Demon Slayer’s release format has been announced. Demon Slayer will have two releases, a limited edition and a standard edition released starting later this year. Aniplex USA will be publishing the limited release this June. And Funimation will publish the standard edition, this September.
The game has changed.
Aniplex USA and Funimation are doing co-publishing for Demon Slayer. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is easily one of the most popular titles to come out this past year. Shonen action, beautiful animation, it’s everything that Aniplex USA title would have. Normally you would expect Aniplex prices within the $100s. Of course, that happens with the Aniplex Limited edition for $129.98 that comes out on June 30th and November 24th, 2020.
But the change between Funimation and Aniplex for Sony as the link shifted this narrative. Now anime fans will get a cheaper DVD option from Funimation which is at a more reasonable price at $64.98. In exchange for the price, you wait longer as Aniplex USA gets the timed limited exclusivity release.
If you would’ve asked me a week ago if this model would even be feasible, I would’ve laughed. This is because for Aniplex USA they value high prices in order to retain customers with quality content. We’ve seen this work for over a decade.
Now, they’ve decided to split the baby between two different companies in order to publish the series. This has significant consequences. For Aniplex, it may not ruin their standing on trying to push out more intimate high-end releases to their customers. Meanwhile, Funimation gets a title that will guarantee them sales immediately albeit they will have to wait for a bit.
Now there should be some caution. We’ve only seen this with Demon Slayer, and this may be an outlier to the work. However, if we start seeing this with Sword Art Online, and the Promised Neverland, that we may be starting to see a narrative. Aniplex USA is the high-end label for exclusive titles or super niche titles that get the otaku emotional publishing treatment. Funimation gets the general admission releases that sometimes get the glitzy limited edition. These two can both coexist as labels, at least for the current time being. We will see how this works out in their old format after Demon Slayer.
For fans of the series who want physical media, they should rejoice, they finally get options.
