Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle is now one of the highest grossing films of the year, and it really proves that anime is getting harder to deny at the worldwide box office. Demon Slayer has been on a literal runaway train ever since it exploded with viral success during the anime’s debut season. It’s a funny story too as while Koyoharu Gotoge’s original manga series was already popular, the anime didn’t exactly gain a lot of attention at first. It wasn’t until that first season was at its climax and nearly ending that Demon Slayer really drew tons of fans to check it out.
Then this success turned into real world notice with the release of Mugen Train becoming the most successful film in Japan’s box office history. This already seemed huge at the time (especially during the COVID-19 pandemic), but now that seemingly lightning in a bottle reaction has struck twice as Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle has already gone on to break many of those older records. Now as it reaches a new worldwide milestone, it’s proof positive that anime is really going to define the box office of the 2020s moving forward.
Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Becomes Sixth Highest Grossing Film in the World
After the latest weekend, the worldwide box office gross for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle has now crossed over $633 million USD. This makes it the sixth highest grossing film of 2025, beating out film’s like the Brad Pitt starring F1 and massive franchises like DC Studios’ Superman. This marks a huge shift for comic based films in theaters as the anime film adapting Koyoharu Gotoge’s manga has done better than any other comic property seen this year (and in quite some time).
The current highest grossing films of the year overall include Ne zha 2 at $1.92 billion, Lilo and Stitch at $1.037 million, A Minecraft Movie at $957 million, Jurassic World: Rebirth at $867 million, and How to Train Your Dragon at $635 million. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle is quickly catching up to fifth place, and has a great chance of doing so as it gets ready to hit major territories like China. This train is far from slowing down, and it really proves how tastes have changed with movie going audiences as the larger shift in theaters continues to paint a new kind of path forward.
If you look at some of the biggest movies of the year, many of them are anime or animation based. Ne zha 2 absolutely dominated China before it started releasing around the world, Lilo and Stitch is a live-action adaptation of a classic animated film (complete with a CG hybrid Stitch), A Minecraft Movie is basically all green screen and CG animation, and all of that makes Demon Slayer’s big win here make all the more sense. Even the other major demon slaying release this year, KPop Demon Huntersmade waves at the box office after dominating streaming through the summer.
What Does This Mean for Anime at the Box Office?
But while these animated successes at the box office are highlighting the changes among audiences (as Gen Z and Alpha viewers lean more towards anime), there are still questions about what this means for anime in theaters overall. Demon Slayer’s success since Mugen Train has already changed the way anime films are released outside of Japan. The last few years have seen a much narrower release time from when they first hit Japan to international territories, and that’s led to higher returns at the box office itself as those properties are still hot.
It used to be that fans had to wait at least a year from a film’s launch in Japan for it to hit in the United States or other territories. This would harm total box office not only because that huge gap cools down any potential interest in the film itself, but social media and other sites would be flooded with the events of any film long before they got to have their official release. There were less reasons to actually go and see these movies. But that’s not the case anymore as films are coming to other territories mere weeks after their premieres in Japan.
This means anime studios are more inclined to release movies in theaters and that includes special events premiering new episodes of the TV anime early like the upcoming Jujutsu Kaisen film release ahead of Season 3 later this year. More chances to see anime in theaters means more chances to find a Demon Slayer like success for another franchise. Because at the end of the day, that’s still also another major question that needs to be answered. Is this success because of anime’s growing popularity or is Demon Slayer just that big of a hit?
Regardless of what that answer ultimately is in retrospect, there’s no denying that anime is here to stay. We’re going to see much more of it in theaters, and that’s going to result in bigger and bigger box office numbers around the world. What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
