It was a rare box office bright spot in 2020: Demon Slayer broke Spirited Away’s 19-year-old record to become the highest-grossing film in Japan, despite a pandemic that caused headlines about the exhibition industry to be near-uniformly dour.
Based on a popular manga series that was subsequently adapted into a television anime, of which the film is a sequel, Demon Slayer (full title: Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train) came into its April 23 domestic release with a few advantages under its belt: The loyalty of anime fans, the name recognition engendered by its record-breaking run in Japan, and a relative lack of competition from major studio titles. Still, in the negative column, one big hurdle: The pandemic.