It's both fascinating and surprising how NOT influential Demon Slayer is despite its commercial success.
Demon Slayer is the most successful battle shounen manga in recent years but if you ask a battle shounen fan which one has the best cast, which one has the best fights, which one has the best villains, which one has the best power system, which one has the best team, which one has the best arc, which one has the best plot, which one has the best characters, which one has the best girls and which one has the best art, Tanjiro's series will hardly ever be the first option chosen, or even the second.
I'm both shocked but also very fascinated by how something that can make tons of money, yet they leave a surprisingly small daily footprint on internet culture and memes. On the opposite side, I think Jujutsu Kaisen has a much greater global reach than Demon Slayer despite the latter being more successful, because even though the series doesn't really influence other creators, it's very often referenced in pop culture, unlike Demon Slayer. The official French FIFA World Cup account posting "Triple Domain Expansion" with Mbappé, Messi, and Haaland during the tournament is exactly the kind of crossover that signals genuine cultural penetration. Domain Expansion became a flexible, recognizable shorthand that non-anime people can instantly parse and enjoy. That is rarer than pure commercial success.
Even in terms of influence, you don't see up-and-coming manga artists cite Demon Slayer as their inspiration even though this manga ended six years ago. In contrast, Chainsaw Man had such a huge impact on an entire generation that Weekly Shounen Jump had to put a stop to the phenomenon, as it was seeing a flood of works inspired by Tatsuki Fujimoto during a manga contest.
I see a lot of fans mention how Demon Slayer's anime changed the entire landscape of the anime industry in terms of animation, and while Ufotable's contribution is undeniable, that actually has little to do with Demon Slayer as a standalone work by itself and is inextricably linked to Ufotable's production values, particularly Episode 19 of the first season. If you read the Demon Slayer manga before the anime aired, it was a solid, moderately successful series with a rough art style. The manga's paneling and art didn't revolutionize the medium of manga itself. The "landscape-changing" aspect belongs to the medium of anime production, not necessarily the narrative layout of the manga.
Even the merchandise itself also isn't even selling that well anymore outside of Japan. Sure, the anime is still successful but that's because it relies on a simple, fast-paced plot and a highly disposable seasonal hype. Western viewers will gladly buy a $15 movie ticket to watch a visual spectacle on an IMAX screen but that doesn't mean they'll spend $200 on a scale figure of a Hashira who had 20 minutes worth of screentime. Go into an anime specialty store or convention dealer's room outside of Japan, and you'll see those figures sitting on shelves far longer than they used to unlike Dragon Ball, One Piece or Jujutsu Kaisen.
I think this underscores how commercial success and influence are not synonymous. And I have a feeling that once the final movie drops and this series is truly out of the equation, its staying power will be put into question. The novelty of the animation will look dated as animation only gets better, more advanced and more polished every year. Especially in an industry as brutal as the anime industry where anime are disposable commodities at the end of the day.
In a lot of ways, it reminds me of One Piece which is another commercially successful franchise but has a surprisingly smaller influence compared to Bleach and Naruto.
TL;DR: Why does the massive success of this title seem so weightless?