I will make this disclaimer as short as I can.

This review contains spoilers from the biggest to smaller ones. If you want to avoid the big ones, DON'T read the "Swordsmith Village" section of the review. But if you will be bothered by even the small ones, I suggest you just look at the score and skip it.

I think that's enough.

I'll tell you this, though, there is a serious spoiler from the end of the first Naruto series in the "Swordsmith Village" section. Stay alert.

A- and I don't think you'll mind but, there is a bit of strong language.

It became long anyway.

F*ck.

Past

There was no way I wasn't going to watch Demon Slayer, which became abnormally popular with the anime adaptation that came out in 2019. In fact, looking at the studio that made it and the general concept, it looked like a very ordinary but solid battle shonen. It was clear that it relied more on the flashy, flashy, screamy fight scenes than it did on the story and world. So, that was my prediction before watching it.

I was right, Demon Slayer was weaker than I expected from a narrative point of view, but the fights were more exhilarating than I expected. To summarize the first three seasons:

I thought the first season was a decent introduction. It set the main focus of the story from the very first episode, introduced the side characters that we would see with our main character throughout the series as it progressed, and offered some really visually impressive fight scenes. In the meantime, it expanded its world.

Mugen Train, which was originally a movie that was expanded and turned into a TV series, I think is the pinnacle of Demon Slayer. I think it was to the series' benefit that it put that mediocre storyline on the back burner and focused entirely on the fights. It also had one of the ballsiest fights not only in the series but in the entire anime world. That's actually why it's the best season.

There's not much to say about the Entertainment District Arc. It's like a slightly less exhilarating version of Mugen Train, set in a brothel town. The design of the main antagonist was interesting, though. And again, like Mugen Train, it didn't advance the story much, focusing on a single fight and the introduction of another hashira.

So that's the situation. I could say that Demon Slayer is a good battle shonen and for now (probably for a very short time), In the "New Big 3" as I like to call it (I think you all know that "old" Big 3), I like it a notch more than Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man .

Yes, I could have. I say "a very short time" as you are reading these lines, probably about five seconds.

While the Swordsmith Village Arc was by far the weakest arc of the series, the situation has evened out considerably. This arc is really a downgrade in almost every sense. Chainsaw Man will probably be the leader when the next season is released.

Swordsmith Village

Normally, I would do a summary of the story and start commenting on it, but for an anime like Demon Slayer, I don't think that's necessary. Basically, the story consists of the Demon Slayers we've come to know throughout the series, along with some hashira we saw very briefly in the first season, fighting against more than one upper moon demon this time. That's what we've been watching for three seasons, but when the fights get boring, you look for something good in the story, and there is a very little bit of that. Character stories!

I'd like to conclude this season's only improvement compared to the others by talking about the character stories Swordsmith Village offers. Since there is not much material to talk about the main scenario, I'm going to summarize and comment on a lot of these stories, so it may be a bit long.

These character stories, which have been present to some extent in previous seasons, are more prevalent in Swordsmith Village. Second half of episode 6 and a large part of episode 8 are entirely devoted to these stories. Episode 6 is about Sanemi Shinazugawa, a hashira we haven't seen him fighting yet, his younger brother Genya Shinazugawa (wtf kind of last name is this?) who wants to be a hashira like him, and a little bit about himself.

One night, after their abusive and violent father dies, the mother, the only parent of the Shinazugawa family, does not return home. Two of the siblings, Genya and Sanemi, are worried and Sanemi goes out to look for their mother. After a while, Sanemi returns, fighting his mother's demonized form and kills her. Genya, who left the house after his mother's death, thinks that Sanemi killed his mother and unknowingly blames him.

And then, you know, he forgives him, they join the Demon Slayers. Sanemi becomes a hashira, Genya wants to be a hashira. Wow, look at this f*cking thing.

The story, as you'll notice, is rather ordinary, but not bad. For a less than ten minute sequence and compared to the character's place in the story, I think the drama is disturbing enough.

I think the most effective scenes here are the ones where the demon mother completely destroys the house, and the scenes where Genya cries and yells at his brother while holding his mother. They are well prepared both narratively and technically. They are able to leave the necessary impact.

Now I realized that my comment on this story is too positive for its actual quality. Don't think that because I'm saying all of this that I think the scene is very successful or special. I am trying to say that it is enough for an anime like Demon Slayer. In fact, there is nothing special or very dramatic or very impactful about this story. This is too common and short for being great.

From this point of view, you might think that Muichiro Tokito's story, which takes up most of its episode, is better than Genya's. And yes, it is.

After the death of their father, Muichiro and Yuichiro, twin brothers who are completely different from each other on a personal level, are living in their log cabin when a woman named Akane invites Yuichiro to come with her and become a "Demon Slayer", but he refuses. One night, while Muichiro is awake, a demon suddenly comes into the hut and kills Yuichiro. After the incident, Muichiro joins the Demon Slayers and even becomes a hashira two months later.

Unlike Genya's story, Muichiro's story has too much content to summarize in one paragraph, but I wanted to comment on it without going on too long. For example, there are some important scenes that I could not summarize in the summary, such as Yuichiro's Rage and Yuichiro's futile call for help before he died.

For one thing, this story has more time to gradually build up the drama. Genya's story is about 7 minutes while this one is 13 minutes, And the felt difference between these two proves what I just said "too short for being great". Muichiro's story is again not great, but it's better than I expected, it's obviously more emotional than Genya's, and makes its episode the best of this mediocre season.

I think Mitsuri's story is so unimportant and ineffective, so I guess there's nothing else worth telling about the story.

To summarize, just like the previous two seasons, Swordsmith Village doesn't do much with the main story and world development. It seems to be all about the character stories and fight scenes. While I was slightly positive about the first one, what makes this season the worst, the fight scenes were really solid disappointments. How did I connect the subject to the fights, eh?

There are reasons why the fights in Demon Slayer are exhilarating and fun. These fights are very well built up to their climax. The demons our Slayers face are really powerful and feel like a big threat. When fighting the demon, the main character overcomes his limits and improves himself, or like in Mugen Train, we watch a great duel between upper 3 and one of the strongest hashiras. In short, throughout the season, we pump for that climax at the end and when we get there, we are ecstatic. To give an example from another anime, the Naruto vs. Sasuke fight at the end of the canon part of og Naruto can be a good example. This battle is not as striking as Demon Slayer in terms of visual and audio presentation, but it has about 100 episodes for build-up, and it uses it.

As you can understand from the previous paragraph, I think the problem with Swordsmith Village is its climax. Unlike the previous arcs, there's more than one upper moon demon and more than one hashira. Throughout the episodes, we're constantly going back and forth between the two fights, some character stories are interspersed, and then the next thing we know, the demon is beheaded and the battle is over. So where was the climax? Isn't there the main part where we're screaming with excitement along with the characters? Imagine if the events of Season 3 part 2 of Attack on Titan were concluded directly without the "Hero" episode. I'll even give a better example from Demon Slayer itself. Imagine if there was no Akaza vs. Kyojuro battle in the Mugen Train Arc, and the season ended when Enmu was defeated. I felt a bit like this in Swordsmith Village. At the beginning of episode 11, I wanted an even more powerful demon attack (such as Douma) until the post-battle recovery phase. Of course it didn't come. To sum up, what Ign somehow said about Mugen Train, I say about Swordsmith Village. The climax is missing, so all the fights feel lame and unsatisfying.

I want to breathe a sigh of relief by addressing the technical aspects, because like many mainstream seasonal battle shonen, Demon Slayer is visually very good, maybe even one of the best. The Ufotable signature is clearly recognizable. While the animation is not at the level of Mappa in terms of fluidity, the use of colors and special effects are at the highest level. One thing that caught my eye was the CGI, as it was used more heavily this season.

Still, if there's one thing I don't like about Demon Slayer visually, it's the dynamic coloring. What I'm trying to talk about is that color changes depending on the tone of the scene. It can be artistic, like the contrasting colors during fights in Jojo (maybe it has another meaning. Personally, I like it a lot), or like the colors darkening and fading in a sad and depressing scene to strengthen the emotion used in many anime. Demon Slayer is always colorful. It's only at night that the colors f*cking fade, Oh, and that's if there's no fight or something. There are little "hope" shots like the sunlight shining brightly behind Kyojuro during his death (That was in one of the previous seasons, though), but there is hardly any of it. Actually, I'm not sure how much of this was there in the past seasons, but I paid special attention to it in Swordsmith Village. Even in the shots of Muichiro returning home after killing the demon, the contrast is quite high. Thank god the facial expressions are good. The drawings of Yuichiro's face as he dies can add to that depressive feeling.

As for the voice acting, I guess it's not hard for the Japanese to do well, I can find some good voice acting in every shit I watch. Demon Slayer also has its share of good voice actors. Especially Natsuki Hanae, he can roar like an animal when he wants to. whatever kind of throat he has.

Music-wise, I'm still a bit undecided about which of the anime in the "New Big 3" I mentioned in the first part of this review is the best, but I think I'd go with Demon Slayer. That's not a very high bar, actually. While Jujutsu Kaisen is so weak that I have no idea about its soundtrack, I had to choose between the weird(?) soundtrack of Chainsaw Man and the more generic and epic soundtrack of Demon Slayer. I went with the more generic one. Demon Slayer's soundtrack is as generic as it is, and as epic as its previous seasons. Still, while I can name a few things from Naruto or My Hero Academia's soundtracks, I don't think there's one from Demon Slayer that sticks out in my mind.

So, what's left to talk about? There are openings and endings. I can't comment on the endings as someone who almost never looks at them, but the opening, it's good. That's it. The video looks good and the song is not bad. It's still not at the Gurenge level. Maybe even worse than Zankyousanka, but as I said, good enough.

I haven't talked about comedy, which is one of the main genres of the series, but I don't think it is necessary. It's a classic shonen comedy that doesn't have a proper humorous quality, where the drawings of the characters become absurd and different/random lights shine in the background and the characters scream and punch each other stupidly. I don't find it very funny.

Verdict

I think that's enough. I think I've done justice to the series that I had already said "I won't do it" but suddenly and reasonlessly decided to review it.

Ultimately, Demon Slayer had its worst season this spring. With the series already having little to offer in terms of story, characters or comedy, there was little to love or enjoy when the battle scenes it relied so heavily on became dull. It was boring man. I'm a little worried about Demon Slayer's gradual fall since Mugen Train. I hope the next season won't be as unpleasant.