Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, the fourth Demon Slayer related film and the second that is not a compilation of the anime’s seasonal episodes, has struck ground in the United States box office, breaking multiple records  in its release here. In its first weekend release on September 12, the film garnered a domestic total of $70,611,098. Continuing into its second weekend, though the film experienced a drop-off by about 76%, Demon Slayer still remained on top of the domestic box office numbers, adding an additional $17,303,707 to its domestic total. For a theatrical anime release, these numbers are a remarkable figure. Of the numerous anime films release in the United States since the dawn of the 2000s, over a hundred films, none of them had broken $50 million in the domestic market.

The success of this installment of the Demon Slayer series can be attributed to the immense popularity that anime and anime culture has among younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences. Polls and surveys on viewing habits of Gen Z demographics have estimated that approximately “42% of Gen Z say they watch anime weekly,” using official platforms such as the Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also happened to be the official distributor of Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle. Paul Dergarabedian of Comscore describes the box office haul of Demon Slayer as “somewhat unprecedented,” although one that could potentially make studio executives and film producers “very happy.” Meanwhile, while other executives are more cautious about the overall significance of Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle‘s bounty. Some, such as those at Fandango, stress that while this could signal a boon in young people attending the cinema’s and contributing their share of the box office makeup, against the typical stereotype that is predominantly older viewers who attend movies, they also note that this trend could also be a short-lived one, that fails to stabilize into a longer lasting pattern of audience demographics at the cinema.

Still, with the success of Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, there is a chance that these figures and reports could spur others previously unfamiliar or uninterested in the property to consider checking out the film in theaters, and even other anime films to come.