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by Asmit Mishra
‘Demon slayer: Kimetsu no yaiba’ is an anime that skyrocketed in popularity since its release in April 2019. It has garnered a huge fan base with its great characters and mind-blowing animation, winning 17 awards in the Crunchyroll Anime Awards till date. ‘Demon slayer’ is also considered by many fans following anime since decades, a part of the Big 3 of the new generation of anime.
With the success of its recent Hashira Training Arc, the studio behind animating ‘Demon Slayer’, Ufotable Studio, announced the next arc to be released as a movie trilogy with its trailer being dropped approximately at the same time as the last episode. This announcement has divided the fanbase, prompting a lengthy discussion over the consequences of such a decision: for the show and the industry itself. Is it all a cash grab or an attempt to make another masterpiece?
One part of the fanbase (the majority), is saying that this decision is for the better. Their argument is based on the fact that films will have a higher budget than a series and the animators will have more time to produce a much higher quality product and better experience for the viewers. Case in point: The ‘Demon Slayer’ movies released in the past did extremely well and gave fans an enjoyable experience; precisely why this part of the fanbase has faith in the studio to do an excellent job and not disappoint them.
The remaining faction of the fandom believes this arc to be a cash grab and an ill-intentioned decision by the studio. Piracy is a big problem for anime studios. A huge chunk of anime fans pirate to stream shows and movies. So when ‘Demon Slayer’ is released as a series on Crunchyroll, it gets pirated and available to stream on these sites in a couple of hours. However, the ‘Demon Slayer’ movies take time to be available on pirated sites because movies that are theatrically released are harder to pirate, at least in decent quality. This created the assumption (or belief) that the movie arc would earn massive amounts of money by being released in theatres. It would take up to weeks for the movies to be available on websites with pirated content, and not all anime fans are that patient. The other argument is about how much the ‘Demon Slayer’ movies earn, considering its huge fan base and fame in mainstream anime. For example, the ‘Demon Slayer’ Movie: Mugen Train’ earned over $500 million with a budget of $15.7 million. These movies have been a greater success compared to some other anime franchise movies. For example, the movie from the Jujutsu Kaisen called ‘Jujutsu Kaisen 0’ earned only $166 million dollars worldwide. Jujutsu Kaisen also has a large fan base like Demon Slayer. The recent season of Jujutsu Kaisen averaged 6.2 million viewers per episode (this number being purely the tv broadcast viewership in Japan, so it does not include the pirated streams and the official streams on internet from across the globe). If a movie from this prominent a franchise isn’t getting the money that Demon Slayer is making from its movies, there must be something that the latter is doing right.
Another point of disparity includes the confusion in the franchise format. Some fans don’t like the disturbance the studio creates by making them jump from series to movies, especially as a first-time viewer. This can be seen in other anime franchise like Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball and Pokémon. The difference is that these franchises made spin off movies which means an anime-only watcher can ignore those movies and still know what is happening plot-wise as these movies are simply additions in world building. Demon Slayer making a movie trilogy – which is a part of the main story line – forces people to watch it to know how the anime is going to end.
Sifting through the opinions belonging to both ends of the situation and being witness to this possibly futurist announcement, I, very obviously, have some opinions of my own. As an anime fan, this decision does spark some controversy and incite a rather engaging discussion between my two brain cells but at the end of it all, my research and internal debate brought me to the following conclusion: For all you know, this could be a cash grab, but Ufotable Studio also delivers a good movie, so I don’t necessarily think it’s a wrong decision or something to be worried about. Although, what needs to be discussed is how this can potentially change the anime industry.
If the anime industry does start moving towards movies , I think it can also legitimise it more. While anime is big and has a huge audience, it can still be considered a niche industry. This move could make it more of a “serious” industry in the eyes of the world (outside of Japan), changing its image in the minds of the individuals indifferent to the community and its content. The Anime Industry still has a bad image even though it is pretty much mainstream now. It’s often ridiculed as just a “cartoon” when in reality it is so much more than that. It has some stellar storytelling techniques and amazing animation compared to what is considered to be a cartoon. Much anime is also not meant for kids because of the gore and violence.
Anime has always relied on being a streaming based industry; movies not dominating that pie chart. Going ahead with a movie trilogy of an anime as big as Demon Slayer could potentially change the future of anime productions. Anime studios might start making more movies that they did before or even jump headfirst into an only-in-movie-format anime space. But all this depends on the success of the movie trilogy – therefore, not of primary concern.
Ultimately with the predictable success of the new ‘Demon Slayer’ movie trilogy, if the industry starts moving in that direction, then the anime industry can be seen as a serious industry, earning its due respect.
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