鬼滅の刃

KIMETSU NO YAIBA

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
23
RELEASE
May 18, 2020
CHAPTERS
207

DESCRIPTION

The setting is Taisho era Japan. Tanjirou is a kindhearted young boy who lived peacefully with his family as a coal seller. Their normal life changes completely when his family is slaughtered by demons. The only other survivor, Tanjirou's younger sister Nezuko, has become a ferocious demon. In order to return Nezuko to normal and get revenge on the demon that killed their family, the two of them depart on a journey. From a young talent, an adventure tale of blood and swords begins!

(Source: Shonen Jump)

Notes:

Includes 2 extra chapters.
Nominated to the 24th and 25th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize.

CAST

Tanjirou Kamado
Nezuko Kamado
Inosuke Hashibira
Zenitsu Agatsuma
Giyuu Tomioka
Kyoujurou Rengoku
Shinobu Kochou
Tengen Uzui
Mitsuri Kanroji
Muichirou Tokitou
Kanao Tsuyuri
Akaza
Obanai Iguro
Sanemi Shinazugawa
Muzan Kibutsuji
Sabito
Genya Shinazugawa
Gyoumei Himejima
Yoriichi Tsugikuni
Douma
Kokushibo
Daki
Hotaru Haganezuka
Tamayo
Gyuutarou

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO KIMETSU NO YAIBA

REVIEWS

KaizokuOtaku
28/100
A Terribly Medicore Manga that got Fueled by the Huge Positivity of the Anime when it's Really Not all that Worth While
This review will contain spoilers!!

If you are easily triggered. Then please turn away from this review since I will not be holding anything back at all. I've said my piece about the first season of Demon Slayer anime. It was rough around the edges but land and sea above the awful of a mess known as the manga depiction. No hard feelings to anyone who enjoyed this crap. I mean, I was one of you as well for a very short period. Then I woke up and saw that Demon Slayer is not the least bit deserving of all the hype and fame it's receiving. After simply reading blindingly, ignoring my own feelings, and letting the viewpoints of others affect my judgments and way of thinking. To make me throw my own feelings in a circle of a pile of confusion, not trying to understand myself. I was finally able to come to terms with my actual views once I shut everything else out. I am not mad at the author, and quite happy they are selling millions on their work. But I can't say the same about the community. I am disappointed even if I do get why Demon Slayer blew up as it did. We enjoy what we enjoy. Everyone is different, there's nothing wrong with that. It helped the manga community get more readers and prestige. That's a big plus, no doubt.

It's clear as day that the anime adaptation from Ufotable was a blessing and with it trending like mad everywhere. Curious newcomers, countless other individuals in the anime community, ate that shit up like it was cake. It's no doubt hard to differentiate the taste when you've not eaten or - in this case, read or watched something genuinely worth your attention. I am willing to bet any numbers of shounen such as Black Clover, which is far better than Demon Slayer and deserving to go higher. If that shit got a proper adaptation putting a strong emphasis on the production value and even making sure the experience in the anime flows smoothly like running river. It would totally blow up and sell like hotcakes. That goes for shit like Fairy Tail as well. Black Clover for one possesses most of the same elements as Demon Slayer. But the execution is far clearer and much more concise and decisive. At least it was when I read it. I need to get back on that. I will throw this out there. Noelle is a greatly written character with flaws and everything nice. She is properly written tsundere as well. For me, that's a big fat cherry on top. Asta feels real and is not void of emotions or a sense of danger and all that–like Tanjiro, for instance.

The reason I think Demon Slayer doesn't deserve any of the fame it's getting from a writing standpoint - it's a mess with no lick of direction, genuineness in it's established themes and character drama. The impact feels so lackluster. The deaths don't even affect my emotions a bit. It's a dull read, and the pacing has no sense of balance. The cuts to events feel forced or half-assed. It's merely just damn random and is not running in a straight path without unnecessary hindrances. I would admit that Demon Slayer had the potential and elements to turn out as a decent shounen. If the author was not in a hurry or Weekly Shounen Jump didn't rush them to finish the story. I don't know if they were forced or not, but it has already happened many times. So I don't want to open that can of worms, but it's obvious which shounen I might be referencing to here.

Nothing about the story of Demon Slayer interested me whatsoever. Most of the characters just happened to be a means to an end. But It truly had a good cast of characters with distinct enough personalities. Shinobu was like such a best girl for me. She's far more interesting than Kanao. Shinobu had this simple sense of complexity by putting on a facade behind her face when she is actually angry about lots of things. It was just one of the many charming effects on her absolutely stunning self. It's such a shame she got killed before her potential got fully utilized. While Kanao is adorable and charming, unlike Shinobu. She is not as fleshed out, and Kanoao's change was just jarring for me as a result. At least it seems like Tanjiro shippers got what they wanted. That's good and gave me at least some sense of comfort. But they seriously did my girl Shinobu so damn nasty. And Inousuke was by far the only interesting dude out of the main trio. But just like more or less anyone else, his growth was sloppy and not well executed. I wanna say that each of the Hashiras deserved more build-up than they got too.

Sadly, we only got something resembling a jittery backstory, and many were interesting, no doubt. Still, you could see that the author was in a rush to get back to the action. I think my favorite has to be Iguro's, which was seriously messed up. The way they tore his mouth to match that nightmare was a bit awkward and just a bit too much? But I definitely wanted him to bath in happiness after going through that tragic and scarring event. Also, that snake lady is damn nightmare-fuel. In just that one panel, she was much scarier than Muzan. I am not getting a wink of sleep tonight. I actually felt the chemistry between Iguro and Mitsuri. But once again, their relationship was not as sufficiently fleshed out or built-up like it should. It was still by far my favorite ship from Demon Slayer. So unlike most characters. I felt their death, but then that ending happened, and my suffering was for nothing.

So let's talk about the big bad of Demon Slayer. Muzan's so insufferable as a villain, and I cared little how the whole fight with him went. It was going places way too quickly. I didn't get enough time to absorb how much of a threat Muzan was since he was zig-zagging around places chopping up demon slayers left and right. But it didn't carry any weight or impact. It was obviously forced down upon us to make us feel frightened of Muzan. But I was like okay all the time. I have said it before that death is a pretty severe double-edged sword that can bite you in the back if one doesn't know how to use it well. This story throws that at us literally all the times like it's a tool to make the vibe heavy and suffocating. To tell you, the stakes are high. Anyone can drop dead, but it's pointless if you know it's going to happen, and when you barely have an emotional bond with the cast, it's not going to affect you as much. Plus, once it's used and the character dies.

We don't get time to process what just happened before we simply start moving to other things. It doesn't help either Muzan feels just like a joke with many loose screws in his already small brain. "I am like a natural disaster, so you shouldn't care if someone died" or something like that. I was seriously laughing out loud when those words came out of that freak's mouth. That's just a taste, so prepare to get your brain-cells eaten by Muzan stupidity. If you decide to read the story. To make Muzan truly scary, the author should've given him common sense and some level of intelligence. Simply, flaunting your powers around will only work for so long. For like the first time, when you know nothing about said individual. This goes for many things. But in this case, a villain's appearance is not the only thing matters to command respect or admiration. There's ideals, personality, of course, flaws, and more. Not to the point, it's all over the place. Those things just need to bounce off well with each other and not straight out devour each other.

What the hell happened to my boi Azaka? He was the best and the most entertaining villain in Demon Slayer. Too bad the guy's name, I don't even remember killed him, and I couldn't care less about him. Since he was just in that one arc and hardly felt well-established. We'll see how the anime film does his introduction and all that. I already hear the angry mob consisting of the Demon Slayer fans out there. Azaka was the best among all the demons and had the biggest amount of potential. I would've liked to see him be replaced with Tanjiro as a main, to be honest. Btw, Muzan's death scene was the most hilarious shit I have ever seen. There was a meme of how he turned into an actual baby. When we saw how Tanjiro just straight out denied to join the dark side and proceed to leave Muzan behind. That was kind of satisfying, not gonna lie. As the fool resorted to begging him and probably crying inside. That was good entertainment. We've waited a long time for Nezuko's return to human. But that whole scene was so bland and like whatever. I didn't feel any emotions coming out from that panel. Can we talk about how Giyuu and Tanjiro basically became the best bros? Still, it was never established with security or ingenuity in mind? It came from the left-field, just like most of the things in the story.

Finally, I want to just say that despite all the death scenes that came from literally nowhere. Simply reincarnating makes the situation much worse than it already is. Yes, those who died are not really alive, but calling it a coincidence as well is not the best thing. It makes the already shaky story filled to the brim with all kinds of issues just crumble to pieces. Let's not get started on how Tanjiro time and time again became stronger without any clues. That didn't feel wishy-washy, besides the obvious things like his hair and that mark on his head. The power system is really simple but effective and might be awkwardly written, but it does the job. That said, many of the characters' execution and how they went from zero-to-hundred was cheap and ineffective. I realized I have been simply focused on the character aspect, but the world-building was not there either. We don't even know many if any of the locations name. It all just seems so damn insignificant. One more thing I want to bring up is the author, Koyoharu, uses tell and show at the same time most annoyingly, so it makes reading through Demon Slayer boring and lame. Since we're already seeing much of the things that are happening in the drawings, therefore we don't need to go all bananas about the details. Just a light touch be more than enough.

I don't like drawing most of the time, either. The action is rough, and I can't properly see what's happening. I mentioned already that emotions don't get conveyed properly through facial expressions or behavior most of the time. There are rare occasions when we get some good eye-candy with details in the background and character art. It's not in the slightest the best artwork I have seen. But the author can draw once they put their mind to it. So I wonder if the author truly enjoyed writing Demon Slayer? I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought initially. It was all over the place, no sense of anything, and that final chapter was terrible. It simply focused on a new batch of characters and went nowhere with that. I would've liked to see some silver of world-building with details about how the world came-to-be after the demons were killed. Maybe see the public reaction to the events and properly tie all the damn loose ends. Being how the characters went from this to that and so forth. I also think Nezoku lost something when she returned back to human. Did she seriously marry Zenitsu? Overall, Demon Slayer is probably the worst shounen I have read in recent memories, if not ever so far. I enjoyed bits and pieces of the beginning. It had the potential to become slightly more. If only the author wasn't set by being satisfied by mere cheap thrills that last barley a few moments.
Continue on AniList
SCAR
78/100
Was the overhype for this series justifyable? I don't think so. It's mainly cuz of anime
THIS REVIEW HAS MILD SPOILERS UNTIL YOU SEE ANOTHER SPOILER WARNING

So, my first experience of this series is through anime. Enjoyed it, with all the good ost and animation. Then because of getting spoiled on character deaths, I started manga. The major problem for me to enjoy this series more is cause the fandom overhyped the series and also spoiled me on stuff. When certain scene arrived there were no emotions to spare for that certain characters death.

Skip to the spoiler section if you already read this manga and want to know my honest and end of the series thoughts

Let's talk about STORY

The story I would say is mid or a bit above it. Nothing crazy or unbelievable plotline. Basic enjoyable story with good characters. Not very fleshed out but we will talk about it later.
They start off with setting a world where demons are a thing and ends with slaying them, as the title states. There are no deviations to the goal of mc inbetween and stays on straight plot that was layed out from the beginning. Villains were good and some were even fantastic but most of the backstory they gave for villains didn't resonate with me. Mainly the boss of them, you would certainly have expectations towards the main villain of a series to be high. Now that's where it kinda went down hill. His backstory is not even better than the most early villains. It tells about his character for sure but you won't be emotionally attached to him as you do for other villains in this story. His powers are lame compared to all of the previous antagonists. Seriously was hyped to know more about him in the beginning. But didn't know it would turn out this underwhelming. I wanted to include him in character discussion but nothing much to say about him but rant.

CHARACTER DISCUSSION (Slightly spoiler-ish)
Main character, kamado tanjiro is a nice good boy protagonist. He was a decent mc and I would argue better than midoriya from mha(until now). Kid got hard head and good sense of smell. He takes good care of his friends and family. Character growth? I don't think there was any major growth in terms of character. He was always compassionate even towards demons. And would try to understand their circumstances but is not stupid enough to forget their crimes. Only character growth Is him getting stronger. That's the only thing that changed about him.

Nezuko, his sister has turned to demon which is not a major spoiler considering it's already on the summary and also the first ep. Has less human interaction, looks and acts cute. As her brother, she also loves her family so much and will give her life to protect her brother. Has a few badass scenes and is also a decent character. Her character growth is non existent. At least tanjiro tried to work his way up by training and improving himself. all she does is sleep for the most part. If you end up liking her, it's mostly cuz she's cute. Some for badassness

Zenitsu, who is the first companion (friend/nakama) of tanjiro, who is also a demon slayer. He has very interesting sword technique and I would even say it's cooler than tanjiro but tanjiro kept getting stronger and showed a lot more technique and visually good looking ones. His character reminds me of Cavendish in one piece but unlike Cavendish who goes crazy with his sword in his sleep, Zenitsu doesn't have any alter-ego. He's a sleeping beast who goes off in his sleep and a loud mouth crybaby. He has a good character development going onwards. But he's still loud and pervy to the end.

inosuke, inosuke is funnier than zenitsu. Cuz zenitsu becomes annoying at times. Inosuke's techniques are good but not very visuals to it. I would say least favourite among other cool looking and effective techniques. He likes fighting strong opponents and grow even stronger. Has unbelievably flexible body and In terms of character development, he has a bit more than mc at certain points.

Those are the main cast. Rest of the important characters have good design but most of them have less interesting story or not very fleshed out. This series does only 20-30% job in characterizing. And we don't get time to know them much as a character before they are a dying and flashback starts. It's main focus is towards fights, So the only character moments most get are through battle.

WORLD BUILDING

It's poor!........
Basic world building. Nothing interesting going on with the world itself. Demons roam in the night, so demon slayers and demons are not common knowledge except for few ppl who either witnessed it or heard the rumours. It's basically old japan with lurking demons in it. And we only see most of the time it's either forest or demon slayer hq.

That's the entirty of the series. It will get you hyped and emotional at times but the manga isn't anywhere close to the entertainment you get from anime. I personally would recommend anime over this but if you ended up falling in love with the series cuz of character or story. And can't wait to know more, you can continue through manga. It's not so terrible to ever Considering it if you want more.

SPOILER TALK

I don't get why ppl overhype this series. This series had great anime adaptation yes but it's not worth getting mad and calling out on other communities.
I would honestly just keep watching the anime if not for spoilers. All you get from this series is major fights that Don't look that good for manga. Final fight with muzan was so uninteresting that the whole series build up was wasted. Muzan is leagues Above the hashiras that even when they teamed up it was no use. They had to nerf him with multiple drugs to hold him from absolutely destroying everything. Even when I say he's that strong his attacks looked completely garbage. Upper moon and lower moon combined had better abilities. My manga experience with this series is so poor that I don't even remember most of it. What's up with his backstory? It didn't made me feel anything for muzan or get hyped for his character. Apart from his looks which was gone in final battle. He's less appealing final villain than kaguya from Naruto. Atleast that fight > this. I like that there were major consequences during this battle but they killed all the good likable characters. And giyuu is ass, I don't like him at all. Don't know why ppl are hyped about him. Sabito would have been a better hashira. I know I'm ranting too much, but it's entirely cuz ppl really hyped this up even tho it's mid. My fav hashiras dead! Atleast sanemi was alive but the final chapter had all dead and reincarnated? I don't mind, just end the final chapter with the ppl you have left

Don't rush out the story let the final battle be failure and drag the series until tanjiro became actually strong enough to defeat him but the way the battle went they could never have done this. The moment they made it a final battle, all was lost. so, it was a given that the final fight would be underwhelming from the beginning. It sucks that mc and all the others had to pull serious asspulls to defeat him. I don't understand why they have to make muzan so strong and not let tanjiro achieve hashira lvl and more experience with his red sword before this catastrophe. Short life span, major risks, they were all so unnecessary huge tolls. if they have to rush the series don't make the enemy side that strong from the beginning. Or atleast make the hashiras and tanjiro jump even higher lvls. Deaths in the final battle were felt like they were happening for shock value and intensity which I didn't feel. Ofc fans would have felt them all and would praise this over other shounen battles. Tanjiro's flashback powerup never really settled with me. All this and my review would have not been a thing unless again if it wasn't overhyped. If it was some other small manga, I would have said it's good, I enjoyed it and moved on.

And finally that last chapter was not needed. Was so unlike of demon slayer and no one gives a f**k about some random descendents for a whole final chapter (except for softies who wants to see the dead ppl again). Should have just shown us a few panels of demon free society and ended it.
I had even better expectations, show us how all are living their lifes. A timeskip to nezuko and zenitsu wedding. Which would have been so better than descendents and reincarnation crap. Just imagining tanjiro's happy tears for seeing his sister as a bride!!! C'mon wouldn't that have made a perfect place to end instead. He went through hell to turn back his sister normal. It would have made more impactful.

And so, it was a decent series. It doesn't deserve to be called complete trash just cuz of final battle. All previous battle were good and enjoyable. When anime adapts these fights they will look even better. Maybe they can make us forget about the flaws in final battle too. I gave it 7.8 in my ratings out of 10. Every series I enjoyed are above 7 and below 6 are trash for me. Why I give them that high number? Cuz it's still some one’s hard work and you can see it through art or their story or little likable characters. Since kny had some good characters, fights, emotions and nezuko(?) we could settle it for 7.8.
out of 5 is 3.
This is my review and don't let it bother you. If you enjoyed it. It's ok to give even 10. Afterall it depends on how much enjoyment you got from it. They are created for that sole purpose.
Continue on AniList
woodengear
50/100
A Fun Series Ruined By A Terrible Ending and Final Arc
SPOILERS

Let’s start off with the good.
This series started out with a lot of promise. Our main character, Tanjiro, goes through an intense trauma with his entire family being killed and the only family member being left alive was turned into a demon. Despite all of this, he still shows kindness towards demons because they were once human. This was a very strong start to a series that had a lot of potential with interesting concepts and characters. The characters, although very one note, were lovable. The breathing styles were very cool and looked great being drawn. The first few arcs were great such as the Entertainment District Arc and the Mugen Train Arc. Although showing the demon’s sad backstories before their death was formulaic and got old fast, I enjoyed this series. All in all, when I first started this series, I was looking forward to seeing story elements develop further.

BUT THEY NEVER DO. Character development feels rushed and incomplete. Concepts such as breathing get a half-assed explanation and origin.

I could get into a lot of the characters but I want to talk specifically about Tanjiro and Nezuko, Inosuke and Zenitsu, and the Pillars.

Tanjiro and Nezuko were an interesting dynamic that felt genuine and authentic. It felt like Nezuko was going to develop further as a character as the story progressed toward the direction of her finally becoming a human again. But in the end, Nezuko becomes human, says a few words, and the story ends. It felt so rushed. It felt like Nezuko was never really a character but just a symbol of Tanjiro’s end goal. This would have been fine if not for the sprinkling of glimpses of characterization for her throughout the story. Tanjiro was great at the beginning. He felt like a character like Gon from Hunter x Hunter. He was this character with a one track mind and was morally good most of the time. The interesting part of his character was that he was kind unapologetically towards demons. But his attitude towards Muzan was a complete 180. It was jarring to see such a kind character like Tanjiro go completely apeshit at Muzan and while yes, Muzan is a piece of shit, it felt weird for Tanjiro to do this. It also doesn’t help that his bloodline aspect was poorly explained.

Inosuke and Zenitsu both had character arcs that felt incomplete and rushed. At the end of the day, I wanted more from Inosuke and Zenitsu. Zenitsu, for example, had made a completely new form of his breathing form. I would have loved to see Zenitsu actually develop it and grow as a character and not be shoe-horned into the series. It’s worse for Inosuke, whose development felt completely shafted and incomplete. By the end of the series, I felt betrayed by the complete lack of care when it came to handling these characters. It’s a shame too because they were set up to be two of the main trio of characters but they felt nothing more than side characters.

The Pillars were an interesting concept and they were definitely very interesting characters. But again, character development felt too rushed and too shoehorned to be called meaningful or integral to the story. In the final arc, almost all of the Pillars were eliminated and because of this, the author decided to shoehorn their development right before they died.

If you’ve read this series (I’m sorry that you did), you would know that a lot of these complaints are in the final arc of the series. This is because I feel the final arc killed the series. The final series takes what complaints I had of the show and cranked it up to 100. Things like showing sad backstories before character deaths are extremely, extremely prevalent in the final arc in the Pillar members. The lack of explanation runs rampant in the final arc with questions still being unanswered like how spirits interact with the cast. And when they do explain concepts like how Tanjiro’s family bloodline works, it feels nothing more than a shoe-horned explanation than a well executed plot point.

Muzan was terrible. He was a lackluster villain with a goal that was simply just to get stronger and live longer. Nothing special at all.

The actual ending was so unsatisfactory in so many ways. If I had to compare it to something, I would compare it to the ending of Bleach. It just felt so off.

If I had a word to describe this series, it would be shallow. Everything was very surface level without any real substance and the potential that this series showed in the beginning just faded away. I feel pretty angry and sad that this series ended the way it did.
Continue on AniList