On the second weekend of September 2025, the anime box office leader opened in North America with $70.6 million.
This performance highlighted the anime box office, with the largest opening in United States history.
Additionally, it secured a second-week top spot.
By mid-November, the film surpassed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to become the top international title at the North American box office. Box Office Mojo lists its domestic total at $134.5 million, while The Numbers reports $136.9 million, underscoring a strong showing across major trackers.
The success has implications for the anime box office landscape, shaping expectations for future releases and influencing how studios assess international appeal, release windows, and distribution options in the years ahead. Industry observers will watch whether this performance translates into stronger merchandising and broader exposure.
Whatever the final tally, no anime film had come close. Moreover, the previous North American record holder was Pokémon: The First Movie, at $85.7 million in 1999.
Then it happened again
Six weeks later, Chainsaw Man The Movie: Reze Arc opened on October 24, 2025, and topped the anime box office with $17.2 million, a result The Hollywood Reporter described as a box office upset that surprised many industry observers and underscored the film’s strong commercial reception across early markets.
Cartoon Brew counted it as the ninth anime film to open above $10 million domestically and noted it marked the second straight number-one debut for Crunchyroll, signaling sustained appeal among audiences. The Numbers puts its domestic total at $43.4 million and worldwide at $191.4 million.
Both films were distributed in North America by Sony Pictures Releasing on behalf of Crunchyroll, the anime streamer that Sony acquired in 2021. Crunchyroll’s theatrical arm holds titles in theaters for roughly 90 days before they reach streaming, according to TheWrap. This scheduling creates a defined window for the anime box office to accumulate impressions and box office momentum across initial markets.
Accordingly, the arrangement helps assess market interest and informs future release plans and regional rollouts. It also guides marketing timing and the allocation of screening resources across theaters. Industry observers note that primary theatrical windows can influence downstream streaming strategies and licensing deals.
Could you imagine how abysmal the post-summer box office would have been without Crunchyroll? Moreover, Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian told TheWrap in November. Therefore, I think it is safe to say that anime isn’t alternative content anymore.
The long climb
The scale of 2025 is easier to see against what came before. Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, released by Funimation in April 2021 during the pandemic, opened to $21.1 million. It finished around $50 million domestic. The numbers show how 2021-2022 releases influenced later market trends.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero reached $38.1 million in 2022. Jujutsu Kaisen 0 earned $34.5 million the same year. This reflects the anime box office landscape. These figures help frame expectations for the following years. They demonstrate sustained interest in animated features worldwide.
However, the art-house lane grew alongside the franchise lane. Additionally, Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume earned about $10.9 million in 2023, then a record for the director in North America.
In December 2023, Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron opened to $12.8 million and became the first original anime film to top the domestic anime box office, finishing at $47.3 million for distributor GKIDS.
Then came the jump. Infinity Castle and Reze Arc together brought in about $168 million domestically in two months, per TheWrap. This momentum boosted the anime box office in the domestic market.
Moreover, in Japan, Infinity Castle earned more than 39 billion yen. It powered the country’s box office to a record 274 billion yen in 2025. Figures come from the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan and Screen Daily.
What Crunchyroll thinks it means
Crunchyroll president and CEO Rahul Purini told The Hollywood Reporter the company expected a strong result, but not that fast. “We didn’t expect the anime box office to hit $70 million within the first three days.”
“I’ve been saying for three or four years now that anime fandom is no longer niche. It’s mainstream and gigantic,” he said.
Purini also pushed back on an old assumption about who watches. “Many people have always said, ‘Oh, this is a Japanese medium, so it must be heavily indexed toward an Asian audience,’” he said, describing the audience for Infinity Castle as diverse and expansive.
That breadth suggests the franchise can reach beyond its established fans. Infinity Castle’s performance offers studios a reason to reconsider assumptions about who buys tickets for anime and how widely these films can connect.
The streaming side provides another measure of anime’s reach. Crunchyroll reported 21 million paid subscribers as of March 2026, up from 17 million a year earlier, according to Sony’s results. Subscriber growth does not guarantee ticket sales, but it gives studios another signal to consider when planning theatrical releases and marketing.
A quieter 2026, so far
No 2026 release has approached last year’s numbers. In terms of anime box office, The Numbers lists Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War The Calamity at about $3 million through Fathom Entertainment, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Tears of the Azure Sea at $1.4 million, and Mamoru Hosoda’s Scarlet at about $629,000 through Sony Pictures Classics.
The re-release accounted for a notable uptick in the title’s performance this season, illustrating sustained fan interest. Infinity Castle itself returned to theaters in March for a re-release that added $1.3 million on its first weekend. Studios often leverage anniversaries or reissues to boost visibility, and this release followed a March rollout.
The next test is already scheduled. In August, Crunchyroll announced it will release Makoto Shinkai’s next film globally outside most of Asia. The company has continued acquiring theatrical titles for 2026 and 2027, signaling ongoing investment in high-profile releases for audiences worldwide.
These upcoming releases will determine if 2025 was a peak or the start of sustained growth, fostering hope and forward-looking confidence. Moreover, for the broader market, the anime box office trajectory of these titles will matter, influencing strategy, marketing, and regional rollout decisions.
Sources
- Box Office Mojo, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle
- The Numbers, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle
- Cartoon Brew, Infinity Castle breaks records (Sept. 22, 2025)
- The Hollywood Reporter, Infinity Castle China opening and worldwide cume (Nov. 17, 2025)
- Anime News Network, Infinity Castle breaks 25-year record (Oct. 12, 2025)
- The Hollywood Reporter, Crunchyroll CEO interview (Sept. 22, 2025)
- The Hollywood Reporter, “Box Office Upset: Chainsaw Man Soars to $17M U.S. Opening”
- Cartoon Brew, Chainsaw Man box office (Oct. 27, 2025)
- The Numbers, Chainsaw Man The Movie: Reze Arc
- TheWrap, “Why Anime Is Doing So Well at the Box Office” (Nov. 5, 2025)
- The Numbers, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train
- Cartoon Brew, The Boy and the Heron (Dec. 17, 2023)
- Box Office Mojo, The Boy and the Heron
- The Numbers, Suzume
- Screen Daily, Japan box office record 2025 (Jan. 28, 2026)
- The Numbers, 2026 top-grossing movies
- Anime News Network, Infinity Castle re-release (March 9, 2026)
- Anime News Network, Crunchyroll to release Makoto Shinkai’s new film (Aug. 11, 2026)
