New Demon Slayer film opens at no. 1 in Japan

The Demon Slayer film, titled Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - To the Hashira Training, opened in Japan last Friday and debuted at no. 1 in Japan's box office opening weekend. The movie was confirmed to have earned over 400,000 attendees during its theatrical release.

The film recaps the events of the end of the anime's third season, Swordsmith Village arc, beginning the Hashira Training storyline.

The success of the Demon Slayer film shows that the franchise is still alive and well despite a divisive reception regarding the third season of the anime adaptation by Ufotable. Furthermore, it has also been confirmed that the movie is going to debut globally on February 21.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the Demon Slayer film. Any opinion expressed here belongs to the author and not Sportskeeda.

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The new Demon Slayer film opened at no. 1 in the Japanese box office last Friday

The official Twitter account of the Demon Slayer film confirmed that the Ufotable production, released last Friday, February 2, opened in the number one spot at the Japanese box office. With over 400,000 people showing up at the theatrical release, the film cemented its place as one of the highest-grossing theatrical releases of the year thus far.

The movie also made a total of 643 million yen at the box office, which translates to about USD 4.34 million, and sold a total of 443,000 tickets in the first three days of its release.

However, this film only made more than half of the 1,158,765,410 yen at the box office than last year's To The Swordsmith Village movie, which is also worth taking into account considering the divisive opinions on that third season of the anime.

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The Hashira Training arc

Tanjiro and the rest of the main cast (Image via Ufotable).

The new Demon Slayer film serves as an introduction to the Hashira Training arc, which can serve as a prelude to the final saga of the series. The Demon Slayer Corps have now decided to hunt down Muzan and his demons and end their centuries-long conflict once and for all, which is something that forms the focus of this arc.

While this arc is fairly short, it focuses mainly on preparing the characters of Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke to reach the level of the Hashira, the strongest members of the Corps, in order to be capable enough to fight Muzan and his Upper Moons.

Therefore, this is a training arc and focuses mostly on boosting the main cast's power levels, although there are moments that will give Zenitsu's character more development.

The film is set to be released globally on February 21 in theaters.