Demon Slayer Infinity Castle Outshines One Piece in 2025

One Piece sits among the most beloved anime and manga around, carried for decades by Eiichiro Oda’s storytelling. Yet 2025 has belonged to another title at the box office, and that title is Demon Slayer.

The reason is Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Part 1. The film was a smash in Japan, where it passed One Piece Film Red, long the highest earning One Piece movie, and began closing in on the record set by the franchise’s own Mugen Train. One Piece, by contrast, had no new film this year to answer with.

Its overseas run was just as strong. In the United States, Infinity Castle posted the biggest opening of its kind, comfortably ahead of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. On the big screen, at least for now, Demon Slayer has set the pace.

Much of the conversation around this points back to production. Some fans feel One Piece’s weekly anime, made by Toei Animation, struggles to match a polished theatrical project, simply because a show airing every week cannot pour movie level effort into every episode. That is part of why many readers still treat the manga as the truest version of the story.

There is hope on that front. Wit Studio is working on a fresh adaptation known as The One Piece, and Oda himself has spoken about steering the series toward its biggest chapters as the Wano arc wraps up. The manga also keeps rolling, with chapter 1161 due at the end of September.

My take: Comparing a single blockbuster film to a weekly series has always felt a little unfair to me. Both are doing very different jobs, and I would rather celebrate how strong a year anime is having than crown a single winner.