After KPop Demon Hunters took home two Golden Globe Awards on Monday, fans of the popular anime series Demon Slayer were left disappointed, with many saying that the film adaptation of the latter’s Infinity Castle arc deserved the award for Best Animated Feature.
Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film alongside KPop Demon Hunters at this year’s Golden Globe Awards.
While some argued that the Netflix animated fantasy deserved the win for Best Animated Feature and Best Song awards since it was a “cultural nuke”, others said that it was a full-fledged film unlike the Demon Slayer film which was technically a continuation of the series.
“I am actually fine with it, Demon Slayer and Zootopia is a series continuation, people know they will succeed from the start due to their budget, but KPop Demon Hunters really is a dark horse full of surprise and imo new IP deserve more recognition than the already established one for the sake of industry growth,” one of them wrote.
Another said, “You'll hear people talk about Demon Slayer and Zootopia here and there, but you could not avoid hearing about KPop Demon Hunters. Doesn't matter if you're at Walmart, School, Church, the bottom of the Marina Trench: people would be there talking about K Pop Demon Hunters.”
Many fans had argued that the Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle movie surpassed KPop Demon Hunters in terms of animation — the category for which the award was given.
“Not a demon slayer fan but kpop demon hunters is just another performative propaganda with nothing but the lamest storyline than demon slayer and worst character design which made headlines for being ‘korean’ pop also not saying it's rigged it's what the majority likes these days,” an X user posted following the Golden Globes ceremony.
Reddit was divided. “I can objectively say Demon Slayer has the best animation but Demon Hunters was the better film. Any viewer may not appreciate Demon Slayer unless they had watched / rewatched previous seasons. I invited my wife to watch the whole story before we went to the cinemas and that made all the difference,” wrote a fan.
Agreeing, another Redditor said, “Demon Slayer as a movie for the general public is horrendous. Yea, if you're into the show/manga, it was required watching, but as a stand alone thing it's just noise and colors. It's impossible to assess outside of the context of it being an instalment of an on-going story.”
Dropped on Netflix on June 20, KPop Demon Hunters flaunts a star-studded cast, bringing renowned names as its voice actors, including Arden Cho, Ahn Hyo-seop, Lee Byung-hun and Joel Kim Booster. It is directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans.
Infinity Castle, which hit screens on September 12, 2025, is the first part in the movie trilogy covering the final arc of the Demon Slayer anime series. It follows Tanjiro, the Demon Slayer Corps, and the seven Hashira being pulled by the demon king Muzan into his lair for a final battle. The arc covers various fights against the Upper Rank demons, the most powerful demons in existence, before the ultimate showdown with Muzan.