After the wild success of the latest Demon Slayer movie and the jaw-dropping arrival of the new Chainsaw Man, it’s fair to say the power balance of pop culture has shifted. American comic book adaptation supremacy isn’t quite dead, but it is being sliced through in slow motion as louder, braver, more beautifully animated films from the Far East win 2025. Critically, culturally and financially, anime has slain superhero movies this year.
Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc
Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc from MAPPA studio and the even more convolutedly titled Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle from Ufotable are bursting with a visual audacity that strikes with real force. They’re both part of long-running franchises that are somewhat comparable to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but they still carry a freshness that’s a world away from the brand fatigue plaguing The Avengers et al. Crucially, you can also jump into these anime sensations without having watched anything prior and not feel too punished for not having done your homework. I did just that and while I didn’t have attachment to the characters or understand much of the story, I enjoyed the heck out of both films as fantastic, invigorating sensory experiences.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle
Infinity Castle has been criticised – not unfairly – for being overstuffed and poorly paced, but goddamn if it isn’t an awesome kaleidoscope of hyper-saturated spectacle, representing the modern pinnacle of digital 2D-3D fusion. The breath-technique battles are these amazing sequences of increasingly astonishing super moves, put together with visual craftsmanship that uses colour, light and rhythm like musical instruments.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - Infinity Castle
Chainsaw Man takes a similar philosophy and jams it through a blender on full speed – eventually. While Infinity Castle has battles from the get-go, the first half of Chainsaw Man is all awkward teen flirtation and bizarre rom-com energy. The second half is full-scale carnage of a uniquely psychedelic, funny and grotesque variety. By the time the titular chainsaw bloke is riding a shark-god through Tokyo to battle the constantly exploding ‘Bomb Devil’ as metal gives way to pounding electronic beats and the animation cycles through a few different styles and palettes like a strobe, I realised my mouth had been open for 30-odd minutes straight. It’s easy to see why this sort of cinematic high is increasingly catching on worldwide.
Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc
Infinity Castle broke records in Japan and hit number one at the New Zealand, Australian, UK and USA box offices, among others. It’s pulled in more than US$700 million globally to date, which is considerably more than Superman or The Fantastic Four: First Steps. It is behind this year’s overall number one – the Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2, currently sitting on a gargantuan US$1.9 billion. For total viewer reach, however, even that will probably have been bested by Korean animated film KPop Demon Hunters, arguably the global cultural phenomenon of 2025. But the year isn’t over. After Infinity Castle held number one in Japan for nine consecutive weeks, it was finally dethroned by Chainsaw Man, which is gathering serious sales momentum as it opens in the West. It will achieve a massive haul, no doubt, but has a low chance of beating Infinity Castle.
A low chance is still a far greater chance than Marvel’s zero probability. The Infinity Saga pulled off a truly incredible, once-in-a-generation magic trick that was a lot of fun to experience. But after Endgame, it’s struggled to succeed on any front – hardcore Marvel fans still watch, but mainstream support has faded along with the quality. It doesn’t help that there were so many crappy TV shows you had to watch to keep up with the new movies, as well as all the old movies, as things got increasingly bogged down in a mind-numbing multiversal mishmash. If you prefer your modern superhero movies to be drained of colour with a Michael Bay approach to story logic and a grimdark teen edgelord vibe, the Snyderverse provided several times over – and you’ve got the 86-hour director’s cut of Rebel Moon to rewatch for even more.
Avengers: Endgame
Justice League
Over the past 20 years, visual effects capabilities and the market forces of the film industry allowed us to get comic book adaptations with photo-realistic depictions of superpowers and budgets big enough to attract AAA talent. So we may well have seen the best they have to offer – now what anime is doing is more interesting and impressive. Infinity Castle and Chainsaw Man feel more alive as messier, more sincere beasts. Their characters are less smug and less omnipotent, their stories far less predictable – and instead of chasing photorealism with effects, they aim for a kind of emotional realism instead, using their art to express inner states in a way live-action cannot. Plus, of course, the action sequences kick unbelievable arse, with constant thrills and inventiveness that feels like the future of cinematic spectacle.
Rather than simply being a very good year for anime, this feels more like a coronation. Asian studios aren’t chasing Hollywood anymore, they’re leading it. Around the planet they’ve conquered cinemas and dominated streaming, proving the world’s biggest movie hits can be intimate, weird, messy and handmade, without losing scale. Ufotable and MAPPA are but two of these studios about to build on this year’s success with more cinematic exhilaration. Of course it’s exciting to see what new goodness comes from the beleaguered MCU and recently rebooted DCU; but for now at least, anime sits on the pop culture throne, with a bloodied chainsaw coming out of one hand and a demon-beheading katana in the other.
