Summary
- Demon Slayer’s anime adaptation set a new standard in the industry with its exceptional animation quality and fight scenes.
- The series has impacted the anime community by raising expectations for action anime, leading to pressure on other studios.
- While the show brought an influx of new fans to the anime medium, it also sparked controversies regarding industry working conditions.
Since its initial airing in 2019, Demon Slayer has taken the anime world by storm. Breaking audience records like never before seen in the medium, as well as having one of the highest-grossing anime films of all time. The original manga by Koyoharu Gotouge had already seen great numbers, but with an anime adaptation by studio Ufotable, Demon Slayer became one of the highest-selling manga from Shōnen Jump.
Demon Slayer has had a massive positive impact on the anime industry and community and a less talked about negative impact that has reached many other famous anime since then. Let’s explore how the Demon Slayer anime has impacted the anime community and industry at large. How most action anime series since then are constantly chasing after it, trying to fill its shoes.
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Demon Slayer’s Monumental Anime Adaptation
Studio Ufotable’s Most Well-Known Hit
While most anime fans know studio Ufotable for Demon Slayer, they were no underdog nor unknown creators before the massive success of Demon Slayer. Studio Ufotable has adapted the massively popular Fate Stay Night and Fate Zero series. As well as The Garden of Sinners movies. The studio has mostly seen success by adapting the stories from the massive universe known as Nasuverse. Fate Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works was a massive success thanks to its evocative story as well as its breathtaking animation. With this series and the others they have adapted from Nasuverse, Ufotable has cemented itself as one of the best animators in the industry.
The fight scenes in the Fate series are explosive and epic in a way not commonly seen in anime. As Saber, Lancer, Archer, and all the other servants in the Holy Grail War have extraordinary powers that perfectly lend themselves to breathtaking fight scenes, all of which are flawlessly animated by the studio. Therefore, before the release of Demon Slayer, fans of the Fate series already knew about Studio Ufotable and its incredible animation prowess. A common point of discussion within the Fate fandom is that while Demon Slayer animation is top-of-the-line, the fight scenes seen in the Fate series remain Ufotable’s highest achievement.
Demon Slayer anime is mostly beautifully animated and perfectly adapted, but it wasn’t until episode 19 that the series shot into the heavens with popularity and mainstream appeal. The extraordinary and emotional battle between Tanjiro, Nezuko, and the spider demon Rui was that incredible moment that the anime needed to kick off and hook everybody into the series. It was with this episode that Demon Slayer exploded in popularity on social media and the overall anime community. The rise of YouTube reactions also helped in spreading the word about Demon Slayer and sharing a common feeling of witnessing something great together.
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After season one ended, Demon Slayer hit the theaters for the first time with the Infinity Train movie, a short arc of the manga that sees the first battle of a Demon Slayer Pillar against one of the Upper Demon Moon. The movie quickly got record-breaking ticket sales as well as great reviews, as it was with this movie that the animation and fight choreography of Demon Slayer reached a never-before-seen ceiling for the anime industry. The fight between Rengoku and Akaza remains one of the most well-known and beloved fight scenes in recent memory. Since then, the overall anime community and industry have felt the massive impact of Demon Slayer and its extraordinary animation. But some may argue that it is not all positive.
Demon Slayer’s Impact on the Industry
A New Standard
After the release and widespread appeal of Demon Slayer season one and Infinity Train movie fans have set the animation seen in the series as the new standard for Shōnen or action anime. For better or worse, they now expect action anime to be on a similar level of quality as seen in Demon Slayer. And this has reached other anime studios and the overall anime industry. A common saying surrounding Demon Slayer has been that of “The Future of Anime”. Referencing the fact that this level of animation and adaptation is what most other anime should live up to and should be the new standard for the industry.
Season two of Demon Slayer delivered on an even higher level than previous outings of the anime. The climax of the Red District arc completely blew fans’ expectations out of the water as it was even greater and more bombastic than the previous epic fight scenes that the series had already shown. And those fans now have Demon Slayer as the reference and the standard that they would judge every other Shōnen anime since then. This has arguably had more of a negative impact than a positive, as many series have faced backlash online due to having what many refer to as “mid” animation compared to Demon Slayer. Studio Mappa and the animation of Jujutsu Kaisen have also had a hand in this overall narrative.
Fans are no longer satisfied with stellar animation for amazing series now; they always chase that same level of extraordinary quality seen in Demon Slayer. It is rather unrealistic to expect this from every series, as Ufotable is not just an exceptional studio in its own right, but they have also been caught in a tax evasion scandal, perhaps due to their use of much more resources for Demon Slayer than most anime studios are capable of. Seasons three and four of Demon Slayer have been met with rather lukewarm reviews and reception, many pointing out that the wildest animation is still fantastic, but it is nowhere near the level that fans have been accustomed to in the series. Many on social media pointed out that this may have been the result of Ufotable being fined due to the tax evasion scandal.
Series like Bleach Thousand-Year Blood War have been caught in this kind of expectation, as while the series has a consistently great level of animation, it is nowhere near the level of Demon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen. The other side of the negative impact of this higher standard that fans expect is on the side of the anime industry, as many studios have been the subject of crunch time for the workers to deliver this standard that fans now expect. Studio Mappa has been the biggest example of this, as the poor working conditions of their animators have been a public topic for years. The terrible experiences that animators have talked about, especially during the production of Jujutsu Kaisen, have been the target of massive fan backlash. This is because Studio Mappa is very observant of the standard of quality that fans now want from action anime and is willing to abuse the animators to reach that level.
However, there is also a massive positive impact that Demon Slayer’s popularity and widespread appeal have brought on the anime industry. The release and incredible popularity of Demon Slayer brought millions of new fans to anime, similar to how the Big Three did in the 2000s. Arguably, anime as a medium has now become mainstream and just another commonly accepted medium, just like live-action television and movies or even gaming, and this is perhaps in a big portion thanks to Demon Slayer and Attack on Titan. While Attack on Titan brought many fans to the medium, thanks to its incredible storytelling and narrative, Demon Sayer did so thanks to its breathtaking spectacle. It is undeniable that the anime medium is bigger than it has ever been, and that is the best kind of impact that an anime series can have on the overall industry.
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The Impact of Demon Slayer on Modern Anime Fight Scene Choreography
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Each year, more and more anime series are produced and of better overall quality. This is simply because anime is now mainstream, so much so that the industry has had much bigger revenue than before. Therefore, anime studios can allow themselves to produce series in higher quantities and quality. Higher demand equals higher output and quality, and that is exactly what Demon Slayer has brought to the industry. While fans mostly expect action anime to deliver the same level of spectacle, on the other hand, it has also allowed the medium to grow bigger than it has ever before.