This simple passage perfectly summarizes the success and story of DEMON SLAYER/ Kimetsu No Yaiba. It can be entirely attributed to the anime adaptation; the adaptations animation quality as well as visual effects. We know this is true because the manga volume sales flopped for nearly 4 years until the show came out. Truly befitting of such a fraudulent series of biblical proportions.
STORY:
You must be STRONGLY DELUDED to think that the story of Demon Slayer is anything, but one aimed at people who enjoy eating reheated food; it is as cookie cutter and generic as humanely possible. It starts off with Tanjiro wanting to save his sister after she's turned into a demon which started off solid but quickly devolves in quality and gradually loses impact with each passing arc. The story eventually devolves into Tanjiro and friends going from Point A to B, encountering new demons, getting defeated by said demon, random asspull, and then a melodramatic backstory that desperately tries to recontextualize the life of the demon into a tragedy.
Characters:
DEMON SLAYER probably has one of the WORST casts in not just Battle Shonen history but dare I say the history of Shonen and just Manga as a whole.
Every character you can think of is literally just an archetype, they are nothing more than just a single trait. Don’t expect them to be fleshed out in any meaningful way, you have:
-Cornballs like Tanjiro who cries over everything, he literally cries over homicidal demons. He has no personality or character outside of being kind and having a big-ass forehead.
-You have Nezuko who has an EVEN BIGGER forehead than her brother, and you would think with a cranium so large that she would be able to do something useful? NO, she is nothing more than a damsel in distress. It’s hard to believe that she would look after her younger siblings when after being turned into a demon she develops some sort of Intellectual disability which causes her to act out as a child. This shift in personality ends up bleeding into other characters such as Zenitsu who has lust towards a girl who has mentally regressed.... Very suspicious.....
-The Demons are an absolute joke as they are all trying to be tragic characters; the only one that succeeded in being notable and compelling is the #1 Upper Moon who is also the only character worth any salt in this entire series.
Worldbuilding/Setting:
There is literally no worldbuilding or setting to speak of, there is nothing commendable about the setting, there is nothing commendable about the Breathing Styles once you realize that its fake and all the Demon Slayers are essentially undiagnosed schizophrenics running around as swordsmen since anti-psychotics haven’t been invented yet in the period the story takes place in
The nonexistent worldbuilding gets even worse at the end when the author just randomly decides to include reincarnation after having killed off majority of his cast in the previous arcs
Fights:
You would think that a Battle Shonen, a series focused on fighting would produce consistently good fights, however Demon Slayer fails at even doing that, the fights are plagued with garbage paneling, there is absolutely ZERO tension in these fights since characters will survive all sorts of injuries through their the author and his bullshit justifications like “I rearranged my internal organs to avoid being stabbed!” or something corny like that.
Artwork:
It has a unique art style, but art alone cannot make a series good or worthwhile.
CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba is nothing more than a meandering, and middling attempt at creating a battle Shonen. The readers time would be better spent on literally doing anything else. If you do decide to start this series it would be better to watch the anime since at least you have the addition of visual effects and music.
