Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle (Part 1) Review
Ufotable ushers the popular Demon Slayer series into its endgame with a theatrical “first chapter” that’s all teeth: whiplash camera moves, explosive effects, and a shifting labyrinth that keeps the ground sliding under the Corps’ feet.
The highly anticipated film, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle, picks up immediately after the Hashira Training finale and drops viewers straight into the castle’s folding geometry without a clunky recap; the result is often breathtaking, occasionally wearying, and unmistakably serialized.
©Koyoharu Gotoge / SHUEISHA, Aniplex, ufotable
A castle that moves and a studio that knows exactly what to do with it
On a big screen, the production flex is undeniable. Elemental Breathing carves across the frame with precision, while inverted rooms and staircases to nowhere turn the Infinity Castle into a character of its own. The choreography remains legible even when the camera corkscrews through space, and the blend of CG environments with 2D characters is detailed enough to feel like a seamless combination.
If you’ve ridden with the franchise for its visual bravura, this is the hefty return on investment. The labyrinthine art direction and Escher-ish design are a constant source of tension, with geography that shifts mid-strike and recontextualizes battles on the fly.
Serialized by design (for better and worse)
This is the opening chapter of a trilogy, and it definitely behaves like one. The film advances multiple fights, consistently braiding in extended character flashbacks that deepen motivations but repeatedly tap the brakes on momentum. In the moment, those backstories can hit hard. Empathy reframes how you read the violence, but stacked together, they create an odd rhythm.
There are surges of spectacle, pauses for deeper exploration of memory, then another surge. It’s not that these backstories are unnecessary; it’s just not always positioned in the most effective ways. Sure, the structure is pretty faithful to the source and satisfying for readers/viewers up to date, yet the cumulative on-off pacing invites fatigue throughout its character-focused checkpoints.
Fights that matter, and memories that bite
Without diving into granular spoilers, this installment spotlights three pillars: a long-teased confrontation for a certain poison-wielding Hashira; a reckoning that pushes a timid favorite into overdue resolve; and the re-entry of an Upper Rank whose ideology and history crash back into the narrative with force.
The handling is largely effective. The Hashira material threads grief and calculation; several moments reframe fear as conviction; and the late-film pivot toward a fan-favorite demon’s past adds unnerving clarity that lands particularly well. Though the general trade-off is time. Several of these beats are reflective and lengthy, potent in isolation, or stalled in sequence. And ultimately, even with plenty of time on its side, the chapter ends on incompletion by design, leaving several intriguing threads to tug on over the course of the next two films.
Built for a Theater and a crowd
The sound mix hits pretty hard too: discrete placement for impacts and techniques, a score that swells without muddying the midrange, and enough low-end to make the castle feel alive.
In auditoriums, the mix also has the capacity to hold firm: even in the wildest sequences, effects, dialogue, and music stay distinct enough to enjoy. It also plays as a true big-screen event, drawing Demon Slayer fans to both the showstoppers and the quieter beats that carry the film’s deeper explorations.
©Koyoharu Gotoge / SHUEISHA, Aniplex, ufotable
Potential to Evolve
If Part 2 wants to vault from a decent first course to a complete meal, two specific adjustments would help. First, leaner mid-film flashbacks or sharper cross-cutting would keep character empathy without sapping urgency; the movie occasionally lingers past the emotional beat it needs. Second, a clearer focal spine per chapter (one primary duel with others orbiting it, rather than multiple co-leads) would give the action a stronger dramatic vector.
And for this to happen, no one is asking the film to betray the manga whatsoever; we’re just hoping that it adjusts its need for serialization into a stronger theatrical shape with the same precision Ufotable brings to light, color, and motion.
Score: 6.5/10
A visually spectacular, emotionally resonant opener whose flashback-heavy structure keeps it from truly soaring this round.
