The corporate world has noticed that fanbases, more so than individuals, can be weaponised for mega sales. It's like Taylor Swift, billions of devoted fans and streams for the most mundane, repetitive, intellectually boring music, which is all driven by a rabid fan base that marketeers have truly dialed into. This trend is made worse by the fact the in the 2020s we're in a worldwide artistic lull in the entertainment world. There really isn't much choice against quality.
With a constant demand for stimulation and escape, quantity definitely trumps quality in many spheres. Fans have always been impatient, but my sense is that they would rather have something, anything, to feed the connection, rather than wait for carefully-crafted perfection. I feel for both sides, because it can't be fun being insatiable for stimulation all the time, nor is it easy being a creator with that pressure looming over you.
That's a great way of putting it. No one is waiting 4,5 years between albums and films like these anymore. It's like fast food. Cheap thrills society. Happy for the last one to be done so we can go onto the next. Same in the world of literature now, people want to finish the book before they've started it, just a desire to finish it, rather than slowly 'be with it' so to speak. So authors have adopted that to their way of writing novels. I just can't help but keep going back to the slow, thoughtful tone and making of Miyazaki as the benchmark. His work to me is standing out even more as years go by. Similar to Ozu, whose work just looks better with every passing year.
I think one reason why even a movie that is "repetitive, unimaginative, and overlong, less a story than a string of battles punctuated by flashbacks" is doing well is that it has limited quality competition. If other anime or movies were released that were better then fewer people would want to watch it. But AFAICT Hollywood and most other sources of video entertainment are producing dreck that hardly anyone cares about.
Good point. I also wonder if “Oshikatsu”superfandoms play a role. Many Japanese fans went to see it multiple times - I’ve seen some claiming 4 or 5x! - to show support & “hang” with their favorite characters. This is probably true to some degree abroad as well.
I disagree. The main reason this movie succeeded is because it's not a standalone work. It's part of the conclusion to an incredibly popular series. Other works are not really in "competition" with it; no other work can fill the gap that Infinity Castle does.
That is a massive advantage, which more than offsets the fact that the Infinity Castle movies shouldn't have been movies, but just a final season of the anime. Making them movies was an opportunistic decision, made solely to squeeze more money out of the IP. But as a crime against the fans it's a minor instead of a major one, so ultimately everyone is going along with it.
I actually think we’re on the same page. To me, it felt more like a theatrically condensed TV season than an expansion into new territory (which is what I hoped it’d be.)
I've tried to watch the Demon Slayer series but found it really boring compared to the anime shows I used to watch many years ago... I didn't get what all the fuss was about, but maybe it's just me!
Thanks for a great article! I hear you on the quantity vs quality battle. I was especially curious about those people who went back to watch the Demon Slayer movies multiple times but I can understand how it can work as an escape and feed into fan culture. Can't say I am a fan myself but the franchise did inspire me to remember why I loved Taisho Era and its architecture:)
I was just reading an article where a woman was quoted as having bought the latest Taylor Swift album six times over to support her. That is 100% made-in-Japan style hyperfandom. We saw it happening with AKB48 in the Aughts and now it's happening globally with pop music and anime films.
I wish there had been MORE Taisho era architecture/culture in Demon Slayer.
BTW, off topic, but I loved your book Pure Invention. Such great, detailed research and narrative building, I can imagine it must have been a LOT of work. And how did you track down that ramen creator!? Very cool. Anyway, I was very inspired and hope I can write a book to that standard one day, thank you!
Thanks for the kind words! But I don't cover ramen in the book -- perhaps you got me mixed up with someone else?
The Ryounkaku "skyscraper" is one of my favorite pieces of Meiji architecture -- nice to see someone writing about it! (Not to mention someone putting it in their anime. :)
Demon Slayer as a whole is remarkably mediocre. It does my two least favorite Jump tropes at the same time, "every villain has completely random special powers" and "every villain is in some kind of evil corporate org chart where their ranking is also their power level". Even One Piece barely gets away with that one.
But there is a part of the manga I liked a bit after this movie ends, the story of Tanjiro's ancestor. As far as I know it's totally original, the author very clearly meant something very specific by it, and I have no idea what that thing was because it makes /absolutely no sense/. It reminds me of Golden Age American comics where the writer clearly hadn't slept in the last month.
It did not go the way I expected. Unlike Infinity Castle.
FYI. The Entertainment Strategy Guy writes on his Substack today about the “Taylor Swift Box Office Fallacy” and how it applies to this Demon Slayer movie. You may find it interesting.
Thanks for pointing it out to me. I can’t read the fallacy part as it’s unfortunately behind a paywall, but I do agree with the assertion that data is often, if not inherently flawed itself, being used in a flawed way.
Netflix metrics are truly opaque; I suspect this is by design as it lets them tout different genres as“the most popular” as needed.
Diehard fans may well be inflating the numbers, but only to a degree, because there’s no arguing with demon slayer’s success at the box office. I just do not believe it represents some kind of great sea change in the way anime is going to be made, consumed, or distributed. It’s just another (big) hit.
The corporate world has noticed that fanbases, more so than individuals, can be weaponised for mega sales. It's like Taylor Swift, billions of devoted fans and streams for the most mundane, repetitive, intellectually boring music, which is all driven by a rabid fan base that marketeers have truly dialed into. This trend is made worse by the fact the in the 2020s we're in a worldwide artistic lull in the entertainment world. There really isn't much choice against quality.
With a constant demand for stimulation and escape, quantity definitely trumps quality in many spheres. Fans have always been impatient, but my sense is that they would rather have something, anything, to feed the connection, rather than wait for carefully-crafted perfection. I feel for both sides, because it can't be fun being insatiable for stimulation all the time, nor is it easy being a creator with that pressure looming over you.
That's a great way of putting it. No one is waiting 4,5 years between albums and films like these anymore. It's like fast food. Cheap thrills society. Happy for the last one to be done so we can go onto the next. Same in the world of literature now, people want to finish the book before they've started it, just a desire to finish it, rather than slowly 'be with it' so to speak. So authors have adopted that to their way of writing novels. I just can't help but keep going back to the slow, thoughtful tone and making of Miyazaki as the benchmark. His work to me is standing out even more as years go by. Similar to Ozu, whose work just looks better with every passing year.
I think one reason why even a movie that is "repetitive, unimaginative, and overlong, less a story than a string of battles punctuated by flashbacks" is doing well is that it has limited quality competition. If other anime or movies were released that were better then fewer people would want to watch it. But AFAICT Hollywood and most other sources of video entertainment are producing dreck that hardly anyone cares about.
Good point. I also wonder if “Oshikatsu”superfandoms play a role. Many Japanese fans went to see it multiple times - I’ve seen some claiming 4 or 5x! - to show support & “hang” with their favorite characters. This is probably true to some degree abroad as well.
(This could well be akin to the Taylor Swift effect Jerome mentioned in a separate thread.)
I disagree. The main reason this movie succeeded is because it's not a standalone work. It's part of the conclusion to an incredibly popular series. Other works are not really in "competition" with it; no other work can fill the gap that Infinity Castle does.
That is a massive advantage, which more than offsets the fact that the Infinity Castle movies shouldn't have been movies, but just a final season of the anime. Making them movies was an opportunistic decision, made solely to squeeze more money out of the IP. But as a crime against the fans it's a minor instead of a major one, so ultimately everyone is going along with it.
I actually think we’re on the same page. To me, it felt more like a theatrically condensed TV season than an expansion into new territory (which is what I hoped it’d be.)
"The otaku are not a deviation; they are an anticipation" - Azuma Hiroki (attributed)
100% !!!
I've tried to watch the Demon Slayer series but found it really boring compared to the anime shows I used to watch many years ago... I didn't get what all the fuss was about, but maybe it's just me!
Thanks for a great article! I hear you on the quantity vs quality battle. I was especially curious about those people who went back to watch the Demon Slayer movies multiple times but I can understand how it can work as an escape and feed into fan culture. Can't say I am a fan myself but the franchise did inspire me to remember why I loved Taisho Era and its architecture:)
I was just reading an article where a woman was quoted as having bought the latest Taylor Swift album six times over to support her. That is 100% made-in-Japan style hyperfandom. We saw it happening with AKB48 in the Aughts and now it's happening globally with pop music and anime films.
I wish there had been MORE Taisho era architecture/culture in Demon Slayer.
Wow, that's just nuts. I can't fathom that level of fandom, but it really is fascinating!
This is my article about Taisho in Demon Slayer, but yeah I sure wish there had been more too. https://japanandbeyond.substack.com/p/demon-slayer-and-the-romance-of-the
BTW, off topic, but I loved your book Pure Invention. Such great, detailed research and narrative building, I can imagine it must have been a LOT of work. And how did you track down that ramen creator!? Very cool. Anyway, I was very inspired and hope I can write a book to that standard one day, thank you!
Thanks for the kind words! But I don't cover ramen in the book -- perhaps you got me mixed up with someone else?
The Ryounkaku "skyscraper" is one of my favorite pieces of Meiji architecture -- nice to see someone writing about it! (Not to mention someone putting it in their anime. :)
Thanks for your reply! So sorry I meant Karaoke! I must have been hungry when I was writing that comment.
Demon Slayer as a whole is remarkably mediocre. It does my two least favorite Jump tropes at the same time, "every villain has completely random special powers" and "every villain is in some kind of evil corporate org chart where their ranking is also their power level". Even One Piece barely gets away with that one.
But there is a part of the manga I liked a bit after this movie ends, the story of Tanjiro's ancestor. As far as I know it's totally original, the author very clearly meant something very specific by it, and I have no idea what that thing was because it makes /absolutely no sense/. It reminds me of Golden Age American comics where the writer clearly hadn't slept in the last month.
This being a serialized weekly manga, I'm sure the creator hadn't been sleeping much!
Another banger of a blog. Thanks Matt.
It did not go the way I expected. Unlike Infinity Castle.
FYI. The Entertainment Strategy Guy writes on his Substack today about the “Taylor Swift Box Office Fallacy” and how it applies to this Demon Slayer movie. You may find it interesting.
Thanks for pointing it out to me. I can’t read the fallacy part as it’s unfortunately behind a paywall, but I do agree with the assertion that data is often, if not inherently flawed itself, being used in a flawed way.
Netflix metrics are truly opaque; I suspect this is by design as it lets them tout different genres as“the most popular” as needed.
Diehard fans may well be inflating the numbers, but only to a degree, because there’s no arguing with demon slayer’s success at the box office. I just do not believe it represents some kind of great sea change in the way anime is going to be made, consumed, or distributed. It’s just another (big) hit.
Great article ! Could not agree more