As Crunchyroll shows off first Demon Slayer Infinity Castle footage behind closed doors, its movie chief declares "Anime is niche no more"
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As Demon Slayer Infinity Castle movie is expected to be a box office hit this year and shows like Jujutsu Kaisen and The Apothecary Diaries are becoming cultural phenomenons on TV, it's clear that anime is soaring in the global scene. With 17 million subscribers and the largest anime library, Crunchyroll is riding this wave, which is predicted to keep growing in the next five years.
According to the latest Crunchyroll study, conducted by National Research Group (NRG), anime fandom is expected to reach at least 1.5 billion by 2030, even without including Japan and China, as its global audience keeps growing non-stop, particularly among younger viewers. "Anime is niche no more," said Crunchyroll EVP of global commerce and head of theatrical Michel Berger (via Variety).
During this year's Annecy International Animated Film Festival, Berger introduced the Crunchyroll Studio Focus 2025 and talked about the anime fandom's growth. According to the study, nearly 60% of viewers from 13 to 17 identify as anime fans. The number goes down to 44% with viewers from 13 to 54, but it still surpasses, according to Berger, other popular genres like K-dramas.
Berger concluded his presentation by sharing footage from the upcoming Demon Slayer movie, officially titled Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle, which is scheduled to be released on July 18, 2025, in Japan. Crunchyroll will distribute the film in international markets through Sony Pictures Releasing a couple of months later.
Infinity Castle could easily become a box office hit, at least if it follows the results of Demon Slayer: Mugen Train. The first Demon Slayer film made over $500 million at the global box office, becoming the highest-grossing Japanese anime movie of all time.
Per the official synopsis, Infinity Castle sees Tanjiro and the Hashira rush to save the Demon Corps headquarters, but they're "plunged into a deep descent to a mysterious space by the hands of Muzan Kibutsuji. The destination of where Tanjiro and Demon Slayer Corps have fallen is the demons' stronghold – the Infinity Castle. And so, the battleground is set as the final battle between the Demon Slayer Corps and the demons ignites."
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle is set to premiere in North America on September 12. For more, check out the best anime we'd recommend watching in 2025. If you're still playing catch-up with Tanjiro's saga, you'll need our guide on how to watch Demon Slayer in order.
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"He Wasn't Remotely Correct": Women Are Revealing The Dumbest Thing That Was Mansplained To Them By A Man, And I'm Appalled
Well, even though it's 2025, women are still being mansplained to (aka the explanation of a particular subject by a man, typically to a woman, that's considered condescending). So we asked the women of the BuzzFeed Community: "What is the dumbest thing that has been mansplained to you?" and their answers will make you red in the face. Here's what they said below. 1."A man once explained to me what an X-Ray image is. I'm a doctor." —ale8 "I learned what an X-ray is from Sesame Street when I was three. I don't think *anybody* needs to have X-rays explained to them, but trying to explain them to a DOCTOR is a whole other level!" —ddaisy 2."I was in the process of buying a house, and a male coworker, who never bought a house, tried to mansplain income debt ratio to me. It took our male supervisor, who had bought a house a year prior, telling him I was right before he accepted, begrudgingly, that he was 'mistaken.'" —fenknight 3."A man once yelled in my face that he was the ultimate authority on how to file for a certain type of construction project, and how I, a lowly woman, couldn't possibly understand the complexities of what I was looking at. So, he never got to build his project, because I, the lady who signed off and permitted them, refused to do so until he fixed his dang paperwork. I was LITERALLY the ultimate authority on it." —renashinoa 4."Once, a man explained to me why Avatar: The Last Airbender is an anime, and he kept insisting it was not a Nickelodeon cartoon. I am an animation student. For comparison, this is like calling the original Ben 10 or the original Teen Titans an anime. (Just to be clear, the style is very clearly inspired by Japanese animation because that's what was popular at the time. But it is not considered an anime because its original language is English, and it was made by an American animation studio.) —thirstyassho 5."I am a residential counselor for male teenagers and have been working in this field for 10 years. I have lost count of the number of times MALE teenagers start lecturing me about my role as a FEMALE and what I should or should not be doing because I keep doing it wrong in comparison to some of my male counterparts, whom I have helped train." —origamidino44 6."When my friend's boyfriend broke up with her, he told her it was because she was bad at sex. My girl lowered the boom on the dicknose by replying, 'Since you were my first, I guess that makes you a bad teacher.' I still miss you to this day, Susan!" —bloodwynne 7."After I finally decided to get a credit card, my husband frowned and told me, 'You do have to pay the money back, you know.' Duh. Then again, his mother actually thought that the credit card limit meant it was free money." —thatvillageidiot 8."A guy once said, 'I went birdwatching... you know, when you watch birds.' It literally could not be named more literally." —shantaewatkins "You should've told him not only were you into birdwatching, but birding as well. (Then watched his face get very confused.) —apromisingyoungwoman 9."I work in film and saw my brother for the first time the other week, and he tried to explain the writer's strike to me and why it'd be over soon. He knew exactly one reason they were striking and not the laundry list of others. I've been in the industry for 10 years and had jobs shut down because of this strike, he works at a car rental place." —deebee2118 10."I had a random guy online try to mansplain hymens, and he kept making the usual false claims about how it 'pops' when you lose your virginity, and that it's the way you can tell a virgin from a non-virgin. I tried to correct him and explain that 1) hymens don't pop, 2) you can wear your hymen down with activities other than sex, and 3) you can lack a hymen and be a virgin, as not everyone even has a hymen (and, again, sex isn't the only thing that wears it down). Alas, he didn't believe me. Typical." —aidensmith 11."I was selling my old bike, and the guy who bought it spent the whole time he was there explaining all of the features of the bike to me. The features were all included in the listing, since I had bought the bike myself and specifically picked it because of them. He got incredibly offended when I asked if he was there to buy a bike or hold a lecture." —torbielillies 12."I'm not customer service, but I work as a branch (bank) manager in a money kiosk in a mall with an anchor store. A gentleman came in and asked for a completely different luxury store. Think, oh, I dunno, Nordstrom vs. Neiman Marcus. I told him the exact address of where he wanted to go, and he told me I was WRONG. Nooooo, I'm not... but let's pull up that Google Maps, huh? That was when he told me he didn't need to look it up because he knew where he was going, but maybe *I* should? On the quickness, I pointed at the Nordstrom entrance, 'Ya know what, you're right, Neiman Marcus is right inside, so sorry, I don't know HOW I missed that...'" —nicolermacklin 13."When I was a junior in college, I was talking to a friend about some of my classes, and his roommate took our conversation as an excuse to explain to me what linguistics was and what the major program was like. He was a freshman political science major, and I was in my third year of my linguistics program." —skailyr 14."An ex was firmly against any kind of vibrator because it would 'stretch you out like an old T-shirt.'' —taryncooksey 15."Taking my husband to the ER for a kidney stone, the two male-admitting nurses RUSH outside to greet my husband. They say, 'Oh, this is bad. We can tell by how he is walking that it's kidney stones. No disrespect, ma'am, but this is so much worse than giving birth.' Now, luckily, I am married to a wonderful man, who had my side on this, and chuckled through his pain, and said, 'No, you guys are looking at someone who went through 36 hours of labor with a broken tailbone, I got this.'" —angelaandres 16."A man thought he had to explain to me what a square was when I was 22." —profplum 17."I have an unusual first name. I was gobsmacked when someone asked how to correctly pronounce my name, and Captain Doorknob interrupted me to mansplain MY OWN NAME. INCORRECTLY." —shazzerz "I once had a man ask me, 'Isn't your name supposed to be spelled with an a?' Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I said, politely, 'You might be thinking of a different name. This is the standard spelling.' He then proceeded to give me a skeptical look and say, 'Are you sure?' (He did run away when I snapped, 'Am I sure about the spelling of my own name? Is that your question?')" —five_star 18."On my nineteenth birthday, I got into a car accident that basically totaled my car. The next day, my period started, and I was scheduled to work open to close at the coffee shop I worked at for the 'birthday' event marking the anniversary of the company's creation, with different deals." "My cramps were awful, I was getting waves of heat and nausea, and had to be moved to register. It got worse and worse, and eventually I had to excuse myself to puke out the back door into the alley, not once but twice. I asked to go home at that point, in tears, and my manager, the man who owned that particular franchise location, told me he knew periods didn't do that because he had a long-term girlfriend, it had never happened to her, and he didn't appreciate my 'crocodile tears.' Still, he let me go home and then called me once I got there to fire me. 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And he's far younger than I am." —jolynnnewbaker 23."A patient once responded to my doctor (who is also a woman), telling him he had cavities with 'Well, but I have those black spots under my fingernails sometimes, so I don't think it's a cavity necessarily.' He initially came to us complaining of pain when he eats sugary things. He was convinced the black/brown spots on his teeth were just stains and dirt that could be cleaned off." —erintrimber 24."A man once tried to explain to me what a person can and can't eat when they are breastfeeding. He wasn't remotely correct. I am a mother, postpartum nurse, and lactation consultant. The same man also told me that he was frustrated with his wife in labor because 'she was pushing wrong.'" —emunro09 25."I had a guy DM me in order to mansplain how to take care of my plants after seeing them on Instagram???" —Pez Fez Women, share with us your experience with being mansplained to in the comments or anonymously in the Google Form below:
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It hasn't been a full 28 years since 28 Days Later, but it's getting very close. We almost can't fully process just how influential and innovative the original movie was in 2002. Not only did it provide a jumpstart to the zombie (or zombie-like creature) genre, it gave the world fast-running hordes. Technologically, the movie's use of handheld digital cameras proved equally as cutting edge, even if it looks quite rough by today's standards. On returning to the story with 28 Years Later, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland wanted to do more than just rehash. They wanted to explore the premise through a 2025 lens. Nerdist spoke to Boyle and Garland, as well as actors Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, about 28 Years Later and blending family drama with rage-infected scares. 'I think we wanted to do something different,' Boyle told us. 'You have to be sensible. You are obviously basing it on the original movie. There is a debt that you hold and that you have to acknowledge, but we wanted to make it as minimal as possible. So much so that although we had Cillian [Murphy]'s agreement to be involved and he's part of [the later films] and that freed us up to try and make an original film with, like I said, a certain acknowledgement of the debt.' The movie's story, while still about people surviving a plague-destroyed landscape, is very different from the first movie. Great Britain has been completely quarantined from the rest of the world. Mainland Europe has managed to eradicate the rage virus, but no British person is allowed to leave. This means the people who live there have had to manage in a new agrarian society and fortify their communities. At the same time, the infected have had almost 30 years to evolve. 'We want to move them on through the 28 years time passage to see how they've evolved,' Boyle continued. 'To see how the infection, the virus has moved to survive itself. Just like the survivors have established a world that they built from zero about how they can survive without electricity, without technology. So the instinct was to be as original as possible, as much as possible throughout.' 'To me it's just sort of what life is like,' Garland said of the rest of the movie's world ignoring the plight of Britain. 'While we are talking right now, there are some incredibly serious conflicts happening at this exact moment and here we are talking about a movie release. The world does have a really eerie, slightly creepy ability to compartmentalize and does it very naturally.' 'What the film is doing,' he continued, 'is just putting Britain in the state of one of those sort of acknowledged but also concurrently forgotten. And yes, the world carries on, has Amazon drivers, has people augmenting their face with collagen or whatever it is they do, and just carrying on as per normal.' The reality, the normal, is a major part of the lives of the characters in the movie. The relative safety of the small, offshore community allows for the family drama element to come to the forefront. At the center, we find Jamie (Taylor-Johnson) prepared to take son Spike (Williams) on his first 'hunt,' while wife/mother Isla (Comer) remains largely bedridden with an unknown illness. 'I think the beauty of that is Alex Garland wrote a story where these characters are so rich,' Taylor-Johnson explained. 'On the page, it's a very intimate family drama. So I think you kind of just play into the reality of that and the groundedness. But it's weird. You don't almost play into the horror aspect. You're sort playing into the truth.' 'We also had a two week rehearsal period before we started shooting,' Comer added. 'Then our first week, at least, my first week on set, was in the house [together]. We went from the rehearsal room where Danny had set up the bedroom, we had all the props, and then we went straight into that set, which was amazing.' She continued, 'Danny would often play out multiple scenes in order to get momentum and to really create an energy on set. It worked, and I think the rehearsals helped all of us. It was great for us to meet each other, get familiar, and kind of create some history between us.' The society of the island also feels fully realized and the people have gone back to an older, more traditional existence. Boyle says this, too, reflects our own times. '[It's been] happening around the world over the last maybe 10 years,' the director continued. 'This tendency to look back to the glorious past and to imagine that one might be able to live there again. Faced with the lack of electricity and the lack of technology, they have almost naturally regressed back to us almost 1950s-type existence.' Part of that, he continued, was reverting to traditional gender roles. 'The boys and the girls have been separated and gender become identified again as your key roles are to do with your gender. So the boys are trained to fight and to kill and the girls to prepare the food at home. And it was just that looking backwards was really, I think a key part of the journey of the world building of them.' But Spike, as our lead character, doesn't fully conform. 'The boy has a decision to make by the end of the film,' Boyle explained. 'Will he return to his father as his father's whole role model suggests and steps into the footsteps of his father and life progresses in that way. Or will he try and find something else? He'll, of course, find out what he's going to step into is very, very dangerous indeed.' You can see the danger for yourself when 28 Years Later hits cinemas on Friday, June 20. Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
