Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba: Infinity Castle: JB Review

The Demon Slayer series has made a unique impact since it began, and admittedly it wasn't until a little later I got into what the hype was about. Since then, I ended up falling in love with its story and characters and how they mixed with the most breathtaking action scenes of any anime. Now here it's reaching near a conclusion proving too big for the small screen, and I might've seen Ufotable has been cooking before but here they REALLY cooked.

Almost right at the beginning you will sense there's a boundless level of energy that awaits the true fandom who's already been following. (Because like, I wouldn't recommend that one casual moviegoer to go in cold without any kind of recap or to have to binge the entire anime.) Starting where the main series ended, Tanjiro Kamado and the Demon Slayer corps are plunged deep into the ever-shifting towers and corridors that make the infinity castle as they then make their last stand with demons in every corner; and I want to also point out the CGI in this--I've seen CG in anime often look weird and clunky but here it actually can help elevate the story, from its action to its environments. While on the theme of the fights, they're mixed with such style and ferocity and yet they're done with true stakes at hand, which of course is important for movies like this in general. You'll see the stakes become a motive for these characters, like for instance Shinobu and Zenitsu, as the film lets them display a level of badassery we haven't yet seen before.

The movie however, makes a few bold moves like dedicating a majority of it to a backstory of who'd end up being the most goated villain so far. Though based on a debate I've seen, does it also affect the pacing of the main story? Yeah, maybe. But I still ended up getting invested in this character, what led him to take a dark path and why; for the one thing the series has done best is go so deep into a character study that also gives you a sense of sympathy, even toward a demon.

I can't even imagine the amount of labor it takes to craft all this, but it's also why we got to respect Japanese animators for this kind of achievement in entertaining us with heroes and villains who would farm this much aura. It may devote half of its runtime to backstories and even feel a bit unfinished by the end, but real ones understand that this is first half of a saga, and it already feels like the rest can't come soon enough. 9/10