Kimetsu no Yaiba
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

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As of the time of writing this review, I have yet to see the anime adaptation. Therefore, I’d like to offer you a point of view untainted by the ufotable hype. Note that this review might contain some spoilers, though nothing too specific.

“Why should it matter if you’ve seen the anime or not?” is what you might be asking, so I’d like to address that first. I suspect that the anime adaptation had a huge impact on the manga ratings. It’s understandable to an extent, sure, I bet ufotable did a good job with the animation of action scenes which are the core of this ... series. Should a source material be praised because of the achievements of the adaptations though? I don’t think so. And yes, I have some numbers to support my claim about the undeserved ratings boost. In 2017, Kimetsu no Yaiba had mean score of 7.46. A week before the anime started airing, it was at 7.92. During the time period when the anime was airing the score jumped from that to 8.50 (with the current mean score being 8.55). That’s a jump up of almost 0.60 which is something that pretty much never happens organically. Sure, you could claim that the manga suddenly got better (and coincidentally in the same time frame as the anime was airing). The manga arcs published during this period was Swordsmith Village arc and a training arc after it so no, there was no sudden spike in the quality of the manga content. You can check the scores on Wayback Machine, and learn that MAL mean scores aren’t always to be trusted.

Well, that’s enough of a rant, now to the manga-only experience review.

Now, I’m usually quick to complain about a slow story progression and unnecessary padding. This time, I’ll have to complain about the story going way too fast. Sure, at least there are no fillers, but in exchange Kimetsu no Yaiba goes with extreme on the other side of the spectrum. Reading it feels like the author is trying to do an any% battle shounen speedrun. Everything is happening so fast in this manga. Training? Nah, here’s two chapters, two year timeskip, the protagonist is now no longer a random village hillbilly but a stronk boi who can fight demons. Good job on smashing those big rocks kid, now you’re fully prepared to fight ruthless and almost immortal creatures. Sure, training arcs tend to be not that interesting, but not only they can be made interesting, they are also important to help establishing the power system of battle shounen, which Kimetsu no Yaiba fails at completely. More on that later, now back to speedrunning.

The worldbuilding is pretty much non-existent with the sole focus on rawly progressing the plot. The protagonist’s first assigned mission ever? Boom, here’s the main antagonist just strolling there, what an amazingly lucky encounter. Most of the characters feel just like a cannon fodder whose death are used for a cheap thrill. The cast dies off faster than you can create any attachment to the characters. What was probably supposed to be a dramatic character conclusion end with the impact of “Meh, another one’s dead. What was his name again?” The supporting cast dies like flies and so do the minor antagonists. It’s hardly a shock value when such thing is made a mundane occurrence. Oh yeah, also just slap some random tragic backstories for the demon in cheap attempt to not look so shallow.

Few minor happenings later the final arc starts, which makes up a whole third of the whole manga. That one’s a bit special. It’s at the same time way too long and keeping the whole speedrun spirit too. The cheapness of deaths become even way cheaper, as if the author said “fuck it, I’m almost done with the manga anyway, I’ll just kill of most of the characters”. And no, they still don’t die in any satisfying (for the reader) way. The stock of nameless characters seems to be endless too, as bunch of unknown demon hunters seem get mass-murdered with almost every attack of almost every demon, yet they keep flowing in right up to the final boss encounter. How many demon hunters are there anyway? Because I fell like hundreds of them died just in the backgrounds of this arc alone. The final fight is riddled with all of the cliché bullshits such as the power of friendship, trashed characters that shouldn’t have been able to even stand up by any mean suddenly rejoining the fight again, “this isn’t even my final form you fools”, asspulls, and revivals. Yes, after all of the slaughter the author is now suddenly too much of a coward to let some of the characters die. At least go all the way in if this is what you decide to do, don’t back up at the last moment to leave us with this lukewarm entirely uninteresting and artificial-feeling ending. The epilogue chapter is an absolute joke. Well, at least I wish it was just a joke. It’s more disappointing and laughtable than the finale and epilogue of Prison School, to give you an idea about this trainwreck. I had to doublecheck if this wasn’t just some fanmade chapter, that’s how much it doesn’t fit.

I have mentioned the absolute disaster of a power system previously, right? Let’s expand on that. Some sacrifices had to be made to make the speedrun possible and explanation of the powers was one of them. The last thing that makes any sense is the Total Concentration Breathing technique. Master the way you breath and do it consciously all the time to achieve a handy power-up for your stats. A bit of JoJo rip-off but sure, I’ll take it, with some suspension of disbelief it makes sense. How do we get from there to swords summoning fire, pillars of water, mist or a goddamn snakes? Fuck if I know, it’s some sort of breathing technique so you’ll have to make some shit up to make sense of it, because the manga sure isn’t going to help you with that. Tanjiro’s dad did ceremonial sword dancing, which made him a fire swordsman. Others just ripped of the fire technique to make their own breaths. How does remaking a fire technique help you summon butterflies with a sword slash? No idea. “It just works”, as they say.

The characters themselves are flashy but forgettable. The flagship Nezuko admittedly excels as being adorable while still having enjoyable fighting mode side, but that’s as far as likeable characters go. Tanjiro is a ball of screams and bruteforcing given a human shape. Zenitsu is an annoying idiot with creepy tendencies who is completely useless until the plot demands him to do something. Inosuke is a ball of even more screaming and bruteforcing also given (more or less) human shape. The hashiras have basically the personalities of their character design.

Honestly from some points I started to cheer for the demons instead. The protagonists are boring shounen templates with no depth. The demons at least have some motivations beyond “AAAAAAA DEMON REEEEEEEEE” and as ironic as it is, they have goals more relatable to actual humans such as just wanting to enjoy their lives. I don’t think this was intentional on author’s part though, the baddies are relatable only in comparison to the blandness of the other side.

One saving grace of Kimetsu no Yaiba is the artstyle. While I wouldn’t go as far to say that the art is great, it’s certainly distinguishable and original. At least one part of this manga that attracts the readers’ attention, at least one part of this whole thing that is somehow interesting.

Overall, if you’re a fan of regular battle shounen, this might be your jam. If you’re looking for anything with a substance, you would waste your time here. As pretentious as it might sound, ultimately this manga just feels… immature. 

Kimetsu no Yaiba is truly something but not in a positive way.

It never tried to do anything that was never done before as the author since the beginning had in plan what the series would have become. The truth is, for whatever reason, the easy stuff that should have gotten right was done the opposite and the author never learned from her mistakes to make the story more consistent later on instead she went out of her way to worse things up.

Kimetsu no Yaiba suffers from mainly 3 things:

1 - It's writing
2 - Its comedy
3 - Its villains

1 - I hate it to say this ... but the writing is bad. It all consists of turning a character into a human since somehow she had become a demon and Tanjiro, her brother has to take a lot of pain to achieve this goal. By pain I mainly mean doing unbelievable stunts, getting hurt without consequences (well, directly to him since there are characters that die while saving him), and having insane luck. Of course, all this happens because of the way it's written. The author has managed to make the protagonist untouchable by literally anything. It doesn't matter what happens, he and her sister will survive. From chapter one when Tanjiro encounters Giyuu and the latter is about to kill Nezuko. Tanjiro saved her because he impressed one of the strongest characters in the series. A guy that has been killing demons left and right is impressed by a cheap trick is what the author is making us believe as if this has never happened to him Before. To the last moment of fighting which Tanjiro has still the power of God within him.

In the early chapters, we get introduced to two more characters that appear out of nowhere and help Tanjiro on becoming stronger. We never got any explanation why that's the case and how that's possible because slightly after Tanjiro finished his training we learn from Urokodaki that the two are actually dead and they were once his students. How's that possible they were able to interact with Tanjiro? Are they ghosts? Is that even a thing in the Kimetsu no Yaiba universe? Because the author NEVER mentioned that phenomenon anymore. At worst this is a crazy asspull we've got to witness. Clearly, the author didn't know how to make Tanjiro stronger that would make a lick of sense and she just went on the stinky territory.

Since this is a shonen, it's imperative for everyone to help Tanjiro because the odds are that Tanjiro and Nezuko are the only ones that could actually defeat Muzan. Throughout the story, many individuals help him because they see the courage held within his spirit and the so-called desire to help his sister. They're moved by their sad story and of course, they risk their lives for two random kids they just met. On the other hand, the fights are extremely dull. They seem flashy but none use any strategic means to beat them. They go full-on-power and directly attack the enemy without causing them any damage. As for the development characters get, is not much. In fact, the one important character that has the most development happens to have less screentime. It is weird and I was really hoping for other characters to have the same growth as well which sadly didn't happen.

2 - The comedy at first didn't even exist. Not until Zenitsu and Inosuke were introduced. The two are the classic yelling guys that so happen to accompany the protagonist on his quests to save his sister. The reasons for this simple fact are to this day yet unknown but they do and so we get to witness all sorts of 'jokes' that not only aren't funny and would make anyone die inside but they're placed in such a nuisance that affects their battles as well. Zenitsu yelling for a half episode but for some reason when sleeping he gains some OP power which naturally makes us question why didn't he do that earlier? Did we really need to hear him yell like a maniac? The same goes for Inosuke. He doesn't need to sleep but regardless in a lot of cases he still gets OP for really no reason accompanied by the lovely 'comedy' that is yelling. Yes, the comedy in this series is yelling. That's it! Are you on the floor laughing right now? Laugh goddammit! Laugh!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA - Zenitsu and Inosuke in a nutshell.

3 - They're simply bland. Whether they had an over-the-top personality or a calm one, they're extremely poorly written because they gain nothing and get effortlessly beaten. A villain gets introduced, monologues for like a chapter, beats the crap of the good guys but somehow gets cornered and dies because the good guys had a stronger will and didn't surrender. No strategies are involved, just swords slash, a few random powers usually bestowed upon the protagonist and a friendship speech just to cool off the whole thing and the villain is done for. What's worse is its flashback's purpose that exists only to show one's forgiveness rather than showing its motivations. Well then, let me ask you this, why do they repent themselves on the verge of death? Is that a requirement? Because, as far we have seen no one has actually done so in their full power. What the author is trying to get us to understand is that everyone deep down inside has a good soul and deserves a second chance but this is NOT the way to go about it. If nothing else you can have one or two characters that are inherently good and have them change but it shouldn't work for anyone. Not everyone has to be a good guy just because the protagonist is the classic 'gentle guy' that wants to save everyone for literally no reason.

Furthermore, the rest of the characters aren't great either. Aside from the main cast, which is the worst in the series, everyone else, despite all having a different and cool personality, are bad. Not by default though. Some of them have a cool 'sense of justice' but are badly developed and it saddens me. A few die too quickly that get little to no development and some others take an awfully long time to either win or die and in the midst of that, even though they do receive a somewhat interesting flashback that would define their objective at best, is placed either too soon or too late. Never in the right spot that would not distract them from the battle itself in receiving a random and unnecessary bust of their powers.

As for the ending, is really bad. Because not only Muzan death was anticlimactic but the whole reincarnation thingie was not necessary to the story itself. You could have added a few more chapters and added a time-skip that would have solidified the case at best but alas it didn't happen.

Last but not least, art. It's not bad. It's definitely somewhat original although not very detailed and at times sloppy. It's well-drawn when it is but it's unnecessary awful in other cases. It's rushed. You can see the author just didn't have enough time to work more with it and left everything like that. Though, it's her first work therefore she's forgiven.

All in all, Kimetsu no Yaiba is overrated. There are some likable characters here and there but that's about it. It didn't do any good for me and I hope this review will share the truth among all the lies that have been spread since its anime adaptation.

Kimetsu no Yaiba is a series that is loved and hated in equal measure. The only manga to outpace One Piece, and not by a small margin. The manga received a tremendous boost from its anime adaptation by Ufotable, but even before that, its quality led it to become very popular.

I'll be honest, is it the most original work? No. Is it the best thing since sliced bread like those long queues in Japanese bookstores and the constant tweets on AniTwitter lead you to believe? No. What it is, is a really really good story, though. It does the little things right and does a ... decent enough job of world building, character development and growth.

While there are a lot of valid criticisms of the series like a subpar villain, less than stellar climax, final arc dragged on, etc. I'll mainly focus on the things I enjoyed. KNY is shonen done right. It's got all of the tropes and cliches you've come to expect from the genre, but they're executed in textbook fashion. The power ups, power of friendship, rivalries, etc. The Mangaka does a great job of blending them into the story in a believable fashion and creating an entertaining narrative.

From start to end, the manga remains fun, funny and engaging. The characters, no matter how much or how little time they get, make an immense impact on you. You genuinely do feel attached to the cast of the series and by the end, it feels you're losing a part of you by having to say goodbye.

The art is quite unique in my opinion and the expressions on characters' faces throughout the series enhance the experience by creating humorous situations. This is most evident with Tanjirou and Zenitsu throughout the series. I did find one weakness to be when the magaka depicted fights. At times I personally found myself confused and unable to discern what was going on due to the style.

Pacing wise, I had no issues with the series up until this final arc. I felt like I was reading the same chapter for MONTHS due to the repetitive nature of some of the chapters and panels. I think once Ufotable get their hands on it it will go much smoother, but in the manga format, I would have to dock points for the final arc.

I felt the ending was satisfactory for the most part, providing closure and resolutions for beloved characters as well as leaving the door open for more content later down the line.

Overall, KNY for better or for worse, is one of the biggest series of our generation. The numbers, hype and raving reviews all are evidence of that. While it's without a doubt overrated by many, it's also overly hated in equal measure. I found it to be a fun ride throughout and despite my minor issues with the pacing and art, enjoyed every moment of the past 4 years. Kimetsu no Yaiba gets 10 Spider Lillies out of 10.