This year has been amazing for anime of all genres. So, here are some of the top films that wowed (and devastated) me!
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle
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The first ten minutes of Infinity Castle, which came out in U.S. theaters in September, already had me sobbing so hard I worried about being kicked out of the theater. You thought Mugen Train was bad? The back-to-back emotional apexes of Infinity Castle make it feel like ten Mugen Trains in a row.
On top of the storytelling (which manga readers already know and love), Ufotable animated the heck out of this film. The scale, the fights, the lighting… there’s a reason it’s now the highest-grossing anime movie of all time, beating Mugen Train’s record by about $55 million within its first month, according to the Hollywood Reporter.Â
What I love most about the Demon Slayer franchise is its character development. Audiences root for the protagonist, of course, but find themselves learning to love even the villains. Their heartbreaking backstories pang into viewers’ hearts with each strum of Upper Rank Four’s biwa.
Viewers meet new villains and Upper Ranks in Infinity Castle, but the character whose fate devastated me most was Akaza (Upper Rank Three). After what he did to Rengoku in Mugen Train, I never thought I’d find myself crying for him. But there I was, wailing into my popcorn.
- Jujutsu Kaisen — The Movie: Shibuya Arc (UPCOMING RECOMPILATION!)
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If, for some reason, you didn’t watch season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen, don’t worry — Studio MAPPA is recompiling the Shibuya arc into a movie set to release at the end of this year, according to Game Rant.Â
It wasn’t long ago that they did the same thing with Hidden Inventory/Premature Death, combining the first two episodes of Season 2 into a movie. The rest of the season will be compiled into the Shibuya Arc movie, essentially becoming a highlight reel of the most epic fight scenes and secondary storylines.
Plus, viewers will get to see a little bit of new content, preparing them for Season 3, which comes out next January.
- Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc
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I read this part of the manga years ago and forgot just enough of it to be shocked and amazed at the movie, which was released in U.S. theaters Oct. 24 this year. It’s been three years since the last (well, first) season of Chainsaw Man came out, and with so much time to build anticipation, Studio MAPPA definitely didn’t disappoint.
Reze Arc is that genre of storytelling where everything is broken and bloody, yet somehow still beautiful in a way you don’t fully understand until you’re sitting in the car afterwards, like, “Damn. I get it now.” Every rerelease is a reminder that no one is doing catastrophic existential comedy like this franchise.
What makes Reze Arc feel like someone dropped a bomb (pun intended) on your heart is how bluntly human it is. Denji’s dream isn’t glory or epic heroism. It’s warmth, a home, a meal, love that’s reciprocated. That’s not even the gut-wrenching part. Like with Infinity Castle, I found myself crying for the antagonist, who takes us on a roller coaster from the moment she enters the frame.
(I also saw many TikTok edits of Denji and Reze to “cliche” by 2hollis, which played in my head throughout most of the movie.)Â
Not to mention the visuals! Reze Arc had one of the most spectacular action sequences ever animated. When the antagonist has explosion powers and her lackey has typhoon powers, the scale of the fight is bound to be insane. And even though you know that about half of Japan was probably devastated in the battle, you still find yourself chuckling at Denji’s idiocy during.
- Perfect Blue (Theatrical Re-Release)
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Perfect Blue being back in circulation in 2025 feels like fate, because this is the movie about living through identity distortion, the original psychological disassociation classic.
The first time I saw it, I was in such horror that I had to put on a slice-of-life anime immediately after the credits started rolling to self-soothe. It lingers in your nervous system like a shadow. It’s not flashy the way shounen anime movies are; it’s the slow-burning unraveling of self.
The movie came out decades ago, but watching it in theaters in 2025 feels like it was written for right now.Â
In the era of parasocial obsession and femininity as spectacle, Perfect Blue remains timeless. And where so many modern psychological films tell you a character is unstable, Perfect Blue makes you live inside the breakdown, the terrifying moment when imitation becomes indistinguishable from identity.
Anime this year isn’t interested in just entertaining us. It wants to drag every suppressed feeling into the daylight and dunk it in Dolby surround sound.
We will be seated, we will be wrecked, and we will weirdly love every second of it.
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