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It's a cute manga, what can I say? A stoic and honest tank of a man trying to teach a class in high school with a bunch of stereotypical pervy girls, nothing we haven't seen before a million times, but characters are expressive and the comedic misunderstandings and exaggerated reactions are just enough to be funny and endearing without overstaying their welcome. As the story advances you also start to delve a little deeper into the motivations and past experiences of the characters in a way that both advances the plot and improves our enjoyment of their interactions.

The art style emphasizes characters (poses, clothing, eyes) ... over backgrounds, managing to create some really interesting scenes; some aspects of it remind me of March comes like a Lion with how strandy and wispy hair looks or how eyes occasionally get this massive amount of detail and shine to them. Also there's an easily-flustered vampire-toothed girl that looks like she teleported here straight from Getsuyoubi no Tawawa and as the story advances we go from soft ecchi to very ecchi, so yeah, what's not to like?

The frustrations and subsequent complaints I have for this show are too specific to describe without incurring into lots of spoilers, so I'll settle for the next best thing, which is a simple overview of the major pros and cons:

Kimetsu no Yaiba's strengths lie in the quality of its fight scenes, which feature dazzling explosions of colors and sound and some clever uses of CG. For a few dramatic seconds, it creates an amazing experience for viewers, and you can forget your surroundings and focus exclusively on the complicated magical swordsmanship happening onscreen. There are also a few moments of calm introspection that help us ... gain a better understanding of some characters and their motivations, which I wholeheartedly appreciate.

However! Those positive moments often feel like small pockets of quality content sprinkled amidst problematic elements. The faults of the show mostly come from questionable humor choices, character interactions and plot contrivances, being a real turn off for me. Much of the social conflict in the story is fueled by miscommunication and/or random onset selective muteness in characters, creating artificial strife only to be hand-waved in the next episode. For all of the joy I experienced with the battles, my appreciation for the show soured due to all the bizarre "conversations" in which the quirks of the speakers overrode common sense and reason for the sake of padding the runtime. Since you eventually learn that most of those conflicts will amount to nothing, it's that much harder to feel emotionally invested.

Thus, it gets a 7/10. It's closer to an 8 than a 6, but it's a 7. I recommend it to friends just because some of the fights are really THAT good, but, personally, now that I'm re-watching the first season in preparation for the movie, the beautiful animations that had me wide-eyed and enraptured aren't managing to wash away the sour taste I get in my mouth from the dialogue and from some of character interactions.