Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Swordsmith Village Arc
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Cryten
 Posts: 1019 |
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You know, I did not think my earlier reminences about how many demon heritage themes would turn out to be this season most obvious foreshadowing. It seems clear to me that the obvious point from the original run of the series is now going to be the final arcs major revelation. That is gonna be a bit of a let down. Just how vague its trying to be with: *shock face* that is a demon crest! is amusing me. When it is soo obvious how demon blighted all the upper level demon slayers families are.
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ZiharkXVI
Posts: 368 |
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I mean if anyone is still reading these reviews thinking you might get a fair look at DS, the train left the station long time ago (i know he has said he likes DS in the past, but i mean, sometimes folks aren't honest with themselves - i used to be baffled by what he said in the reviews). Stopped reading them last season. I love DS, but I don't dwell on those who dislike it. It's not just the animation. The story is good as well - but it's not for everyone. Just enjoy what you enjoy. Clearly DS fans aren't starving for their genre of choice. A lot of folks are fans.
This season seems low stakes given what we had last season, but if you know what's coming...you appreciate it a lot more. |
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Everlasting Coconut
 Posts: 298 |
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Yeah, this is supposed to be Tokito and Mitsuri's arc, but Mitsuri's role here always felt like an awkwardly shoved in footnote to me, even if the anime made some changes here and there to make her more prominent. I also didn't really like her backstory since, at the end of the day, she's still a conventionally cute anime girl, and the things that people judged her for felt pretty arbitrary considering a) half the characters in this show have weird anime hair b) she may be ridiculously strong, but she still has a petite body. That's silly. Why not just make her buff? (don't answer that, we all know why). And lastly, nothing was really done with the obvious love-hatred parallels between Mitsuri and Hantengu, which really confuses me. Yet, despite all the criticism, I also agree that this was the best episode of the season. It's the magical girl vibes for me, you know? Seeing cute girls beating the shit out of deadbeats with the power of love and friendship never gets old. |
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Guy Tizio
Posts: 58 |
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But the other characters have no drama of Mitsuri's nature. There is talk of characters who have seen their family members die at the hands of demons (Tokito) or have experienced family dramas of a different nature (e.g. the premature loss of his mother and the consequent chilling of relations with his father for him Rengoku) With Mitsuri the thing is different, because she hasn't suffered deaths or traumas, what distinguishes her from the other DSs seen so far is the fact that the freak element that doesn't make her able to live a normal life is really her, not the others. Furthermore, you also have to consider how women were viewed in Japan even up until a few decades ago. Someone like Mitsuri in the Taisho period is simply out of place. |
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Cryten
Posts: 1019 |
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As far as I can tell everyone talking about Mitsuri has included considerations for how traditional Japanese society views her and how she was unwilling to accept that role in the end. So much so that such a fact is not even contested in any counter points of view.
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SinisterOracle
Posts: 237 |
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I enjoyed the first season of Demon Slayer. I thought it was pretty well done overall. But since Mugen Train, it’s been going downhill. Sure, some of the animation and fight scenes look great, with a few looking phenomenal, but that’s about it. The pacing (and so far the story) is absolute hot garbage. The generic formula used to tell the storylines each season has gotten old. And 75-85% of the characters are so nerve grating and annoying AF that I wish someone would cut their tongues out so they could never speak or yell or be overly dramatic or say something incredibly stupid ever again. I usually agree with all of James’s criticisms and critiques of the show. It’s a shame nobody from the production bothers to read them. Anyway, I most certainly will be dropping this series after next week’s finale.
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Everlasting Coconut
Posts: 298 |
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What I'm getting at is that the fact that she's designed to be a stereotipically cute anime girl directly undermines the point the show is trying to make about Mitsuri being out of place. A woman who is ridiculously strong and a voracious eater would definitely be out of place in the Taisho period. So why not design her like that? If they want me to believe that she doesn't fit the traditional beauty standards, why make her petite and curvaceous? The answer is that this is a story aimed at young boys, so making her buff or overweight or anything that doesn't actually fit the standard was a no from the get go. As for the hair, as I said, singling her out because of that feels arbitrary since half the caracters in this world have weirdly coloured anime hair. Off the top of my head: Rengoku, Tokito, Shinobu, Inosuke, Tengen, angry wind boy, master's wife and daughters, that ghost boy at the beginning of the show, etc. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2341 |
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I hope the double-length finale is, like, >90% fight choreography, <10% explicitly narrating obvious things. I will begin crossing my fingers now.
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Davy Sprocket
 Posts: 24 |
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Half the charatcer you listed have black hair with a few highlights. The ones that don't are blonde and grey/white hair. Not really comparable to Mitsuri's bright pink and neon green. Mitsuri looks very exotic even compared to the other characters. She looks like a modern-era Kogal. There's plenty of other media if you want that safe-horny 'muscle/thick girl' stuff, but most people are going to stick to cute and attractive character designs because it's what we like and find appealing. It's not like there's not plenty of scrawny male character wielding giant swords like Cloud Strife out there, or big eaters like Goku and Luffy who are super skinny and not overweight despite eating a truck load of food. But even a beautiful looking person can be a turn off with the way they act or behave. Pigging out, super strength, and other habits can be a turn off for some people if they're expecting a woman to act more lady-like. Even a beautiful woman is going to turn some people off if she just starts shoveling food into her mouth and gorging. |
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Everlasting Coconut
Posts: 298 |
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Me too, I also find it appealing. As I said, I'm all for cute magical girls beating the bad guys while doing acrobatics. But if the entire point of your character is that she doesn't fit beauty standards, actually stick to that premise and don't chicken out. Ironically, what you call "safe-horny" would actually be the "risky" option in this case. As for the hair, I don't see why it's not comparable. If you told me someone was born with hair like this, I'd certainly find it strange and out of place. At the end of the day, it seems to boil down to "everyone has weird hair, but Mitsuri's happens to be a little weirder", so I'm not gonna argue further on that point since we'd just be going in circles |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2154 |
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I haven't watched past S1 myself, so all I know of Mitsuri is what I briefly saw there and have read in the present discourse, but…
Yeah, her character design can be rationalized, but (A) anime and manga are visual media and (B) while women are held to all sorts of arbitrary standards, looks are probably the biggest component. A visibly bulky and muscular version of Mitsuri would convey her circumstances far more immediately, vividly, and sympathetically -- and make for a more distinctive and memorable character design. |
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gumbaloom
Posts: 275 |
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Final episode just aired
Hashira tracing arc as a TV anime Wtf?!!’?!?!     
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gumbaloom
Posts: 275 |
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It’s like 9 manga chapters
3 or 4 episode series ?!?!?! |
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Everlasting Coconut
Posts: 298 |
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Look, Nezuko finally had a meaningful moment of agency! spoiler[Time to completely remove her from the story until the very end.]
In all seriousness, it's nice and fitting that Nezuko regained her humanity via the ultimate act of self-sacrifice. Other than that, there's not much to praise in this finale. The source material was stretched out so much in order to fit the 50 minute runtime that it felt comical at times. The 5-minute chase at the beginning was painful, and then they went all out with the slow motion 
Apart from Nezuko withstanding the sun, the one other thing worth mentioning is Muzan's backstory, which is... functional, I guess? It doesn't really make sense, but I give it a pass since I don't care much about the lore. I just like Muzan. He's a good ol' traditional villain. I will say that I have mixed feelings about placing his flashback right at the end of the arc. While it raises the stakes and gives us a hook for the next season, it was awkward to drop the main villain's backstory and a ton of exposition right after the emotional height and resolution of the arc. All in all, my thoughts on Demon Slayer remain the same since I first started watching it. It's pretty basic, boring, and generic, but it has a heart here and there, and the sakuga is always nice, so I'll keep watching it. |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2341 |
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I'm kind of ambivalent about this. spoiler[Fridging Nezuko to further Tanjiro's development wouldn't have felt great, exactly, but at least it would have generated some earned emotion. What they actually did feels to me more like cheap emotional manipulation; the story wanted the tragedy of a Nezuko death without being able to commit to it meaningfully.] |
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