by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Intro:
... kicks off the series finale in spellbinding fashion.
After four televised seasons of talking crows, magic breathing, and Taishō-era secrets, the war between the Demon Slayer Corps and the demon progenitor Muzan Kibutsuji has finally reached its final arc.
Infinity Castle marks the first in a planned trilogy of films to adapt the manga’s final stories, and with a running time far exceeding the series’ prior theatrical releases, the notion of this being the beginning of the end is exhausting even before the film actually starts. For better and worse, it then also applies to Infinity Castle proper.
Picking up right where the series left off, the DSC (and in turn the audience) are thrown right into the titular setting, and it immediately shows that studio Ufotable are pulling out all the stops for this final sprint. From the impossibly expansive and mind-boggling architecture of the Castle to the linework detail of the characters during the expressive fight scenes, the animation is stellar, furthering the sense of disorientation from the sheer scale of the battle being fought, but also bringing out the raw, “aw yeah!” factor of the flashier scenes.
The pacing is a bit of a mess, though. While there’s more than enough engagement throughout to sufficiently fill out the run time without any serious lulls, it comes with some caveats; verging-on-excessive slow-motion, for instance, not to mention when the story frolics in the fields of flashbacks, often right in the middle of the core battle set pieces. Along with a slight sense of diminished visuals, going from the tesseract construction of the Castle to more familiar back alleys and temples, it quite often feels like you’re getting yanked out of the present story by the feet as if taking part in the fights yourself… whether you signed up for it or not.
However, through the haphazard narrative direction, there’s still a solid flow to the story, framed around three central throwdowns with members of Muzan’s Upper Ranks; from Doma becoming even more intensely creepy by the second, to Zenitsu showing off just how much he’s matured from the lecherous doofus he was introduced as, to the long-awaited face-off between the pure and selfless Tanjiro and the relentless brutality of Akaza. While the fight choreography and magic swordsmanship are satisfying as pure action, it also gradually and relentlessly gets more emotionally crushing as it goes, to the point of somehow finding a deeper well of tragedy than Gyutaro from the Entertainment District arc. And even though it can feel somewhat manipulative (trigger warning: multiple references to and depictions of suicide), the eye-watering results speak for themselves. All of which only strengthens the central tragedy of the series, that human trauma has been exploited to such a degree by Muzan, and that any of this fighting had to happen in the first place.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle kicks off the series finale in spellbinding fashion. Its pacing and prolonged flashbacks can get a bit headache-inducing at times, but such issues are but droplets against the tidal wave of joyful and melancholic tears that spew forth from witnessing such finessed action and drama. Even as just the introductory part, it ends with the sensation that narrative and cathartic progress is being made, and if the follow-ups can maintain this momentum, Demon Slayer could be well on its way to securing its place as one of modern anime’s crown jewels.
