While <em>Demon Slayer</em> as a franchise could be content simply with a runaway manga success with over 220 million copies sold, its latest movie practically needs no introduction. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle has crushed much of 2025’s box office competition and is now the highest-grossing anime movie ever. To commemorate this, creator Koyoharu Gotouge dropped a surprise for the fans.

In Weekly Shonen Jump #52, Gotouge released a new illustration of Shinobu Kocho, the Insect Hashira, to commemorate the release of Infinity Castle Part 1. The illustration, besides appearing in the magazine, will be distributed to future attendees seeing the movie. It also indicates more illustrations in the future, while the fans want more manga above all else.

New Shinobu Illustration from Demon Slayer’s Creator

The posing of Shinobu certainly doesn’t seem coincidental in how she’s looking back at the readers, waving as if to say goodbye, given what transpires in Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle. Fans in Japan being able to receive this illustration is a special treat and additional incentive in a long line of promotional goods handed out for the movie.

While it’s certainly new manga art, fans who caught wind of this release were perhaps hoping for something more substantial. However, given the rest of the trilogy’s planned release, at least readers can expect similar elegant illustrations for each new movie. But it certainly seems like the latest in a frustrating trend, drip-feeding illustrations and posters for fans all year.

It’s exciting to see Gotouge returning to distribute original artwork to recognize the movie’s success, however. Demon Slayer continues to reign over the anime box office records, with Infinity Castle soaring above the heights reached by the previous record-holder, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train. Generally speaking, few other anime could hope to compete at this point.

Koyoharu Gotouge’s New Art Is Significant

While it’s hard to get excited over what’s effectively a gorgeous postcard, Gotouge has not been showing much presence on the scene since Demon Slayer ended. Even just this illustration shows an indication of desire to get back into the scene or at least pay homage to their wildly successful work. There’s another possibility, though.

Gotouge hinted in February 2021 about wanting to tackle a science fiction romantic comedy for their next project. While not being announced yet, the prospect of Gotouge returning to work may at least spark hopes of this happening. With Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle releasing as a trilogy, now would be the right window for Gotouge to promote their next series.

[nospin]Here you can find the original article. The photos and images used in our article also come from this source. We are not their authors and they have been used solely for informational purposes with proper attribution to their original source.[nospin]

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