Japanese manga has been outselling American comics for a while, and now it’s made its’ way to film.
Infinity Castle is now the highest-grossing comic book movie of 2025!
(No seriously, imagine telling someone 10 years ago that an anime movie would outgross Superman and Captain America.)
I know people who know nothing about Demon Slayer who went to see it.
Meanwhile I feel like I can’t see it because I haven’t seen the latest season.
And to think 10 years ago I would have had to drive 8 hours each way to see my favorite film, 君の名は。 (your name.) A year or two after it came out, the Tokyo Ghoul live-action movie (not anime, but Japanese, and based on manga) played 2 hours away — we drove to that. Then 天気の子 (Weathering With You, same director as 君の名は。 , Makoto Shinkai) was also 2 hours away and we went to that. Suzume (his latest film — I don’t have the original title handy) played right in town. That was 2021 or 2022, maybe 2023? It’s wild.
I watched it sporadically (wife was the one actually watching) but sat down for the last 2 episodes, and it was enough to ease me into the movie. Of course my wife had to fill me in on some minor details, but I didn’t feel lost at all.
This is surprising to me. Anime has really come back in a big bad way. I remember when Saturday morning cartoons and Toonami were originally cancelled.
