By Disha Gupta
Anime has now formally made its debut in India on a large scale. The new movie Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle has become a huge hit at the Indian box office. It has collected more than ₹50 crore at the box office, which is the highest-grossing foreign animated movie ever to be released in India.
What makes it even more unique is the fact that Infinity Castle has been able to outperform certain Indian films at the box office. The movie raked in more money within six days than all the Bollywood films released within the same time frame. This indicates how well-liked anime is turning out to be with Indian viewers.
The movie started with a bang, collecting approximately ₹40 crore during its opening weekend. But on its opening Monday, it witnessed a significant dip of almost 70%. Generally, such a drop devastates a movie, but Infinity Castle picked itself up again quite fast. On Tuesday, collections improved again, and on Wednesday, it was able to maintain itself without a significant dip.
At the end of six days, the movie had accumulated ₹51.20 crore net in India. The most astonishing fact is that over half of these collections were from the original Japanese version of the movie. This is to say that a huge number of Indian fans preferred watching it in Japanese with subtitles, their love for the true anime experience being so great.
The dubbed versions also performed well. The Hindi dub made ₹10.60 crore and the English one made ₹9.50 crore. This shows how anime has now penetrated a larger pool of people in India, from the hardcore enthusiasts who watch the original to general viewers who just like to watch in local languages.
With this show, Infinity Castle is currently the second highest grossing Indian animated movie. It has already beaten some of the biggest Hollywood animation movies like Incredibles 2, Frozen 2, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Only one movie beats it, and that is the current Indian blockbuster Mahavatar Narsimha, which crossed over ₹200 crore.
This was one giant leap for anime in India, which once was a niche market for so many years. Now it is proving to outdo, and even surpass, Bollywood and Hollywood films in India.
Infinity Castle is based on the hit manga Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. It is the initial installment of a trilogy that will conclude the series’ Infinity Castle saga. Audiences have enjoyed the film for its stunning visuals, heart-wrenching storylines, and quality voice acting.
It is not only in India that the film has been doing well. Infinity Castle has grossed more than 384 million globally and is Japan’s second-highest-grossing film of all time. It is only beaten by another Japanese film internationally.
The success of Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle as a commercial entity proves that anime is no longer an Indian niche hobby, but mass entertainment. With more and more anime films releasing and collecting huge fan bases, it can be confidently said that this is certainly anime’s time in India.