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      ‘Evangelion’ Director, Hideaki Anno, Explains How He Finally Found His Ending

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      Hideaki Anno is concluding the story of Shinji Ikari and company in a film due on Amazon this month but says, “There might come a time when I meet them again.”Finally.Hideaki Anno’s “Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.0: Thrice Upon a Time,” which begins streaming on Amazon Prime on Aug. 13, is the film that anime fans have awaited for 25 years. The fourth and final theatrical feature in the “rebuild” of his landmark 1995-96 television series, “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” brings the epic adventure to a definitive conclusion.A compelling, complex work that mixes mecha battles with apocalyptic Christian symbols, Jewish mysticism and teenage angst, “Evangelion” (pronounced eh-van-GEH-lee-on, with a hard G) ranks among the most widely discussed TV series in anime history. Its influence is extensive and includes Japanese animated fantasies and Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 sci-fi adventure “Pacific Rim.” And fans continue to debate its significance, subtext and details.“My influence on other creators isn’t something I think about when I’m working on a film,” Anno told me in an interview. “I decide what to make based on what I’m best suited for and what interests me most at the time. The ‘Evangelion’ project repeatedly came up, so I made the new theatrical movies. I don’t think that kind of opportunity will occur again.”In the series, which takes place in the not-too-distant future, humanity is locked in a mortal struggle with bizarre, staggeringly powerful creatures known as Angels. The only effective weapons against them are the Evangelions or Evas, gigantic cyborgs guided by psychic teenagers. The hero is Shinji Ikari, an alienated 14-year-old who is drafted by his brutal father to pilot the Eva 01.“Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.0: Thrice Upon a Time” concludes the saga begun in 1995.Hideaki Anno/Khara, via Amazon Prime VideoDespite its popularity, “Evangelion” never had a satisfactory ending. The original series failed to resolve the intricate plot, with its theological and ontological overtones. Shortly before “Evangelion” aired, Anno wrote that he had created it after four years of severe depression when he was “a wreck, unable to do anything” and that “the story has not yet ended in my mind.”“I don’t know what will become of Shinji or (the other characters), or where they will go,” he wrote.Anno was clearly not satisfied, as he continued to look for a conclusion, recutting the last episodes and reworking them in the feature “Death & Rebirth” (1997) and again in the second 1997 feature “The End of Evangelion.”In 2002, Anno announced plans for a four-feature “rebuild,” a reimagining of the story, unconstrained by the financial and technological limits he had originally faced. “Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone” (2007) was a flamboyant retelling of the first six television episodes. “Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance” (2009) and “Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo” (2012) took the characters and story in completely new directions. Nine years later, “Thrice Upon a Time” brings the saga to a surprisingly upbeat conclusion.Speaking from Tokyo via Zoom and a translator, Anno said, “For the rebuild series, I intended the first ‘Evangelion’ movie to be similar to the TV series, the second would gradually change the story, and third and fourth would be totally different. From the first, I didn’t intend to do the same thing as the TV series.”“My influence on other creators isn’t something I think about when I’m working on a film,” Anno said.Hideaki Anno/Khara, via Amazon Prime VideoThese four films showcase Anno’s skill at using new computer-graphic technology to create more powerful iterations of his original visions. In the TV series, when troops attacked the Angel Ramiel, it destroyed the humans and their weapons in a series of unremarkable explosions; in “You Are (Not) Alone,” the audience can almost feel the heat when the Angel reduces the tanks and missiles to glowing slag.In the rebuild, Anno also delves deeper into the fragile psyche of his flawed, traumatized hero and the eccentric personalities around him. When Anno described his approach to the characters, he spoke with an intensity that crossed linguistic boundaries.“In animation, nothing is real. But I wanted to bring more of a sense of reality into this made-up world — I wanted to make the characters more human,” he explained. “There’s a gap between what people say in real life and what they truly mean. In animation, unless the characters are intentionally lying, they always say what they mean. I wanted to reverse that: When the characters in ‘Evangelion’ speak, they don’t necessarily say what they mean. I wanted to add this human behavior to animation.”“People feel Shinji is an unusual hero,” he continued. “I think that’s due to the sense of reality I brought, drawing on my experience and knowledge. But Shinji and the other characters are not just a reflection of me; they include elements of the personalities of all the artists on the creative team.”The hero, Shinji Ikari, in the television production.Khara/Project Eva“Neon Genesis Evangelion” is among the most influential anime series ever.Khara/Project EvaThe original “Evangelion” was a huge hit that helped reverse a slump in the Japanese animation industry: When the final episode was broadcast in March 1996, more than 10 percent of all televisions in Japan were tuned to it. “Evangelion” remains popular, with hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of videos and related merchandise. The newer features continued that success: “Thrice Upon a Time” opened in Japan on March 3 and played for more than 135 days in theaters there, earning more than 10.22 billion yen (about $93 million) — despite the pandemic.Reflecting on that continued popularity, Anno said, “As a creator, I want to make things that are entertaining but have depth. I didn’t want our show to be some escape-from-reality type of entertainment, I wanted people who watched it to feel encouragement to live their own lives.”Anno is shifting to live action for his next project. In April, the Toei Company announced he would direct “Shin Kamen Rider,” part of the 50th anniversary celebration of that popular superhero franchise. It’s planned for release in March 2023.When asked how it felt to bid farewell to “Evangelion” after more than 25 years, Anno concluded, “I don’t feel a need to see Shinji and the other characters any time soon. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see them ever again: There might come a time when I meet them again.” More

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      In ‘Monsters at Work,’ the Scary Part Is the New Business Model

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      Twenty years after Pixar debuted the original “Monsters, Inc.,” Disney+ is bringing a cast of new monsters to the small screen — and putting Mike and Sulley in the managers’ office.You’ve got to feel sorry for Tylor Tuskmon.After finishing at the top of his university class and receiving the business career offer of his dreams, Tylor arrives for his first workday to find that the company’s chief executive has just been jailed. The new leaders have adopted a radically novel approach and no longer need his furiously studied, exquisitely honed talent. He’s going to have to start at the bottom — literally — with the basement maintenance crew. More

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      ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ Review: Pacifier Be With You

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      It’s more of the same in this sequel to the 2017 comedy featuring the voice of Alec Baldwin.Grab your briefcases: The boss baby has returned in “The Boss Baby: Family Business,” directed by Tom McGrath, another infant adventure that hits the same notes as the original, and has little to show for it.The former boss baby, Ted (Alec Baldwin), is now a rich businessman in a big-boy suit. His brother, Tim (James Marsden), has his own family, though he worries about his daughter Tabitha (Ariana Greenblatt), an A-type who opts for handshakes over hugs. Tim gets recruited for a mission by his younger daughter, Tina (Amy Sedaris), another boss baby. With the help of some new magical baby formula, Ted and Tim transform back into their younger selves and go undercover in a school for gifted children that has an evil secret.At some point Tim asks Tabitha if she wants to hear the story about how he and baby Ted saved the world again, but she passes. “It was a good story, wasn’t it?” Tim tries, but she says, “Well, it didn’t really make a lot of sense.” “The jokes were good, right?” Tim asks. Tabitha makes a noncommittal noise.At least the film is self-aware? Aside from that, the imaginative but nonsensical narrative threads leave a minefield of plot holes in their wake. There are some good laughs throughout, though none feel particularly novel. And the continued attempts to make corporate culture into something cute and funny by adding a pacifier seems out of touch with how harshly we criticize toxic workplaces now.A baby in a suit? Always cute. Recycled gags? Not so much — this “Boss Baby” just didn’t get the memo.The Boss Baby: Family BusinessRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters and on Peacock. More

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      ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ at 25: ‘The Most R-Rated G You Will Ever See’

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      How did the ratings board overlook songs filled with lust and damnation? “Maybe we bamboozled them with gargoyles,” one filmmaker said.They know exactly what they got away with.“That’s the most R-rated G you will ever see in your life,” said Tab Murphy, a screenwriter of Disney’s animated “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” which was released 25 years ago this month.“Thousands of dollars must have changed hands somewhere, I’m sure,” joked Gary Trousdale, who directed the film with Kirk Wise.However it came about, a ratings board made up of parents decided that a film with a musical number about lust and hellfire and a plot that involves the threat of genocide against Gypsies was appropriate for a general audience.Maybe the reason had to do with the studio: Nearly all of Disney’s hand-drawn animated movies had been rated G up to that point. Maybe it was the marketing, which presented “Hunchback” as a complete departure from the dark Victor Hugo novel on which it was based, reframing it as a carnival with the tagline “Join the party!” Maybe the higher-ups at Disney exerted pressure, convinced a PG rating would hurt the box office take. (“It was a G rating or bust,” Wise said.)But the fact that what is arguably Disney’s darkest animated movie earned a rating on par with “Cinderella” reflects the subjectivity of the rating system — and how much parents’ tastes have changed over the years.“PG today is the equivalent of what G was in the 1990s,” Wise said.Trousdale added, “Nowadays, you can’t even smoke in a G film.”But one scene in particular defies explanation.“That ‘Hellfire’ sequence?” Murphy said, referring to the Stephen Schwartz-Alan Menken song sung by Judge Claude Frollo about his conflict between piety and lust for Esmeralda. “Come on, man. Come on.”Talking gargoyles were added to lighten the story.DisneyMURPHY HAD LONG WANTED to adapt the 1831 Gothic story of Esmeralda, a beautiful Roma girl who captures the hearts of several Parisian men, including Quasimodo, a bell-ringer with a severe hunchback whom Hugo describes as “hideous” and “a devil of a man.”But then he realized what he’d gotten himself into.“I was like, ‘Oh, God, I don’t want to write a singing, dancing, watered-down film that turns this amazing piece of world literature into a typical Disney movie,’” he said.But, he said, it was to the credit of Walt Disney Company executives at the time, Roy E. Disney and Michael D. Eisner, that they took a hands-off approach.“I was never told to stay away from this or that or you can’t do this,” he said. “They were like, ‘You write the story you want to tell, and let us worry about our brand.’”Of course, the Hugo novel, in which many major characters die at the end, was “too depressing” for a Disney film. So Murphy had to get creative.He decided the story would focus on the colorful fantasy world Quasimodo imagines while stuck in his bell tower. There’d be a festival. Talking gargoyles. A hero to root for.Instead of Quasimodo (voiced by Tom Hulce) being whipped on the pillory, he’s pelted with vegetables and humiliated at the Feast of Fools. Hugo’s troubled archdeacon, Claude Frollo (Tony Jay), became an evil magistrate. Disney did not want to take on the church, Trousdale said. Unlike in the novel, Esmeralda (Demi Moore) is saved by Quasimodo and the dashing Phoebus (Kevin Kline), the rebel captain of the guards. All three live happily ever after instead of dying, as both Quasimodo and Esmeralda do in the book.But, Wise said, there was always one looming issue they had to deal with: Frollo’s lust for Esmeralda.The screenwriters had to figure out how to deal with Frollo’s lust for Esmeralda. Disney“We knew that was going to be a really delicate topic,” he said. “But we also knew we had to tell that story, because it’s key to the central love rectangle.”At first, Murphy tried to tackle it in words.“I’d originally written a monologue for that scene that was filled with lots of subtext showing that his anger was all about his forbidden lust for her,” Murphy said. “But then Stephen and Alan said, ‘We think that can be a great song.’”Six months later, a small package from Schwartz, who wrote the lyrics, and Menken, who composed the score, arrived at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Calif. Inside was a cassette with a new song.Murphy, Trousdale, Wise and Don Hahn, the film’s producer, gathered in an office, popped the tape into a cassette player and pressed play — and realized what they were hearing.In a crashing percussive number, Frollo, backed by a choir chanting in Latin, agonizes over his lust and his religious faith and his hatred of the Roma.“This burning desire,” he sings in the film, rubbing her scarf sensuously against his face, “is turning me to sin.” (Schwartz sang the part on the demo.)“I swear to God, everyone’s jaw slowly started to drop open,” Murphy said. “At the end of it, Kirk reached over, clicked off the cassette player, sat back, crossed his arms, and said, ‘Well, that’s never going to make it into the movie.’ And it did!”Initially the filmmakers imagined Frollo’s lust would be subtext. Instead he wound up singing about his “burning desire.”DisneyTHOUGH IT WAS NEVER STATED EXPLICITLY, Wise said a G rating was the expectation.“The studio felt anything above a G would threaten the film’s box office,” he said. “This was before ‘Shrek,’ or movies that made a PG rating in animation commonplace.”A G-rated film, according to the Motion Picture Association of America system, which was introduced in 1968, “contains nothing in theme, language, nudity, sex, violence or other matters that, in the view of the Rating Board, would offend parents whose younger children view the motion picture.” Some snippets of language, it says, “may go beyond polite conversation but they are common everyday expressions.”“We never thought we’d get away with the term ‘hellfire,’” Trousdale said.The first cut of “Hunchback” indeed didn’t pass muster for a G — but it wasn’t the use of the word “hell” or “damnation” that the board took issue with.It was the sound effects.In the “Hellfire” number, imagined as a nightmarish, hallucinogenic sequence, Frollo is tormented by hooded, red-robed figures that reflect his slipping grip on reality.“This burning desire,” he sings, gazing at a dancing Esmeralda figure in his fireplace, “is turning me to sin.”The ratings board was uncomfortable with the word “sin,” Trousdale said. But the sequence was already animated, and the soundtrack recorded, so they couldn’t change the lyric.Then Hahn came up with a solution: Make the “Whoosh!” when the hooded judges rush up from the floor a little louder so it would drown out the “sin.” It worked, Trousdale said.The sound effects seemed to trouble the ratings board more than the language in the “Hellfire” sequence.DisneyBut what ultimately got the film its G rating, Wise said, was a change so tiny that “you’ll never believe this.”In the scene where Frollo sneaks up behind Esmeralda and sniffs her hair, the ratings board thought the sniff was “too suggestive,” he said.“They were like, ‘Could you lower the volume of that?’” he said. “And we did, and it got the G rating.”NEITHER THE POSTERS nor the trailers hinted at the darker themes.“There was definitely a huuuuuge effort to emphasize the lighthearted aspects of ‘Hunchback,’” Menken said, laughing.The film’s tagline? “Join the party!”“Maybe that was the right campaign for the studio to get people in the theater,” Hahn said. “But I’m sure I wouldn’t do that today — I think there’s a truth-in-advertising responsibility that perhaps we overlooked back then.”When the film, which cost $70 million to make before marketing, opened on June 21, 1996, it was a bit of a disappointment at the box office, grossing about $100.1 million domestically. Trousdale said they did get some pushback from parents’ groups about the G rating.“They were saying ‘You tricked us; you deceived us,’” he said. “The marketing was all the happy stuff and ‘Come to the Feast of Fools; it’s a party!’ with talking gargoyles, confetti and pies in the face. And then that wasn’t the film, and people were really pissed off.”Parents’ groups complained that the marketing emphasis on talking gargoyles and other fun elements was misleading.DisneyTom Zigo, a spokesman for the Classification and Rating Administration, which administers the rating system, said that he could not speak about the specifics of the “Hunchback” G, but that it was “very possible” that a movie rated 25 years ago would receive a different rating today.Hahn, Menken, Murphy, Trousdale and Wise all agreed there would be no chance of the film getting a G rating today — or even, Murphy suggested, being made at all.“Disney was willing to take some chances in that movie that I don’t think they’d take today,” he said. “That’s a PG-13 in my book.”Yet the movie has stood the test of time — Frollo, Wise noted, feels like a “very contemporary” villain in the #MeToo era — and remains a favorite among young adults who rewatch and discover references they missed the first time around.“I’ve read posts on fan pages from a few fans in their mid-20s and 30s who were pretty young when they saw this,” Trousdale said. “They’re like, ‘Yeah, this just messed me up when I saw it as a kid, but I still love it.’”Menken said “Hellfire” pushed the envelope more in terms of what Disney does than any song he’s ever written.“Maybe, in retrospect, ‘Hunchback’ was a bridge too far,” he said. “But God, am I glad they took that bridge too far.” More

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      ‘Wish Dragon’ Review: ‘Aladdin’ Goes to Shanghai, Sort Of

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      John Cho, as Long the dragon, does his best Robin Williams impression in this film animation about a teenage boy who releases him from a magic teapot.In the engaging animated feature “Wish Dragon,” a teenage boy comes into possession of a magic teapot containing a world-weary dragon who’s obliged to grant him three wishes.The movie is geared toward children, but for anyone old enough to remember the Disney Renaissance, there should be a déjà vu warning: Netflix’s newest animation effort is essentially Disney’s “Aladdin” transposed to Shanghai. John Cho, who voices Long, the dragon, does his best impression of Robin Williams, who lent his voice to the fast-talking Genie in the 1992 Disney animation. But without the catchy songs and intergenerational appeal, this movie can only wish to measure up to that classic.When the story begins, Din (Jimmy Wong) is a genial, imaginative child who soon befriends Li Na (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), a fellow troublemaker in school. The pair is shown cavorting in a best-friend montage that screeches to a halt when Li Na’s father moves her out of their humble neighborhood, saying, “We’re off to a better life, and we have to leave this one behind.”Fast-forward by a decade: A chic Li Na appears on billboards around town, while Din lives in the same cramped apartment with his mother (Constance Wu), and works as a food delivery boy, all the while yearning to win back his partner in crime. If only a magical dragon could help Din bluff his way into Li Na’s moneyed circle.Here, the movie goes full folk tale. Some moments, such as when Long’s voice turns squeaky-high as he squeezes back into his itty-bitty teapot space, seem to explicitly quote “Aladdin,” not to mention the airborne date Din and Li Na have on a flying dragon.The biggest break from formula arrives through Long, the wish granter. Unlike the Genie, Long possesses a compelling human back story and follows a defined character arc. Absent a razzle-dazzle production number akin to “Friend Like Me,” endowing the dragon with some emotional depth is the least this movie, directed by Chris Appelhans, could do. “Wish Dragon” is a transporting experience, but it’s far from a whole new world.Wish DragonRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Spirit Untamed’ Review: Horse Girls Unite

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      This spinoff of “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” is a bland, bubbly romp through the Wild West, with a heavy dose of girl power.Nearly two decades after “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” and its eponymous yellow mustang came on the scene, “Spirit Untamed” — a chirpy, digitally reupholstered spinoff — has arrived. While both are from DreamWorks Animation, the reboot has little in common with the 2002 original, which clung to hand-drawn visuals at a time when the pseudo-realistic computer animation of “Shrek,” also from DreamWorks, and Pixar movies like “Monsters, Inc.” began taking over. For better or worse, this new “Spirit” takes a modern approach.Instead of a heavy-handed, power-ballad-filled melodrama about a bronco and his saintly Native American comrade, “Spirit Untamed” is innocuously geared toward young (horse) girls everywhere. It uses the racially diverse characters from the Netflix series “Spirit Riding Free,” which debuted in 2017 and reintroduced the franchise, to deliver a coming-of-age tale with a predictably heavy dose of girl power.At the film’s center is the thrill-seeking Lucky Prescott (Isabela Merced), who is essentially banished from her stuffy East Coast abode and sent to spend the summer with her estranged father (Jake Gyllenhaal) in the frontier town of Miradero. Instantly drawn to a stallion she names Spirit, our American Girl-esque protagonist strives to earn the horse’s trust, simultaneously getting in touch with her Mexican roots and defying her dad, who remains scarred from her mother’s horse-riding-related death.Thankfully, Lucky (who also goes by her real, Spanish name, Fortuna) is not a loner. When brutish wranglers horse-nap members of Spirit’s herd, our heroine is joined by her intrepid gal pals on a perilous obstacle course-like rescue mission through the outback.The kiddies, I’m sure, will be satisfied. The film (directed by Elaine Bogan) is a bubbly, fast-paced romp through the Wild West, which is not to say it’s an improvement on the maudlin original. With its saucer-eyed, bobblehead-like characters, it’s a version barely distinguishable from the majority of animated children’s movies these days — more like Spirit domesticated.Spirit UntamedRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More

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      What to Know Before Watching ‘Demon Slayer: Mugen Train’

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      The anime movie, a global hit during the pandemic, is finally arriving in theaters Stateside. You may have to do some homework before seeing it.While Americans hunkered down at home for the last year, theatergoers in other countries were buzzing on social media about an anime movie, “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train.”The film, which follows a teenage boy seeking revenge against demons that killed his family, has been one of the most successful movies to ever come out of Japan. After shattering box office records when it debuted there last October, “Demon Slayer” has earned more than $400 million in ticket sales, surpassing Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece “Spirited Away” to become Japan’s highest grossing anime film of all time. On Twitter, fans gushed about it, and, remarkably in a pandemic, many said they would return to the theaters for repeat viewings.After much delay, “Demon Slayer” will finally make a splashy debut in the United States on Friday in 1,500 theaters, including some Imax screens. But unlike “Spirited Away” and typical box office hits, this film doesn’t stand on its own. If you walk into it blind — without viewing, say, the “Demon Slayer” TV show — you may find yourself confused.“If you just want to see why the film has gotten so big, that’s fine,” said Varun Gupta, host of a “Demon Slayer” podcast. “But you should probably go in with a little bit of context.”So from streaming shows to reading manga, here’s what you can do to prepare before partaking in this global phenomenon.At minimum, you have to watch the anime series.The movie, directed by Haruo Sotozaki, picks up from the Season 1 finale of the TV show. The series lays a great deal of groundwork, introducing the franchise’s plethora of characters and story arcs that lead up to the movie, where our protagonist, Tanjiro, and his teammates are on a mission to defeat a demon that has been eating people on a train.The 26 episodes of Season 1 are available dubbed or subtitled on streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu, Crunchyroll and Funimation.If you don’t have time to binge-watch the show, there are more options. You could read the manga, which is the source material for the anime, published on the subscription service Shonen Jump. Read through Chapter 53 and you’ll be caught up.There’s also a three-episode recap of Season 1 available on Funimation. (Be warned: Each episode is more than 90 minutes long.) And if you are starving for time, plenty of YouTubers have posted videos recapping Season 1 in a few minutes.The movie is for adults (sort of).In Japan, the “Demon Slayer” franchise is part of the “shonen” genre, which literally translates into “few years” because teenagers are the target audience. Though the movie has many gruesome moments, the overall tone is silly, like a typical cartoon. Nonetheless, the movie is rated R in the United States in large part because of graphic violence, including a lot of bloodshed.“Demon Slayer” is a love letter to pop culture.For many, part of the allure of “Demon Slayer” will be its familiarity: it bears the influence of a host of movies and anime from the last few decades.The movie’s main villain, Enmu, whose superpower involves putting people to sleep and infiltrating their dreams, may remind movie fans of Christopher Nolan’s “Inception.”Muzan, the most powerful demon and the only one capable of transforming other humans into demons, is reminiscent of many famous baddies with brainwashing powers, like Darth Vader and Magneto.The franchise also has a video-game-like quality that creates a hierarchy of power. There are the low-ranked demon slayers who can swing a sword but have yet to level up to their true potential, but there are also godlike ones (known as “pillars”) with exceptional strength and speed. Anime and manga fans may see parallels to the power structure in classics like “Dragon Ball,” whose characters were ranked by more than a dozen levels of “super saiyans.” Tatsuhiko Katayama, an editor of the “Demon Slayer” manga, has said in interviews that the red-haired, scar-faced Tanjiro was inspired by “Rurouni Kenshin,” the 1990s manga about a similarly drawn swordsman trying to escape from his past life as an assassin.You can also stream it.If you have trouble finding a theater showing “Demon Slayer” or simply don’t feel comfortable going to the movies just yet, the movie will be available on June 22 on major digital platforms. More