The Critics Choice Super Awards just announced their nominees, and the Best Superhero Movie category has some familiar faces: Superman, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Supergirl, Masters of the Universe, and Mortal Kombat II. And then there's the wild card: Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, the highest-earning Japanese film of all time.
Yes, an anime about a demon-hunting kid with a sword is officially competing against the Man of Steel for Best Superhero Movie.
The Super Awards are the Critics Choice Association's genre spin-off, launched in 2021 to celebrate the superhero, sci-fi, horror, and action fare the main ceremony tends to pass over. The sixth annual edition reveals its winners on August 6th by press release, no red carpet required.
So how does a dark-fantasy anime land in the superhero race? Simple: the Super Awards don't have an animation category. Every film gets filed into whichever genre fits best, and a kid with supernatural Breathing Techniques carving up demons to protect the innocent apparently reads close enough to a cape and super powers. It isn't even the strangest fit in the field: Exit 8, the live-action Japanese thriller based on the walking-simulator video game, landed in the same category, and its star Kazunari Ninomiya picked up a Best Actor in a Superhero Movie nomination right next to David Corenswet and Pedro Pascal.
The rest of the acting field pulls from the movies CBM readers have been arguing about all year. The Best Actress race features Milly Alcock, Rachel Brosnahan, Julia Garner, Vanessa Kirby, Camila Mendes, and Adeline Rudolph.
As for the overall field, Superman leads all films with six nominations, which makes sense with how the film was received by fans and critics alike. Infinity Castle walked away with exactly one. On paper that's a David-and-Goliath matchup. At the box office, it was the other way around.
This also isn't the film's first brush with the Critics Choice Association. It picked up the group's International Animation Award last fall, a separate race from this one. The difference now is the company it's keeping: this time it's measured directly against the capes and tights.
Infinity Castle pulled in roughly $740 million worldwide with nearly 100 million tickets sold, which is why critics increasingly treat it as a Superman peer rather than a niche import. The nomination is the film's only one, and there's a genuine snub in there: the Super Awards have a Best Villain in a Movie category, and Akaza, the film's devastating antagonist, didn't make the cut.
The timing makes sense if you're an anime fan, as Infinity Castle Part 1 hits Crunchyroll on July 28th at 8:00 a.m. PT / 11:00 a.m. ET with subs and dubs, nine days before the winners are announced. Our sister site AnimeMojo has the full breakdown of the nomination from the anime side.
I'm a HUGE Demon Slayer fan, and even I'm torn on this one. The recognition is well earned, and it's one of the truly great anime properties running right now. But does it scream "superhero"? Not to me. Tanjiro would be the first to tell you he's just a big brother with a sword.
So where do you land? Should an anime juggernaut be competing in the same category as Superman and The Fantastic Four, or do the Super Awards need a proper animation lane? If it WINS, what does that say about the year superhero movies just had?
Sound off in the comments below!
Other Stories Worth Your Time