Being a luddite American for so long, I wasn’t aware of Japan’s anime hype train movie machine. Many times, to tease the upcoming season, a movie will come out like an extended preview season premiere, getting the fanbase stoked for the forthcoming season. And if it’s the final season? Well, suffice to say, I’ve never watched/read anything on Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, but even I’m HYPED for whatever Haruo Sotozaki has planned when he plants us inside the Infinity Castle.
Man, on name alone I was amped up. Demon Slayers are part of a corps of humans protecting the world from mice. Just kidding, demons, obviously. The head demon Muzan Kibutsuji has retreated/lured back to his stronghold, the Infinity Castle. Inside, the Demon Slayer Corps is essentially split up. For this movie, 11ish members enter. Initially, they’re fighting lower ranked demons, but after easily dispatching those, the Upper Ranked 6 demons (essentially Muzan’s lieutenants) start targeting our 11 members, proving much more formidable, and intimate, foes.
If you’ve been sold the hype from your teenage child on Demon Slayer, just prepare yourself. The movie tries to help the uninitiated, but essentially you have to lock in right away or you’re gonna be REAL bored for a LONG time. The movie drops you right in where the story left off last TV season, and gets you into the action for this season. The point isn’t to conclude the story, but to cliffhanger you…so you tune in next week, duh! What you really hope for is any storytelling of value happens at all…or if it’s just a side adventure to hold interest. Fortunately, Infinity Castle gives us multiple shockingly interesting tales for a 2 and a half hour teaser, that are integral to the main arc of the Demon Slayers. Writer Ufotable (yes, real name) faithfully adapts the manga, which essentially tethers Upper Rank Demons to one or two of our Slayers. This makes all the battles hyper personal, automatically raising the stakes. Even better, the Upper Ranked Demons, like Upper Rank 2 (Doma, voiced by Mamoru Miyano) and Upper Rank 3 (Akaza, voiced by Akira Ishida) have more interesting backstories than the fascinatingly backstoried heroes we’re supposed to be rooting for. If the whole movie were just the Akaza vs. Demon Slayers Giyu (Takahiro Sakurai) and Tanjiro (Natsuki Hanae, the main character of the manga) fight, that film would have been one of the best character studies I’ve seen in 2025, filled with tragedy, magic, brilliance, proverbs, and incredible ballets of violence. Thankfully, for the emotional investment you’ll make in the movie like I did, there’s at least some mini stories that reach satisfying conclusions, so much so that I definitely teared up a couple times.
While a sword comes hurtling towards a demon’s neck in hopes for a bloody conclusion. And for most viewers, it’s the world building that will hook you first. The Infinity Castle itself is a marvel; specifically, a Dr. Strange like one, with rooms and floors shapeshifting to Muzan’s will. The camera flies us around the building menagerie, as one group of Slayers runs upwards while a couple other fall left to right through the floors. It’s disorienting initially, but it helped hone my focus so I could follow along, getting more excited as we flew towards the next Slayer/Demon battle going on. Ah yes, the battles. My theater was packed to see those clashes of “good” and “evil”, which delivered and then some. For the luddites, picture a swordfight with Captain Planet like abilities you can summon to try to best your opponent, who can do the same back to you with other elements. The animations dazzle the screen with each seemingly endless wrinkle director Haruo Sotozaki throws at the audience, making each battle ripple like the pages of a comic book but constantly exhaust the viewers with so much razzle dazzle they simply fall back with delirium many times, like I did. Everytime I thought they couldn’t possibly find something else to do and every time Sotozaki conjures a new wrinkle I hadn’t thought of before, making sure at 2.5 hours you’re almost always right on the edge of your seat.
The epic nature of The Infinity Castle can only make you eager for more. If you’re new to the Demon Slayers like me, or a hardcore fan like the rest of my theater, the movie mostly walks the impossible line to make this movie a little more than your average machine mandated anime hype train. Speaking of which, I think I saw that group in college, Anime Hype Train. Pretty good! Only played Loretta Lynn covers.