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If the question of whether anime is mainstream was still on everyone’s lips, 2025 clearly set the medium in stone like a resounding yes from hell. Yet despite the banner year that anime has had in theaters, it’s also been a year in a bind over whether we’ll see it in its brilliant final form or whether we’ll only get glorified previews and compilation events masquerading as upcoming cinematic experiences.
Just to get them out of the way, because we’ve carefully peppered them in the past and their accolades bear repeating, the animated films of 2025 have been defined by the runaway success of ufotable’s films. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and the cards Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc. As they should be. The first, arguably the repopularized starting point for anime as a theatrical experience, exceeded its fans’ already high expectations with the studio’s crisp animation, likable ensemble, and incredibly fast-paced action, which added to the spectacle of being the first in a cinematic trilogy to conclude the series, a hat-tip on a hat-trick of hype.
But above all, that Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle that I had to present was new and looked like a film (with the conceit of the first part of a cinematic trilogy). Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc had the same quality, but somehow, in that it encompassed a complete arc of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s series as a cinematic experience that will hold a place in the frontal lobe of anime fans for years to come.
Yet despite these two big marquee films of 2025, fans have also been honored to receive films in theaters that deserve so much shine as a cinematic experience, mainly thanks to the efforts of GKids and its initiative to make animated films more than just re-releases of great retros like that of Studio Ghibli. Princess Mononoke and Studio Deen The angel egg remastered in 4K. These films include films like Science Saru musical anime fueled by synesthesia Interior colors And Rock’n Roll Mountainthe film adaptation of Uoto (creator of Orb: On the movements of the Earth) emotional athleticism epic, 100 Meters.
A recently established anime format in theaters that has quickly become a bit boring is that of theatrical previews. Let them be compilations of past seasons of shows like Jujutsu Kaisen or episodes assembled as a test sampling of three episodes from newer shows like Witch Watchthese events begin to leave much to be desired as theatrical experiences.
On paper, they were interesting. Basically, they were meant for FOMO averse people who wanted to check out some assuredly hot anime like Dan Da Dan before the spoilers hit their timeline, plus a way to be one of those who beat the artificial shortage of watching Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX weeks before their arrival on streaming platforms. They had some growing pains at first, adding documentary content from creators positioned before the episodes themselves, reaping whatever surprises awaited them. But this phenomenon began to lose its luster in part because of the coming cinematic explosion of Demon Slayer And Chainsaw man and the diminishing returns of this format.
The first problem with this animated film format was inevitable: having to wait for new episodes, weeks after the start of the shows finally broadcast. It’s basically like the blowback of a gun hitting you in the face. Sure, it was your fault for buying the preview in advance, but you increased your disposable income for a very expensive movie ticket to essentially watch three (maybe four) episodes of an anime to feel like “They don’t know“The meme whenever patient anime fans discuss these episodes online has become a bitter pill to swallow.
Aside from seeing the opening themes of these shows, moviegoers were basically resigned to not really feeling part of the weekly experience because they were spending money to be cursed to know where things were going.
And while Jujutsu Kaisen fans know no shame regarding the etiquette of spoiler culture, no one wants to be that guy who accidentally spoils people’s fun because they essentially did what video games were chastised for with paid service subscriptions: accessing a game days earlier than everyone else. Speaking of Jujutsu Kaisenits hybrid compilation-preview event for its next season, Jujutsu Kaisen: Executionwas among the worst of both worlds in this format.
As a compilation film, it didn’t do a good job of showcasing the season’s best moments. I don’t mean to be mean, but TikTok Content Creators do a better job of not bypassing the emotional push of these moments of fighting witchcraft. The way the film handled it only highlighted the weak points of the series’ fair-weather story when condensed rather than spread out in an episodic format. And because the series is such a dense information dump of concepts and power sets, the actual new content wasn’t worth the rush, with its inevitable cliffhanger ending making even its action, the series’ strong point, seem a bit Pyrrhic on the big screen, as the whole thing bogged down by turning into an arc reminiscent of an actual movie.
To be fair to JJKwe were far from worse of these animated films formatted (in name only) theatrical experiences. It would probably be Shaft’s Virgin punk mechanical girla primarily documentary film and preview event. Although pretty, it didn’t give FOMO but ROMO (relief of missing something)given the high price of the films and the fact that they don’t live up to the price of admission.
But following films like Demon Slayer And Chainsaw man proving that anime is best experienced as a complete cinematic experience rather than a glorified trailer for streaming platforms, the anime industry feels like it’s on a razor’s edge in how it releases its projects in the future. Either he can take his status as a launching pad to treat his films as complete experiences, or he can continue to position himself as an interesting novelty act. Hopefully the global industry will decide to make its future theatrical experiences more like Arc de Rezé and less like glorified preview events from here on out.
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