If you are easily triggered. Then please turn away from this review since I will not be holding anything back at all. I've said my piece about the first season of Demon Slayer anime. It was rough around the edges but land and sea above the awful of a mess known as the manga depiction. No hard feelings to anyone who enjoyed this crap. I mean, I was one of you as well for a very short period. Then I woke up and saw that Demon Slayer is not the least bit deserving of all the hype and fame it's receiving. After simply reading blindingly, ignoring my own feelings, and letting the viewpoints of others affect my judgments and way of thinking. To make me throw my own feelings in a circle of a pile of confusion, not trying to understand myself. I was finally able to come to terms with my actual views once I shut everything else out. I am not mad at the author, and quite happy they are selling millions on their work. But I can't say the same about the community. I am disappointed even if I do get why Demon Slayer blew up as it did. We enjoy what we enjoy. Everyone is different, there's nothing wrong with that. It helped the manga community get more readers and prestige. That's a big plus, no doubt.

It's clear as day that the anime adaptation from Ufotable was a blessing and with it trending like mad everywhere. Curious newcomers, countless other individuals in the anime community, ate that shit up like it was cake. It's no doubt hard to differentiate the taste when you've not eaten or - in this case, read or watched something genuinely worth your attention. I am willing to bet any numbers of shounen such as Black Clover, which is far better than Demon Slayer and deserving to go higher. If that shit got a proper adaptation putting a strong emphasis on the production value and even making sure the experience in the anime flows smoothly like running river. It would totally blow up and sell like hotcakes. That goes for shit like Fairy Tail as well. Black Clover for one possesses most of the same elements as Demon Slayer. But the execution is far clearer and much more concise and decisive. At least it was when I read it. I need to get back on that. I will throw this out there. Noelle is a greatly written character with flaws and everything nice. She is properly written tsundere as well. For me, that's a big fat cherry on top. Asta feels real and is not void of emotions or a sense of danger and all that–like Tanjiro, for instance.

The reason I think Demon Slayer doesn't deserve any of the fame it's getting from a writing standpoint - it's a mess with no lick of direction, genuineness in it's established themes and character drama. The impact feels so lackluster. The deaths don't even affect my emotions a bit. It's a dull read, and the pacing has no sense of balance. The cuts to events feel forced or half-assed. It's merely just damn random and is not running in a straight path without unnecessary hindrances. I would admit that Demon Slayer had the potential and elements to turn out as a decent shounen. If the author was not in a hurry or Weekly Shounen Jump didn't rush them to finish the story. I don't know if they were forced or not, but it has already happened many times. So I don't want to open that can of worms, but it's obvious which shounen I might be referencing to here.

Nothing about the story of Demon Slayer interested me whatsoever. Most of the characters just happened to be a means to an end. But It truly had a good cast of characters with distinct enough personalities. Shinobu was like such a best girl for me. She's far more interesting than Kanao. Shinobu had this simple sense of complexity by putting on a facade behind her face when she is actually angry about lots of things. It was just one of the many charming effects on her absolutely stunning self. It's such a shame she got killed before her potential got fully utilized. While Kanao is adorable and charming, unlike Shinobu. She is not as fleshed out, and Kanoao's change was just jarring for me as a result. At least it seems like Tanjiro shippers got what they wanted. That's good and gave me at least some sense of comfort. But they seriously did my girl Shinobu so damn nasty. And Inousuke was by far the only interesting dude out of the main trio. But just like more or less anyone else, his growth was sloppy and not well executed. I wanna say that each of the Hashiras deserved more build-up than they got too.

Sadly, we only got something resembling a jittery backstory, and many were interesting, no doubt. Still, you could see that the author was in a rush to get back to the action. I think my favorite has to be Iguro's, which was seriously messed up. The way they tore his mouth to match that nightmare was a bit awkward and just a bit too much? But I definitely wanted him to bath in happiness after going through that tragic and scarring event. Also, that snake lady is damn nightmare-fuel. In just that one panel, she was much scarier than Muzan. I am not getting a wink of sleep tonight. I actually felt the chemistry between Iguro and Mitsuri. But once again, their relationship was not as sufficiently fleshed out or built-up like it should. It was still by far my favorite ship from Demon Slayer. So unlike most characters. I felt their death, but then that ending happened, and my suffering was for nothing.

So let's talk about the big bad of Demon Slayer. Muzan's so insufferable as a villain, and I cared little how the whole fight with him went. It was going places way too quickly. I didn't get enough time to absorb how much of a threat Muzan was since he was zig-zagging around places chopping up demon slayers left and right. But it didn't carry any weight or impact. It was obviously forced down upon us to make us feel frightened of Muzan. But I was like okay all the time. I have said it before that death is a pretty severe double-edged sword that can bite you in the back if one doesn't know how to use it well. This story throws that at us literally all the times like it's a tool to make the vibe heavy and suffocating. To tell you, the stakes are high. Anyone can drop dead, but it's pointless if you know it's going to happen, and when you barely have an emotional bond with the cast, it's not going to affect you as much. Plus, once it's used and the character dies.

We don't get time to process what just happened before we simply start moving to other things. It doesn't help either Muzan feels just like a joke with many loose screws in his already small brain. "I am like a natural disaster, so you shouldn't care if someone died" or something like that. I was seriously laughing out loud when those words came out of that freak's mouth. That's just a taste, so prepare to get your brain-cells eaten by Muzan stupidity. If you decide to read the story. To make Muzan truly scary, the author should've given him common sense and some level of intelligence. Simply, flaunting your powers around will only work for so long. For like the first time, when you know nothing about said individual. This goes for many things. But in this case, a villain's appearance is not the only thing matters to command respect or admiration. There's ideals, personality, of course, flaws, and more. Not to the point, it's all over the place. Those things just need to bounce off well with each other and not straight out devour each other.

What the hell happened to my boi Azaka? He was the best and the most entertaining villain in Demon Slayer. Too bad the guy's name, I don't even remember killed him, and I couldn't care less about him. Since he was just in that one arc and hardly felt well-established. We'll see how the anime film does his introduction and all that. I already hear the angry mob consisting of the Demon Slayer fans out there. Azaka was the best among all the demons and had the biggest amount of potential. I would've liked to see him be replaced with Tanjiro as a main, to be honest. Btw, Muzan's death scene was the most hilarious shit I have ever seen. There was a meme of how he turned into an actual baby. When we saw how Tanjiro just straight out denied to join the dark side and proceed to leave Muzan behind. That was kind of satisfying, not gonna lie. As the fool resorted to begging him and probably crying inside. That was good entertainment. We've waited a long time for Nezuko's return to human. But that whole scene was so bland and like whatever. I didn't feel any emotions coming out from that panel. Can we talk about how Giyuu and Tanjiro basically became the best bros? Still, it was never established with security or ingenuity in mind? It came from the left-field, just like most of the things in the story.

Finally, I want to just say that despite all the death scenes that came from literally nowhere. Simply reincarnating makes the situation much worse than it already is. Yes, those who died are not really alive, but calling it a coincidence as well is not the best thing. It makes the already shaky story filled to the brim with all kinds of issues just crumble to pieces. Let's not get started on how Tanjiro time and time again became stronger without any clues. That didn't feel wishy-washy, besides the obvious things like his hair and that mark on his head. The power system is really simple but effective and might be awkwardly written, but it does the job. That said, many of the characters' execution and how they went from zero-to-hundred was cheap and ineffective. I realized I have been simply focused on the character aspect, but the world-building was not there either. We don't even know many if any of the locations name. It all just seems so damn insignificant. One more thing I want to bring up is the author, Koyoharu, uses tell and show at the same time most annoyingly, so it makes reading through Demon Slayer boring and lame. Since we're already seeing much of the things that are happening in the drawings, therefore we don't need to go all bananas about the details. Just a light touch be more than enough.

I don't like drawing most of the time, either. The action is rough, and I can't properly see what's happening. I mentioned already that emotions don't get conveyed properly through facial expressions or behavior most of the time. There are rare occasions when we get some good eye-candy with details in the background and character art. It's not in the slightest the best artwork I have seen. But the author can draw once they put their mind to it. So I wonder if the author truly enjoyed writing Demon Slayer? I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought initially. It was all over the place, no sense of anything, and that final chapter was terrible. It simply focused on a new batch of characters and went nowhere with that. I would've liked to see some silver of world-building with details about how the world came-to-be after the demons were killed. Maybe see the public reaction to the events and properly tie all the damn loose ends. Being how the characters went from this to that and so forth. I also think Nezoku lost something when she returned back to human. Did she seriously marry Zenitsu? Overall, Demon Slayer is probably the worst shounen I have read in recent memories, if not ever so far. I enjoyed bits and pieces of the beginning. It had the potential to become slightly more. If only the author wasn't set by being satisfied by mere cheap thrills that last barley a few moments.