In the post-Covid world, more movies release straight to streaming, or are only in theatres for a week before being bumped onto Netflix or HBO. Unless a movie is a big blockbuster, chances are the theatre will be relatively empty. However, this isn’t the case with the recent surge of anime movies in America.
“I think a big reason for that is the way that Hollywood has changed the way that they deliver films. And what I mean by that is it’s not unusual these days to have a movie come out on Friday and potentially be able to stream it in my own home whether it’s pay per view or it’s on a service within two weeks to a month after its release,” said English teacher Dr. Phillip Cicione.
Not only have these anime movies been filling seats as of late, they have also been outperforming high budget hollywood blockbusters tenfold. Movies like “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba The Movie: Infinity Castle” and “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” have made about 600 million dollars and 100 million dollars worldwide respectively, according to Box Office Mojo, as they are the 6th and 26th highest grossing movies this year respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” only had a budget of 4.1 million dollars compared to Disney’s “Tron: Ares,” that had a 220 million dollar budget, which made around 20 million dollars less than “Chainsaw Man.”
“I’m actually surprised that Disney decided to make a third Tron […] They spent all this money and made such a small amount from it, that demonstrates to me more like Disney not having their finger on the pulse. And now I think what we’re going to see because of the success of these anime films is we’re going to see more studios trying to make them because it’s the hot thing […] Success breeds mimicry,” said Dr. Cicione.
With these movies being as successful as they are, it only makes sense that they got the high critic reviews that they did. “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba The Movie: Infinity Castle” and “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” received scores of 98% and 96% on Rotten Tomatoes respectively. Receiving higher praise from critics than movies like “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” and “Wicked: For Good,” brings the argument of quality into question.
“As a huge Springsteen fan, I was very disappointed with the film. I thought that the book it was based on had a lot more material that could have been put into the film very easily and I thought that was just shotty film making […] I think that Wicked is a little bit more review proof […] People were going to go and see that no matter what, in the case of the Springsteen movie, it needed to get good reviews. The performances were great, the script was not,” said Dr. Cicione.
This factor of quality doesn’t seem to be an issue with these recent anime movies, however. It seems to be the exact opposite actually.
“I think ‘Chainsaw Man’ has been the best movie I’ve seen in theatres all year by a decent amount […] The quality and the depth of the movie and the emotion from the characters. The animation and the writing conveyed their emotions so well, it was just amazing,” said junior Josh F.
These anime movies have also been giving viewers a greater feeling of care and love that was put into the projects that they’re watching.
“I feel like the people and the teams working on these anime movies have a lot more passion and care a lot more about their work than people in Hollywood right now. I feel like they’re mostly just there to collect a paycheck. That’s why they keep making all of these biopics and these unoriginal movie ideas like franchise continuations,” said Josh.
These high quality films have been filling theatres as of late. This cultivates a viewing experience that transcends just the movie, but the feeling of unity with other fans.
“I think I’ve been to the movie theatre like five times this year, and three of them were just to see those movies. And when I saw those movies, that was the most packed I’ve seen the theatre because people are actually excited to see that and I haven’t seen that with movies since ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home,’ ” said Josh.
These movies have such an impact on the viewers that they want to keep watching them. The way that they made them feel is something that they want to feel again. 
