Before reading the manga I never really cared for Demon Slayer. I heard a lot about the anime, and how great it was, but I never bothered to watch it. The manga I never cared for either; this changed when I had a lot of recommendations from people I know - to go read the manga. I eventually accepted and now I write this review to fairly and adequately judge it. I write this without any prior knowledge of the series, and I went in without any biases. As this is such a popular series a lot of people love and also hate it, I thankfully am not clouded by these feelings. So now the question is: "Is Demon Slayer worth the read"?
In my opinion yes. While it is overrated, which always happens when something blows up this much, it is great as a starter Shounen. The characters are adequately written, and work for the scenes they're in. I don't dislike any character, but I don't particularly love any character either. The manga has a bit of a problem where the characters never really get fleshed out beyond their first introduction. Take Tanjirou for example. While his whole arc revolves around him finding a cure for his sister, it never really goes beyond that. At first he's shown as really caring for demons, and not wanting to kill them; but halfway through he loses that trait. I expected him to find a demon he really didn't want to kill, and for him to get an arc about that which would develop him further as a character; but that just doesn't happen. Midway through Tanjirou becomes less nice to demons, even more agressive to them, instead of him not wanting to kill the demons like before, he rants about wanting to murder them. He tells multiple demons that he's going to cut their head off, which is a hilarious contrast to how he was written at first.
Now you could make a case for having that as his character development, however that still doesn't flesh him out a lot. Eventually he learns his father's techniques, and you would expect from the amount of flashbacks that we would learn more about him and the relationship he had with his dad. This relationship however also isn't deep, and serves more as a plot relevant explanation for him to get the power up.
It's to be expected that characters in this genre get power ups mid battle, so I'm not going to complain about Tanjirou getting power ups. I just wish some power ups just weren't dropped at the end. Tanjirou eventually learns to utilise his water breathing powers together with his sun breathing powers, but after he combines them he never uses them in combination again. Same for his "Ultra Instinct"-like power which is never utilized again outside of 1 battle. Multiple characters get this treatment, and thus they get under utilized.
While the character development isn't that great for any character, some characters still get a bit more shine than others. Inosuke gets far more developed than Zenitsu or Tanjirou, making him my favorite of the three main characters. Some of the pillars get some pretty good (for Demon Slayer) character development, which makes their eventual deaths hit a bit harder than it normally would.
Demon Slayer also isn't shy in hurting and killing its characters, which is something I can praise. Multiple characters will die, and for some people that will hurt. For me it did nothing, but I like that Demon Slayer isn't shy in killing off characters. This can however feel a bit ham fisted at times when a character gets killed that barely has any personality, while the manga tries to pull on your heart strings. In my case that never worked. Most deaths did not feel earned, and did not really have a lot of relevancy to the plot.
I have been pretty negative about Demon Slayer in this review but I still really enjoyed the manga. The artwork is great, multiple times I stopped to marvel at how the attacks were drawn, and at how nice the action looked. The characters are also really expressive, and for me the more lighthearted moments worked really well thanks to the well drawn and funny faces. For some the character development will be enough, for me it wasn't because I personally love in depth character development, but that won't be to everyone's tastes. The character development isn't a detriment to the manga, and the manga is still really fun to read even though the characters don't change that much overall.
As a whole Demon Slayer is good, especially for someone that's just starting with reading manga or watching anime. It's a good start to get in to Shounen, showcasing a lot of the usual good tropes of the genre without most of the bad ones. I also really like that the manga is relatively short compared to other Shounen's, which makes it a very easy read. It's pretty addicting even with all its flaws. The pacing of Demon Slayer is also great, I never felt that any arc dragged on too long. So, to end the review. I get the hype personally, as it's a good start for beginner anime watchers and manga readers, however for someone that has been in the anime community for many years - it probably won't blow you away.
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