Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with special guests Graham Day and Bríd Martin, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.
This time, Haruo Sotozaki’s Demon Slayer – The Movie: Mugen Train.
Following a series of mysterious disappearances on a train from Tokyo to Mugen, three young demon slayers are dispatched to investigate possible supernatural influences. The three quickly team up with a veteran soldier in the battle against evil, and discover just how quickly their mission can go off the rails.
At time of recording, it was ranked 238th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
Show Notes:
- Recorded 1st July 2021.
- Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
- Demon Slayer – The Movie: Mugen Train at The Internet Movie Database.
- The IMDB 250 as it appeared at time of recording.
- Read Graham’s reviews at Scannain.
- Hear Graham on Speaking Geek.
- Read Graham’s guide to Irish Gaming at Gameir.
- Follow Graham on Twitter.
- The Economist reports on the box office success of Demon Slayer in Japan, January 2021.
- The Asahi Shimbun reports on the confluence of factors that led to the success of Demon Slayer on its release in Japan, December 2020.
- Rebecca Rubin at Variety reports on the box office success of Demon Slayer at the American and Japanese box offices, May 2021.
- Rafael Antonia Pineda at Anime News Network reports on Demon Slayer as the highest grossing movie of 2020 at the global box office, June 2021.
- Brian Ashcraft at Kotaku reports on the success of Demon Slayer on home media in Japan, June 2021.
- Tom Brueggemann at IndieWire reports on the success of Demon Slayer on American streaming services, June 2021.
- Editor Tatsuhiko Katayama talks to Manga Plus about the naming and development of the original Demon Slayer series.
- Tomohiro Osaki at The Japan Times discusses the difference between the American and Japanese age ratings on Demon Slayer, April 2021.
- Marcus James Dixon at Gold Derby reports on how the R-rating for Demon Slayer opens the potential for the anime to make awards history, March 2021.
- Ana Diaz at Polygon writes about how paperback manga has gone global, May 2021.
- Ana Diaz at Polygon discusses the unique phenomenon of the manga section at Barnes and Noble, April 2021.
- Walt Hickey interviews Ana Diaz about the increasing popularity of manga in America for The Numlock, May 2021.
- Egan Loo at Anime News Network reports on Demon Slayer pressing 150,000,000 copies into circulation, February 2021.
- Joseph Luster at Otaku USA Magazine reports on Japanese book stores implementing a lottery system for copies of Shonen Jump, February 2020.
- Matt Schley at Otaku USA Magazine reports on Japanese book stores having to hide copies of Shonen Jump to prevent theft and shoplifting, January 2020.
- Kim Morrissy at Anime News Network investigates claims that Demon Slayer singlehandedly outsold all of American comic books, May 2021.
- Charles Solomon takes a look at the cultural phenomenon that is One Piece for The Los Angeles Times, January 2017.
- Brian Ashcraft at Kotaku takes a look at the most popular anime adaptations of Weekly Jump manga, June 2021.
- Jun Onishi at Tokyo Business Today offers a glimpse of Demon Slayer‘s cultural impact in Japan, February 2021.
- Andrew Webster at The Verge takes a look at Netflix’s recent investment in anime, June 2021.
- Brian Ashcraft at Kotaku looks at Netflix’s plans to use anime to break into the Japanese market, June 2021.
- The Economist looks at how ease of access on streaming has helped to boost the global popularity of anime, June 2021.
- Glenn Kenny at The New York Times reports on the success of Crunchyroll as a streaming service, August 2017.
- Brooks Barnes at The New York Times reports on AT&T’s acquisition of Crunchroll, August 2018.
- Michelle Toh at CNN reports on AT&T’s sale of Crunchroll to Sony, December 2020.
- Georg Szalai at The Hollywood Reporter talks to Pascal Desroches about AT&T’s divestiture of WarnerMedia, June 2021.
- Dade Hayes at Deadline reports on the disastrous consequences of AT&T’s “straight to streaming” model for Warners’ blockbusters, May 2021.
- Toussaint Egan reviews Demon Slayer for Polygon, April 2021.
- Matthew Payne at North Texas Daily discusses the question of canon and continuity in anime movies, February 2020.
- Rafael Motamayor offers an introduction to Demon Slayer for Vulture, April 2021.
- David Ehrlich reviews Demon Slayer for IndieWire, April 2021.
- Martin Scorsese writes about the shift from art to content in Harper’s Magazine, March 2021.
- Darren Mooney writes at Escapist Magazine about how Disney have spent ages trying to patch The Rise of Skywalker, March 2020.
- Owen S. Good at Polygon discusses the offloading of a key narrative beat from The Rise of Skywalker into Fortnite, December 2019.
- Sam Shepherd writes at Medium about the early embrace of transmedia storytelling by The Matrix, August 2015.
- Patrick Williams at Polygon argues that The Matrix Reloaded was an early ambitious attempt at building a shared universe, June 2019.
- James Fujita at Otaquest reports on the second stage adaptation of Demon Slayer, May 2021.
- Kat Bailey at IGN reports on the upcoming American release of the Demon Slayer video game, June 2021.
- The Japan Times reports on plans to open a Demon Slayer attraction at Universal Studios Japan, June 2021.
- Amid Amidi at Cartoon Brew reports on Demon Slayer becoming the first anime to top the American box office since Pokemon, June 2021.
- Karina Wilson at Lit Reactor discusses the legacy of vampires as the “zipless f&!k”, November 2011.
- Isabelle Pollentzke at Animals and Society discusses werewolves as an expression of the anxiety about the borders between man and animal, Winter 2017.
- Heather McCallum at In the Footsteps of Monsters discusses the primal fears that inform both vampires and werewolves, November 2016.
- Philip Ball at The Atlantic reflects on the fears that inform and shape Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, April 2017.
- Rebecca Laurence at BBC reflects on the horror simmering beneath the surface of Frankenstein, June 2018.
- Chris Kincaid at Japan Powered looks at why anime characters frequently yell their names and their attacks, March 2017.
- The BBC reports on rising suicide rates among Japanese children, November 2018.
- Casey Baseel at Japan Today reports on suicide as a leading cause of death among Japanese teenagers, November 2020.
- Doctor Steve Williams at University of Southern Indiana offers a brief history of rock ‘n’ roll and moral panics, February 2017.
- Martin Kielty at Ultimate Classic Rock looks back at how James Bond dissed the Beatles in Goldfinger, June 2020.
- Lynzee Loveridge at Anime News Network reports on how Japanese kids admire Tanjiro more than their own parents, December 2020.
- Kaori Shoji at The Japan Times asks whether Demon Slayer is appropriate for children, November 2020.
- Koh Ewe at Vice looks at the divide between intended audiences for Demon Slayer in Japan and America, April 2021.
- Ashley Maaike at Comic Book Resources looks at Nezuko as the breakout character from Demon Slayer, May 2021.
- Bradley Russell at Total Film looks at the ending of Demon Slayer, June 2021.
- Bradley Russell at Total Film reports on the upcoming second season of Demon Slayer, June 2021.
- Atsushi Ohara at The Asahi Shimbun on where the second season of Demon Slayer will take the show, March 2021.
- Reuben Baron at Comic Book Resources asks whether any anime films will receive major Oscar nominations, March 2021.
- Mariko Oi at The BBC looks at the tradition and appeal of the Japanese Bento Box, October 2019.
- Live Japan celebrates the tradition of Bento Boxes on Japanese trains, June 2016.
- Justin McCurry at The Guardian attempts to understand why Demon Slayer has become so popular, December 2020.
- Arielle Busetto at Japan Forward attempts to parse why Demon Slayer became a cultural phenomenon, November 2020.
- Michael Hoffman at The Japan Times looks back on the modernity that swept through Japan during the shortlived Taisho Era, July 2012.
- Anime News Network discusses the fashion of Demon Slayer, May 2020.
- Allegra Frank at Polygon offers a brief history of Shonen Jump, July 2018.
- Kelly Mower at Otaquest writes about the polling and voting that shapes and informs so much of the output of Weekly Shonen Jump, June 2020.
- Matt Schley at Otaku USA Magazine looks at the popularity of Demon Slayer among female readers, May 2020.
- Koyoharu Gotouge makes Time‘s “2021 Time100 Next” list, December 2020.
- Jacob Parker-Dalton at Otaquest asks whether Shonen Jump has learned the wrong lessons from the success of Demon Slayer, November 2020.
- Kim Morrissy reports at Anime News Network on the controversy over the possibility of a female editor at Shonen Jump, November 2019.
- Matt Alt at The New Yorker discusses what the success of Demon Slayer might mean for the future of Japanese mass media, June 2021.
- Benjamin Lee at The Guardian looks at how American films are changing to appeal to the Chinese market, August 2020.
- Jana Monji at RogerEbert.com discusses a lot of the specific Japanese references and allusions in Spirited Away, August 2015.
- Ghosts of Asia discusses Spirited Away as a parable about modernising Japan, January 2017.
- Michael Penn at Al Jazeera reports on what Demon Slayer means for the future of Japanese animation, May 2021.
- Reuben Baron at Comic Book Resources reports on Miyazaki’s response when asked about Demon Slayer, November 2020.
- Alex Dudok De Wit at Cartoon Brew reports on the internal response to Demon Slayer within Studio Ghibli, May 2021.
- Alyssa Rosenberg at The Washington Post discusses the MCU as a gigantic billion-dollar television show, April 2019.
- Mikawa Kaori at Nippon discusses Demon Slayer as a cultural phenomenon for pandemic times, February 2021.
- Kimberly Nordyke at The Hollywood Reporter offers an account of the accusations against Thomas Middleditch, March 2021.
- Amanda Pagan at The New York Public Library offers an introduction to manga, December 2018.
- Joe Gross at Rolling Stone looks at how comic books are more than just superheroes, November 2019.
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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: animated, anime, blockbuster, brid martin, canon, children, continuity, demon slayer, Demon Slayer - Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Movie: Mugen Train, Demon Slayer - The Movie: Mugen Train, demon slayer: mugen train, demon slayer: the movie, demons, film, graham day, japan, Movie, mugen train, ova, serialisation, series |
the m0vie blog 
Hi Darren, it’s been like nearly a year since this podcast came out, but have you checked out season 2 of Demon Slayer yet?
My thoughts? It’s interesting to say the least. It starts out bizarrely with a 7 episode extended version of Mugen Train complete with a prologue and epilogue to the events of the film, which seems to only exist because of how incredibly popular Rengoku is in Japan, and wanting to keep milking that film’s popularity despite being the highest grossing film over there.
And then we get to the real meat and potatoes of the next arc that lasts 11 episodes, and yet feels longer than that, due to the fact that much of its running time is dedicated to one looooooooong fight that doesn’t seem to know when it will end. Just when it seems like the fight is over, then they pull the rug from under to have another fight that lasts even longer. It’s very much more of the same, and seems to also follow that MCU model suspiciously, complete with a loud noisy third act, and a post-credits stinger for the next arc with a new character out of nowhere. Also it’s a bit skeevy with how it takes place in a red light district and the three boys disguise themselves as prostitutes to infiltrate it, and yet it doesn’t matter much because it doesn’t have anything to say about it (in addition to not being explicit at all, ironic since the guy Tengen who’s their partner for this arc has multiple wives). This whole infiltration thing you’d suspect would have a mystery investigation aspect to it to shaken things up, and yet the reveal is so obviously laid out and obvious that it’s hardly a mystery, so they can get to the fighting faster.