Parllel world Manga Artist: New Year and the Conclusion of Demon Slayer [383]

In January, as the new year opened, the Big Three, who had owned the Japanese animation scene for a year, met their strongest opponent.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.

From the birth of Demon Slayer to now, five or six years have passed. From being questioned at every step when it first aired to standing as a top-tier global anime today.

The work had finally reached its final chapter.

On the story side, Japanese fans had a basic read on it. Barring any surprise.

It was the remaining Hashira, with the protagonist Tanjiro, ganging up on the Demon King Muzan Kibutsuji.

The ending didn't need to be guessed.

The Demon Slayer Corps, on the side of justice, would defeat the Demon King.

That's how hot-blooded battle manga work. The protagonist always wins. From the open of an arc, the audience already knows how it begins and how it ends.

For battle manga, the process is the thing.

Hundreds of millions of Demon Slayer fans worldwide had been buzzing since January. Rei had authorized famous Japanese anime screenwriters to make several original romance and slice-of-life spin-offs about the reincarnated characters off the manga's ending setup for the coming years, but.

What the fans cared about most was the conclusion of the main Demon Slayer story.

That led the Demon Slayer anime's popularity to flare up globally again in mid-January after a two-year quiet stretch, pulling clear of the Big Three by a significant margin and becoming the most popular anime in the world this month.

After all.

Whether in this Japan or in Rei's previous life, Demon Slayer had the highest average manga sales per volume of any title. In Rei's previous life, it was around double the average per volume of works like Dragon Ball and One Piece.

On peak popularity alone, the Big Three trio, still in its early plot stages, couldn't go head-on against Demon Slayer.

People across the global anime industry chain could also see that on commercial value, Demon Slayer was going to end up surpassed by one or more of the Big Three.

The biggest weakness of top-tier anime like Demon Slayer and Attack on Titan, compared with long-running mainstream manga like the Big Three, was their length.

No matter how strong the Demon Slayer or Attack on Titan anime were on quality, the popularity accumulated across one or two years of serialization wasn't going to compete with the total accumulated popularity of a long-runner over ten years on commercial value and potential fan base.

If works like One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach can serialize for ten or even twenty years, you would see cases where two generations, father and son, watch the anime together.

Twenty years from now, how many new anime fans would look back at the anime scene, sift through the sands of history for works like Demon Slayer, Attack on Titan, Hunter x Hunter, or One-Punch Man, and push through the jarring outdated art style to watch them and become fans?

Every generation has its own masterpiece.

If an anime can span the growth of several generations and stay in serialization without stopping, though, then it will always be a masterpiece.

Everyone understood that.

But at this moment.

"It's time for the Big Three fans to learn which work under Shirogane-sensei's pen is the strongest."

"In February, the final chapter of the Demon Slayer animated movie, see you there."

"This time, the record for the highest-grossing film in Japan's cinema history is getting broken again."

"By rights, one of the four walls at the Shirogane Animation headquarters should have belonged to Tanjiro. I'm not convinced."

"It couldn't be helped. When Shirogane-sensei bought the company headquarters, Demon Slayer had already ended and its popularity was sliding. As a focus for the company's future IP promotion, a finished work isn't the right call."

"I'm just refusing to accept this. For two years, everyone has been arguing over which of the Big Three is the strongest anime in Japan. The discussion heat for Demon Slayer is far worse now than it was five years ago."

"Sigh. By episode seventy or eighty, Demon Slayer had already wrapped. Bleach is still in its early-to-mid stretch. It's not even clear how many chapters the arc where Ichigo fights the Espada is going to last. This is so unfair. If Demon Slayer had two hundred episodes, would there even be suspense about the number one most popular anime in Japan's history?"

"If Demon Slayer had two hundred chapters, the anime would have a bad ending for sure. Fighting the Twelve Kizuki plus Muzan Kibutsuji across two hundred chapters would be drawn out and tedious."

"Anyway, this January and February will be the final glory for Demon Slayer. I hear there will be spin-off anime airing later, but supposedly the screenwriter is no longer Shirogane-sensei. It should just be a way to keep the IP alive."

"Go, Demon Slayer. Go, Tanjiro. This is the final glory."

"I'm not interested in the ranking battles between these popular anime. I just hope the final chapter of the Demon Slayer movie next month isn't as heart-wrenching. Seriously, I don't want to see anyone else die just to take down Muzan Kibutsuji. Demon Slayer has tortured me for six years. I just hope Shirogane-sensei lets me walk out of the theater smiling in the final chapter."

"Same hope, but realistically that request is hard to fulfill."

"Why not? In the Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece anime right now, not a single member of the main cast has died. It shows Shirogane-sensei isn't a cold-blooded creature."

"The problem is, the Demon Slayer movie trilogy was created six years ago when he wasn't in a relationship. Right after that, he made the unbearable Attack on Titan. Drop it, brother. Accept reality."

Online, in a week or two, Demon Slayer discussion and theory took over the top of every anime forum.

Even with the current plots of Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece running at the same high level, they hadn't pushed Demon Slayer's final-chapter popularity down.

For this Demon Slayer movie release and promotion, Rei wasn't as busy as he had been the previous few times.

With Demon Slayer's popularity, Rei didn't need to show his face to draw eyes anymore.

He spent more time stationed at the company, working with Misaki to handle the many tasks tied to the Demon Slayer movie release.

After a meeting with executives from a foreign company, Rei and Misaki stayed at the office into the evening, both with a touch of fatigue on their faces.

"This time, as long as the performance lands somewhere normal, including the Mugen Train arc, the entire four-movie Demon Slayer series might break two trillion in total global box office," Misaki said.

"It shouldn't be much of a problem," Rei thought for a moment and said.

The first three movies in the Demon Slayer series had already passed one trillion yen in total Japan box office, and global box office had crossed one and a half trillion yen. With the final chapter releasing in the new year holiday slot.

"Why are you suddenly interested in this kind of thing?"

"Nothing, really. Demon Slayer is the first animated movie IP born inside our company. Of course I'd want the final result to be a touch better. Breaking two trillion and rounding it off would feel that much better," Misaki said. "Once Demon Slayer wraps for good, the Japanese anime world will also step into the era of the Big Three for real."

"Watching this IP go from obscurity to global fame and now to its conclusion. I'm reluctant to see it go."

"You'll need to adjust your mindset. Time moves. Not many years from now, Bleach will wrap first, and Naruto will follow, and then One Piece," Rei said, voice low.

"By the time One Piece wraps, I'll probably be over forty."

"Huh?" This was the first time Misaki had heard Rei talk about this.

She had known that in Rei's conception One Piece was the longest. Was it really that long?

"You're only twenty-seven or twenty-eight now. You're planning for One Piece to wrap when you're forty?"

"At least forty," Rei corrected.

If everything were animated to the length of the original manga, the Japanese version of the One Piece plot would run tight. Not like his previous life, where each episode had a three-minute intro, a three-minute outro, and four minutes of recap, leaving only ten minutes of actual new content.

The Wano Country arc alone had more anime episodes than manga chapters. 145 manga chapters were turned into 195 anime episodes, which shows how much the One Piece animation team in his previous life could drag things out.

Even produced under the tighter standard Rei required, One Piece would still run past seven or eight hundred episodes by the time it finished.

"Your future planning is terrifying. In your plan, by the time One Piece finishes, I'll be an old lady close to fifty." Misaki turned sentimental in a way that wasn't like her.

"Fifty is the prime of life. My life goal is to hit a hundred first, with the stretch goal of staying active on the front lines of anime creation into my eighties or nineties," Rei laughed.

In his previous life, Hayao Miyazaki had created his first animated film in his forties, and the box office was disappointing.

He only hit his life's peak at sixty, with Spirited Away.

Geniuses like Oda aren't the norm. Plenty of famous anime creators have stories of building up over a long stretch and finding success late in life.

Rei didn't carry the kind of age anxiety many people in the workplace did.

"It's not as if I'm only going to create the Big Three trio across these ten or twenty years. I mentioned it to you before. I'm planning to create some youth romance anime. Titles I can hint at include Clannad. And the script for Steins;Gate has already been handed over to the company's internal staff, hasn't it?

In a few months I might submit the script for another work I really like. It's not a long-running anime in the strict sense, but it's a series called Gundam. With the Big Three already in serialization, I can't be as prolific on the short and medium-length works as I used to be."

"With the Big Three still in serialization, putting out one or two seasonal anime a year shouldn't be much of a problem for me."

"You're not human anymore." Misaki couldn't help the jab. "Is your brain even the same as us ordinary people's?"

"Don't worry, it's a genuine, original human brain."

The soul isn't, though.

Rei chuckled to himself.

January wound down.

February arrived.

Rei threw heavy investment into the release of the third movie of the Demon Slayer Infinity Castle Arc.

Because the release date for Demon Slayer had been locked in years ago, no unwise "hard-headed" film production companies stepped forward in Japan. Knowing the final chapter of Demon Slayer was releasing in this slot, they weren't going to produce a big-budget film at sixty or seventy billion yen to compete for the new year holiday box office championship against Demon Slayer.

Across the entire new year holiday slot, six movies released. Demon Slayer aside, with production and promotion costs over fifty billion yen, the comprehensive costs of the other works sat under thirty billion yen.

Then came the first day of the new year holiday.

By the time Demon Slayer reached its final chapter, there wasn't much left to set up in the plot.

The entire third part of the Infinity Castle Arc was fighting from start to finish, with some of Muzan Kibutsuji's memories worked in between.

How he became a demon.

How he had thought he was invincible and wandered around, ran into Yoriichi Tsugikuni and got traumatized, then went into hiding for hundreds of years, only coming out to do evil after Yoriichi Tsugikuni died.

On combat, it was the remaining Hashira, Wind Hashira, Stone Hashira, Love Hashira, Serpent Hashira, along with the Water Hashira, Tanjiro, and the rest, taking turns ganging up on Muzan Kibutsuji.

In the process.

The heart-wrenching beats, continuing the plot structure of Demon Slayer, were spread from start to finish.

In the ending of Demon Slayer, Muzan Kibutsuji, the most pathetic boss in the global anime world, was given a clown-like exit.

Right before his life faded, he poured his power into the protagonist Tanjiro, hoping Tanjiro would become the new Demon King and carry his will. But in the end.

Tanjiro rejected the wish, broke the chains of his power, and got his sanity back. The shots of Muzan Kibutsuji crying over this ending right before his death.

That was the final consolation for fans in the Demon Slayer ending.

The Love Hashira died, the Serpent Hashira died, the Stone Hashira died.

The survivors, like Giyu, Sanemi Shinazugawa, and Tanjiro, were mostly heavily wounded or missing limbs.

In the end, the main story of the Demon Slayer anime came to a close inside the Japanese anime world.

The fight scenes were hot-blooded and clean, and the plot didn't try to subvert expectations for the sake of it. It was a clean, righteous beatdown.

Muzan Kibutsuji's memories ran dull, but the portrayal of Yoriichi Tsugikuni inside those memories landed at god-tier level.

The image of the ceiling of combat power in the Demon Slayer world rooted itself in people's hearts.

Japanese Demon Slayer fans, and global fans, cheered for this ending.

The characters had set in across the previous plot.

The final movie's plot was the fans venting their emotions and their dissatisfaction with Muzan Kibutsuji.

So the film's first-day box office of sixty-three billion yen, with a 65% box office share, took the Japanese film industry crown that day without suspense.

The second day, the box office topped the charts again with fifty-nine billion yen.

The third day, sixty billion yen.

Beyond Japan, the third part of the Infinity Castle Arc also set off a movie-going wave across overseas regions.

After the passion came the melancholy.

A wave of Japanese media reported on the conclusion of the legendary masterpiece Demon Slayer.

"Is this the end of Demon Slayer?"

"I can't tell if it's a happy ending or a bad ending. So many of them died, and they all got to be reincarnated in the modern world."

"I cried like a baby in the theater. After seeing the reincarnation plot, I forgave Shirogane-sensei."

"My youth is over. From my first year of high school to college graduation, the main story of my favorite anime has wrapped."

"Sigh."

"Demon Slayer conclusion celebration."

"I will never forget this anime in my life."

"Going for a third watch tomorrow."

"With this, the strongest work of an era inside Japanese anime comes to an end. Through the rivalry with Hikaru no Go, Hunter x Hunter, Attack on Titan, and Arcane across the past few years, Demon Slayer was the final winner. What about the next era? The contest between Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece. Who wins?"

"Shirogane-sensei has led two eras inside Japanese anime in a row. I hope that in ten years, when these three works wrap, several geniuses who can compete with Shirogane-sensei will have emerged inside the Japanese anime circle to fight for the throne of the third era."

By the end of February, after seventeen days of screening, the final chapter of the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba movie had broken the three hundred and seventy billion yen mark in Japan and the five hundred and fifty billion yen mark globally.

Into March, the box office momentum didn't slide much. Another wave of Demon Slayer-related merchandise purchasing came in.

Anime lovers worldwide understood.

This was the final glory of Demon Slayer. Once the Demon Slayer movie leaves theaters in March, the story of Tanjiro and his sister Nezuko will be sealed forever in the final scene of the film.

Even if there are new spin-offs, the protagonists will only be their reincarnations after death.