Be aware that the review contains non-specific spoilers about both the previous and the current season. I've already hidden the heavily spoilerized part with a tag.
I gave up on the images for now. Probably they were effective but anyway… I'll do it the old way.
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First of all, I recommend checking out my Swordsmith Village review first. In this review, I'll keep referencing prior seasons with phrases like "just like before" or "they did it differently this time" again and again. The previous review contains my thoughts on the first 2 seasons (+ Mugen Train movie) and more detailed views on Swordsmith Village. So, this review will focus purely on the current arc, so you can think of it as a sequel to the previous thing.
Also this one will probably be shorter (HAHA it's not), we'll see. Let's dive right in.
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After the first season, Demon Slayer had a pattern for each arc: new enemy, new Hashira, stronger main characters, and more epic battles. In the end, the main demon of the arc would be defeated, and the season or film would wrap up with teases for the next arc (there could be small differences between arcs, of course, but I'm generalizing). This structure worked for the last three arcs, but it was pretty clear that Hashira Training would break this mold.
If you visit the related page on the Demon Slayer wiki, you’ll see that even Mugen Train, the shortest arc released after the first season, had 13 chapters. Then, if you consider that the TV series version of Mugen Train was only 7 episodes, you might wonder how Hashira Training, with just 9 chapters, could fill an entire season. Naturally, I wondered about this too. Considering that the anime episodes of Demon Slayer cover almost a third of a manga chapter in the later arcs, it was obvious that despite only having a few episodes, like 4 at best, the whole season would need a lot of anime-only scenes.
Plus, with only 9 chapters (around 180 pages, assuming the standard 20 pages per chapter in Shonen Jump), the arc structure I mentioned couldn’t be established. Clearly, this would be more of a set-up season. Some story details would be fleshed out, and a general build-up would take place before getting into the main stuff. So even die-hard fans wouldn’t get much out of it. (I'm not sure about that, though. They're very good at finding something to overpraise).
Well I was right, of course. We ended up watching a prep season packed with anime-only content without any hype battles or crucial events (until… well, we'll get to that later on). Whether that's a good or a bad thing, I can't say, but it's definitely not satisfying for most anime fans.
Even if it got a lot better towards the end, the fact that not seeing anything even at the level of the first season for the last 2 years lowers my already not so high expectations. Anyway, this ended up being a little too negative, but don't leave yet.
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Especially what I said in the earlier paragraphs applies mostly to the first 6 episodes. You'll get what I'm up to afterwards.
Despite a decrease in ordinary demon attacks following the events in Swordsmith Village, the Slayer Corps suspects it's just the calm before Muzan makes his move to capture Nezuko, who has recently gained immunity to sunlight. So without any delay, they brace for a challenging process of strengthening and training demon slayers of all ranks, even hashira themselves. So, that's pretty much all of the stuff going on this season.
The Hashira Training Arc, in my opinion, fits the phrase 'the calm before the storm' almost perfectly. Maybe it's not exactly calm, but you get the idea. It doesn't keep you on edge waiting for an upper rank to come along and leave someone facing death, or screwing things up. Instead, there's a scenario concept that boosts comedy and brings some of the Hashira we've only had glimpses of in previous seasons to the forefront like never before, centering them in different stages of training. The first episode shows the planning phase of this process, highlighting story points that shouldn't be forgotten. Then, up until episode 7, we see almost every episode featuring a unique training program for each Hashira, along with some dialogues between them and hints of a new upper rank demon trying something.
Understandably, there are more reasons to dislike this arc compared to others. Let's talk about them a bit. It'll be a bit scattered from here on out, but I want to talk about why this season might not be liked, why it might be, and why I personally don't like it. I feel like in the future, especially the first 6 episodes (most of it, in other words) of this season might be seen as "filler", so I think it’s worth talking about it like this.
Eh, the Hashira Training is a bit of an empty arc. Really, like I said, compared to previous arcs, the fights we see and the event chain we have don't feel very important, which is normal because they're not (until… well still, we'll get to that later on). This could easily break the enthusiasm of followers who already are not very attached to the series like me to continue with it. Probably a lot of people who are barely hanging on will completely drop Demon Slayer with this arc or skip it altogether and wait for the real thing, which is probably coming out next year. Personally, I've been trying to watch things until I can't bear anymore; I haven't reached my limit with Demon Slayer yet but I'm getting there. We definitely need to see something at least on par with Entertainment District in the next arc to make the series worthwhile for me again.
Eh, the Hashira Training is a bit of a boring arc too. It's partly because it's empty, but just thinking that way might make you believe "an empty arc is always boring or bad," which isn’t necessarily true. This empty arc could have been much more entertaining and enjoyable than the essential Swordsmith Village arc, but it isn’t. We can probably attribute this to a few reasons.
In my opinion, the world of Demon Slayer, its characters, and its story are not interesting. The key word here is interest. If something doesn’t capture your interest, you disconnect from it and rightfully think, "Why should I watch/read/consume this?" Something that doesn’t interest you will eventually bore you, simple logic.
“But the world, characters, and story of Demon Slayer didn’t suddenly deteriorate, they’ve always been like this. So why didn’t someone score the first 3 seasons lower than 6.7, while saying all of that negative stuff? I mean you!” This may sound like a reasonable complaint, But I already explained in some detail why I liked Demon Slayer, especially Mugen Train, in my Swordsmith Village review (the disclaimer at the beginning of that review is for this reason, so reading the previous review would really help understand this part or some of the following parts better).
If you've read it, you might also say, again, if the only reason to like Demon Slayer from a narrative perspective is the exciting fights and the climax they build-up to, how could Hashira Training possibly be much better than Swordsmith Village without even containing a proper fight? I’m not going to say they should have included a proper fight, of course, since we know what the source material contains, and even if it presents a bunch of anime-only content, the series progresses faithfully to the source while avoiding adding side dishes to complement the main course, which I’m fine with. But the thing is simple: they could have made boring things interesting. For some people, they probably did, because there’s a sudden change in the story structure and pace, which some might like, but almost nothing was enough to catch my interest.
In short, since the only thing that genuinely caught my interest throughout the series wasn’t present this season (until… well, we'll get to that later on), and there's not much improvement in other areas either, so the Hashira Training is a boring arc to me.
Except for two things, though.
As I mentioned in my previous review, I said I didn't enjoy the loud, humorless comedy concept. My opinion on this may have changed a bit, which would require a separate article to explain so never mind that, but it doesn't seem to have affected my thoughts on Demon Slayer's comedy much. Indeed, Demon Slayer has a cheap comedy that completely relies on randomness, overreactions, and absurd effects. But what I really want to mention is that this cheap comedy sometimes catches me off guard and makes me laugh out loud. This happened a few times in every season except Swordsmith Village (damn it) and relieved my boredom, but I guess it happened most often this season. Despite having only an 8-episode runtime, Hashira Training became the season I laughed the most at after the first season (which is normal since it had 26 episodes), and yes, that may seem silly but I counted that. It may not be how many times I laugh that matters though. Although there is not much quality humor again, I felt that the level of comedy in general has increased. There are a considerable number of scenes that can be called funny, such as Tanjiro's offer to Tomioka for an eating contest, or everyone hugging the rocks during Himejima's training because the water is too cold, which are also adorned and extended with many anime-only jokes.
Besides that, credit where credit is due, the last episode has some really interesting and hyped up moments. The longer episode lengths are also interesting (episode 7 is longer too),(and honestly a bit strange, I wonder why didn’t they just make each episode the standard 24 minutes and have 11 episodes?).
I don't have much left to say about the story and plot, I think I've written enough already. My only advice to those who are not fans of the series is to get rid of all expectations if you have any and focus as much as possible on the positive aspects like visuals and music that I’ll mention shortly. In short, focus on the positives without dwelling on the negatives and stick it out until episode 7; you might like what comes after.
There may be fans who end up being disappointed, of course; I don't have much to say about that.
Overall, this season is not bad enough for me to make extra negative comments like it's an insult to the series or that it's the right time to drop. It's a bit fun but also a bit empty and boring. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think it's considerably better than Swordsmith Village.
Shall we talk about the visuals a bit? Actually, most of what I said in the previous review still applies. As some noteworthy things:
CGI is less noticeable this season. Without running fishes or wingless dragons, everything gives way to beautiful vibrant effects and good animation.
The issue I described as "dynamic coloring", like a term I made up in my head, didn't bother me much this season, which is partly because there aren't any dramatic scenes with sudden tone changes, but in the end, this thing that I almost mentioned as a negative in Swordsmith Village isn't a thing in Hashira Training.
While we're on the visuals, let's get the OP/EDs out of the way. I think there are 3 types of Openings. One is the Openings that use some scene pieces from episodes, or at least stick to the overall visual style of the series. I guess giving some examples like My Hero Academia, some OPs from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (links are to the first OPs of the related series) and most of the Rom-Coms’ openings (<- an example) would be best to clarify what I meant to say.
The second type obviously stands out from in-episode visuals, with a completely different use of effects, drawing style or animation. What I mean by that is extra stylistic and detailed work that feels like it's been worked on by different teams for weeks, rather than an experimental attempt. The best examples would probably be some of the Mappa Openings, Jujutsu Kaisen's (link -> OP4) and Chainsaw Man's to be specific.
And then, there are the others like Oddtaxi, OP6 of AoT, the first opening of Great Teacher Onizuka and probably lots of others that I can't really put into the other two categories, may sometimes be considered as experimental or relatively avant-garde.
▶ VideoIt's no surprise that all of the Demon Slayer's openings appeal to the first type and there's nothing wrong with that. Since the in-episode visuals are mostly beautiful, OPs with that similar style look pretty good too.
As for the music, I wonder how many of you feel like me, thinking that Demon Slayer's opening songs have gotten worse with each successive season. (subjectively, of course, as I couldn't hear any annoying issues technically, at least when listening with my Bluetooth headphones) But, I'm pleased to say, thanks to Hashira Training, this has changed.
I like the “Mugen” by My First Story and Hyde more than the last two openings, it's even close to LiSA's, at least to “Akeboshi”.
It felt weird to write 3 times more about what I mentioned as "let's get that out of the way" than the actual topic, and I tried to keep it short, but whatever. Let me talk about audio and wrap up.
When it comes to sound and music, almost everything I said in the previous review still holds true. I have nothing extra to say about the effects and voice acting, but I can talk about the music a bit.
I don't think it's related to where I live, why isn't Demon Slayer's OST available anywhere? The platforms I use (Youtube Music and Apple Music) certainly aren't obscure but even when I search for “Demon Slayer Official/Original Soundtracks” I only find weird fan-made stuff and other unrelated songs. I couldn't find a single piece of music I wanted. I'm not too upset as I don't expect to listen to them much, and I didn't give any extra effort to find them. I just tried the basics, but you know, especially with such a popular series like this, just typing the names of them usually works and should work perfectly well.
Other than that, the music this season is good as always, but it's not memorable as usual. I really have nothing else to say about this.
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We’ve made it through another season of Demon Slayer. It wasn’t as bad as I feared and even entertained me a little especially at the end, but overall, I’d still call Hashira Training subtly boring. I honestly don't care much about what happens next. They could only catch my interest if they do something that covers the entire Infinity Castle arc in ~25 episodes. Still, I've not lost hope; considering how much I used to like the series, why not again? We'll see.
Well, I wrote some parts of the review before the official announcement including the previous one (strangely, I didn't see the leaks either) but, yeah, Infinity Castle being a movie trilogy kind of crushed my dreams a little bit. Anyway, I don't want to be biased, maybe it'll be great. But I don't think I'll spend that much money in the shitty theaters where I live, I'll probably wait for the digital version, and watch it with peace of mind. Really, theaters here suck.
If you're a fan of the series, know what should you expect so that the story you love doesn't upset you.
If you're not a fan, then prepare for the worst even if it's not, the lower the expectations, the greater the satisfaction.
And, keep up till Episode 8. I'm almost sure you'll like it after that.
I thought it would be shorter, but it ended up being even longer. I'm surprised I was able to write that much about this season. Thanks if you actually read till the end, or at least a meaningful amount of it.
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