I’m of the opinion that 2019 was a particularly dismal year for anime. To be fair, I haven’t seen all the hugely praised stuff yet, so it’s possible I’ll warm up to the year as a whole once I get a fuller picture of it. But from what I’ve experienced thus far, it’s been really miserable. Disappointment after disappointment, promising show after promising show failing to live up to its potential, and even lots of the 2019 anime everyone fell in love with really didn’t click with me. Fire Fore wasted oodles of talent on some of the worst writing and directing I’ve seen in a long time. Dororo was pretty great at its best, but also uneven as hell from start to finish. Dr. Stone won everyone else’s hearts but I couldn’t ignore the obvious flaws in its presentation, and honestly, I think my opinion on it has only soured as time’s gone on. One Punch Man’s second season was probably the biggest second-season downgrade since Psycho-Pass, and then Psycho-Pass one-upped it right back with its worst installment yet. Not to mention the conversation and marketing hype that made a smash hit out of Shield Hero, one of the most viscerally unpleasant, harmfully selfish occurrences I’ve seen befall this community. Even the still-reliable My Hero Academia feels like it’s downgraded substantially after its masterpiece of a third season. And, of course, there was the utter tragedy that befell Stars Align, a potential masterpiece that could have truly placed a new landmark for anime, crippled by corporate bullshit and forced to air only half-finished. You couldn’t get more existentially depressing if you tried, especially after the utter triumph of a year that was anime in 2018.

So in a way, Demon Slayer letting me down too makes a very sad kind of sense. The biggest breakout hit of anime in 2019, a massively popular show with everyone’s well-wishes and the efforts of an absurdly talented studio behind it, a shonen smash that’s promising to become just as much a mainstay of the popular conception of anime as MHA in the modern era, that only just last night went so far as to win Anime of the Year at the Crunchyroll awards? Of course it was never gonna live up to the hype. Of course it would fall short of truly being special time and time again, stumbling over its own two feet every time it looked like it was actually gonna pull through. I’ve wondered in the past if I’m turning into an anime hipster, but man, I’ve never felt as disillusioned with the state of the community at large than I have with Demon Slayer. I can only hope this feeling doesn’t last, because I don’t want to ever stop loving what this incredible medium is capable of.

To be clear, I wouldn’t go so far as to call Demon Slayer a bad show. Far from it, in fact; the only reason it’s able to be such a crushing disappointment is that you can easily see all the ways it comes so damn close to working. The action is consistently kickass, with killer kinetic camerawork and eye-poppingly gorgeous stylistic effects that make each clash of steel and blood feel like a painting in motion. Plus, the extra visceral kick from the body horror of the demons themselves can be giddily nasty, loading each fight with a real sense of tension and menace. Ufotable’s crack team of animators keeps the production consistent all the way through, with few dips in quality to speak of. And at its core, the story of Tanjirou’s incredible empathy against the forces of darkness is really fucking solid. There’s genuine gravitas to his journey, powerful emotion behind his determination to never give up on reaching out and believing in the best of everyone, no matter how painful it gets or how difficult it is to believe in. Sure, the mechanics of the story are fairly boilerplate shonen- A kid in early-20th-century Japan has his family slaughtered by a demon and trains to become a demon slayer to fine a cure for his now-demonified sister- but as shows like Blue Exorcist and My Hero Academia have proven time and time again, a well-worn formula done well can still delight and amaze you no matter how many times you see it. There are all the making of a classic in Demon Slayer, all the potential to be something truly special that would earn its astounding popularity a million times over.

But as much as I want to love this show, as many of its pieces speak to me, it just doesn’t hold together with the polish it needs. As beautiful as the action is, the disconnect between Ufotable’s photorealistic backgrounds and the hyperstylized characters and effects never truly goes away. The moment-to-moment pacing can be awkward and stilted, making the already-unnatural dialogue feel even less genuine. There’s no marriage between its light and darkness, no moment where the over-the-top attempts at comedy, snarling villains, and pop-art sensibilities exist in the same world as the sorrow of Tanjirou’s empathy and the sadness he fights to overcome. As a result, you’re constantly getting tonal whiplash, thrown between moments of genuine pathos and attempts at gags so poorly integrated it feels like they take place in an entirely different show. Every scene is full of a million little distractions that add up and cripple your ability to truly immerse yourself in this world, and the writing on its own just isn’t strong enough to cover for that deficiency. And when it sucks, it really fucking sucks. I still can’t get Zenitsu’s mind-numbing screeches out of my head no matter how hard I try. And all that wonderful emotional work and haunting spectacle can only crash up against this impenetrable wall of imperfection, trying so hard to break through but never having enough power behind its punches to truly do so.

Demon Slayer isn’t a bad show. Compared to some of the worst shows of 2019, it might as well be a masterpiece. But it’s perfectly indicative of what a sorrowful dead zone for anime 2019 was, a mediocre attempt at greatness that just can’t pull together no matter how hard it tries. Thankfully, it ends strong enough to give me hope for the franchise’s future: maybe there’s still a chance for it all to matter in the end. Maybe as we leave 2019 behind and step into the already-lightyears-better 2020, this show can finally come into its own and become what it always had the potential to be. Frankly, far stranger things have happened in the anime world, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up genuinely liking Demon Slayer as a whole when all is said and done. For now, though, its first season remains a frustrating, tentative, almost-remarkable experience that leaves me eternally sad at what might have been.