DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionKimetsu no Yaiba
ANIME ActionKimetsu no Yaiba: Yuukaku-hen
ANIME ActionKimetsu no Yaiba: Hashira Geiko-hen

REVIEWS

• 

  Mcsuper

  32/100
  The Result Of Animation Not Carrying This Show On Its Back Anymore

  Perhaps I’ve just grown up. When I watched Season 1 of Demon Slayer a few years ago, I genuinely had a great time with it. Episode 19 had me incredibly emotional, and I was in awe over the world-class animation by Studio Ufotable. The Mugen Train movie was incredible as well, with a very emotional scene at the end. I enjoyed Season 2, but not at the same level of Season 1, since it was mostly fight scenes with very flashy animation. It was not until this season where I noticed how garbage the dialogue is in this series, and maybe it’s just because I’ve watched much more anime since Season 2 of Demon Slayer. The dialogue is just terribly done, with lines like “I slashed him!”, and “I got slashed!” We have eyes, we can see what’s going on, there is absolutely zero need for a good chunk of the things the characters say. I’m convinced the dialogue is just there so the episode run time gets padded and they can make additional seasons of the show by stretching the events of the arc.

  People love to throw around the phrase “carried by animation” if they have a negative stance on Demon Slayer, and I admit, I’ve been one of those people before. In Season 1 and 2, I believed Demon Slayer had one of the best animation productions in our modern generation. This season, I cannot with a good conscience, say that this show is even “carried by animation” anymore. Sure, there is a fair share of sakuga to go around, but nothing that really transcended previous seasons, as the studio alluded to. The CGI is indeed an issue, but not in the way most people say. Having CGI is not inherently a bad thing, and the CGI in this season of Demon Slayer wasn’t bad, but given how much of a focus what on 2D animation in the past seasons, it just feels uncharacteristic of the show, and a bit of a letdown. The animation is still great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just not enough for me to really get a kick out of it. The fight scenes also felt more uncreative than previous seasons. Remember when in Season 1, the settings were more interesting, and the fights weren’t all just screaming in the air, and slashing, and there was some strategy to the fights? There’s none of that anymore. It’s just riding the hype.

  The story for this arc felt the most shallow of the seasons so far, and one that felt very “empty” to me, without a real objective other than killing the demons that pop up every episode. It was also a very backstory heavy season, with three backstories almost back to back. A problem I find in both this show and in Hell’s Paradise is that they try to characterize the characters by giving them a dark backstory where either all their families die, they were on the brink of death, or some kind of sob story. Just because they had a dark past, I’m supposed to suddenly care about the character now? I just don’t understand why every single character needs to have a sad backstory, it gets repetitive quick, and in my opinion, it’s a terrible way to give development to the characters, as it doesn’t reflect on what they’re doing in the here and now, but just to play on the viewer’s emotions.

  The characters this season were extremely unmemorable. The villains this season were also very annoying with their antics and hugely inflated dialogue-heavy moments. They feel completely un-threatening, and completely devoid of any semblance of depth other than gimmicky actions of being in a vase, crying every two seconds, or whatever else they were doing. The amount of needless dialogue some of the villains spouted just made episodes go from 5 minutes to 25 minutes, just for the sake of padding the episode, and then ending with a cliffhanger.

  All in all, this season felt like a soulless, passionless pile of uninspired drivel, and Mitsuri was just there to provide fan service for how bland the writing was. The flashy animation can only take the series so far, and this time around, it wasn’t nearly as flashy either. I probably have more enjoyment just laughing at how dumb some of the writing is.

  Hopefully this is the worst that this series has to offer. I want to enjoy this show, I truly do. No problem if you like this season of course, nothing against fans of the show, we all have varying taste. If anything, if Demon Slayer can keep the lights on at Studio Ufotable and fund their next project, whether it’s more Type-Moon content, or the Genshin anime, I guess that’d be a nice trade-off.

  Here's a fishie to brighten up your day though.

  
  Continue on AniList
• 

  Yerolan

  50/100
  Demon Slayer at it's worst.

  Review of Demon Slayer: Swordsmith Village

  I will make this disclaimer as short as I can.

  This review contains spoilers from the biggest to smaller ones. If you want to avoid the big ones, DON'T read the "Swordsmith Village" section of the review. But if you will be bothered by even the small ones, I suggest you just look at the score and skip it.

  I think that's enough.

  I'll tell you this, though, there is a serious spoiler from the end of the first Naruto series in the "Swordsmith Village" section. Stay alert.

  A- and I don't think you'll mind but, there is a bit of strong language.

  It became long anyway.

  F*ck.

  Past

  There was no way I wasn't going to watch Demon Slayer, which became abnormally popular with the anime adaptation that came out in 2019. In fact, looking at the studio that made it and the general concept, it looked like a very ordinary but solid battle shonen. It was clear that it relied more on the flashy, flashy, screamy fight scenes than it did on the story and world. So, that was my prediction before watching it.

  I was right, Demon Slayer was weaker than I expected from a narrative point of view, but the fights were more exhilarating than I expected. To summarize the first three seasons:

  I thought the first season was a decent introduction. It set the main focus of the story from the very first episode, introduced the side characters that we would see with our main character throughout the series as it progressed, and offered some really visually impressive fight scenes. In the meantime, it expanded its world.

  Mugen Train, which was originally a movie that was expanded and turned into a TV series, I think is the pinnacle of Demon Slayer. I think it was to the series' benefit that it put that mediocre storyline on the back burner and focused entirely on the fights. It also had one of the ballsiest fights not only in the series but in the entire anime world. That's actually why it's the best season.

  There's not much to say about the Entertainment District Arc. It's like a slightly less exhilarating version of Mugen Train, set in a brothel town. The design of the main antagonist was interesting, though. And again, like Mugen Train, it didn't advance the story much, focusing on a single fight and the introduction of another hashira.

  So that's the situation. I could say that Demon Slayer is a good battle shonen and for now (probably for a very short time), In the "New Big 3" as I like to call it (I think you all know that "old" Big 3), I like it a notch more than Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man .

  Yes, I could have. I say "a very short time" as you are reading these lines, probably about five seconds.

  While the Swordsmith Village Arc was by far the weakest arc of the series, the situation has evened out considerably. This arc is really a downgrade in almost every sense. Chainsaw Man will probably be the leader when the next season is released.

  Swordsmith Village

  Normally, I would do a summary of the story and start commenting on it, but for an anime like Demon Slayer, I don't think that's necessary. Basically, the story consists of the Demon Slayers we've come to know throughout the series, along with some hashira we saw very briefly in the first season, fighting against more than one upper moon demon this time. That's what we've been watching for three seasons, but when the fights get boring, you look for something good in the story, and there is a very little bit of that. Character stories!

  I'd like to conclude this season's only improvement compared to the others by talking about the character stories Swordsmith Village offers. Since there is not much material to talk about the main scenario, I'm going to summarize and comment on a lot of these stories, so it may be a bit long.

  These character stories, which have been present to some extent in previous seasons, are more prevalent in Swordsmith Village. Second half of episode 6 and a large part of episode 8 are entirely devoted to these stories. Episode 6 is about Sanemi Shinazugawa, a hashira we haven't seen him fighting yet, his younger brother Genya Shinazugawa (wtf kind of last name is this?) who wants to be a hashira like him, and a little bit about himself.

  One night, after their abusive and violent father dies, the mother, the only parent of the Shinazugawa family, does not return home. Two of the siblings, Genya and Sanemi, are worried and Sanemi goes out to look for their mother. After a while, Sanemi returns, fighting his mother's demonized form and kills her. Genya, who left the house after his mother's death, thinks that Sanemi killed his mother and unknowingly blames him.

  And then, you know, he forgives him, they join the Demon Slayers. Sanemi becomes a hashira, Genya wants to be a hashira. Wow, look at this f*cking thing.

  The story, as you'll notice, is rather ordinary, but not bad. For a less than ten minute sequence and compared to the character's place in the story, I think the drama is disturbing enough.

  I think the most effective scenes here are the ones where the demon mother completely destroys the house, and the scenes where Genya cries and yells at his brother while holding his mother. They are well prepared both narratively and technically. They are able to leave the necessary impact.

  Now I realized that my comment on this story is too positive for its actual quality. Don't think that because I'm saying all of this that I think the scene is very successful or special. I am trying to say that it is enough for an anime like Demon Slayer. In fact, there is nothing special or very dramatic or very impactful about this story. This is too common and short for being great.

  From this point of view, you might think that Muichiro Tokito's story, which takes up most of its episode, is better than Genya's. And yes, it is.

  After the death of their father, Muichiro and Yuichiro, twin brothers who are completely different from each other on a personal level, are living in their log cabin when a woman named Akane invites Yuichiro to come with her and become a "Demon Slayer", but he refuses. One night, while Muichiro is awake, a demon suddenly comes into the hut and kills Yuichiro. After the incident, Muichiro joins the Demon Slayers and even becomes a hashira two months later.

  Unlike Genya's story, Muichiro's story has too much content to summarize in one paragraph, but I wanted to comment on it without going on too long. For example, there are some important scenes that I could not summarize in the summary, such as Yuichiro's Rage and Yuichiro's futile call for help before he died.

  For one thing, this story has more time to gradually build up the drama. Genya's story is about 7 minutes while this one is 13 minutes, And the felt difference between these two proves what I just said "too short for being great". Muichiro's story is again not great, but it's better than I expected, it's obviously more emotional than Genya's, and makes its episode the best of this mediocre season.

  I think Mitsuri's story is so unimportant and ineffective, so I guess there's nothing else worth telling about the story.

  To summarize, just like the previous two seasons, Swordsmith Village doesn't do much with the main story and world development. It seems to be all about the character stories and fight scenes. While I was slightly positive about the first one, what makes this season the worst, the fight scenes were really solid disappointments. How did I connect the subject to the fights, eh?

  There are reasons why the fights in Demon Slayer are exhilarating and fun. These fights are very well built up to their climax. The demons our Slayers face are really powerful and feel like a big threat. When fighting the demon, the main character overcomes his limits and improves himself, or like in Mugen Train, we watch a great duel between upper 3 and one of the strongest hashiras. In short, throughout the season, we pump for that climax at the end and when we get there, we are ecstatic. To give an example from another anime, the Naruto vs. Sasuke fight at the end of the canon part of og Naruto can be a good example. This battle is not as striking as Demon Slayer in terms of visual and audio presentation, but it has about 100 episodes for build-up, and it uses it.

  As you can understand from the previous paragraph, I think the problem with Swordsmith Village is its climax. Unlike the previous arcs, there's more than one upper moon demon and more than one hashira. Throughout the episodes, we're constantly going back and forth between the two fights, some character stories are interspersed, and then the next thing we know, the demon is beheaded and the battle is over. So where was the climax? Isn't there the main part where we're screaming with excitement along with the characters? Imagine if the events of Season 3 part 2 of Attack on Titan were concluded directly without the "Hero" episode. I'll even give a better example from Demon Slayer itself. Imagine if there was no Akaza vs. Kyojuro battle in the Mugen Train Arc, and the season ended when Enmu was defeated. I felt a bit like this in Swordsmith Village. At the beginning of episode 11, I wanted an even more powerful demon attack (such as Douma) until the post-battle recovery phase. Of course it didn't come. To sum up, what Ign somehow said about Mugen Train, I say about Swordsmith Village. The climax is missing, so all the fights feel lame and unsatisfying.

  I want to breathe a sigh of relief by addressing the technical aspects, because like many mainstream seasonal battle shonen, Demon Slayer is visually very good, maybe even one of the best. The Ufotable signature is clearly recognizable. While the animation is not at the level of Mappa in terms of fluidity, the use of colors and special effects are at the highest level. One thing that caught my eye was the CGI, as it was used more heavily this season.

  Still, if there's one thing I don't like about Demon Slayer visually, it's the dynamic coloring. What I'm trying to talk about is that color changes depending on the tone of the scene. It can be artistic, like the contrasting colors during fights in Jojo (maybe it has another meaning. Personally, I like it a lot), or like the colors darkening and fading in a sad and depressing scene to strengthen the emotion used in many anime. Demon Slayer is always colorful. It's only at night that the colors f*cking fade, Oh, and that's if there's no fight or something. There are little "hope" shots like the sunlight shining brightly behind Kyojuro during his death (That was in one of the previous seasons, though), but there is hardly any of it. Actually, I'm not sure how much of this was there in the past seasons, but I paid special attention to it in Swordsmith Village. Even in the shots of Muichiro returning home after killing the demon, the contrast is quite high. Thank god the facial expressions are good. The drawings of Yuichiro's face as he dies can add to that depressive feeling.

  As for the voice acting, I guess it's not hard for the Japanese to do well, I can find some good voice acting in every shit I watch. Demon Slayer also has its share of good voice actors. Especially Natsuki Hanae, he can roar like an animal when he wants to. whatever kind of throat he has.

  Music-wise, I'm still a bit undecided about which of the anime in the "New Big 3" I mentioned in the first part of this review is the best, but I think I'd go with Demon Slayer. That's not a very high bar, actually. While Jujutsu Kaisen is so weak that I have no idea about its soundtrack, I had to choose between the weird(?) soundtrack of Chainsaw Man and the more generic and epic soundtrack of Demon Slayer. I went with the more generic one. Demon Slayer's soundtrack is as generic as it is, and as epic as its previous seasons. Still, while I can name a few things from Naruto or My Hero Academia's soundtracks, I don't think there's one from Demon Slayer that sticks out in my mind.

  So, what's left to talk about? There are openings and endings. I can't comment on the endings as someone who almost never looks at them, but the opening, it's good. That's it. The video looks good and the song is not bad. It's still not at the Gurenge level. Maybe even worse than Zankyousanka, but as I said, good enough.

  I haven't talked about comedy, which is one of the main genres of the series, but I don't think it is necessary. It's a classic shonen comedy that doesn't have a proper humorous quality, where the drawings of the characters become absurd and different/random lights shine in the background and the characters scream and punch each other stupidly. I don't find it very funny.

  Verdict

  I think that's enough. I think I've done justice to the series that I had already said "I won't do it" but suddenly and reasonlessly decided to review it.

  Ultimately, Demon Slayer had its worst season this spring. With the series already having little to offer in terms of story, characters or comedy, there was little to love or enjoy when the battle scenes it relied so heavily on became dull. It was boring man. I'm a little worried about Demon Slayer's gradual fall since Mugen Train. I hope the next season won't be as unpleasant.

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• 

  Jebmond

  30/100
  worst season so far tbh

  Kimidtsu no Yaiba somehow manages to keep lowering its quality every season. The overall quality of the production has dropped drastically since season 2 with this most recent installment, and the writing quality of the narrative and characters has gotten worse too. The latter being quite surprising as two of the most insufferable characters in the show, possibly the entire medium (Inosuke and Zenitsu), have been essentially written out of the show during this arc. Good riddance, though, those characters are an eyesore and them being absent is the only thing saving this installment from a 1/10

  I’m sure it doesn’t take a filmographer to notice the decline in the quality of the CGI, in direction, and in the animation. The CGI fish and the wooden dragons are a big step back for the series; by CGI standards they are relatively good, but they heavily clash with the art style of the show, which makes it janky and disconcerting. This season’s fights are also a downgrade from the previous, no scene came even close to Tengen’s fight with the upper-moon, and that season boasted many scenes encroaching on that level, we didn’t get that here, which is very disappointing as that animation is the only redeeming feature of the series. It still isn’t terrible, there are a few cool moments here and there, but it is a far cry from what we have had previously, and a far cry from what a series such as this needs to be enjoyable. Doubly disappointing since we were promised next level animation. 
  
  The narrative of this season is simply atrocious, the premise is terribly uninteresting, and the repetitive nature of Demon Slayer’s arcs is just getting grating. Every arc in the series is where any major change unfolds in the world of Demon Slayer, every major event happens to occur wherever Tanjiro is by sheer coincidence, and for one reason or another, there is a hashira with him. It is repetitive, lazy writing, and it feels like the entire world revolves around Tanjiro, as nothing happens or progresses in areas where he isn’t, and characters that aren’t near Tanjiro do not progress either. This is something that most other shounen anime do better.  It’s also notable how devoid of substance this arc really is, all that happened is some demons died and Tanjiro found a cool sword. How did so little happen in an entire arc? 
  
  Another big issue with the narrative of this season is how it was conveyed. For each of the “hype” fights, our heroes were getting thrashed, the momentum of the fight was interrupted with a ten-minute flash-back, the hashira gets buffed, and then they win. This last-minute characterization, like the rest of the writing was terribly lazy. It feels as if the author forgot to add anything beyond a quirky personality to his characters until it was their big moment. This was most terribly executed in Muichirou’s fight. He really got drowned for 3 episodes, impaled with a bunch of poisoned needles, and then managed to easily obliterate an upper-moon just because he had a shitty backstory play for the viewer? How contrived; the author knew nothing except that Muichirou needed to win, had no idea how to make it happen reasonably, and just willed it into existence. His powerup was also nonsensical, an asspull akin to that of Super Saiyan in Dragonball. This isn’t too different with Mitsuri, we received an information dump in the middle of the fight that came out of nowhere and this new information enabled her to win, she got the same shitty powerup, and the same forced victory. It’s a little more forgivable than Muichirou’s though as it wasn’t a free win like a power fantasy anime after all the nonsense, and because that victory still required the effort of the rest of the cast. 
  
  Now we have arrived at the biggest flaw of the franchise, the characters. All of the characters are surface level or shallow, mostly with one-note personalities. All but two characters in the entire season possess any charisma whatsoever, these characters being Haganezuka and Muichirou’s dead brother. The interactions between characters are widely uninteresting, and just contain boring, generic dialogue, pathetic attempts at comedy, or weak insults and idle threats. I would rejoice if someone could point out a line of dialogue with any real depth to it, because I didn’t seem to notice any, maybe it just isn’t there. Before dissecting the more noteworthy characters, I’ll just start with this, every side character besides the aforementioned two are absolutely garbage for one reason or another. Either insufferable like Zenitsu, or boring like Nezuko; pick your poison ig.

  To begin with the least notable of the notable characters, Nezuko is still the biggest nothingburger in the medium, she doesn’t talk, and she does the same few things every time she is on-screen, don’t really understand how anyone can like her, she’s no more than an animal or a prop at this point. Zenitsu and Inosuke are hardly in this season but they’re still notably dogshit, moving on.

  Muichirou… where to begin with this trainwreck. His entire arc can be summed up in two words, ‘contrived’ and ‘generic’. He began as an apathetic goon who made calculated emotionless decisions, and just did his job, he was a bit of an asshole, but it is what it is, and to be honest, that was him at his best. When he told Tanjiro his voice was annoying, I stood with him. A few words from the guy with an annoying voice that he did not care about in the slightest shook Muichirou to his core, and he recalled his tragic backstory. His backstory was just a pity party, and all it succeeded in doing was creating and killing off a character more compelling than himself, not to mention his backstory followed the same formula as nearly every other character in the series. His arc kind of played out like a Dhar Mann video, “you shouldn’t misjudge the asshole because he may have his own circumstances and secretly be a stellar dude”. His entire personality completely flips around after hearing those words from Tanjiro, and that sudden progression was poorly written and way too sudden, and also out of character for the guy, considering he is supposed to be apathetic and not care about what hooligans like Tanjiro have to say. 
  
  Genya Shinazugawa is a fresh contender for worst character in the series, with his horrible writing and terrible attitude. He has the same copy-paste backstory that the rest of the characters in the series share, an unlikable personality that even a mother couldn’t love, and more contrivances and conveniences than pretty much every other character. He is literally a non-character before the season starts, the most painfully irrelevant dude on the block, and he of all people possesses the legendary 12-gauge, as well as an unheard-of ability that frankly carries him. Yes, I know his ability was foreshadowed in season, but that doesn’t really make it good considering it belongs to a previously irrelevant and currently intolerable pillock. 
  
  The antagonists of this arc are god-awful, plain and simple. They aren’t menacing at all, they have cookie-cutter personalities, zero depth, awful designs, boring powers, and all the whimsy of a looney toons character. There isn’t a single good thing about them except for the fact that they are “strong”, but that is by no means a good argument for why a character is good. In fact, if one makes that argument, it would be pretty apparent that they have no media analysis skills to speak of. These two antagonists are indefensibly bad and the only thing they’re antagonizing is the quality of the show. 
  
  Mitsuri isn’t terrible like the rest mentioned before her, I don’t think she is any better than average, but she is definitely better than most demon slayer characters. Her personality is mostly a blatant attempt at waifu-bait, there isn’t much depth to her, and the fact that for some reason she is just a superhuman and also got the same poor writing in her fight as Muichirou did are all factors that hold her back a little bit, but that is balanced out by her backstory. This was the first unique backstory in the entire franchise, insane. She had a different reason for being a demon slayer than living a nice quiet life with a loving family before they all got slaughtered by a demon, and her backstory had nuance to it in the form of social commentary. Still poorly placed like Muichirou’s but a step in the right direction for sure.
  
  Lastly, we have Tanjiro, the mediocre yet inoffensive protagonist. Like Mitsuri, Tanjiro isn’t utter garbage like the rest of the cast. He has a lot of issues such as falling into the unfunny comedy and poor interactions with other characters, but he can have decent interactions and moments too. I can’t think of anything too standout about the guy in terms of writing, he is just there, a little boring, but also a little admirable. Tanjiro and Mitsuri not being horrendous like the rest of the cast is the main saving grace of this season, besides the two blundering oafs being out of the show. 
  
  In summary, this season of Demon Slayer is riddled with issues, with very few redeeming qualities to speak of, and if you haven’t gotten to it yet, I’d advise against it.

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