Demon Slayer Snubbed from Oscar Nod Despite Record-Breaking Box Office Run

On January 21, 2026, it was revealed that Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc would not make it to the list of nominees for the 98th Academy Awards’ Animated Film Feature Category.

The nominees for the category are:

• KPop Demon Hunters
• Elio
• Zootopia 2
• Arco
• Little Amélie or the Character of Rain

With KPop Demon Hunters having won the 2025 Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film and the 9th Astra Film Awards over Demon Slayer (Demon Slayer still wins an Honorary Award for “Animation is Cinema” in the Astra Film Awards), it is likely to set this pattern for the Oscars.

KPop Demon Hunters’s nomination is the seventh time an Asian animated film has made that distinction, with six of those times coming from Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli.

While the Golden Globes did have Demon Slayer nominated, the Academy Awards did not in spite of KPop Demon Hunters being a Netflix film and Demon Slayer being the most succcessful Japanese theatrical release of 2025, with the film grossing $779.5 million with a $20 million budget.

Some fans have observed that one key reason why Demon Slayer’s movie did not make it beyond the longlist in spite of its financial success is due to the way the Oscars are perceived as a promotion of Hollywood IPs and that Demon Slayer did not make money for Hollywood but for the Japanese producer Toho instead.

Source: Twitter and Reddit

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