Back to loonytoongonemad's Profile loonytoongonemad's Profile

All in all, this was a decent anime, with potential leading into future seasons, however, this season by itself was quite lacking. I went in with quite high hopes given the incredibly strong rating at this time, yet was very underwhelmed. It has your run of the mill premise of a character undergoing training to get strong so that he can slay demons to achieve his goal of saving his sister. It has gorgeous animation with a unique style, a decent soundtrack/score, and has a rather interesting world with all of the color and hints they throw in throughout the season, however there is very ... little resolution and answers provided to certain key plot-driving questions over the course of the 26 episodes. What is the significance of Tanjiro's family history? How was Tanjirou able to see the children during his training? How is Nezuko different than all other demons? Why is she solely able to restrain herself from eating humans? The list goes on. We're introduced to a number of key characters that are hinted to have rich backgrounds and history, yet little to nothing is revealed about them (looking at you - Tomioka, Urokodaki, Tanjiro's family, "Master", Hashiras, etc.), the demons, nor the main villain and their respective motivations that drive each character. In my opinion, the anime struggles in a few areas in particular:

Pacing - The pacing of this show is all over the place. It jumps right in providing the context for the story pretty quickly and early on, but the main character pretty quickly goes from "zero to hero" over the course of just 1-2 episodes, with a few years flying by, without really diving into specifics of his training, which I would personally find more satisfying and believe would enrich his character with more depth and dimension in a way that brings the audience closer to him. Further, the story jumps around from mission to mission, with little resolution around the side stories and villains that we're introduced to - they're just kind of swept under the rug in favor of moving onto the next mission. Finally the season ends on a bit of a weird note. The season's (underwhelming) climax resolves a few episodes before the end of the season so the last few episodes felt oddly underwhelming and out of place, as if they weren't really needed. And some characters who were introduced in the first few episodes don't even get reintroduced until these last few episodes, which felt quite anti-climactic.

Character development - The main character and his sister don't grow emotionally almost at all throughout the series. Tanjirou stays his same determined self while Nezuko barely does or says anything, both of which leave much to be desired. The comic relief characters Inosuke and Zenitsu don't exhibit any depth or growth, beyond the superficial, obnoxious, cacophonous, cantankerous behavior you see from the get go. The demons faced throughout the show have pretty generic characters, with minimal depth, outside of Rui who got a bit of a backstory towards the end of the season, despite how rather uninspiring it was. I have to hope the character development of the main cast gets better fleshed out in future seasons/movies.

Tone - This show would be much better as a serious dark fantasy. To reiterate from above, the comic relief is quite forced. Inosuke and Zenitsu are incredibly irritating from the moment they're introduced up until the very end. They have a tendency of ruining the otherwise serious mood with unnecessary shouting which I mostly fast forwarded through. Some battles were even ruined by comic relief from the demons, who would sometimes interject with immature banter - such as the first demon encounter at the temple and the first mission demon. With "comedy" not being in this show's lineup of genres, it should really stick with where it's forte lies - in the dark fascinating world that's been created and the dark atmosphere that naturally results from it.

All in all, worth a watch with decent potential for future seasons, but on its own, this season is lacking and definitely does not live up to the hype that the (currently) high rating would otherwise suggest.