Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train smashes through the Japanese box office on its very first day of showing. According to Yahoo Japan, Demon Slayer, the hit manga and adapted anime series’ movie is breaking records. It is the first film to breeze through 800,000 and 900,000 admissions in its first day.
It premiered in Japan on a Friday, October 16, 2020. It is usually the lowest day of admission, but it lit the theaters on fire. This is befitting the star of the movie’s arc, Kyojuro Rengoku, the Flame Hashira. This is in addition to Tanjiro, Zenitsu, Inosuke, and of course, the adorable Nezuko.
Demon Slayer Mugen Train also slayed theater websites all over Japan. Moments after releasing tickets online and days before the movie’s premiere, most film theater websites went down. This is due to massive amounts of people wanting to get a ticket for the hottest film of the year. The queue for a ticket went over 200,000, and it either crashed or slowed down the theaters’ websites all over the land of the rising sun.
Crunchyroll reports that the movie is raking in over 1.2 billion Yen (US$11.38 million) on its first day. The anime streaming titan also compared it to previous hit films in Japan such as Frozen 2 with 1.88 billion Yen (US$17.8 million) for three days, Weathering with You with 1.5 billion Yen (US$15.22 million), and Spirited Away with 1.05 billion Yen (US$9.9 million) for Saturday and Sunday. Mugen Train is expected to crash its way to more than 3 billion Yen (US$28.4 million) this weekend to seal its record.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train already has a confirmed released date in the west in early 2021. According to Funimation and Aniplex of America, this is with the high hopes that things will get better in North America. Many unforeseen factors are still in play, but fans (including myself) are hoping for the best!