MID-SEASON REVIEW: Demon Slayer

So I’m back from my hiatus and I’ve been using that time to catch up on Deamon Slayer. Here are my thoughts on how the show I going so far.

First I like to talk about the weird genre that it embodies. It has all the hallmarks of a battle shonen series but is way more darker and violent than its contemporaries. It occupies the same genre as Attack on Titan, with its large amount of violence, gore, and frequent dismemberment. These darker elements fits into the show’s themes of cruelty and compassion.

The central thesis of Deamon Slayer is that the world is cruel and violent. They make this clear at the beginning of the first episode when Tanjirou’s family is slaughtered and his sister is cursed. But the show communicates that it is through compassion that the world can be healed. Compassion is present in the first episode when an older demon slayer spares Tanjiro and his sister after he sees both siblings try to protect each other. The theme of compassion also extends to the rest of the series as Tanjiro provides comfort to the demons he slays and Nezuko hugs other people to reassure them.

The animation is gorgeous with UFOtable’s style of using 3D backgrounds with 2D animations. There are seamless transition between 3D models and 2D designs for the action scenes.  There is also some switch up with the style of animation ether for comedy or to display the special moves.

The two leads add some needed levity to a pretty dark series. Tanjirou can be very serious which can lead to some pretty humorous moments and some of his reactions create some pretty funny moments due to the changing in animation style. Nezuko also gives some brighter moments to the series with some cute behavior.

I found the writing at the beginning of the series to be pretty clunky. We get an introduction to Tenjirou’s family and everything is going so well and the family is so happy that its obvious something terrible will happen to them. I think this could have been fixed if the family had some problem like the siblings were fighting or a character was sick, so that way the show could tease that there might be some development with the family only for it to be cut off by their sudden death. This would have made the death more surprising because the viewer was expecting some development from the family and it would make it more tragic since there was an opportunity for the family to get better that is now gone.

Too Pure for this world

I found the show to be a little obnoxious, there is a lot of yelling and loud music that really hit you over the head with how intense and tragic this story is. Now I’m not saying you can’t have yelling in your story but I wish it wasn’t accompanied by loud trumpets or close-ups on the characters faces. If everything is loud and everyone is yelling all the time it lessens the impacts of each individual moment.

The final selection arc is when this series turns into a Shonen show with the main character training through a montage as he learns all the special moves. We then get introduced to the powers of this series which is total concentration breathing used by the demon hunters and the demon blood art which are used to set up the battle for the series.

For a good shonen action series, you need to have clearly defined rules for the battles, limits that the characters should act in. When you have these limits established it creates tension and a sense of unpredictability as you don’t know how the hero is going to use their powers to creatively defeat their opponents. For example, My hero Academia makes sure to clearly establish each character’s powers and makes sure that the character can not do more than what they’re capable of, without proper training. So that is what Demon Slayer is going for with establishing the demon blood arts and total concentrated breathing.

Skipping ahead after the final selection we are introduced to the main antagonist of the series Muzan the demon who killed Tenjirou’s family and turned his sister into a demon. We get a lot of establishing moments from him. First is that he is using a human family for cover and is living out his life as a normal human. We also learn that he is clever as has no regard for human life as he quickly turns a nearby human into a demon in order to distract Tenjirou so he can make an escape. Lastly is that Muzan might have some history with Tenjirou’s family as we get a brief flashback of a demon hunter with Tenjirou’s earrings, which leads to Muzan to order Tenjirou killed.

After we are introduced to the main villain we then transition to two characters who set up the goal for the rest of the series, where Tenjirou must receive the blood sample of some of the highest ranking demons in order to cure his sister. After which Tenjirou is attacked by two demons. Remember how I said that for good action you need clearly defined rules that is where Demon Slayer has some problems. During this fight, it is clear what the demon’s powers but it is not apparent what Tenjirou is capable of or what his limits are. We know that he is human and that he has 10 forms for the sword styles but we don’t know what each form can do until he uses them. While Tenjirou’s water-breathing forms look cool they kinda deflating the tension since I know that he is going to use a specific form to win the fight. But at least there still is some tension to the story as Tenjirou will take a beating.

So to summarize my main problems with Deamon Slayer is that it’s a little obnoxious and Tenjirou’s limits are not clearly defined. But the animation and action are creatively done and the thems of compassion as an antidote to cruelty are well communicated

So all that is left to see is how the show can improve from here. But what are your thoughts on how the show is going so far?

Thanks for reading

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