Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle Movie Review: Packed to the brim with relentless energy

Right after a brief foreboding prologue, we are dropped straight into the middle of the Infinity castle, as the Demon Slayer Corps engages in a full-scale battle with the demons, pushing with everything they have, to find Muzan Kibutsuji. We get dedicated time with Shinobu Kocho, Zenitsu Agatsuma, Tanjiro Kamado, and Giyu Tomioka, as they take on Doma, Kaigaku, and Akaza, respectively. Episodic in nature, each of these battles is imbued with incredible detailing, from the fight choreography, the emotional arcs, to their overarching impact on the larger battle. With each of these battles structured like their own detailed and cohesive stories, it becomes a double-edged sword, as the sensory and information overload is both engaging as parts and overwhelming as a whole. A thousand-mile journey might be overwhelming, but there is hardly any room to feel it in real time when you are moving at the speed of a rocket.

Director: Haruo Sotozaki

Cast: Natsuki Hanae, Akari Kito, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Hiro Shimono, Takahiro Sakurai, Akira Ishida

From the visuals to the voice acting (original Japanese), stunt choreography, and the emotional weight, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle packs raw, unfiltered energy in every one of these aspects. The tesseract-like structure of the Infinity castle, a sprawling design marvel that extends into the infinite void in all directions, lends itself to some of the most creative and breathtaking visuals put to screen, anime or otherwise. Demon Slayer franchise’s signature fight animation and choreography are stretched to their glorious extent. Like a rubber band stretched to its elastic limits before its release, the fight animation deftly pushes the logic of its internal physics to its extremes before releasing it at the right time for maximum catharsis. Shinobu’s fight against Doma best exemplifies the dark extents of the Demon Slayer series, which knows when to play it light but never shies away from dark, brutal, and gory deaths. A sense of hopelessness and a powerful drive to push back against the hopelessness pervade every major battle in the film. More than twice, you are led to believe you have arrived at the edge of possibility, before the battle is pushed to an impossible extreme.

While the film employs slick, modern animation for fight sequences, the writing, at large, still employs old-school anime tropes. Right after the decisive end of a battle, we get a descriptive backstory to the antagonists. While this starts off simpler with Doma, it gets denser as we reach Akaza. Right after an incredible fight sequence involving Tanjiro, Giu, and Akaza, we are pushed into Akaza’s childhood. While we are still reeling from the impact of the battle, the melancholic and deeply emotional backstory of Akaza comes across as a pacing dampener. The backstory feels generic and cheesy as well. What immediately precedes and succeeds this sequence achieves what the backstory aims to do to a much greater extent. Tanjiro’s final revelation about the ‘transparent world’ (which he uses to evolve his fighting technique) is reminiscent of philosopher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s ‘flow state’ principle. The act of completely losing yourself in an activity, devoid of direct emotional response. The way the film employs such deeply philosophical concepts, sometimes even from Buddhist teachings, and then incorporating them into awe-inducing fighting techniques is perhaps one of the biggest strengths of the Demon Slayer franchise.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle is impressive for going all out for a story arc that only serves to set up the final battle. The main antagonist, Muzan Kibutsuji, is hardly in the film; the Demon Slayer Corps is not even close to finding him, and yet they are pushed to the very end of their limits. This only makes you excited for things to come. There is a looming sense of hopelessness, but there is also an incredible amount of energy that is pushing back against it. This core philosophy of the story also finds itself in the inner workings of the film. The film wears on your patience with its formulaic structure and exhaustive runtime, but there is so much raw energy and passion on display that it becomes hard not to surrender to its indulgence.