by The most anticipated film of the year, “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Castle Arc Chapter 1 – Akaza Returns,” which is expected to be a huge hit, will finally be released on July 18th, marking the start of the summer holiday box office season.
How big a hit will this film, the first of a trilogy that celebrates the final battle of the hugely popular Demon Slayer series, be? “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train,” released in October 2020, set a record for the highest box office revenue in Japan’s history, grossing 40.43 billion yen. Since then, two world tour screenings have been held for the film, marking the first new release in five years.
One thing to watch will be whether it can surpass this year’s No. 1 hit, the movie “Detective Conan: Afterimage of the One-Eyed” (box office revenue of around 15 billion yen).
The release date is coming soon! Looking back at the hugely popular “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba,” First, let’s look back at the flow of the “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba” series up until this first chapter of the movie trilogy. The original manga “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba” (written by Koyoharu Gotouge) was serialized in “Weekly Shonen Jump” (Shueisha) from February 2016 to May 2020.
When the first TV anime series, “Tanjiro Kamado: Unwavering Resolve Arc,” aired from April to September 2019, the visual beauty of the animation produced by ufotable became a hot topic, and the series quickly became popular.
The following year, in 2020, its sequel, “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train,” was released in theaters and recorded the highest box office revenue in Japan’s history of 40.43 billion yen (a total of approximately 41.35 million visitors worldwide, with a total box office revenue of approximately 51.7 billion yen), sparking a social phenomenon.
The following year (2021), the movie was re-edited into a TV series titled “Mugen Train Arc” and aired, followed by a sequel series, “Yukaku-hen,” which began airing in December. Then, in February 2023, the movie “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Upper Ranks Assemble, and Head to Swordsmith Village” was released as part of a world tour screening, compiling episodes 10 and 11 of “Yukaku-hen” and episode 1 of the following TV anime series, “Swordsmith Village Arc”. The new series, “Swordsmith Village Arc”, began airing in April of the same year.
