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This Week in Anime
Why Demon Slayer May Not Have 'Slayed' This Season

by Nicholas Dupree & Monique Thomas,

Has the series' recent successes exhausted its pacing this season? Maybe.

This series is streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation, Hulu, Netflix, and Viu.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.


@Lossthief @BeeDubsProwl @NickyEnchilada @vestenet

Nick
Nicky, I don't want to get too personal on here, but I've been dealing with some stuff that has caused me to seriously fall behind on my anime-watching this season.

So, I figure I'd better catch up fast. And what better place to start than to see how much has happened and changed in Demon Slayer? I'm sure I've missed so many new twists and characters since May.
Nicky
Well, there is a new character with a very twisty sword, and very twisty braids, that I love oh so very much!
Oh yeah, I remember her from the really long premiere. I imagine she's gotten up to a lot of cool things after that fight with those two upper moon villains.

That fight is over, right?

About that.....

See, Demon Slayer as a Shōnen Jump title getting the mega prestige treatment by ufotable is interesting. Seeing the liberties taken with the first season, I decided to check out the manga. This turned out to be pretty simple as Demon Slayer is very "compact". Completed at no more than 200 chapters, it has the same satisfaction of reading its ongoing counterparts without overstaying its welcome. The way the anime chose to expand the first season in both length and scale, making everything feel more grand and epic, and forging it into a megahit, was pretty astounding. The lush backgrounds and the swooping CG camera angles of the anime, and the simple character art and quick gags of the manga, pretty much feel like night and day.

Yeah, there's a lot to be said about how the anime has handled itself as an adaptation. Financially, it's been undeniably successful and generated more money than God, but that success has come with some tradeoffs that I've found questionable for a while and that I think have really come to a head in the Swordsmith Village arc.

Speaking plainly, I think the anime has stopped being an adaptation so much as a victory lap for the IP, and it has made this season kinda suck.

I feel like any problems with this season are just continuing problems from the last season. Mainly, I find it baffling that they decided to take arcs that are at best a couple of volumes long and transform them into whole seasons. The previous season, The Entertainment District Arc, felt waaaay bloated and really dragged out existing tension with the pacing. What worked in the first season or the movie—taking a slower pace and letting you sink into the setting, fleshing out the heated sword battles with special effects, and the sounds of a full orchestra blasting through each scene—really didn't work when it was obviously being used to stretch the source material. It was also definitely the weakest arc by my standards, even when I was reading the manga.

On that note, I'll add that I think The Swordsmith Village Arc might be my favorite arc in the manga, but as another short arc, it's a shame to see it plagued by the same issues.

I totally disagree with that. I found the Entertainment District way more compelling, mostly thanks to Uzui's fun personality. Meanwhile, I found this arc dragged even with the manga's brisk pace, so I was none too thrilled when the hour-long premiere made sure to pause for 10 seconds between every line of dialogue.
The premiere is the most obvious cash grab I've ever seen in a series. Half of it is, at most, a couple of pages worth of villain set-up, and the other half is Tanjiro waking up from a literal coma. It's highly over-edited, and knowing it was made to be put into theaters after the success of the movie only makes me feel cynical. It's not uncommon to air an anime's first few episodes for a limited Japanese theater run, but it was surprising to see CR advertising it stateside as well. Demon Slayer is the most popular anime airing right now, but I have to wonder how much hype is acceptable when the cost is just slathering paint over what is otherwise something intended to be more mundane and functional.
It's also just a disservice to the source material. In the manga, it's not a big deal that the villains' personalities are pretty flat and most of their dialogue is exposition because it's a speedy scene that doesn't overstay its welcome. Here, the amount of time and emphasis demands that you pay attention, and that makes it all the more obvious how simple everything that's happening is.
They even cast Mamoru Miyano as my favorite upper moon, Doma, but even he can't save this stuff from feeling jarring since all his scenes are just supposed to be brief set-ups for the next season.
It certainly doesn't help that the two villains we do get this season are more gimmicks than actual characters.

On the one hand, it makes sense to pair up the weakest personalities and take them both out at once. On the other hand, that means this whole season has us dealing with the C-team.
I feel like a more moderate-budget adaptation probably would've made last season and this season each a half-season, maybe with a little extra when you also include the televised version of the movie. My feelings about this arc overall haven't changed, but part of that comes from my perspective of seeing them as pieces of a larger whole. I think this arc works really well in setting up pieces of Demon Slayer's bigger themes, and one of them is the focus on art or craftsmanship.
I mean, those ideas are present in... parts of this season, I guess. It makes sense since this is all happening in the swordsmith village, and one of the villains is obsessed with his "art" of making monsters. However, those also feel like afterthoughts when so much of this season is dedicated to the same repetitive fighting (and fighting... and fighting...) that made up 80% of last season.
And I'd say it's easier to see the bigger picture when I could read this whole arc in an afternoon compared to having to sit down for a whole season. I don't mind seeing cool actions, as they are the bread and butter of shōnen, but the weirdo fish monsters aren't nearly as cool and scary when they're in CG,
Action is still about drama. A fight can look as cool as it wants to, but it also needs to build upon or tell a story to be memorable. Demon Slayer does that, but the stories it tells are simple and straightforward. Guy A wants to kill Guy B, and has to figure out what his deal is or get a new power to do that. It's a perfectly serviceable formula for episodic battles that last around 10 minutes or so—but not as much when two fights take up an entire season of television. There are only so many times I can see Tanjiro cut the same demon with his sword before I start to check out.
Yeah, which is why I think it works fine in the manga where some of it is supposed to be that way. But even in the manga, not every blow is trying to be a climax moment of storytelling.
Like, the exploding blood sword thing is cool. It's a neat combo of Tanjiro's special breathing and Nezuko's powers. It's a great way to finish off the villain—which is why it's so annoying that it's a false conclusion and we're right back to fighting the same guys for another 3 episodes.
Having unlocked a new level of power last season, Nezuko technically does more in this arc than she did before, but somehow it doesn't feel as impactful.

I also would have liked it if the anime could have had another moment to sit with the absurdity of Genya, the guy who brought a gun to a sword fight, but it's hard to fully invest in some of the moments as intended when it's selling a whole store's worth of moments.
We'll get to Taisho Era Bakugo in a minute, but I think Nezuko's role is worth talking about. Like, after begging for two seasons to let Nezuko out of that box, I kind of feel like an asshole complaining that she still doesn't have much presence. Yet, as I went through this season, I had to keep reminding myself that she was here. Maybe that's just because she can't talk, and Tanjiro spends 80% of this fight explaining the obvious to the audience.


Seriously, Dora the Explorer respects my understanding of object permanence more than this kid does.
Yeah, and some of that exists in the source material too (I said this was my favorite arc, not a perfect one). Of all the things I wanted to see improved was for Hantengu's scenes to be fleshed out more, but I didn't mean that every beat takes an eternity.
I honestly wish they had taken that course. The anime has been willing to flesh out things like Rui's family in the Spider Mountain arc, and with such simple villains and supporting cast, that could have worked great here. Instead, things get stretched out, often by having characters explain every damn thing that happens, no matter how self-evident it was.
Ironically, I ended up understanding things about Hantengu's gimmick more in the anime, but only because I have become a bigger nerd in the past three years. Or maybe it's just because seeing everything on screen helped me click that the word "emotions" (Kidoairaku) they're using is supposed to be a compound word that can wholly be read as "joy and anger" (the first two demons that split), with each of the four separate kanji representing joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure as they appear after being chopped up a second time. The colors helped; these four human emotions are actually super important to traditional Japanese visual arts and theater. Does it make the fight more interesting? No. Do I feel smarter now? Yes. Do I feel dumber for not getting it before when I was reading it years ago? Also, yes.
It's a perfectly fine gimmick for a fight, but it also means our big bads for this half of the story are intentionally one-dimensional, which means they're simply bodies to be sliced up and powers for our heroes to endure. That could be alright if the heroes had something going on. But at this point, Tanjiro is just a bloodhound with a sword, and Genya's defining traits are being "loud" and having "bad trigger discipline."

And, like, I should love Genya. I adore loud assholes compensating for their insecurity through tsun-tsun hostility. I love hearing Nobuhiko Okamoto holler. Yet, here I am, wishing he'd just stop talking so the fight could finish faster.
Tanjiro's best moments aren't when he's fighting either; he shines when he's playing off others, catching them off guard with his inhumanly, overly polite, and precious cinnamon roll demeanor. He also has no other faults, so you really need other characters around to maintain balance, and there isn't much interaction during the fights.
He's Barney the Dinosaur with a cool scar at this point since we've apparently abandoned that whole thread about him sympathizing with demons, right down to handing out elementary-school-level advice.

Throw in a song where he teaches Nezuko her ABCs, and we've got ourselves the world's bloodiest PBS show.
I mean, I remember seeing reports among teachers about how big Demon Slayer was with their students, including preschoolers, which didn't shock me given how kids are technically the intended demographic for shōnen series—and because of the constant decapitations, broken bones, and a guy who literally turns helpless villagers into mangled human sculptures like he's trying to impress Hannibal.
Personally, the most upsetting thing about that guy is his terrible design. Like, I know what they were going for, but the mouth-eyes just don't work. He looks like a Jojo's stand drawn with the artist's non-dominant hand. Worse, he's another character who never shuts the hell up.

Good! You should feel inferior! You're the worst villain in this show, and your main competition looks like a broken thumb!
I actually think the weird vase creature is my second favorite villain in the series, but I'm particularly weak for the gimmick here, especially how it relates to the other major character, the Mist Hashira named Tokito, and what all the demons in the series want.
You're going to have to enlighten me on that one, because my brain started tuning out his dialogue around the time he spent, like, two episodes trying to troll Haganezuka.
Okay, so it's been established that the main reason others become demons is to, of course, escape death, or more specifically, to overcome the inherent "transience" associated with human mortality. This is why every demon sees every human as inferior because no one with such a short life could ultimately amount to anything. Gyokko's obsession with art is part of an overall extension of trying to create something long-lasting and permanent, using craftsmen as his victims. It is supposed to be highly ironic because finding beauty in inevitability and nothingness is the keystone of traditional Japanese aesthetics that Demon Slayer is drawing from.
Alright, I can track that much, but it seems like a rather broad theme to pair up against Tokito, whose whole deal involves the aforementioned Sesame Street moral that helping people is good. It doesn't really tie well into his tragic flashback, where the moral is that he has special blood and is just way stronger than our villain.
Well, Tokito has to do with understanding his element. The stoic anime dude is a pretty common archetype, but it fits as "Mist" is supposed to be about being detached, including in the spiritual sense. Tokito doesn't really argue with the villain because he doesn't have a good idea of how people's lives should be valued, including his own. Early on, he tries to sort out who in the village he should save based on their value to the Demon Slayer Corps, but quickly abandons that due to Tanjiro's goodest boy influence.
And that's fine and all, but it's not complex enough to really carry a multi-episode fight, let alone Tokito getting stuck in a water ball for three episodes.
Tokito finding beauty in his own inherent human nothingness (mu) that also has the potential to be infinite probably would've stuck better if it was fewer episodes and there weren't such huge breaks between each fight. It takes eight whole episodes to get to the reason we should actually care!
And even then, it's tangled up in this lengthy, layered flashback that just makes it all go on even longer. I know I keep harping on the pacing, but it sucked so much fun out of these battles. These just aren't strong enough characters or conflicts to prop up an entire season, and it's not helped by the fact that one of our two Hashira is MIA for most of the season.
The tensest conflict for me is the guy who won't stop fucking honing the goddamn sword and pissing off the poser demon artist with his dedication.
The man knows what he's about, and he has spent the least amount of screen time shouting and/or explaining the obvious to me, so Hanegazuka gets the MVP this season.
I also think that for as much potential as Demon Slayer's source has to inspire meaning and pathos, similar to how the adaptation wanes the battles, there are diminishing returns when everything becomes a big emotional moment.
Personally, my least favorite part is the need to shove Rengoku into everybody's motivation. Like, I'm sorry, guys, I know you want him to be the All Might of this story, but he died before we actually saw him talk to half of these people.
He gets paid so much in royalties for each appearance, though, Nick. His mere presence generates so much cash money.
I'm just tired of seeing this dude, okay? It's gotten to the point where Kanroji's flashback, while basic and kinda silly, was a breath of fresh air because He Of The Goofy Eyebrows never showed up.
Kanroji's good. Her motivation to find a dude stronger than her is dumb, but she's actually similar to Tokito in that she associates her own "strength," or uniqueness, with deep loneliness and alienation from other people. She's also just a joy to watch and be around. I'll give the anime credit where it's due to say that the way they animate her ribbon-like sword is really impressive.
I do wish that Kanroji's problems were a little more... I dunno, believable? Because the whole reasoning behind why men don't want to marry her is kind of dumb, even by traditionalist bullshit standards. Oh no, this woman is strong but has no visible muscle mass. She eats a lot and has pink hair. I definitely haven't seen dozens of harem anime where one of the girls had that exact description.
She's basically a true believer of kawaii culture, which many shit-dudes would find uncouth and off-putting, but by anime standards, is cute.
This lady is the biggest source of fanservice in the entire show. We introduced her boob-first in the season premiere. You gotta work really hard for me to buy this. At least draw her with some actual muscle definition!

Also, this is Demon Slayer. I refuse to believe anybody would balk at her hair. We've seen the parade of weirdos that inhabit this universe.
It wrecked my disbelief a little. It's rare for anyone to comment on it when most times it's assumed that anime characters' appearances are mere abstractions. It's like telling someone they're breathing manually.
Anyway, the actual point of her story is that the Demon Slayer Corps has given her a place where she's appreciated for her unique powers of being strong and pink, which is also fine but cannot carry a whole episode. And yeah, her sword is cool to see in action.
I'm not always the biggest buyer of Demon Slayer's dorky sense of humor. Some of it is overly precious or doesn't land well. Anime tends to play it up too much when some moments should be more understated. But I had a better time paying attention during the downtime moments than having everything on full-blast ufotable treatment. The Demon Slayer anime's problems can be summed up as an embarrassment of riches. As an adaptation, it's both excessively reverent of its source, but in a way that doesn't get why some of the more basic stuff works for being basic. The manga has a genuine sense of humbleness to it, but now, it's hard to look at Demon Slayer without seeing the large looming shadow of its success. I don't think it's unwatchable, but I'd rather people check out the manga than sit down for multiple bloated seasons of the same thing, depending on how you perceive the payoff. Still, I'm curious to see how the final arc will go, so I'll probably stick to the anime until the end.
Demon Slayer is like The Ramones. It's best when it is fast, simple, and wears its heart on its sleeve. Being dragged out and presented as an earth-shattering phenomenon every week, opening and closing every season with extra-long episodes to mark the occasion, all that stuff just highlights the material's weaknesses and loses the strengths that helped it become so big in the first place. Which, I guess, in this metaphor means ufotable is the Phil Spector of anime. Instead of a wall of sound, it's a wall of post-processed digital effects.
While there are still some positive things I could say about it if I had the time, I'm sure there'll be many differing opinions given Demon Slayer's popularity. I'm curious about how much of these problems are perceptible to anime-only fans, and whether pacing issues really bother some people as they do to us. Even between me and Nick, our perceptions about a story and what makes it effective can really differ. Did any of our readers feel the noticeable differences between the anime and the manga? Whether you loved this season or felt disappointed by it, tell us why in the comments!
I think we already have our first one, actually:
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