Arc into three movies may have been the best move money-wise, but in terms of viewer experience, I would have enjoyed one long anime season more.
