Kimetsu no Yaiba: Yuukaku-hen

Contains some mild spoilers.

"Demon Slayer is carried by its animation"

A common take that haters of this show love to spew, but how true is it actually?

Demon Slayer S2 picks up immediately where the movie leaves off with the main trio and now the sound hashira going to the "entertainment district" to kill a demon residing there. It introduces us to the new Sound Hashira, and also new villains, in the form of a pair of brother-sister demons.

It goes without saying that Demon Slayer's fight scenes look spectacular, i dont think i need to spend much time praising the visuals or its ... choreography. When people talk about or hype up Demon Slayer, this is the first thing that comes to mind. While Demon Slayer may not be Ufotable's best work (that goes to Heaven's Feel in my opinion), it does not change the fact that it is still undeniably one of the most well-animated shows in the medium.

The score is by the renowned Yuki Kajiura, and its decent. It compliments the animation and the fights well. It hits when it matters, nothing much else to say about it. The Aimer OP and ED, while they are very nice songs to listen to, do not really fit the dark, gritty tone that the show was trying to adopt, especially towards the latter half of the season, but i dont think this means a lot in the grand scheme of things so i wont dwell too long on it.

Now onto the less amazing parts of Demon Slayer.

Demon Slayer's character writing is very polarising. Tanjiro, probably the most interesting character, is an altruistic, selfless empath. He never fails to see the good in even the worst of demons. He is a nice guy at heart, and easy to get behind which makes for a likeable protagonist, but not necessarily the most interesting to watch. Zenitsu and Inosuke on the other hand, represent running gags that the show has. Inosuke is aggressive, hot-headed and short-tempered, while Zenitsu is a simp. Most of their dialogue and personality revolve around this one trait that they have. While fans may find them to be funny and great comic relief, I am certainly not one of them. The 2 new antagonists have a somewhat endearing sibling relationship, but we are spoon-fed their backstory just as they are about to die. It comes off as if they are forcing us to feel sad for characters that we would otherwise not care about. Because, before the backstory, i saw the 2 villains as one-note, blank slate villains which will surely die by the end of the season. Their backstories are admittedly somewhat sad and heartbreaking and I am sure that these moments do make many viewers feel for the characters, and thats great. However for me, and lots of people i've interacted with, these moments come off as emotionally manipulative and forced.

The dialogue in Demon Slayer is very VERY bloated. There is an extraordinary overuse of monologues. Monologues arent inherently bad, but when its used so much, it gets to the point of being completely meaningless. This causes the flashy, pretty looking fights to become somewhat boring and stale. What do i mean by this? Demon Slayer has a tendency of treating its audience like they are 3 year olds who dont have basic reading comprehension. It feels this need to explain everything that happens on-screen, even the most blatantly obvious things. "I'll slash as hard as i can!", "The slash didnt go through!!" This kind of "walkthrough dialogue" (a term coined by a friend of mine) that almost narrates the events shown, give the fight sequences themselves a lot less impact and make them far less meaningful or immersive.

As for the tonal inconsistencies, there are many sudden tone changes that happens out of the blue. The show would randomly crack a joke in the middle of a fight, the music stops, and some sound effects intended for comic relief start to play. Dont get me wrong, comic relief isnt bad, but the timing is what matters, and Demon Slayer times these comic relief moments IN THE MIDDLE OF AN INTENSE FIGHT SCENE. This breaks immersion, and reduces investment, especially when it comes out of nowhere.  Thankfully, as the season progressed, this became less and less of a problem as the show managed to stick to the dark, gritty tone that it had originally intended to adopt.

Demon Slayer is also rampant with plot conveniences. Characters would have broken fingers, be punched in the gut 10 times or so, and still effectively be at full fighting capacity. At one point, Tanjiro goes down, has a flashback about Nezuko, manages to get back up (albeit with a little bit of difficulty and limping), and is suddenly ready to fight again, "Determination conquers all", a common theme throughout the series. So whats the problem here? The injuries and hits that they take feel very meaningless. Yes sure, when they do get hit, they get hit very hard, but why does it matter? They just get back up a minute later as if nothing happened to them. Fingers broken? Just hold the sword with your remaining fingers lmao. Got stabbed through the chest? Just shift the position of your organs lmao. This can potentially stop me from taking the fights seriously, as the stakes become nonexistent. The only real stakes that are present, come at the end of the season, but by then, the fight is over, and the impact that it leaves, is not very significant.

Its easy to see the appeal of Demon Slayer, and i do enjoy what it has to offer. It is easily accessible, easily digestable, and it looks great, making for a very entertaining show to watch, but its definitely not without its fair share of flaws. I imagine the diehard fans of the series either dont consider my issues as flaws, or are willing to overlook the flaws despite them being present. On the other hand, i imagine that the diehard haters think the positives count for little when the myriad of other flaws are present. Both positions are totally reasonable and understandable. Thank you for reading.

***THIS REVIEW MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS, AND MANY SPICY RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS***

Imagine being animated by Studio Ufotable, imagine being animated by the CG gods, the very same legends that crafted Fate/Zero, one of the best stunning anime ever made. And now, give them a new project that ain't a Type Moon Visual Novel adaptation or a lame video game adaptation, and what do you get? you get Kimetsu no Yaiba, one of the worst shounen I've ever had the displeasure of watching. But how could this anime be bad if it is being done by the amazing Ufotable Studio? Well, more than being Ufotable's fault, ... this is just evidence that the source material is awful. Kimetsu no Yaiba is an anime so bad, not even the top tier animation from Ufotable can save it from being a completely and irredeemable utter disaster. I really tried to like Demon Slayer, I really did, and while it's true that the visuals are good, they won't carry anything if everything else freaking blows ass.

Do you like having headaches? Do you love when characters scream at each other for no good reason while they make the stupìdest faces trying to land an extremely bad joke? Do you enjoy having your eyes being completely obliterated by extremely over the top flashy visuals? Do you enjoy watching a fight extend itself aimlessly with characters outsmarting each other until the other end doesn't have any more tricks under their sleeve? Do you enjoy having random flashbacks of events that should have been told in cronological order being shown in the middle of a fight? do you like characters getting powerups through asspulls? do you enjoy looking at a little demon girl suddenly get a powerup where she grows to be a sexy thot that ends up being useless anyway? Do you enjoy same face syndrome? Do you enjoy listening to Aimer's voice while having Salsa and Merengue playing and absolutely ruining her vocals? Do you enjoy being spoonfed? Do you enjoy being stated the obvious by the character's thoughts? Do you enjoy plotholes? Do you enjoy petty plot devices? Do you enjoy being treated like a brain dead idiot? If the answer to anything above is yes, I suggest you go to the doctor, because there might be something wrong with you, there's no possible way someone can endure watching this turd of an arc and be okay with it.

This Second Season of Demon Slayer is one of the worst battle shounen I have ever seen in my life, not only does the comedy get worse, the whole thing is almost unbearable, because every minute a character has to scream, every minute a character has to act like has some serious mental illness, every minute a character has to make noises or do something stupid because somehow Gotouge Koyoharu thought it would be a great idea to keep you entertained with stupid shit that actually exhaust you rather than amuse you, and while she's at it, she attempts to create action by insulting your intelligence. This arc is a single battle, ONLY 1 BATTLE THAT GOES THROUGH THE ENTIRE ARC. Don't get me wrong, there have been great battles in shounen that have gone through several episodes and have been great, but that's only if you know how to write action, never exhaust it and always come up with something creative that doesn't drown the viewer in a pestilence of more of the same shit, but Demon Slayer does not do action right at all, ever since the fight starts, the following things I'm going to describe, are the only things that have happened in the spawn of 9 episodes:

Monster appear, hero fight, Monster succeeds, hero gets asspull, he gets power up, he succeed against monster, monster is not defeated, hero is surprised and tired, monster gets power up, reinforcements arrives, everyone gets power up, they clash, hero succeeds against monster, monster is not defeated, monster plays asspull, monster gets power up, monster obliterate heroes, heroes gets flashbacks, heroes gets asspulls, heroes gets powerups, heroes obliterate monster, heroes succeed... but they don't... IT WASN'T EVEN THE MONSTER'S FINAL FORM!!!

Imagine writing such crap, give me a damn break, how are you able to create such a boring battle that instead of excite you, bores you to death due to how terribly formulaic and extended it is? This kind of format would work for 2 episodes, but 9? Imagine the fight beween Saber and Caster from Fate/Zero, each time Saber uses Excalibur, Caster gets a new form after being destroyed, now extend it for 10 episodes, how would you feel? like you were scammed? if the answer is yes, then how is Demon Slayer "action" going to be any worth it, if nothing valuable happens through all those episodes? That's the neat part, it's not worth it, it never was, and it will never be. Demon Slayer is absolute balls, braindead and 0% innovative and 100% amount of schleep.

Ufotable, do yourself a favor, abandon Demon Slayer and embrace Type Moon forever and never ever attempt to adapt anything else, do not give shit manga godlike visuals, it won't save them from being an utter and complete failure.

Oh boy, I'm tired, imagine being tired and bored after having watched 11 episodes of "action" and "comedy". Jesus Fucking Christ...

*out-of-context spoilers*

People always say Demon Slayer is only popular thanks to its dazzling animation, but I completely disagree. When you actually sit down and watch it, you just see some generic, uninteresting shounen, and yet everyone acts like it’s this incredible masterpiece, so why the massive difference in opinion? It must be the flashy animation, right? Personally, I doubt it, because shows with good animation are ignored just as often as shows with bad animation are propped up. The most well-animated show of last season was Ousama Ranking, and it wasn’t even in the top five most popular shows of the season here on MAL. ... The most well-animated show from last Summer was Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S, and conversely, it was in the top five. Spring was Vivy, and it wasn’t. And Winter was Mushoku Tensei, but it was. My point is there’s no consistency in behavior. Shows like Attack on Titan: The Final Season can have laughable CG and be defended ferociously, while shows like Overlord III can have equally laughable CG and be unanimously mocked. Obviously, the visuals have a lot to do with Demon Slayer’s ability to go viral online, but if you ask me, the real key to becoming this much of a monolithic mega-hit is its accessibility. This is not a show where the writers feel the need to diversify their exposition dumps. Even mid-battle, every character is perfectly willing to spontaneously inner-monologue any information even slightly necessary for the audience, and everyone’s motivation is so simple and straightforward, that to forget it, you would have to forget the entire existence of the character. If you’re a cynical bitch like me, it’s very easy to think, “Wow. This show must be written for retards, five-year-olds, or retarded five-year-olds.” However, I finally realized it’s not that it’s written for retards or five-year-olds. It’s written for people who literally haven’t watched the show before. Allow me to explain.

This is going to come across as extremely condescending and insincere, but one thing I genuinely really appreciate about Demon Slayer, and the deciding factor which I think makes the show so easily accessible to such a vast audience, is that it’s so shallow and superficial, it requires no commitment and no real attention to enjoy. That’s an insult packaged within a very thin compliment, I understand that, but I’m being very genuine when I say this, because season one of Demon Slayer for me was a twenty six week long nap. I mean, seriously, I slept through so much of that first season, I truly do not remember even an hour’s worth of its content. I remember pretty much all of episode one, because I go into every show with somewhat of an open mind, and this is especially true with Demon Slayer, because ufotable has earned their reputation. I know their shows will never just be total effortless dogshit, and thanks to the massive marketing initiative Aniplex launched to advertise it, I had already seen the promotional material as well. I really loved the colors and the whole Taisho-era aesthetic of the show, so I really wanted to like it. When it turned out to be totally milquetoast and boring, that attention faded very quickly, but for at least episode one, I had my brain turned on, and I therefore remember how everything starts. This is important, because with shounen manga adaptations, the inciting incident is all that really matters. By the end of chapter one, you always have your one and only goal, and this one and only goal is the backbone of the Weekly Shounen Jump formula. Find One Piece and become Pirate King, become the Fifth Hokage, find all seven Dragon Balls, find a way to turn Nezuko back into a human, etc. But that’s where my memory kinda stops, and yet the fact my memory stops in no way impedes upon my enjoyment of the show. THAT’S the key to Demon Slayer’s success.

Having watched season one in this drowsy stupor, barely sober and barely awake, I only really remember a few distinct, well-executed moments beyond episode one. I remember Tanjiro cutting the boulder in episode four; I remember Zenitsu unveiling his sleep attack in episode twelve; I remember the Blessed Rain After the Drought from episode sixteen; I remember Zenitsu going crazy in episode seventeen; I remember most of episode nineteen, as well as how they invalidated the victory in the following episode and CG water man had to come and finish off the spider guy; and I remember that one Hashira trying bait Nezuko into attacking him in one of the later episodes. But that’s not how the series actually plays out, because Demon Slayer was twenty six episodes worth of content, not just those few moments I was able to recall and describe. It had a plot, it had multiple story arcs, it had tons of dialogue I’m sure, but it was so tortuously boring, it always put me to sleep. I must also stress that I did not binge this. Every single week for twenty six weeks, I would turn on the new episode and just pass out. My soul would just exit my fucking body. When I went to go see Infinity Train, I asked these three boys who were sat near me in the theatre if we’d met Rengoku in the show before, and when they said, “no, not really,” I burst out laughing. His character development in the movie was easily among the most unoriginal, uninspired, generic shounen flashback backstories I’d ever seen, and since his whole personality was just haha lol so funny haha he said UMAI! haha xd funny meme bro haha ayy lmao haha, that by the time the end of the movie came around and he was fighting some OTHER fucking guy who we also just met and who had EVEN LESS screen time or memorable characterization, I was just cracking myself up in the theatre cackling like a psychopath screaming, “Who the fuck ARE you?!”

All of ufotable’s most talented staff came together to produce one of the most spectacular fight sequences I’d ever seen, but there was no tension, no excitement, no emotion, no engagement, no anything, because the combatants were these two shallow non-characters who I only just met and who I didn’t give half a shit about at all. The result is an unbelievable spectacle that’s only impressive for the sake of being impressive, and that’s it. THAT’S the key to Demon Slayer’s success. Despite remembering only a handful of moments from season one and sleeping through the rest, I was able to watch Infinity Train (and now The Red Light District Arc as well) without feeling confused or missing the appeal at all. THAT’S the key to Demon Slayer’s success. It’s not successful simply because it has flashy animation—those people are just haters spouting random shit to diminish the show’s achievements because they don’t like it. It’s successful because anyone in Japan, whether they’re young or old, boy or girl, man or woman, student or professional, unemployed or retired, ANYONE can turn on the TV, see a sociopolitically whitewashed, inoffensive portrayal of Taisho, the most beloved and romanticized era of Japanese history, with pretty colors and a simple story, and say, “He wants to save his sister? That’s nice.” That’s called accessibility, and it’s why Demon Slayer is so popular. It’s boring and generic? Why the hell am I talking like these are bad things? Being boring and generic is exactly what people like about it! Like I said at the beginning of this review, it’s not written for dummies. It’s written for people who literally haven’t watched the show before. It’s written so that if you’re flipping though channels and land on Fuji TV, it’ll be more effort to find something else than it would be to think, “Eh. This looks fine.” If anything, the more dumbed-down the script is, the easier it is for people to get on board.

In episode one of season two, Mini Rengoku says to Tanjiro, “But you came all this way for it, only to end up learning nothing about Hinokami Kagura or what my father called ‘Sun Breathing’,” and I seriously laughed for something like two minutes straight. The dialogue in this show is fucking negative IQ level shit. It feels like watching Alex Kurtzman’s Mummy, where the blonde lady has to keep explaining to Tom Cruise who his character is supposed to be so the Chinese theater audience has multiple opportunities to read the subtitles. This tiresome, dull-witted approach to scripting is reflected in the notoriously bad comedy as well, because there are no jokes in Demon Slayer. There is no written humor. It’s just a bunch of dopey physical comedy. Never does it setup or payoff a real, constructed joke. It’s just: “HAHA He screamed! XD” “HAHA He fell over! XD” “HAHA He made a silly face! XD” It’s such basic, bargain-bin humor that even a monkey could laugh at. It can get me to smile when it stops trying to play itself straight—like at the beginning of episode two when Tanjiro and Uzui are doing this unfunny comedy routine, and it just keeps cutting to Zenitsu going, “What the fuck are these people talking about?”—but most of the time, the childish humor is just as annoying as it’s ever been. And don’t even get me started on the inept tone. When I reach the point as an audience member where I’m watching the red-haired demon guy from Infinity Train shuttering in terror, groveling in fear, getting fiercely accosted by the main villain who looks like shota Michael Jackson, I have to take a step back and ask whether or not this is supposed to be funny. I mean, when they cast Maya Sakamoto, utilize her perfectly, but then make her embarrassingly bawl, “Tasukete, Onii-chan!” I’m not thinking, “Wow! What a dramatic character arc!” I’m thinking, “How the fuck am I even supposed to feel about this character?”

I saw someone attempting to defend the shitty writing by arguing that generic shounenshit we’ve seen a million times like villains who waste time soapboxing instead of killing the protagonists shouldn’t be criticized because, indeed, we’ve seen this trash a million times and should be accustomed to it. This is a classic example of thinking with low standards. Yes, this trope is used as a crutch for hack authors who write themselves into corners all the time, but does that make it okay? Does banality elevate something above criticism? No, of course not. It isn’t not bad because it happens all the time; it’s bad, and it’s bad every time it happens. This, of course, is only addressing the general archetypes. I haven’t even touched the seriously goofy shit yet…
>Shifting the positions of my internal organs and having immunity to poison is child’s play because…I grew up in the mountains?
>Before, I was lightning speed, but when the narrative requires it, I AM GODSPEED. (please ignore Killua rip-off)
>Nezuko burns away the demonic poison, and Tanjiro literally says “idk lol” when asked how she can do that.
>”’Score?!’ Did he say ‘score?!’ Did he turn my Blood Demon Art into a song and deflect it?!”
Yeah. Not exactly the most brilliantly written show in the universe. With a script THIS dumb, it’s no wonder ufotable relies on spectacle.

To give credit where it’s due, Demon Slayer never derails and stays true to its core themes, hackneyed as they may be. If recent best-sellers are anything to go on, you can clearly see the “Big Three” era of 700+ chapter manga is over. A fantastic adaptation which greatly elevates the source material, amazing character designs, no extensive filler, good music, cool fights—just turn your brain off, and what's not to like, right? I’ve also seen people underrate Tanjiro as a character, labeling him a generic goodboy MC and moving on, but I think he's actually quite distinct from typical shounen protagonists. What makes him interesting is how his conscience is handled. He accepts the fact demons were once people, and he is able to sympathize with them despite the atrocities they commit, typically in the form of high bodycounts. However, he is also resolute in his efforts to slay them, and he does not hesitate to deliver killing blows. This apparent contradiction is justified by Tanjiro's innate respect for life: the driving, defining force behind his moral compass. This makes him relatively unique compared to most shounen protagonists, as he not only delivers killing blows frequently, but also with the knowledge he is deliberately ending an intelligent being's life—killing "people" that have been unsalvageably corrupted. I can't think of too many shounen protagonists who actually kill their enemies, much less one who is portrayed as a traditional hero as opposed to some edgy anti-hero. Deep character, right? Maybe, but what this boils down to in execution is: “Those lost lives will never return! They can never come back! Those made of flesh and blood can’t do what demons do. Why would you rob them? Why would you trample their lives?” There’s a solid character conceit hidden somewhere behind all that bland, platitudinous drivel, but it’s completely smothered by this Anakin Skywalker, Attack of the Clones-level writing.

The only character who overcomes the shitty writing is Uzui. Uzui is not only the first character with enough actual characterization for me to consider a character at all, but he’s also the first member of the cast to actually make me like them as a person even a little bit. I just love it when anime prominently features men written by women, because unlike the majority-male industry of manga authors who write uncharismatic, unimposing, self-insert characters, female authors are actually comfortable with having men who stand out and leave an impression. When this guy was introduced slapping some girl’s ass, taking children into Red Light Districts, selling said children into prostitution, and boasting about his harem of three beautiful wives, I could not wipe the grin off my face. Much like the pandering waifus we always see in anime written by men, it is crystal clear to me that Uzui’s painted nails and flamboyant, fujoshi-bait K-pop aesthetic is the embodiment of everything the author fetishizes in a man. To me, he just screams old, hair metal, 80s rock bands like Guns N' Roses or Mötley Crüe who had long hair, wore make-up, and got beauty treatments at glamor salons. They all looked very feminine, and yet they had literal oceans of topless women throwing themselves at them. For all the basement-dwelling otaku who wouldn’t have the slightest idea what rock stars used to look like before the year 2000, let me just say I don’t think it’s a coincidence this guy is called the “Sound Hashira” and defeats his enemies with the power of music. Again, Uzui slapped some chick’s ass, and all the shameless girls on social media were immediately smitten, slobbering over their screens wishing they were her. No male author could manufacture that shit, and unlike the cast up until this point which has consisted entirely of cookie-cutter shounen re-skins, Uzui gives this series a much needed spark of personality.

No offense to Director Sotozaki—and, yes, I’m fully aware fans of this series probably have little to no conception of what it means for something to be “well-directed”—I have no idea why this series hasn’t been handed over to Toshiyuki Shirai yet. His episodes are always more visually interesting, and I’d be curious to see if he could improve the tortuously boring episodes filled with nothing but braindead comedy and snail-paced narrative progression, or if he only seems wildly more talented as a director because he was lucky enough to be tasked with handling the more memorable episodes. Either way, the visuals are exactly what you’d expect from Fate-fotable: Unlimited Tax Evasion Works. Whether they’re drawing a still pose, adding speed lines, shaking the frame, and spamming digital effects, or actually treating us to well-rounded, legitimately impressive animation, the audience will eat it up regardless and denounce anyone who suggests the series has less than perfect visuals as a dishonest contrarian…but people call me that anyway, so fuck it. Let’s nitpick. First of all, no matter how relentless they are with their post-processing, ufotable still can’t hide their CG. The CG ribbons aren’t as bad as the CG tentacles from Infinity Train, but still. The main digital effects worth complaining about are the Michael Bay fireworks Uzui throws around, and of course, the fire. The digital smoke effects they love using in this aren’t terrible, but no matter how good ufotable’s compositing is, no one can make that Shutterstock™ fireplace.gif look natural. I could go on, but you get the point. Demon Slayer is an impressive, beautiful show, but anyone who says it’s flawless knows nothing about animation production. This show aired an episode with fight sequences nearly outclassing its own movie on the same day Attack on Titan ended on a jpeg of a manga panel, so even I’d feel petty for nitpicking too much.

I have high standards, so even though I never had any real animosity toward Demon Slayer, I gave season one the negative score it deserved. Remember, it’s only real problem was being trite and consequentially boring to any thinking viewer, but by allowing myself to fall asleep, I didn’t torture myself with it. The result of this uncaring attitude is that all I really remembered about the show by the time Infinity Train came out was the handful of awesome highlights which actually kept me awake, so even though I’m consciously aware of its shortcomings and failures, all the memories I had of it were great. Feeling generous and not wanting to sour these good memories, I had a truly brilliant idea. To take advantage of the—how should I say this?—subcultural predilections of my fellow Americans, I bought a ticket downtown and reserved a seat at a theatre with a bar to guarantee the audience would be a lively, rowdy, urban bunch. This way, I could get shitfaced, overreact and talk shit, and still ultimately be quieter and more courteous than 99% of the hollering moviegoers sharing the cinema with my good self. A genius move, needless to say, because I had a fucking blast watching Infinity Train—easily the most fun I’ve ever had watching anime in a movie theater—and I didn’t even kill myself driving all the way home. (Don’t drink and drive, kids. I’m not a role model.) The point of the story? Demon Slayer is perfect for casuals who just want to turn their brains off and gawk at pretty colors and loud noises, or losers like me who just want an excuse to indulge in some nice, diversionary substance abuse to escape the tedium of their lives and be ever so briefly stupefied by visual excess. Decorate it as much as you want; a garden-variety shounen manga adaptation filled with nothing but one-note characters, lowbrow humor, and multi-episode, asspull-ridden fights simply is what it is, ufotable animation or not.

Thank you for reading.

Finally.

We have reached cinema.


Acme.
Apex.
Kino.
Peak.
Pinnacle.
... Zenith.

THE GOAT.


Demon Slayer is the undisputed impeccable face of shounen. Everything about Demon Slayer is of ultimate quality. Despite the common horde of "criticism" the anime gets, Demon Slayer is the anime that has left a name for itself. It will be on countless top 10s, it will be the classic of the future, it will live as eternal memory in the anime timeline. Anime so good I can assure you Japan is never going back into recession with this goat's existence. But anyway, before I get into the actual review, I'd like to do some talk on the community as a whole with fiction such as Demon Slayer.

It is clear to just about anyone who uses forums, reads reviews, or just chat with friends, will find that people will be on one of two sides. The first group will see any piece of animation ("art" works too) and call it the best thing in the world, the second will see said art and slander it by calling these works "overrated" and "overhyped" and literally any other words of criticism frowned upon via hidden reviewer rules as being lazy to use. I've explained this before in another review of mine, however, I am going to be on a different side this time, and if you couldn't already tell from my score, the anime captivated me enough such that I do believe Demon Slayer is a work of art worthy of all the praise in the world. But. I'd like to stress something, which I will do very soon. Sure, Demon Slayer is lucky and all. It managed to get in the hands of a nice studio. Though something about Demon Slayer is still very striking and very honest that regardless of what you may think of the writing side, you have to admit that it has some masterpiece or at the very minimum, *good* qualities.

The story of Demon Slayer is nothing grand, but it is honest. Really, that is all that matters. Not just that it is honest, but it also goes to no lengths to stretch anything out into absurdity. It plays its cards nicely, doesn't overstay its welcome with any lopsided tactics in a desperate attempt to engage the audience, because it is already amazing in itself. I feel as if simplicity is often overlooked in media these days, something simple cannot somehow be appreciated equally as other more sophisticated titles out there. I'd argue against it for sure. It's even more concerning to know that many people will be very quick to call Demon Slayer "generic", and honestly, that is "true", but what the hell does that word even mean in an honest sense? Generic relative to what standard? Why is X considered generic and not just a plot device made to make the story go forward, because you know, plots need plot devices? When you say "generic", isn't that just a broad term taking in everything rather than looking at Demon Slayer as a shounen anime? Which it so happens to be one. People will throw around terms like the aforementioned but it is bizarre to me that it can be used so carefree in an anime that is also not trying to present itself in a genre with different motifs and themes running behind them irrelevant to the common ones seen in the genre it actually is inside of. It's unfortunate really that the story of this show will get overshadowed by standards it does not need to meet. But let's go over why the story isn't even bad in the first place rather than saying that it doesn't need to do X and Y.

For this particular season, Demon Slayer focuses on the chapter on Uzui Tengen and the three musketeers infiltrating the Entertainment District in search of Uzui's wives. Nothing in this particular season stands out for what currently exists, and I would imagine that the quality would stay this way for future seasons to come for the anime (as well as from what I read, I can kinda confirm). But, as mentioned beforehand, this is all a very honest story. What we are met within this arc is none other than typical shounen tropes with exemplary performances attached to their name. There are multiple moments in this arc where characters would be pulled under situations where seemingly all hope is lost and countless lives are placed in peril. Doesn't sound like a lot, but for a story of its kind, with the amazing execution in art and writing, you can truly grasp the situation. It is like a "feels" effect but for shounen anime. The stakes are real here and the characters' emotions follow through with zero losses in the system. I wouldn't go around dismissing stuff like this as low-quality effortless works that exist simply to hold the story together. It seems to me that people are forgetting the target audience needs, or if you don't want to be cynical, they are not respecting the high-quality aspects usually found when evaluating anime as its kind. All unfortunate stuff, but it is understandable why one may think like that, but it also kinda strikes me as a little dishonest to say that the quality of these shows are some level of objectively (lol) bad because they are using tropes seen everywhere. As explained, it isn't as if Demon Slayer is being half-hearted with these tropes. Hell, our characters are not even in their endgame yet, they are also recalling vital memories of the past as a means to grow themselves into the ideal state they wish to become. The writing here doesn't suck, I'd vehemently disagree, and it would be nice if people could understand my perspective on the story as to why the writing isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

Honestly, though, I will say one thing, and that is speed. I don't mean pacing is bad—issues exist there, however. What I mean is that you have moments of intense action followed up with talking that can last a little while long enough to take up more time than necessary. In an anime that is heavily focused on action and the likes, I see this as a distorted fit, something that doesn't work as well as people may hope it should. It's something I went over in another review (might as well check out all my reviews at this point), but being too critical of the matter isn't something I'd say is necessary. Sure, it is slow at times, but it should also come to clear notice as to how this is a TV anime, which has different fundamentals than compared to, let's say, a movie. You should expect to find that there are moments here that might kill the tension, but in this fault, there are consequences that follow up with something impressive, to say the least. Moments in this TV anime that have low retention to action isn't something that is consistent in the viewing experience. Only a few times does that even happen? Something that might as well be insufficient depending on who you are talking to, but it is something that I wanted to note. Even in this review basically praising Demon Slayer for just about every matter that has been drawn, the fault is still around these corners. Nothing too devastating though. Would imagine most would enjoy such. Most of the aforementioned is a stereotype enforced onto shounen anime anyway. A little bit about the pacing too. For the most part, it was liveable, most of the moments were correctly allocated to the correct episodes. One thing I didn't like however is how each episode would get cut short but some cliffhanger relative to each individual episode. It wasn't due to me disliking the tension being carried forward, rather, the abrupt endings to everything that was happening. I suppose that too is common in shounen anime, but it was something that I didn't find to be the most appealing in my viewing experience. Some decent closure in each episode would have been nice.

Aside from all I have rambled on about. The writing aspect of Demon Slayer is generally underrated for the most part. Again, I will hands down admit that it isn't Evangelion or Tatami Galaxy or whatever kind of obscure pre-2010 avant-garde title you can throw at me. But I will be there fighting for this anime's side in its writing quality. No development? Literal training scenes. Nothing to draw attention to? Recollection of the past and everything that has happened thus far AND how that impacts the characters in the anime currently. It's boring? Subjectivity issue. I'd hope more people would recognise the story as something a little more than it is "generic". I could go on but I'd like to write some more down on other aspects. Demon Slayer often gets the cynical side of criticism very easily and I just wanted to relay something to support what it had going for itself.

The characters of the story here are one of the best points here too. Following on from the Mugen Train arc, everyone here is still amidst the long journey they brought for themselves and it comes across as something that still will be something of a grand trek. Again, these characters are training, these characters are reflecting, these characters still have a lot on their shoulders. This isn't some rubbish out of nowhere. It was something of a well-crafted or at minima, something that had thought behind it. These guys are very easy to attach to with their goals set in stone, doing everything in their power to make sure that such becomes a reality.

Tanjiro. The wholehearted wholesome guy. You can actually tell he cares about his job as a Demon Slayer, keeping up the morale and having the motivation required for him to truly fit the role of the main character of the story. The aspiration everyone would like to take the path of in bettering themselves. He is the embodiment of a world-class shounen character.

Zenitsu and Inosuke. Here, they may seem the same as it was when this first aired, however, I do believe that they have changed for the better even if in minuscule segments. With all that training and lessons along the way, they take up their swords to strike down the enemy ahead of them in a way that was not like the past. I mean shoutout to Zenitsu for that exemplary commanding skill even in sleep.

Nezuko. Doesn't really have the best development, which I would agree with. Although she isn't some dead weight (never really was), managed to improve herself and come to some terms that may be of future reference in the future arcs.

Uzui. The flashing legend. Although he is no Rengoatku, the dude is still a loveable Hashira that has managed to sway the hearts of many as he did his three wives. He's not all fun and games though. Along with his flashy style, he has still had a past that is deep enough to make you understand that the guy has been through a lot already, it only stacks atop one another with stakes with episodes of this season.

A solid cast of characters all around for this season really. Everyone had a role here and all were executed to masterful status. It is amazing how far they made the anime so enjoyable. Nothing here has led me to believe this is low quality or anything. Played their roles well and I would imagine most of the audience would agree.

Now. The animation. No words can describe how amazing it was. Ufotable is truly pulling out mad ones and was not messing around this season. Literally, everything here was to some quality that doesn't come around every so often in such a very very very good way. Fluid animation, literally every sequence of frames was something of a magical experience. You could feel the literal action, the fights, the sword swings, whatever, they were all performed to such a high standard it is genuinely incredible. So much stuff got the detail it deserved, so many more stuff got the vibrant nature is dreaded for. Ufotable delivered, and that is all that was needed to make everything work.

The thing is with art is that it is powerful enough to make people obscure thoughts that don't correlate to 100% of everything they are talking about. Happens with anything that has good art. Violet Evergarden, Your Name, Silent Voice, Solo Leveling, Ousama Ranking, the list goes on ad infinitum. But Demon Slayer's art and story worked well so much together that I don't believe it is something of a misinterpretation to say that the art here obscures the value of the anime. Sure, as pointed out, the faults are there. But there are glory points people seem to be forgetting as well. Demon Slayer is a lucky fiction to get the attention it has, but I will also stand by it and defend it where it should because people think the criticism it gets is something that is quite unfortunate, which it certainly is. I love this art and it helped out everything, yeah, but I also love the works beneath it. I am not so cynical to hate this for it being flashy. I mean, Uzui would love for it to be too.


I used to be very myopic with Demon Slayer. I have to admit, I at one point in life, would not hesitate to say "oh, this anime bad!! it just got good animation, it's not actually **good**" but then I came to terms with myself and understood that not everything needs to have criticism in a way that may make an individual seem unique. It is really okay to love anime like Demon Slayer, it seems we have forgotten mutual respect out of the stuff like so that come out, but where the nail hits seem to be for big shounen. It's quite sad, people can have the opinions they want, but it is also disappointing that a distaste for real good shows that are indeed simple pieces of elaborate work exist out there. Nothing wrong with that, and that's all I need for a 10.

ufotable has achieved cinema, and it is only going to be wild from thereon. I'll see you all in the next chapter.

*spoilers for Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen Ressha-hen and Yuukaku-hen

Kimetsu no Yaiba's ultimate downfall can be quickly surmised as an attitude problem. The series's lack of respect for its audience or characters, its incessantly speedy pacing between arcs, and its inane humor can all be boiled down to this singular, core problem. Its sheer lack of restraint can be felt from that attitude problem as well.

What made Mugen Train function was its limitations which forced the series to straighten up and dial back in all the bullshit which made the first season largely intolerable. However, this second season, Yuukaku-hen slips back into some of these old ... habits while bringing brand new issues into the fray.

Let's start with its attitude regarding the death of Rengoku: the Fire Hashira from Mugen Train. It's awful, absolutely appalling in its presentation. They desperately oversell the reverence everyone has for the man. First off, the first 3 minutes are an awkwardly presented recap of the Mugen Train finale to remind the audience of what they just watched: the dude dying and everyone crying. More importantly, they have the gall to shove his smiling visage amidst a heavenly backdrop onto damn near every scene people talk about him in. It happens so often that nothing gets to speak for itself; Kimetsu no Yaiba can basically be boiled down to those last 6 words. Then again, considering a quarter of the double-length first episode is about Tanjirou assuring Rengoku's teary-eyed kid brother and confronting a painfully obnoxious deadbeat "I lash out and shittalk but actually care for and cry over the dead" drunkard dad, this is not unexpected.

Perhaps it's rude to point at Naruto as a shining example on how to tactfully handle the fallout of the death of someone close to its heroes, as it’s one of the Big 3 and it often gets used as a measuring stick for how bogus 2010s shounen are. However, it's hard not to look at a shounen that genuinely respects those who have fallen, how the characters take the time to explore their surroundings, shut down, and require the help of others to move along, without noticing why KnY failed. In Naruto, we get to process the grief of those most affected in an artful way, not once, but twice. In KnY, we get caricatures and obnoxious slow-mo Zack Snyder trailer shots. Well, we also get a 4 month time-skip amidst a training montage and more obnoxious in-your-face yelly humor because clearly SAO shouldn't be alone in horribly mangled time skips. Hell, we even get told how Zenitsu and Inosuke develop rather than having that unfold in front of us, just like with Kirito in Aincrad.

Actually, to be fair to SAO, even it has more respect for Kirito and his supporting cast than KnY does for most of its characters. Hell, not once in the grieving process where Tanjirou struggles with a stomach wound, does Nezuko attempt to console him. Perhaps it's because she's barely a character --lower than most pokemon-- and more of an object to only be deployed when necessary for asspulls. Zenitsu might still be an insufferable, screaming simpcel who should have embraced his role as a straight-man to his wacky teammates by now, but at least that prick's a character. It would be funny how the series still treats its sole female companion to the heroes worse than most shounen like Naruto, Fairy Tail, or every Yugioh title if it didn't mean that the core sibling dynamic at the heart of the series wasn't shafted to such a puzzling degree. Hell, despite it being a major focus in the latter half, the most Nezuko plays into it after she's decommissioned in ep 7 is by appearing in Tanjirou's dreams. Can't let our trophy plot device sister have any actual agency, now can we?

As for the new characters, to address some of them, let's look at the show's lack of restraint regarding character gimmicks. Much like its Drifters-tier screamy tone-killer humor, KnY goes overboard with giving characters gimmicks. Sure, sometimes a gimmick or quirk is needed for a character to stand out. However, the way they constantly shift up gimmicks for Inosuke is head-tilting, and Zenitsu speaks (or shouts) for himself. More importantly, Tengen Uzui aka the Sound Hashira would be way better if he were just the vain ladies man and beleagured chaperone leader to our trio rather than having this irritating and incessant "muh flashiness" gimmick that he never shuts the fuck up about. Hell, that’s how most of the Hashiras in S1 were introduced, so it’s no surprise the issue continues. Admittedly, he does get better the more we learn of him and how world-weary he is and why he values “flashiness” so much. Still, a nasty first impression and gimmick crammed down our throats makes him the hardest to stomach of all the Hashiras that have gotten substantial screen time so far despite him being the best new character of the season. The antagonists themselves are pretty whatever as well, not that Kimetsu has ever been good at handling its villains barring maybe Akaza. They’re hardly worth discussing beyond just being mean vain pretty bitch Daki, and shaggy ugly avenger brother Gyytarou. Their powers are interesting, they’re petty, vengeful pricks, moving on.

In spite of everything, however, the season was proving to be tolerable once we transitioned from the heinous premiere to the start of the arc proper. The aforementioned issues were all there, but even returning problems weren’t as bad as they were in S1. Less of Zenitsu being insufferable, more time for Inosuke to be a badass despite his growth being skipped, and largely serviceable build-up. It was standard KnY fair, which while not good, is more akin to the more tolerable parts of S1 than the entire middle portion of that season. Then the middle of the season happened, and from there, the show went back down to the abyss.

Perhaps the most agonizing aspect of KnY’s attitude and approach to storytelling remains its usage of flashbacks as a primary tool. Mugen Train did well to limit this approach, not extending it to either of its antagonists, and using it for Rengoku long before his death so the audience can get attached to him without his exploration being an obvious pace-breaker or red flag. This season, on the other hand, has regressed back to the spider arc from S1, where fights are constantly being interrupted to provide brand new information about our characters that could and should have been naturally presented to us before the first moment they’re immediately relevant to a fight or emotional beat. It’s fake and hollow in its execution and overuse, making the show come off as wholly ingenuine when, say, we learn more about Tengen’s wives in the scene where they tearfully reunite with him than we did in all of the previous episodes, combined. Hell, they get more screen time in this one scene than they had cumulatively in previous episodes as well, though given how insufferable and one-note they are when they’re on-screen from ep 5-onwards, that might be for the best. The show’s rapid-fire flashback spam only even remotely works occasionally like with Tengen in ep 8, and that’s because they do it so often that, like with blindly or haphazardly throwing darts at a dartboard, there’s gonna be a hit somewhere in the distance amidst the meter-away misses. Still, when they’re bad, they’re abysmal, and the fact that the series has the gall to give its antagonists another ridiculously over the top sad backstory AFTER ONE OF THEM HAS DIED AND THE OTHER IS SOON TO FOLLOW, is scalding to the senses.

Another issue that rears its ugly head in the 2nd half is the asspulls. KnY is no stranger to them. S1 ep 19 had several back to back in the climax of the arc’s big fight scene before the start of ep 20 undoes all of that with yet another one that contradicts the very events of that iconic moment. Mugen Train pulled a final boss out of nowhere because we needed a final act and the previous antagonist of the arc had been slain. Kimetsu no Yaiba’s 2nd season combines the two, while reintegrating the idea of crafting asspulls via flashbacks. Let's not even discuss all of the death fake-outs with bullshit justifications that take place towards the last 3 episodes like this was a latter day Fairy Tail arc. Tanjirou constantly pushes past his limits like broken clavicles without any supernatural aide whatsoever for extended periods of time, Nezuko gets cool new powers out of nowhere without us ever showing her train or anything, and recovery breathing on top of stuff like Zenitsu being fully autonomous and capable when asleep are introduced this season, too! GEE, I BET THIS WOULD HAVE ALL BEEN REALLY COOL AND NOT AT ALL A BUNCH OF OUTTA NOWHERE ASSPULL BULLSHIT IF WE HADN’T SKIPPED 4 MONTHS OF TRAINING AND INSTEAD GOTTEN TO SEE THESE IDIOTS WORK FOR THEIR NEW POWERS, HUH?!

The second half, where the bulk of the fights take place, is filled to the brim with such utter nonsense that at some point, especially if you’re binging, you sorta become numb to them until an episode ends. Sure, the fights are all lavishly animated barring some gross ass CG blood splatter, but goddamn are they littered with idiocy. Between all that and the extraneous monologuing characters do in split-second slow-mo intervals, it all just becomes white noise. It’s hard to be consistently livid here compared to the insulting nonsense of episodes 1 and 5. Only when they keep spamming images of Rengoku because “HE WAS COOL, RIGHT GUYS”, is the numb trance broken. There are a ton of other issues and nitpicks that are barely worth addressing. Tanjirou learning more lore about his dad’s techniques is cool but they’re not expanded upon organically. Despite the breakneck pacing of the first half and how we time skip past all the training that could’ve justified much of what went on this season, the latter half is a dragged out bunch of flight scenes with painfully stretched-out episode closers. Characters sometimes just decide not to finish each other off for no reason or randomly become stronger in earlier parts of a fight when they were supposedly less threatening. Some of this is all standard shounen issues taken to their logical extreme because Kimetsu no Yaiba has always been like this. Some of it is new issues for this season. At some point, we can’t drag this review out like the show drags its fights, because watching this show has become nothing short of exhausting! No battle shounen has ever been this exhausting, Jesus Fucking Christ!

On the topic of those flashy brawls, the visuals this season are overall better than they were in S1. Haruo Sotozaki has largely proved himself as a very good director, with several outstanding shots and weighty fight sequences that despite the immense chaos and speed towards the final few episodes, can still be kept up with when things go wild. However, before we get into the merits of the visuals, there are some nits worth picking since there are frame rate issues and some of the CG (fire in ep 10) still can’t hold up so well. More importantly, there are several questionable shots like the janky camera motions when cutting up from someone’s screaming death, or the disquieting amount of scenes unnecessarily infected by speed lines. The premiere is easily the worst, however, as it seems like whoever the episode director was, really wanted to emulate Zack Snyder with all the stupid slow-mo trailer shots. Between that and some unintentionally silly shots of angry Muzan and Tanjirou, the presentation comes.off as very overblown at times. Plus, there’s an amusing number of moments where characters run in place when they’re clearly supposed to be moving.

However, these faults can in no way outweigh the technical prowess on display. Sure, they often try to oversell sequences to dumb degrees (and the music doesn’t help matters), but the visuals are still better than they were in the first season. There are no extremely ugly CG backgrounds, and they play more with experimental visualizations like watercolor brush stroke style visuals for visualizing certain sounds in a location, or how the show tries to visually represent certain explanations like Tengen’s shinobi upbringing. It's clear that Haruo Sotozaki and his team want to give the show the reverence its popularity affords, with more dynamic swooping shots and interesting styles than ever before. Moreover, the fight scenes get more and more impressive as they go along, showcasing some insane sakuga that can compete with the Heaven’s Feel Movie trilogy at times. Episodes 5-10 are an almost nonstop cavalcade of fight scenes, and each one looks better than the last. Ufotable’s trademark in-house digital effects certainly add that extra bit of flair to the spectacular action sequences. After all, it helped paper over some of the maddeningly dire state of the writing in the latter half. If one didn’t mind all the utter nonsense on display (or if they just watched sakugabooru clips) then they’d find these sequences nothing short of pulse-pounding rather than mildly cool. Without exaggeration, the latter half of S2 might be their strongest TV production to date in spite of some hiccups, not that the first half is bad by any means.

“Not bad by any means” can also largely be used to describe the soundtrack which was once again helmed by Yuki Kajiura and Go Shiina. Unfortunately, this is certainly one of their weaker anime projects. Gone is any of the eeriness of some of S1’s tracks, and while the Marvel type orchestral tracks are fine, none of it is even remotely memorable. The OST serves the series well enough (barring that shitty dubstep piece in ep 5) and adding some light electronic elements to the mix isn’t a bad thing, but this is a bit of a step down from S1. There isn’t even an electrifying insert song like in S1 ep 19. If anything, Aimer’s OP “Zankyou Zanka” and ED “Asa ga Kuru” are picking up the pace a little, with some fun, energetic jazz pop for the former and a slower, more dramatic Kajiura type piece for the latter. The LiSA songs from S1, Mugen Train Movie, and even TV Mugen are overall preferable, but still, Kimetsu has never had a bad OP or ED and that continues even here.

Kimetsu no Yaiba’s 2nd Season was nothing short of an overblown, ingenuine exercise in exhaustion. Everything bad about the first season has been kept and some of them have been amplified alongside new problems. Plus, season one at least had Shinobu and a fair number of ok episodes so that the experience wasn’t just misery like the middle portion of that 2-cour juggernaut was. The first half of this season was a mix of rushed, agonizing nonsense and some tolerable set-up, while the latter half is a nonstop barrage of asspulls, flashbacks, and fights that turn into noise as the eyes glaze over and the brain begs to shut down. The visuals are largely better than S1 and perhaps more interesting than ever. However, that alone cannot save this from being perhaps the worst full installment thus far, and the worst arc barring maybe the spider arc from S1….maybe.

Sometimes you hear the take of ufotable carrying the series while the material itself is garbage, and there’s some merit to that claim. One might even wonder: had this gone to a lesser studio with a more modest batting average in terms of animation quality, would this be seen more akin to Fairy Tail or Boruto in terms of being the bottom of the battle shounen barrel. Such thinking is a tad malicious, as if whoever thinks so wishes the show got what it “deserved” rather than the royal treatment it has today. However, any good faith Mugen Train had built up after S1’s failings has been completely and utterly dashed. Worthwhile audiovisuals can only do so much to aid atrocious writing, but it's hard to deny that this show would not be as fondly remembered if not for the team it resonated with doing everything to make the most out of the material they more than likely love. Perhaps this abysmal battle shounen would be left to rot like a beheaded demon, and it would still see a sizable audience. Fairy Tail managed that before it became the shounen community’s punching bag, as did Hero Academia before the later seasons slipped up in production quality and started getting dogged on for it among other reasons. Alas, this is all speculation. What we have is what we have. Haruo Sotozaki and his team at ufotable should be proud, and if the legions of fans dazzled by the visuals and some of the show’s pathos cherish it as one of their favorites, good for them. Nothing can or should take that away from them.

We are nearing the halfway point of Kimetsu no Yaiba's story, so before it chugs along to its 3rd season, let’s depart from this demon train peacefully.

There's so much good in this show. That'st he obvious part. It looks beautiful. It sounds great. It's paced well. It's got amazing arcs. But any time anyone opens their mouth it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in any medium. It's either completely out of place exposition that I guess the author was too stupid to figure out how to say naturally or annoying tropes screeching the trope 2 lines. In most scenes if the characters on screen literally stopped in the middle of their fight and looked at the camera to give deadpanned exposition, it would be better than this. It would even ... be more believable in world.

Tanjuro, the MC, is the exception to this in that even though he is a trope, he's done really well. The plot (which again is amazing) serves his development and all we need to know about him so the idiot author doesn't need to shove it into the a random scene.

Also Nezuko is cute

Most villains are pretty cool so far. The main villain aka Michael Jackson and the tattoo guy that killed 12 year old with no experience in drawing's first OC kinda suck, but everyone else have been pretty cool.

Story: 5 - Plot is amazing. Anything involving talking that doesn't involve Tanjuro is literally the worst thing I can remember from any medium. Not even the worst wuxia or throwaway isekai is worse than this

Art 10 - ufotable being ufotable. Tanjuro, Nezuko and some enemy designs are also pretty cool. Other allies like budget gotei 13 are pretty lame, but it's fine.

Sound 8 - I do feel the feels when Tanjuro is having his moments and sound is a big part of that. Never really blown away by anything though.

Character 2 - Dialogue of every character is again the literal worst in anything I've ever seen. Tanjuro being the exception of course for the most part. Some villains are pretty cool again as well.

Others 5, 2 - I feel like if an element of the show is so horrible that it's a contender for the worse in all of history, that should have a disproportionate impact on the overall show. Even though so much of this show is obviously so amazing, I can't misrepresent how awful that one element is.

This show is too much hilarious, the jokes, sense of humor and dialogues are so out of this world that I had to share it with all my friends and family and they all kept laughing as well.

Other than that, great animation.

Animation: 10/10. For the most part, the show is popular because of it's animation.

Of course, UFOTABLE carrying the whole show else I can guarantee that half the people watching it will back down and I really mean it since I have seen way too many people watching it just for the animation. This show really proves that for some people, as long as ... they get some eyes fest, they are ready to excuse the whole show. As long as the animation is 10/10, the whole show is 10/10 for them neglecting the other factors of enjoyment like the story, soundtrack, characters, etc. It's personal choice for any factor to be source of enjoyment but for me most of them is lacking.

The story is good plus normal but too generic and predictable like any other anime, so there's nothing new here. A new Hashira dies every new arc probably and Tanjiro keeps watching. I maybe wrong too so no idea about that.

The first season and movie set the bar for the sequel too much high and it is not meeting the expectation in the slightest this season.

Soundtrack: 6/10. I think they use the good soundtracks for the right moment and that's done brilliantly. But you are not going to be like "Let me download all the soundtracks opening, ending and every OSTs and vibe with myself". Certainly the soundtracks are good but for the show praised so much, in my opinion I think it lacks a bit for the whole show and for the collection as well.

Characters: 5/10. Hashiras, upper demons are ALRIGHT, nothing too crazy characterization while nothing too bad as well and maybe Michael Jackson too? Rest plain and boring(The main trio and any other side characters introduced till date). I mentioned the main trio but Tanjiro is a good protagonist. Inosuke and Zenitsu's character is really really bad. The author tried to portray them as comedy relief but it's just the opposite for me at least.

5/10 is the perfect rating for an anime or to be more precise sequel like this.

S1 and Mugen Train is GOOD, that's why compared to that, this season is really not doing well. "But the show is just starting with few episodes, it's unfair to rate it right now". You can't make that as an excuse because there are many shows which are good and hype from the beginning of the sequel.

PS: If it feels and gets better I will update my review for the part that has changed and also if it really deserves it. But considering the amount of times I dozed off watching these 3 episodes, not even at once( an episode per week which is supposed to be very entertaining) I doubt the ratings are going to change.

No hate to anyone who enjoys the show. You can enjoy it without getting bothered by the review because at the end of the day, there's the thing called "Personal Taste".

If you're an anime fan for the past 3 years, you definitely have heard of Kimetsu no Yaiba. Kimetsu no Yaiba has become the new Face of Anime across the globe. With ground-breaking records that many anime series can only dream of achieving. This season of Kimetsu no Yaiba is a direct sequel of the series packed with insane visuals, sound design, plot, and characters. ufotable don't miss.

The Story may seem like your typical Battle Shounen, but don't let that fool. It doesn't need to rely on the cliche Tournament Arc for character development. They just thrust our heroes into unique situations and have the ... scenario play out. Quite a refreshing take on the genre if you ask me. ufotable just don't miss.

The Art is amazing and colorful. It's ufotable so there's no need for me to explain myself. ufotable don't seem to miss.

The Sound design is great, especially that banger of an Opening. I thought the Opening theme would be doomed without LiSA, but I was wrong. It slaps ass. Again, ufotable don't miss.

Characters have the best synergy compared to any other shounen characters out there. They're funny and playoff each other really well. Especially the new Hashira, Uzui, is such a Chad. He just radiates Chad energy whenever he's on screen. Once again, ufotable just don't miss.

Enjoyment/Overall. Every episode has been really entertaining. The mix of comedy and seriousness is just the perfect balance. The cliffhangers at the end of each episode is just *chef's kiss*, especially the one at the end of episode 2. ufotable just cannot miss.

Kimetsu no Yaiba is a must-watch for all anime fans out there; mainstream fans or not. You don't want to miss out on ufotable's modern masterpiece! ufotable never miss.

Have you ever heard of demon slayer? Yes, that anime which everyone loves and calls a masterpiece, one that will be written down in the history as one of the best shonen's to have ever existed. Its for sure that its gonna happen but is demon slayer really worth it? Simple Answer, fuck no.

This has been a complete down hill after it's first season which unfortunately also wasn't very pleasing to me. But. This is worse. All of the problems from last season continue, we get even more asspulls but the best episode now being one from this season, demon slayer is nothing but rotten ... food that just sickens you.

For one, it has the same generic, overused and absolutely garbage formula that not only makes a predictable story but one that has very little to enjoy about, no, no. I take that back! It has nothing to enjoy about! Its very frustrating watching a show that has no surprises for you and even the comedy makes you feel like drinking vomit!

The comedy is basically:

Character one: Chasing!

Character 2: Screaming!

Character 3: Screaming!

Wow, the author somehow thought that's comedy, Yes! Screaming and running characters chased by more character doing the same thing is funny! Absolutely! That's hilarious! Who won't laugh? I mean, that's the funniest thing ever!

The garbage, random and cringe dialogue make it worse. The repetitive cycle of this type of similar comedy (yes, they call that comedy) and it absolutely not improving is why this has to be the most unfunny thing I have ever seen in a (not dark, imagine thinking demon slayer is dark hahaha) shonen ever do. It's not hard to make good comedy, you have chainsaw man and jujutsu kaisen as an example. Despite both of them being shonen, they nail the comedy aspect! One might do it by bringing in perverted jokes or characters with funny goals instead of the "very" original and serious goal that Tanjiro has of saving her demon sister.

Jokes are absolutely not perverted, none of them crack a funny or sex related joke. (this is something an interesting shonen does hehe) Not even once! The plot is set up to be either be fighting or unfunny and uninteresting characters who are doing random bullshit or on quests on hunting some fucking goddamn demon! One reason why the comedy also fails is that how the author made the characters.

The characters and demons are supposed to be the same boring thing you have probably seen in every fucking old shonen. There is no good character development or there's none! Every fucking character, be it the main character, Inosuke, Zenitsu, Nezuko or even the Hashira's are super annoying. The character writing is also fucking hilariously bad.

For Tanjiro, its because he is too kind (it makes him feel like every shonen protagonist) and keeps spitting random and unfunny stuff.
Zenitsu is such a weakling and boring character, every time he is on screen he makes you vomit. He is a simp with nothing but this one trait of being a simp, his time on screen is either him fighting or him being a simp. Fucking whaaat??
Inosuke keeps shouting for no good reason. His character is very aggressive, making him an annoying retard.
Nezuko does nothing aside from some fighting and she is not cute.

Every hashira's is also very unfunny and keep speaking random bullshit.

The art and animation may be the best part about demon slayer, for one the animation is done by ufotable a studio so top tier that every other shonen looks garbage in comparison, but I am not a fan of the animation style, its very flashy and the scenes aside from fighting aren't very pleasing to me. The character designs are also awful and I don't like them.

The sound is like every shonen at least decent, the second seasons opening and ending theme wasn't bad but didn't feel as good as last seasons. The voice acting is amazing but its being put into a terrible show with ass dialogue where the voice actors need to shout or talk weirdly because that's how demon slayer's dialogues supposedly are.

The fights apparently the best part about it are terrible, for episodes its like as:
Demon Too strong.
Heroes Can't win.
Random Power Up.
Monster Kill.

This cycle is repeated to the point where its the formula of demon slayer. And this is one of the many reasons why demon slayer is one of the most boring anime to ever exist.

I wish ufotable gave this kind of treatment to some good seinen manga such as Gantz hehe. (Joking, Joking, Gantz can never be adapted lol)

To sum up the issues with Demon Slayer-
-Them not to use much flashy colors
-The comedy felt very forced to me, they could have cracked perverted jokes similar to csm
-could have tried having more original plot twists unlike the same ones we have seen in other shonen
-character writing needed more originality
-dialogues felt cringe and out of place
-very formulaic

I understand that this might be a good anime for beginners but this is absolutely NOT a good show if you are looking for something more than bad jokes, great animated fights or a predictable story. Demon Slayer is unfortunately a terrible show which gets much undeserved love. If you are a beginner and want some actually good shows to watch, then try
-Made In Abyss (s tier adventure)
-Violet Evergarden (great drama)
-Barakamon (God Tier sol)
-Monster (peak mystery)
-Odd Taxi (well written, solid mystery)
-Samurai Champloo (fun, memorable)
-Cowboy Bebop (fun, memorable)
-Vinland Saga (good character, few issues related to character writing but most is fixed next season)
-Mushishi (the god of sol)
-Jujutsu Kaisen (a much better shonen than demon slayer)
-Death Note (good mystery)
-Kaguya sama (very funny)
-Fate Series (great)
-The Promised Neverland (obviously not season 2)
-Bakuman (fun, inspiring)
-Berserk (old version baka)
-Hunter x Hunter (good shonen)
-Houseki no Kuni (good characters, many issues in s1 but good)
-Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (nicely tied plot)
-re:zero (mind fuck)

Kimetsu no Yaiba is bound to be one of the most discussed shows of the season, perhaps the year, crossing to the year 2022 as well. Of glowing prominence within the anime community, this one’s possibly one of the strongest, aside from Mushoku Tensei Season 1 Cour 2, which had finished airing by the time this review of mine was released onto the platform. I find Kimetsu No Yaiba to be a strange phenomenon, bizarre yet one that is worth scrutinising, my position with Kimetsu no Yaiba is also a difficult one it seemed, in accordance to my preference of viewing and observing anime and ... television series– biassing more towards shows with an austere strength, unflinching, yet at the same time pertains a certain virtue of its own - whether is it its comedic, tragic or a quirky mix of the former two, a show that could either walk out seeking purchase on its own in the current era filled with a great amount of shows due to its stark contrast with others for its superb originality; or a show that takes inspiration from its precursors, but with a clever twist or even intentioned misreadings of their predecessors they managed to produce something that prods at us, demanding attention that warrants great payoffs for those who do sit down and scrutinise it; or simply a great work of enduring art and profound ingenuity that casually harrumphs and critics and audiences alike would flock over it and shower it with endless praises, forming a timeless classic. From this point of view speaking, Kimetsu no Yaiba might not be a truly great series - rather a mediocre drab, with a plenitude of memorable sequences tangled within the mess of a confluence of different linear storylines and the usual, predictable anime tropes that are pervasive within this show. Those who are unwilling to listen to my review on the show may be influenced by the fact that my profile picture wears a jacket of Tanjiro’s picture, stamped on it for quite a long time for now, but rest assured I am in no way a fanatic that would swoop in to defend the series from its needed criticism, neither did I curvette whenever there’s sequences of Tanjiro swirling and running across streets do kill demons. Artists with no sense of self-hatred should not be involved in art, my position with reviewing and working a critique are the same - a reviewer who can’t bear the need to heap superlatives onto the show without possessing a method of dealing with the principal strengths and weaknesses of the show - even deliberately diminishing the other or berating those who do so - is nothing more than a schmaltzy fanatic, a bigot who is drunk with their own self-indulgent lucid dreams that babbles endlessly without any merit of its own.

The perfect allegory for Kimetsu No Yaiba’s current predicament would be a group of elephants with an abnormally large head - its head rammed full of scenes that could pique our excitement, images with cinematic verve and full of vibrancy as well as carefully constructed flashbacks rammed with innuendo, designed to heap up emotional responses to evoke sentimentality in the audience’s minds; while the spindly legs below are straining, trembling, wobbling and gyrating out of immense pain, doing their best to support whatever weight was carried on the back of the animal, and the spindly legs are the characters of Kimetsu No Yaiba. Just as Inosuke and Zenitsu had no ear for Tengen, I had no eye and ear for Kimetsu no Yaiba’s characters. Ephemeral, acrid and dreadful are the descriptions I would resort to use if I were expected to describe the characters within. Kimetsu No Yaiba is primarily driven by plot occasions, heavily in fact, with the Entertainment District Arc starting with Tengen disrupting a day several months after Rengoku’s death to pick up members in order to fight a demon hidden in the entertainment districts. If Tengen makes no attempt to assail the starting points of the show, it would’ve been stagnant as a puddle of water in a drain, other than Tanjiro, none of the characters seem to have an agenda of its own, a central drive, a core for their actions and how it creates a reaction. Other than Tanjiro’s valiant attempt to create any sort of conflict by going to Senjuro and Rengoku’s house to send Rengoku’s last words to Senjurou and deliver condolences, nobody else ever bothers. It reflects the grave undertones of the story that there is so subtle undertone. That, in my opinion, was one of the most rampant, unrestrained problems within Kimetsu no Yaiba. I disparage the characters for a good reason. Tanjiro, to me seems to be more than just a wasted opportunity, a capable character mingled up in ashes that astonishingly dull his chances of ever attaining more than what he had, as his character can’t blow sand against the wind due to the larger narrative requirements abstaining from ever receiving a chance for more development, and is instead forced to participate in big, vivid blots of comedic sequences mottled everywhere with painfully unfunny humour and dreadful jokes with the lesser Inosuke and Zenitsu. Comedy is forsooth subjective, by all means, but any good writer, or a vastly adequate storyteller would tell you rapid and immediate tonal shifts for comedic skits is an irrational prompt, and an excessive amount of comedy inculcated into every minute is also equally annoying, if not a persistent pranging on the pacing on the show. If those comedic sequences wouldn’t resonate with the audience, then some of these story beats where Zenitsu getting infuriated by the fact Tengen has three wives, or Tengen frustrated by Zenitsu and Inosuke running around without listening to him would be offensively banal. I’m on that side, personally speaking, and it’s been nothing short of a dreadful bore, waiting for the thawing moment where they could discuss something of matter to character, the overarching plot, or even just an exchange of opinions on carrying the mission.

The characters themselves are also pantomimed, absurdly exaggerated in every course of action possible. Even within a same scene where Zenitsu is absolutely angered by Tengen’s status of being in a polygamy relationship, his face is exaggeratedly twisted, gesticulating relentlessly and his voice is portrayed as some sort of belching. While Inosuke is still reusing the same jokes and punchlines stemmed from his buttress personality of being an uncultured swine due to being actually raised by a pig, nothing about him has any great effect on the story, as of now. But I can still tolerate Inosuke, given there’s a scene portraying him trying his best to search for the demon lurking in the building, but ultimately fail to do so, albeit a bit weak to justify this as a progressive stance for his character, we could still see his perseverance in his job, and his irritation and exasperation when he was unable to accomplish it. Tanjiro, in the 3-4 episodes we’re given seemed to be robbed of all spotlight, granted he’s given far more chances at screen time in the first season, but he’s still weirdly desiccated from character work, such an exclusion is indeed a sacrilege in my eyes, but I’ll have an update on it, if they could enrich his character more within the next few episodes. Tengen is possibly the least developed here, he’s not as thematically rich as Rengoku, and ripped off any attempts at character ever since his introduction, being introduced as perfect, handsome, strong and loved: It’s pallid, if such superficial and surface traits should be taken as characterization. Such an undercooked team is quite a self-immolation, as it burns the possibility for a character-driven plot line, but is one that Kimetsu No Yaiba is actively avoiding, so I’ll not give too much panning on it.

I have a generally negative viewpoint towards Kimetsu No Yaiba’s characters at the larger picture. They are placards of simplicity, the characters are usually capable of experiencing a single feeling at a time, they are mere self-advertisements: ‘I’m angry!’, ‘I’m furious!’, ‘I’m so happy!’, ‘I’m so excited!’, ‘I’m sad……’, ‘Why?’ (insert a melancholic tone). According to the sources of numerous critics, no matter Internet or professional anime critics or essayist, seemed to me to be elated by Kimetsu No Yaiba’s attempt at characterization, but most characters here that shines, or those given more luminescence, are instead given a rough, raw caricature that gives them the basic traits, ‘The Empathetic Big Head Hammer’, ‘The Yellow Thing That Screams and Belches’, ‘The Half-Naked Pig that Yells and Vaunts’ or ‘The Cute Little Sister that Muffles in A Closet’. They race through plots that are seriously tight and rushed without slowing down for characterization, their adventures are thus hammered into flat metal that illuminates in a cold light that radiates no warmth of characterization that can reach our emotions better instead of selling sentimentality.

Goutoge seems to me, is chosen by Japan’s manga industry to become a capable writer that explores relationships, whether it’s a romance between teenagers, or is it a brotherly relationship between a set of friends or a drama driven by family conflict, but she ironically took the wrong turn and chose to write about an adventure story, a shonen-esque narrative about killing demons which should’ve been littered with mind-boggling yet hot-blooded scenes that excites the target audience for shonen magazines. Kimetsu no Yaiba, for me strictly speaking, resembles more of a straggling story that tries multiple times to emphasise on character, juxtaposed with its contemporaries, Boku No Hero Academia, Dr. Stone, etc. Going so far as even giving passing antagonists that matter nothing some semblance of backstory, though each one is unique on its own but often reaches about the same conclusion. The backstory that begets the transformation of humans into demons are either a broken dream or promise, or being abandoned by someone, or being isolated, prejudiced and distanced. These sorts of backstories work at the first few scenes, because a villain with a reason to become what he is right now is definitely far more interesting than one with a yammering idiot with no distinct or distinguishable traits. The problem with it is that it happens often, too often, that it rids the supposed ‘backstory’ of each demon of clarity and discernible motives veiled behind his irrational, violent tendencies. What separates those demons as former individuals? Other than Rui in the first season, the rest had been painfully underwhelming. Good thing Daki’s backstory carries a stronger tang of emotional value contrasted with the rest, that I’d not discuss first, as it’s going to come in the next few episodes, and I’ll have a clearer verdict by then.

So, I’ll currently reserve a score of 5 for the second season. If it improves, I’ll consider adding 1, if it weakens, I’ll deduct by 1 or 2. I’ll slowly update more of my thoughts on the aesthetic quality of the show, the soundtracks, the opening and ending sequences and possibly a future update on the narrative and characterization.

Imagine rating an anime when you've seen 3 out of 11 episodes. I don't care if some people give a bad rate to an anime, everyone has his own opinion.
Anyway, I'll try to detail my point of view while remaining objective and making it as short as possible.

By the way this is my very first review of an anime on MAL so don't be too harsh with me and let me detail my point of view.

Having already read the manga I knew what to expect but Ufotable gave me something I didn't even imagine possible.

The story 6/10: I'll stay with my basic source, the manga. ... Like many people, the story of KNY is a classic shonen: A hero or heroes with goals/motivations and wanting to become stronger to accomplish them.
Where KNY stands out from other shonen of the same genre is that the story or at least its universe is original: Pre-war Japan; Human eating demons and rather well written characters.

Art style & character design 9/10: KNY has one of the most original design I've seen, whether it's the landscapes or the characters (humans and demons) and it's not even debatable.

Character writing 7/10: Even if KNY is a work that I like a lot, the characters are still classic: A protagonist who loses 90% of his family and fights to give back the humanity of his sister. On the other hand the 2 other protagonists Zenitsu & Inosuke are very good characters with each one a story of their own ( BTW I love the story and the past of zenitsu ). I really like Tanjiro's character and his mentality, he protects others before himself, never gives up and is really badass :) .

The animation 10/10 : I think it doesn't even deserve an argument just to have good eyes and enjoy the quality of production of the studio ufotable.

The sounds( OST and openings ) 10/10 : KNY has one of the most listened openings of all time ( the first one ) and the OST incredible and that stick perfectly to the universe and to the time in which the story takes place.

Enjoyement 10/10 : All the episode gave me freakings chills.

Despite the different rate I put I will stay on a 10 out of 10 because despite the story that remains on the basic shonen is well KNY stands out and my god I love this show.

Of course this is my opinion and I don't judge others on their rates whether they are good or bad, just look at the entire show before rating or drop.

That's all for me, I hope you enjoyed my review.

**THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS**

Oh boy…

There are two sides of a coin if you’re talking about Kimetsu no Yaiba;
- Either love and enjoy it for the animation.

- Or dislike it for the bad characters, cringe comedy, and the poor storytelling

Animation is one of the main factors of an anime. However, how can you enjoy the anime if the plot or the story is poor? This leaves these two words that wise men always said; “Does the animation triumph a mediocre writing?”. “Can you ignore one to enjoy most of them?”. One of the confusing parts of the anime community is that if a franchise really ... sold well to the viewers, they will claim it a “masterpiece”. And Kimetsu no Yaiba is one of them.

Kimetsu no Yaiba: Entertainment District Arc is the sequel to the first movie of the franchise. The fans massively loved it for the “great story”, “great characters”, and for the animation that always triumphs. Hard-core fans always love to jump into the hype train and easily claim it as the “new-gen anime” and “masterpiece anime of all time”. If you’re new to anime, you will absolutely love it. However, if you see most of the shounen animes, you might criticize them for the poor elements and plot inconsistencies. Before I discuss the pros and cons of anime, I have to say a few things about the hard-core stans. Read and understood first my review before you attack my profile. So here it comes…

Pros
1. Animation
The animation of this show is superb, as expected from Ufotable. The viewers have always praised this show because of the art of this anime. The combination of 2D and 3D animation makes the whole show move more fluid. The cinematography and fight choreography are always fire. But I think it’s always Ufotable’s forte of animating things. The direction was pretty handled well but I always want to see some of its fights under the daylight. The amazing flashy things are always seen under the moonlight but I guess it’s because the demons are active during the night.

2. Sound
The BGM was always good to the ears, as expected from Yuki Kajiura. She blended the traditional Japanese music and the thrilling action sounds for the action sequences, which is so great. The OP was catchy and it’s my first time to appreciate Aimer’s voice. The ED was good but I prefer more the OP than the ED.

Cons

1. Story/Pacing
I will discuss this as a former fan of the manga. Ever since the ending of the Mugen Train, the next story arc followed this formula; There’s a demon invasion in a certain place, a hashira pillar will investigate it, the three characters will join the hashira, discover the world, find the demon, fight sequences, some flashbacks, and then boom! ending. I saw it many times in some story arcs in the manga and it was almost repetitive. In this anime adaptation, the pacing was slow and awful. The first episode of the anime that had 45 mins long, consisted of the epilogue of Mugen train, and the prologue of Entertainment District. The pacing of the anime was slow because of additional view scenes as a visual-feast. This arc from the manga had a nice pace but it seems the anime was just full of action sequences, in most of the episodes. No character developments were seen throughout the entire season. The useless monologues of Tanjiro were shallow and repetitive, in almost most of the story arcs. He just repeated himself that; “I can do it!”, “I have to break the neck!”, “Stand up! Stand up!”, etc. like the viewers might react, “We got you already, dude. You said that for the nth time already…”. The fact that they were always bringing his dead family, as his “motivation to fight” was utterly repetitive.

2. Comedy
I get it that most of the shounen have comedy, except AOT and Tokyo Ghoul if I may remember. The comedy in this show awfully sucks. I don’t know if they are trying to kill the intense mood of the series or just comic relief. The scene where one of the wives of Usui helped Inosuke from fighting the demon and then one of his wives just pulled a joke because she was scared of death was frickin’ horrible. Even the other parts of the season weren’t great either. The comedy was 3x worse than FMAB’s and it absolutely cringed.

3. Characters
I’ll keep this short and straight to the point. The characters are annoying as their finest. The entire season was just full of action sequences and no character development whatsoever, just like what I said earlier. The three main characters were just being them, and no development and progress. Tanjiro was always relying on and bringing back his dead family as a motivation for fighting the demon. And then after that part, boom! Powered up to the next level! Inosuke and Zenitsu were just a comic relief after all. Usui got a little bit of development but not enough to make him a great character.

4. Ass-pulls and Plot Armor
This element made me why I absolutely dislike this show. I get it that most of the shows have these two but in this show, it was countless times and getting out of hand. It’s just they are not humans, more powerful than the villains. I mentioned that Tanjirou always brings back his dead family, right? That was one of the ass-pulls I’ve ever seen. Many horrible plot armors I’ve seen in this show like when Usui got his arm chopped but didn’t die of blood loss and was capable of moving faster, Inosuke could frickin shift his heart while he was stabbed in the chest, Inosuke was capable of catching up Zenitsu after that poison, Zenitsu capable of escaping the building, and Tanjiro being alive after those massive injuries. I mean, how the heck did they survive all of that? They are just humans, right? Try those for yourself, let’s see if you can survive all of that.

Kimetsu no Yaiba isn’t a bad nor a great show. It’s because the hard-core fans are always claiming it as a masterpiece and flawless, which makes the show obviously bad. I really want to enjoy this show, but it seems it’s hard to turn your brain off while watching this. This show is obviously for entertainment only and visual-feast. Some animes have a high level of animation but the story was bad or generic like GoH, Takt. Op. Destiny, MHA, etc. However, I don’t seem to understand why fans don’t consider Kimetsu no Yaiba is one of them. But that’s just me and I don’t care for anybody else.

So that’s it folks, my review for this season. I’ll give this a solid 4+ because of those plot inconsistencies. But I do admit that I somewhat enjoy this show and its direction. As an anime fan, who always seeks a great story over animation, I could give this a 3 or lower. But it seems I’m generous this time. As a wrap of this review, I’ll quote this statement for the massive fanbase of this show, “Most of the people understood why people love Kimetsu no Yaiba. It’s because of the animation. However, can the fanbase understand why most of the people are criticizing the show and calling it a mid?” Who knows? You might know the answer.

This review may contain spoilers

Is this all it takes?


My only question is that, can the author try something new? I've never seen a narrower imagination, I simply cannot fathom how can you be this lazy as an author, let's put every single garbage aspect of this show aside, and talk about the events only.
First big arc of kimetsu no yaiba, demon slayers running after the supposedly moon-thingy demon, they kill him but... Wait... It actually wasn't him!!! He wasn't the main villan of this arc.. Damn, never saw that one coming.

OK second big arc, demon corps fighting main villan of this arc and ... let's Fucking GOOOOOO they murdered him, oh really? You're telling me he wasn't the main villan of this arc again? Dammit, the author can't possibly use this lazy ass scenario again, right? right? RIGHT?

*WRONG*

three arcs in a row, and im yet to see anything new. All the fight scenes look exactly the same, sometimes I feel like I'm staring into a void whilst looking at my screen during the fight scenes, it's to the point where I feel like they:re reusing old animations, I honestly wish they were, because it's not worth the sweat of the talented people working on this poop.


I wish the author displayed any sort of imagination, it's almost like she doesn't actually need any imagination to succeed.

Every single arc is the same thing, demon chads kill a demon, the demon "unexpectedly" loses, then they proceed to show us some melodramatic garbage that no human being could ever sympthize with past the first one, because, every single time, the demons back story is EXACTLY THE SAME.

I wish the events or the writing were my most hated things about this show. the writing sometimes doesn't look like complete garbage in comparison with the characters here, every single character of this show is literally a one personality trait, MC is the kind, the yellow haired is the pussy, and the boar is the crazy, both the hashiras we've extensively interacted with so far are the perfect charismatic role models.


I just can't with this show, I hate nagging but godam this is garbage.


I honestly feel very generous just for giving this hot trash a "2"

Kimetsu no Yaiba was, at best, mediocre from the start. While the animation and art direction are incredible, it's far from being the masterpiece that everyone claims it to be. Most of the characters aren't that interesting, and despite that some of them have a deep background, it doesn't really matter since they end up dying anyway right after they fleshed out, preventing us from appreciating a good character like Kyojuro Rengoku and making us feel like he was a wasted-potential.

Nezuko only exists in the show to give the protagonist a reason to stay alive and as a potential love interest for Zenitsu, we barely ... see her perspective on anything.

Zenitsu is a pathetic Nezuko simp and a total loser who can only be useful when he's not acting like himself and transforms into some kind of powerful sleeping beauty whenever he needs to fight back a very strong enemy (something he can't control) what a lazy plot-armor.

Inosuke is a rude-savage idiot... and that's it. The only time he's stopped being like that was when the plot needed him to chill out (only in this arc btw). However, he never went through any character development, Inosuke himself feels weird when he uses his brain, and he never uses his brain ever again, that's a very annoying inconsistency in his characterization.

The way everything is solved in this show is lazy. The power system has no rules, as all they do is taking a deep breath, and then an incredible power comes out of their weapons. That might not be a big deal, but then we have this new arc where we see the most idiotic plan of the show. Tengen sent the boys (who are obviously boys) to some houses of ill repute in the entertainment district to act like prostitutes... and they got away with it. Everyone accepted them as girls, and nobody checked their bodies out.

First of all, I can't put in words how this anime makes me feel.

I completely understand why people like the genre of this anime.
This anime is focused on mainstream people who don't watch a lot of anime, and just like to watch season animes and his fulfills his goal very well.
If i started watch anime today i could enjoy this, the animation is awesome, soundtrack is very enjoyable in most of parts, the animation is very fluid but an anime can't be made just of animation, then i'm going to talk the part i hate of this show.

First, the Story is DISGUTING when i mean ... DISGUTING i mean LITERALLY.
You can watch this piece of trash while you doing something, doing homework, talking with your friends, you can understand completly the "story" with just a few sentences of dialogue.

I think they made animation so good on purpose so the main people don't pay much of attention to the story because this trash don't has one, every single battle of this piece of garbage has a lot of scream, A LOT of slow motion so the characters can talk inside their heads.

Is the same thing of the first season, slice it slice it slice it, and then 3 episodes of boring training AND BOOOM
a BADASS funny character shows up with great humor and a sad backstory and leads the 3 protagonist in the adventure of MORE TALK and MORE SLOW MOTION and MORE SLICING
i can understand the people who loves and like this show, but if you have an formed opinion and pay attention to the anime this show don't have an actually great story.

The character development is absolutely trash, NEZUKO for example is a cute little girl WHO DON'T DO ANYTHING, you can compare her a bag of potatoes.

Tanjiro cries or scream all the time when his little sister is in danger, Just like on the first season.

But hold on in a minute, when a character DIES in the fight THEY DON'T ACTUALLY DIE so don't care about it, EVEN THOUGH HE WAS STABBED IN THE HEART.
They can back after when the protagonist is in danger.

Tanjiro literally says in every single moment during the battle that he can't even STAND up, how bad he is exausted, THEN he's have a FLASHBACK OF HIS FAMILY and brings up with a lot of energy to carry his little sister and run.

Overall, i think this anime is boring AS HELL, you can watch it but only if you DON'T pay attention in anything, is literally the same if you pay attention, you only missing your time.
I recommend this show if you don't usually watch anime, because if you watch anime usually and likes this garbage you are INSANE.

Being arguably the face of anime right now and being adapted by one of the greatest studios, Demon Slayer has a lot on his shoulders. I enjoyed the first season and the movie, but I thought the anime was mostly carried by Ufotable and had very little redeeming qualities outside of the art.

Now that the second season is airing, did it improve on its flaws or has ufotable been given another bad story to adapt ?

Story - 5
The story isn't really bad, it's just very average and not appealing. I didn't get to enjoy it a lot since I dropped this show on the third ... episode. The conext of the entertainement district might be good though.

Art - 8
Ufotable. Do I need to elaborate ?

Sound - 7
The soundtrack is still very decent and the sound of the blades clashing is still orgasmic. The OP doesn't seem as catchy is Gurren but it's still good.

Characters - 0
By far the biggest problem of this show.
First, the tone is very poorly managed with emotionnal scenes being followed by comic scenes with a 10 seconds interval.
Second, this show probably has the worst dialogues I've ever heard. I think the author tried to do comedy, but failed to understand the border between comic and cringe. It's like every character tries to be a comic relief. Words would fail to describe the absolute state of this show's dialogue. In the first season, Tanjirou was the exception and his lines were spot on, but this time even he fails to deliver.
Everyone is always making a joke or something funny, no one is ever serious. This doesn't allow the show to build up tension and makes everything feel like it has no importance.
Unless you're a young kid, I have no idea how you would do to watch this show without hoping that everyone were mute. Once the fighting starts and everyone stops talking the animation will probably be marvelous but dear god the author has no idea how to write compelling characters and dialogues.

Overall enjoyment - 3
I love Ufotable. I've watched Heaven's Feel countless times and I was excited to see that they got to adapt such a titan of the manga industry.
Sadly, the story they were given is a very bad one and even the talent of Ufotable can't make up for it. I guess they need the money for better projects and that they will come back with an adaptation of a way better work.
As for Demon Slayer, I dropped this show after the third episode and won't come back to it. I will probably watch the fight scenes on YouTube, this show is quite good when the characters don't talk.

It really says a lot when even a story adapted by Ufotable is unbearable to watch. If this anime was adapted by an average studio like JC Staff no one would care about it. We deserve this studio to get a better story to adapt.

Carried by the animations. It is what it is.

Story 2/10
In short, they go to a town, become women, "hunt" down the three wives and demons, fight and end it off with a "touching" ending. The flashback was somewhat decent to learn about but might need to take lessons from Black Clover (only real fans who don't skip fillers will know what I'm on about.) After episode 5, when the fight started, it started to get interesting and actually good compared to the first few episodes which, in my opinion, were a joke. Episode 1 took 45 minutes to introduce Tengen Uzui and talk about their ... journey to the new location to kill a demon. That's all there is.

Art 6/10
A studio what some people refer to as the "unlimited budget studio" and are designing/animating certain episodes like it's a special or some kids show? Surely not. Almost every episode had a "budget-decreased funny face" where the eyes are just black balls and other elements which are hard to describe but some of you will know what I mean. Alas the fight scenes were really good and enjoyable. Probably the only good parts of the entire season.

Sound 7/10
You can't go wrong with sound. It's nice to see that Tanjirou isn't screaming as much as he did in season 1.

Character 2/10
There was no character development anywhere. Same as they were in season 1. Zenitsu is a different breed. Hopefully he gets killed off later.

Enjoyment 4/10
Starting with the comedy: absolutely DRY. Are they trying to make a newborn laugh or what? The jokes they make are not even funny. They change the art style to look childish to fit the joke but they are only wasting their time and money. I'd rather count how many blades of grass there are on a large field. The fight scenes are what improved the enjoyment score from a 2 to a 4.

Overall 4/10
The start was really slow and the funny faces just wasn't it chief. But it got better over time. I'd say to watch the first 3 episodes in 10x speed since barely anything happens.

I enjoyed the first Season of Demon Slayer but not this one,

compared to the first, the first was like, it was really good, it had good atmosphere and passing and Joke's were like Okay. We got introduced into many new things that were interesting and the story progression was just fine.

But in this one it is just completly off, yes the art is good and the Animation but i expected something else from many people's favourite arc of this season.

The conversation's just feel off and the joke's are overdue or too strong, even for an todays-anime this feels just too strong and i must honestly ... say that i felt sometimes kinda cringe and just awkward. The story progression feels slow and each scene feels stretched with worthless conversations... and it is just not interesting enough to get me.

I decided to drop this Anime to rather focus on different kinds of Anime that I enjoyed more and with this one i rather felt bored or awkward that it is not worth my time anymore. I was really - really looking forward for this continuation of the series after the Movie & Ressha-hen.

This is just not my Cup of Tea.

I tried to be patient during the first season and the movie. Now Demon Slayer plagues me again with another season of little progression glossed over with pretty animation. Season 2 for the most part was a recycled and worse version of season 1 because it still has the same problems but made even worse. Season 2 never came close to topping the greatness of episode 19 in season 1, and the last episode was terribly disappointing. The most impressive animation scenes are the only hollow like enjoyment I could get out of this. I can't give it praise. At most it's a guilty pleasure. ... Giving poorly written and developed demon a flashback was a mistake. How about the author write a good villain instead of preying on the viewer's emotions and forcing them to care this way? I waited for Nezuko to grow and instead she is still mindless and lifeless from within the plot box. To make it worse, they gave her random abilities with no further explanations. Honestly, that box should have been smashed long ago during one of Tanjirou's fights. What is it made of? It can't be wood. What is Zenitsu? When are they going to explain and make sense of his odd battle abilities? He's a powerful character written with cheap and convenient restraints. When he's not asleep, he is still obnoxious and unfunny. What is this author thinking? Inosuke may have the personality of a rhino, but I can't deny his character has been the most entertaining with a great voice actor and spirit. Who is the master? Why should I care? Why should I care about anything in this series?

if this is a series where you are looking for character growth, you are in the wrong series. Even when Tanjirou was teased at being a coward I felt something because at least his character was deviating and going somewhere else from the norm. Every character failed to grow from the first season. There is nothing meaningfully new I can add about Tanjiro this time.

The fights continue to be bizarre. Now characters receiving mortal blows can shift their organs around to avoid getting killed? Explosives that can destroy upper ranks? How? Sure, the fights look nice. Still, I'd rather be moved by a compelling story with great characters rather than lifeless tropes and pretty flashing lights and CGI crows. I've explained much of my position on Demon Slayer in my past two reviews of the series, and feel no need to repeat most of those points that painfully still apply to this series.

And what was that last episode? Almost nothing happens because once again I need the ultimate sad sob story shoved in my face to care again about poorly written characters. Even the execution of this is terrible. Badly written characters being redeemed by sad sob stories every single time is some of the worst writing I have ever seen.

There are many characters still left in the dust. Shinobu got seconds of screen time once again. I can already feel how this might drag on for endless amounts of seasons. That's the weakness of Shonen anime: it drags on endlessly with mostly mediocre episodes with a hit rarely in between. They are dependent on animation rather than story and characters. The music and comedy went downhill from there also. You can say I am being harsh. Still, if you look at what has influenced me you'd see I've been given a ruler of very high standards by them. I know what I am looking for in a series and Demon Slayer failed time and time again.

Now, if you enjoy this, that's fine. I am just stating an opinion.

This series has gotten progressively worse. That's not to say it had it's moments. There were at least a few times I was entertained and shocked. Still, this painfully reminds me about the mediocrity of shonen anime.

I'm an animation director, so I enjoy anime at both a personal and professional level. I base my seasonal anime-watch list on MAL ratings, so critical, unbiased ratings are important to me.

Until now, I've found my critical opinion aligned with MAL's rating system, so I've never felt the need to leave a review. Four episodes into Demon Slayer's Red-Light District arc, I find MAL's high rating isn't reflecting the failures of this season.

I was a big fan of Demon Slayer season 1. I consider it a solid 9/10. For comparison, I rate FMA:B, Ranking of Kings, Arcane, and Avatar TLA 10/10.

The Demon Slayer ... art style is gooorgeous, the best designed shounen I've ever seen. I love the Traditional Japanese influence in the character designs and fx. The background style is equally impressive with beautiful color palettes and lighting . The animation budget was well spent, balancing funny or emotive static shots with dynamic camera moves and animation during the fight scenes. I will admit, I typically prefer traditional cinematography over flashy 3D camera work, but Demon Slayer became an exception to that personal preference.

Tanjiro's a great lead. It's refreshing to see such an emotional, empathic, care-taking boy in a shounen-lead. Inosuke's fantastic too, his little blushes throughout season 1 made him relatable and gave his character some depth. I like Nezuko, but I consider all of the Demon Slayers female characters too tropey and overshadowed by the male characters, an unfortunate standard for most shounen anime.

The red-light district arc, so far, has NONE of what made me love season 1.

It should have budget to burn, but 90% of its' shots are held animation with simple camera moves, blinks, lipsync or looped animation. It is, literally the worst animated series I've watched this season. The designs are as beautiful as always, but the animation itself is more like a motion-comic, similar to low-budget shows like Aggretsuko. We're 4 episodes in, and there's been perhaps 10 minutes total of actual, action based animation.

The characters and story are even more disappointing. Tengen, like many of the Hashira - has an incredibly tacky, unappealing design and one-dimensional writing. We know his personality gimmick and motives, but the series did nothing to establish his relationship with his wives or why we should care about them. His actions drive the plot, but make no sense. Why didn't he gather the information on his missing wives himself, before Zenitsu was taken?

The series ruined Tanjiro, Inosuke and Zenitsu's great group dynamic by separating them. Mugen Train suffered the same issue.

And my biggest beef so far - Tanjiro side-lines Nezuko for no reason, the moment we see her. She's a strong fighter, they shine best as a team, she adds some well-needed gender balance to the show - but no, she obediently stays in her box at the first sight of trouble.

Four episodes in and this season has been nothing but a huge disappointment. I've seen shows like Toilet-Bound Hanako roasted for similar limited animation, but at least that show had well written characters and plot.

It's time for fans of Demon Slayer Season 1 to take off their rose-tinted glasses and acknowledge how much the quality has dropped this season. We should hold the animation studio to higher standards, so future seasons of this show will return to season 1's quality.