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.
