I don't know why I'm writing a review for Demon Slayer when everything that can be said has been said, but I'll do it anyway.

Demon Slayer was the first anime I watched seriously, based on recommendation from a friend. It completely blew my mind. As someone who had never even touched a single piece of Japanese media outside of film, I did not realise anime could look this good.

The fight scenes are nothing short of incredible. Every single action and breath is animated so fluidly and with such detail. Each hit and swing of the sword genuinely packs a punch, and you can feel the characters' trying to fight against those insurmountable foes. And of course, the breathing techniques are breathtaking. All of them look absolutely stunning, from Tanjiro's graceful strokes of water to Zenitsu's electrifying slashes (get it? sorry). I cannot understate just how good watching Demon Slayer's action sequences feels.

So Demon Slayer is a perfect anime right? Hell no. Unfortunately, it succumbs to the common disease among shonen anime known as "shitty stories and characters because we only care about entertainment". Yeah, aside from the genuinely masterpiece action scenes, everything else is fucking atrocious.

"Plot? Hmm, what's that?" - Ufotable executives, probably

Wow do I despise the plot, except I can't say that because Demon Slayer basically doesn't have one! The most compelling part of the story is in the first episode when Tanjiro finds his whole family dead. Then I guess they just forgot that a plot is a thing. After that, the entire anime just revolves around Tanjiro's useless incompetent self training and looking for the next demon to kill. Oh, and also he's looking for a way to cure Nezuko, but I think they forgot about that too. There's almost no mention of the search for the cure throughout the entire season. Look, I understand it's only the first season, and the cure is obviously going to become much more important much later, but there's no way you can barely bring up the literal entire reason for the protagonist's quest.

Your plot can't just be the main character killing something and then waiting for instructions and then killing another thing and then waiting... Stuff has to like, happen. You can't just kill stuff for the entire story. That plot would not be good, compelling, interesting, allegorical nor whatever big word you wanna use to describe a good plot. Unless you're Tarantino. Demon Slayer is not that.

Well, then what about the characters? Sorry, but they're somehow even less fleshed-out than the story. Let's talk about Tanjiro. Ok, let's see, what are his personality traits? Um, determined, resilient, perservering... siscon? I think you get the point. The only thing we know about his stupid ass is that his only goal in life is to make his sister human again so he can fulfil his dreams of becoming a siscon. And I'm sorry to break it to you, but a character's motivation is simply not enough to make him a good character. Ok, what about the other chara- even worse! At least Tanjiro has a semi-decent motivation and backstory. The other characters just rely on quirks to make themselves likeable, and these quirks quickly become annoying.

Inosuke: Boorish (get it? sorry), rowdy
Zenitsu: Down bad, scared
Giyu: Calm, elegant
Kanao: Idek she literally doesn't do anything besides have a conversation with MC, which admittedly is one of the more interesting non-action scenes
Nezuko: Cute, unfortunate victim of siscon

Ok, as you can see, we know BASICALLY NOTHING about all the other characters. None of them is even mildly fleshed out. All we know is the absolute most basic necessary information to make them likeable. They're all just there so that MC's ass won't get utterly annihilated when he battles tougher demons. That's it, just sidekicks and nothing more. Obviously, that is not sufficient writing to make a character good.

So yes, contrary to the third paragraph of this review, Demon Slayer is one of the worst pieces of media I have ever seen. It gets literally everything about what a story should be wrong. So then why did I give it a relatively high score?

Because my personal enjoyment is more important.

If you can manage to just shut off your brain and become your average moviegoer, you'll have a blast, since you can just ignore how bad the story is, pretend that you like the characters, and then appreciate the actual perfect part of this anime - the action. Seriously, the action is unbelievably good. I'm not saying you should do that for every anime you watch. In fact, please don't, that would defeat the entire purpose of art.

But sometimes you just want to sit down after a long day of work and have a good time. Demon Slayer is the perfect anime for that.