U.S. moviegoers in no mood to put up with would-be urine hashira’s behavior.

International simulcasts have become the norm for TV/streaming anime, but there’s still usually gap in release dates between Japan and the rest of the world when it comes to anime movies. So while fans in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba’s home country have been enjoying the Infinity Castle movie since mid-summer, it hadn’t made its way to theaters in the U.S. until this month.

Having had to wait for it, no doubt theatergoers at the AMC theater in the town of Surprise, Arizona were buzzing with anticipation as they entered the screening room on September 12, the U.S. opening night for Infinity Castle. Many were probably expecting to see a heated battle on-screen, but it turned out they were going to see one in the seats as well.

According to witnesses, at some point during the movie a man began urinating inside the theater. This wasn’t a case of someone surreptitiously dribbling their drops into an empty water bottle because they didn’t want to go the bathroom and miss part of the movie, nor was it a case of someone with bladder issues suffering some leakage. Instead, the man reportedly stood up, unzipped his pants, and began tinkling towards the row of seats in front of him. When he was done, witnesses say he nonchalantly sat back down, but those who had been seated in the direction and splash area of his urination, understandably, were less willing to simply go back to watching the movie, and angrily accosting him for his actions.

One man claimed that the urine had struck his child who he’d brought to see the movie, and at some point the confrontation turned physical, with someone (as seen in videos posted online such as this one) unleashing a flurry of punches on the urinator while on the screen Demon Slayer Zenitsu was unleashing one of his most powerful attacks, intoning “Thunder Breathing, Seventh Form” as flashes of anime pyrotechnics sporadically illuminated the room. Eventually the theater staff became aware of the disturbance and turned on the house lights, surreally at just about the exact moment the anime’s action sequence ended.

The man was arrested on charges including indecent exposure and disorderly conduct, and AMC apologized to customers by providing refunds, continuing the screening in a separate screening room, and giving out free snacks. Hopefully this will be the last such disturbance the theater has to deal with, and Infinity Castle’s theater legacy can be one of seats that are “jacked,” not people getting jacked up in them.

Source: AZ Family via Hachima Kiko
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