Shortly after last month’s Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle – confirmed last weekend as the highest-grossing anime feature of all time – a big-screen outing for a movie adaptation of what, in manga terms, is a relative upstart: Tatsuki Fujimoto’s gore-soaked coming-of-age saga, first serialised in 2018. Standard critical guidance applies: what will doubtless be catnip for fans is likely to prove varyingly baffling for newcomers, arriving late to a frenetic game offering few chances for catchup. The latter camp might, however, cling to the Halloween-adjacent release date as a partial decryption device: Fujimoto’s teenage hero Denji (voiced by Kikunosuke Toya) has a chainsaw-wielding demon squatting in his soul, suggesting the twin influences of Tobe Hooper and Shinya Tsukamoto.
The fallout from this will be, to coin a phrase, exaggerated – but the underlying emotions remain legible, maybe even relatable. Dopey slacker Denji is torn between two romantic prospects: notionally nice girl Makima, who appeals to his cultured side, and freckled, jade-eyed waitress Reze, who invites our boy to break into school after hours to skinny-dip. She’s a gal to elevate his heart rate; pity she’s also hellbent on ripping Denji’s heart out.
