Seven Samurai anecdote inspired structure of Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle

Ufotable co‑founder and Infinity Castle lead writer Hikaru Kondo told Polygon that a behind‑the‑scenes anecdote from the making of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai helped him shape Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle. Infinity Castle sends protagonist Tanjiro Kamado and members of the Demon Slayer Corps into a labyrinthine castle where heroes are scattered across shifting battlegrounds and the film focuses on high‑stakes, one‑on‑one confrontations with the Upper Rank demons.

Kondo said he had to choose what to adapt from the manga for runtime while preserving the same intensity and avoiding a film that would feel like a string of fight sequences. He recounted how screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto and Kurosawa abandoned several early Seven Samurai concepts—an omnibus script about eight samurai, a single‑day samurai tale, and a plan built around isolated battle set pieces—after deciding those versions were essentially just action sequences.

Producer Sôjirô Motoki’s discovery of historical accounts about samurai guarding villages and an anecdote about a village hiring samurai became the foundation for Kurosawa’s film. “And when I was developing Infinity Castle, going through the screenplay, trying to draw the storyboards.

Key Topics

Culture, Demon Slayer, Infinity Castle, Hikaru Kondo, Akira Kurosawa, Seven Samurai