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Demon Slayer: Mugen Train Is 1st Anime Film to Top Annual DVD Chart in 12 Years
posted on by Alex Mateo
Oricon reported on Wednesday that Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train anime film is the first anime film to top the annual DVD chart in 12 years since Studio Ghibli's Ponyo in 2009. The film sold an estimated 633,426 copies on DVD, and is also the first anime film since Ponyo to top 500,000 copies.
The Demon Slayer film sold an estimated 459,173 copies on Blu-ray Disc, ranking at #2 for most Blu-ray Disc sales in one year for an animated film, only behind Frozen in 2014. The anime also topped the annual Blu-ray Disc chart for 2021.
The film's Limited Edition DVD ranked at #4 on Oricon's DVD chart with an estimated 182,635 copies sold. The Limited Edition Blu-ray Disc ranked at #3 on the Blu-ray Disc chart with an estimated 368,485 copies sold.
The first volume for the Uma Musume Pretty Derby Season 2 anime ranked #5 on the Blu-ray Disc chart with 209,982 copies sold. Oricon's 2021 home video sales charts cover sales of physical copies surveyed from December 14, 2020 to December 12, 2021.
Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train began screening in Japan in October 2020, and it topped the box office in Japan for 12 consecutive weeks. The film became the first film ever to pass the 40 billion yen milestone. The film was the highest-earning film worldwide from 2020. It is the first non-Hollywood or non-American film to top the yearly box office worldwide since the beginning of cinema over a century ago. Crunchyroll and Funimation are streaming the film.
Funimation released the film on Blu-ray Disc in the U.S. and Canada on Tuesday. Aniplex of America released the film on a limited edition Blu-ray Disc on the same day. The releases include the film in Japanese with English subtitles and with the English dub.
The anime film had sold 1,074,170 copies total of its Blu-ray Disc and DVD releases in Japan (including both the limited and regular editions) in only three days since it debuted on June 16. The first-week sales of the film's regular editions have surpassed those for the limited editions of Frozen 2, the previous record holder for highest first-week DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales in the animation category in the Reiwa era (from May 13, 2019). The DVD version stayed at #1 for five weeks, tying the record of 2005's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and 2000's The Matrix.
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