Part of why Gotoge’s manga of the same name was so incredibly popular was that it always cut to the chase and knew when to end things. Despite a slow start — both in terms of story and sales — the manga quickly became a global phenomenon, in part thanks to the anime adaptation but also just because it tells a rather effective little story. There isn’t much in terms of surprise of subversion, but it’s still an exceptionally well-executed action shonen. There’s little in terms of downtime; instead, it maintains a fast pace while going straight for the highlights.

The results speak for themselves, with “Demon Slayer” becoming to this generation of manga and anime fans what “Naruto” was in the ’00s and “Dragon Ball Z” was in the ’90s. Unlike those two, however, “Demon Slayer” managed to tell its story in just 23 volumes or 205 chapters, which is rather short for such a big Shonen Jump title.

So yeah, “Demon Slayer” was always going to be a short anime, but why a trilogy of movies? Well, that’s both the biggest gift and curse of this franchise.

These days, big anime adaptations split their seasons according to the story arcs they are adapting. The problem is that not all story arcs are equally long, meaning you’re going to get to a point where an arc could be done in just four episodes. Rather than combine story arcs in the same season, which shows like “Attack on Titan” and “My Hero Academia” constantly did, “Demon Slayer” broke the mold in 2020 by revealing that the “Infinity Train Arc” would be adapted as a theatrical feature film rather than an extra-short season.