Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc Scores #1 At U.S. Box Office

There are several takeaways here: first is the rising popularity of anime, both at movie theaters and in general. Demon Slayer is the fifth-highest-grossing film of the year, with Chainsaw Man almost in the top 30 within its first weekend of opening globally.

The other narrative worth mentioning relates to the studio that produced Reze Arc, MAPPA. The company took an unusual approach for the industry in that they self-financed the first season of Chainsaw Man and the film instead of going through a production committee: essentially, the cost for most anime productions are fronted by a collection of corporations that allocate the production budget.

In exchange for taking on the financial risk, production committees also reap most of the rewards, meaning the studios that actually produce the shows rarely see most of the windfall when a particular show explodes in popularity.

While the first season of Chainsaw Man was relatively controversial in Japan due to stylistic changes from the manga, something reflected in relatively low DVD and Blu-ray sales, even then, it still made back its money. And now, with the film topping the Japanese box office and doing quite well worldwide, it seems likely that MAPPA will make even more of a return on their investment.

It will be worth paying attention to whether the studio’s seeming success in self-financing the series will inspire more anime studios to potentially do the same going forward. One studio known for mostly self-financing is Kyoto Animation, which has been praised for how it treats its animators compared to the rest of the industry—while it’s probably a stretch to expect more KyoAni-caliber studios, at the very least, perhaps it would result in animators finally being paid more on average.