Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train continues its dominant run as the anime movie to beat by taking home the Animation of the Year award at the Japan Academy Awards beating other heavyweights including Violet Evergarden: The Movie, Poupelle of Chimney Town, Josee, The Tiger and The Fish, and Stand By Me Doraemon 2. Of course, with the record-shattering run that it's been having since it first premiered in Japanese theaters back in October 2020, it's really little wonder that it took home one of the most important awards in Japanese animation. Aniplex representative director Atsuhiro Iwakami was the one to collect the award at the ceremony.
A direct sequel to the hit television series, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train was setting new records on a weekly basis for the first couple of months and at one point was the highest-grossing movie in the world. Not just Japan, but the entire world.
In five months, it's brought in over $400 million USD (the first anime movie ever to do so) making it the highest-grossing anime movie and Japanese movie of all time. Keep in mind that this is before the movie has made its official North American debut, which will occur later this year, or the home video release which is scheduled for June in Japan.
Originally a manga created by Koyoharu Gotouge, which ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from February 2016 to May 2020, the series was collected into 23 volumes and became one of the hottest tickets in Japan of the last few years. Taking place in Taisho-era Japan, the series' main character is Tanjiro Kamado, who returns home one day to find almost his entire family murdered by demons. The only survivor is his sister Nezuko, who has been turned into a demon. This leads Tanjiro to enter training to become a demon slayer to research his sister's curse and figure out a way to change her back into a human. The series has already been green-lit for a second season.
Demon Slayer is undeniably popular. What makes me curious, however, is if the series will have lasting power. Will we still be talking about this series in 5 years? 10 years? I remember once upon a time we were all spellbound by other shonen series, and now those series rarely get brought up in conversation any longer.
Sources: Comic Natalie, Yaraon, Crunchyroll News
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