“The weak have no rights or choices,their only fate is to be relentlessly crushed by the strong”(1)
“As for those for whom being a demon meant despair,those who regretted their own actions-I would never trample over them.Because demons were once human too!Just like me,they were human too!”(2)
For the time being let us just sink those two quotes aside and get things started. I’ll try my best to depict everything in a seemingly short review as much as possible.Demon slayer aka Kimetsu no Yaiba is a story about just like that title sounds.Yes,it’s about a guy who slays demons-if you were excepting something else nope it’s just
...
as I said.It’s none of those ‘misleading hidden gems’.It just leads to it’s way and oh boy ufotable sure knows what they are doing.For the starters we are set to be in a taisho period in Japan in a rather rural side of the country in a period where their is a certain demon outburst.Our protagonist Tanjiro(3) couldn’t be happy like always as one day he finds his whole family massacred by a demon and worse yet his own sister Nezuko has turned into a demon.However nezuko seems to have a certain self control as she can deminish her demonic spirit to almost zero.These sudden terrifying turn of events horrified Tanjiro and he didn’t know what to do.The twist of events continued as he finds himself assisted by the demon slayer community as they have also more or less have gone through days just like Tanjiro.Overwhelmed with the avenge thirst of taking revenge along with finding ways to make Nezuko back to normal Tanjiro chose the path of cruelty because that’s the only possible way he could sort everything out at once.By years of training Tanjiro grew stronger as he always seemed that type of character who can always grow and extend his limits and he starts a brave adventure along with Nezuko always with him (4)Surprisingly he found out Muzan,(5)the demon who killed his family pretty quickly into the story but he had nothing but to sigh how dense the situation of Muzan is as he had a human family himself and can turn anyone into demon just by a claw of his.Meantime he finds Zenitsu and Inosuke(6) who have also beared somewhat same fate.This trio(7)regardless of how different they are seems to get along pretty good.Nevertheless,things started to get intense very quickly as the trio couldn’t help themselves without hashiras(the highest ranked slayers) involving with them.But it seems hashiras and the master himself was interested in them anyways specially regarding to Nezuko issue.From then the story necessarily doesn’t go anywhere as it seemed to focus more on to some hashira backstories and just utter comedy.But impressively in the last ep it goes deep on how big of a threat was Muzan and for the next train arc it maintained the hype and pace(8) quite perfectly.
Now that we’ve had the starters let’s get down to business.I’ll be talking about those points I’ve marked first-
(1) and (2):See how contradictory the points are?While one quote triumphs the intimidating strength over weak or humbleness the other sees it from a totally different perspective as humbleness,humane morals mean much more.That’s exactly why demon slayer isn’t your typical shounen.For the first point we have one hashira saying the same thing you’ll possibly guessed anyways to be the main theme of a action packed series like KnY.But it actually isn’t.It’s the 2nd point of Tanjiro bringing much more to the show.The show continues to cease with these two points as Tanjiro kept showing how good of a MC he is and how the show is different.
(3):Talking about Tanjiro,the 3rd point brings us to himself.I honestly think Tanjiro is a key factor of the show.’Redemption’,’revenge’ yeah sure he has those too but it’s the humane side that makes him apart.Not to mention,the perfect balance of his strength and growing ability makes him different to other typical shounen MCs.Kamado Tanjiro is solely determined to his goal of avenge but still doesn’t lose his humane side for a minute as we see him to have condolences towards demons whom even harmed his sister.Too naive?Yeah sure at times he is but that’s just make things more natural for the characteristics he has.
(4):Wholesomeness.Yes a noun you probably won’t find in typical battle shounens.Nezuko,the sister makes things wholsesome to another level.From holding fingers of his brother helplessly,giving head pats to people imagining as her family to an extraordinary demon who has astonishing ability of holding back from human blood-Kamado Nezuko sure adds some wholesomeness to the show as we experience some of the best Brother-sister bond in anime.
(5):Kibutsuji Muzan,the boss demon as we may call him-has one of the best villain designs in the Battle shounen animes.From inside out that’s how you make a perfectionist villain.As I mentioned before,in the impressive last ep the series showed how much of a threat he is and how versatile his powers are.Adding that,the perfectionist yet the devilish vibes he gives away everytime he gets screen time-Muzan sure made things more intense just like it should be.
(6):Here we have the first issue of the show-Zenitsu and Inousuke,the companions of Tanjiro throughout the journey.’Companions’ sounds fine right?But no.They are not companions.They are actually one of those three characters the show focuses on particularly.The thing with Zenitsu and Inosuke is their laughter or scream-how you may adress these,they are not the problem.That’s are just how they are.These are just characterisation.But the issue starts when the show tries to exaggerate these,when it tries to over saturate these.Like,Zenitsu starts a joke which made you laugh,Inosuke makes some weird sound which made you crack-that’s it.That’s where you should stop.But nope.They seemingly can’t stop laughing and screaming time and time again.These make things worse in two ways-(i)The dark,serious vibe demises yet and yet again which is really a shame because the show hooked a majority of it’s audience because of it’s vibe and aesthetics.(ii)It’s annoying.It’s sometimes is so irritating that I’m sure it made some people drop the show which is really depressing to think that such a well thought,detailed,unfamiliar shounen gets dropped just because of these small things.Last issue for Zenitsu and Inoukse would be I guess the back story of them.The show does spent time showing how they become demon slayers(specially zenitsu) and I guess that’s just enough.The show’s focus wasn’t character development to begin with so I guess it didn’t bothered me that much.
(7):Here is the thing that kind of peddled back the whole 6th point a bit.The trio.Yeah the trio of Tan,Zen,Ino kinda sort things out.Looking at how different of a person they are from each other and considering how varied their thoughts are-somehow the show managed to work them out together pretty well.As they say,”No matter how bad something is,you’ll get used to it over time”-this happened exactly for Zen and Ino.Being in the trio,having ridiculous interactions with one another-we happen to grow some affection towards them over time.Nonetheless let this not distract you,Zen and Ino personally were still annoying at times but somehow the show found a way and time did the rest.
(8):Hype-builiding and story pacing.Demon slayer does that brilliantly.Right from the start,I felt that perfect story pacing of this show along with those cliffhangers(aka hype-building) after every 1/2 episodes.At the end of the day no matter how much details there are,KnY is still a battle shounen of a boy slaying demons you know and for a battle shounen to work out these things are essential.Demon slayer just perfectly does that-not too much or not too less-this show has done these just flamboyantly!
As now I have broke down some key points of the show let’s now talk about the technical stuffs:
Animation and art in KnY is one of the best you’ll ever see in a series.Even the CGI and camera movement blends so well with the soothing animation.One certan episode of the show just left me speechless as I was eyegasmed by how beautifully the scene was made.It’s not just about one single moment or one single episode,the series will continue to impress it’s audience from start to end;not just those fight impacts and powerups,even in simple comedy scene you can see how much effort was put into these as we continue to choke on funny expressions and postures of our characters with having nothing to do but admire how sarcastically the expressions were drawn.The thing is KnY didn’t have to do all these small details,it will naturally bang on with the kind of animation it has but still you can feel the effort put into these in almost every frame.
Music and sounds may not be the strongest side of KnY but it just comes short of that god tier animation stuff.VAs did a noticeable job in this series.I don’t particularly care about VAs but I had to be amused how well they dived into their characters and the situations.You can’t really expect less from such A grade voice actors.Now for the music the OP with that metalic J-pop might not cope with the gore vibe of this show but the ED make things neutral with a rather beautifully soothing song.Moreover,the OSTs are not a point less than sheer quality.Whatever,the scene was KnY had tracks that go along so well throughout the series.But one thing it did,it didn’t changed the OP and ED at all.Even the scenes were unchanged till the end.That really is a miss because the show actually had top notch music but for that fact I think people really didn’t care much about it’s music.
Thus to conclude,
KnY isn’t your typical battle shounen from whatever perspective you look at it.It has that boost to stand out in every aspect.But don’t get it me wrong,Demon Slayer isn’t any masterpiece either.For me this show is really upto the front page of battle shounens but the continuous process of it’s exaggeration,over saturation resulting the show look more polished,solid,hype-creating show targeting a certain audience rather than maintaining it’s vibe of a iconic shounen really backfired for me.
But still just like I mentioned again and again of this show’s standing out-trust me,it really does.As I stated in the beginning,Ufotable sure knew what they are doing.So,even if you’re not generally into shounen stuffs I’ll recommend you to watch this show.It really won’t be you typical shounen even if it appears to be.
That’s it for me.Thank you if you’re still here.It’s my first anime review.Even if it helps by a little I’ll be glad.Do tell me how you felt about this review in the comments.
Sayonara~
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Oct 2, 2019
Kimetsu no Yaiba
(Anime)
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“The weak have no rights or choices,their only fate is to be relentlessly crushed by the strong”(1)
“As for those for whom being a demon meant despair,those who regretted their own actions-I would never trample over them.Because demons were once human too!Just like me,they were human too!”(2) For the time being let us just sink those two quotes aside and get things started. I’ll try my best to depict everything in a seemingly short review as much as possible.Demon slayer aka Kimetsu no Yaiba is a story about just like that title sounds.Yes,it’s about a guy who slays demons-if you were excepting something else nope it’s just ... |
