Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Swordsmith Village Arc
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BurlySaiyanGod
Posts: 2 |
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Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and can agree or disagree as well. I have shared my thoughts but that was early on the season. We are over 60% in and I can see where critics are coming from. I agree with some of them, and that is this arc, in particular, has not shown the sequential buildup as in past seasons. Is also possible that due to past seasons, and Tanjiro's adventures with the crew, this is the first one that has not used that formula or pace. But arguably, is entirely possible this arc is not resonating with many because the original supporting cast, Zenitsu and Inosuke, are absent. They are replaced with the the Village.
I'm taking this arc one episode at a time. I'm interpreting this arc very differently. This is the first time we seen Tanjiro not needing help as he did in past seasons. You can see his experience as a Demon Slayer is showing, and is adapting incredibly quick. He can smell them faster, he can adapt to their moves, and he can react super quick than before. It is clear to me this season is all about Tanjiro. And for that, I have enjoyed it. No right or wrong answers. Just thoughts and opinions. And everyone is entitled to one. |
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Hal14
 Posts: 665 Location: Heart of africa |
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Welcome to the internet. Seriously, do you think you're making a profound revelation? Do you think people don't already conflate ANN and any other review site under one umbrella? Any website with more than one writer is aware that this happens. In fact, any group or organization or sports team, etc. It is a non-concern because it will happen no matter what the group does. The preview guide literally points out that they have multiple writers to provide alternate takes, but people still take to social media to say ANN hates a new show when only one preview was negative because context does not exist online. Even if ANN reviewed OP negatively, you or somebody else would select another review to compare DS reviews against and claim inconsistency, despite being by different reviewers. Also, you'd say they hate all shounen/mainstream shows because they're "out of touch with the common man". |
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mooseV01
Posts: 176 |
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It is what it is. No one in 2023 takes professional reviewers and journalists seriously, anyway. There’s a clear disconnect between them and the general public. User scores are a far better metric to gauge the quality of something. |
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Gem-Bug
 Posts: 1204 |
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Well, I hate to break it to you, but this is a thread to talk about reviews, by a reviewer, for a series. It's cool that you hate it, or disagree with the reviewer's take or whatever, but you don't need to keep telling us. Move on. |
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 1390 |
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Or y'know, you could just experience things and form your own opinions. Then maybe you could even express them yourself, possibly even have discussions with other people engaging with what you're watching. That to me sounds like a way more worthwhile time than worrying about a numerical score. |
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The Anime Binge-Watcher
 Posts: 89 |
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"User scores are a far better metric to judge the quality of something."
So, does anyone want to tell Mr/Ms MooseV01 about review bombing? Or coordinated votes? Or any of the countless things that small groups of dedicated internet users might do to manipulate user scores away from what the general public might thing? Shit, every year there's another minor controversy around some MAL users tanking the scores of popular shows in order to keep FMA Brotherhood in the number 1 spot. Not to mention the many, many, MANY ""woke"" properties that had their user scores brigaded by bigots angry at the presence of women and minorities. Calling user scores an accurate screenshot of popular opinion, in the year of our lord 2023, strikes me as painfully naive as best. Anyway, the funny thing is I think I've been enjoying Swordsmith Village far more than the previous two arcs. I think the fact it isn't even trying to take itself that seriously, as opposed to the stifling and cheap pathos of Mugen Train and Entertainment District, makes it easier for me to stomach it as just dumb popcorn entertainment. Plus it helps that Zenitsu is completely absent from my screen. I will cherish his time in the wings as long as it lasts. I do hope Mitsuri gets to actually do something, though. She's in the OP and everything, it would be pretty lame if the only female Hashira only exists for a boob joke at the beginning of the arc and fighting a few random jobbers. |
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PumpkinMouse
 Posts: 80 |
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For all that I’ve enjoyed the improvements the show has made over the manga—clearer fights and choreography, more of Nezuko helping in said fights—the anime’s pacing slowed to a crawl with Muichiro getting bubbled despite that subplot feeling much faster in the manga. There are also smaller instances, like when Nezuko powered up Tanjiro’s sword with her blood, where I can see the anime stretching what was originally one or two small panels into a longer scene, and it just adds to the dragging sensation of the plot.
The manga overall suffers from a bad tendency to poorly inject narration to explain a situation, and it generally feels clumsy there, where I can speed-read to minimize the time spent on detours away from the plot or the action. In an anime, those detours feel downright sluggish. Demon Slayer is also done no favors, personally, by following on the heels of the sixth season of My Hero Academia, which hit the ground running and rarely stepped on the brakes for the better part of the season. I plan to keep watching Demon Slayer because I love cinnamon roll shonen protagonists and fun action scenes, and I’m particularly excited for certain scenes coming up in this season and future seasons, but I’m watching it with an awareness that I’m not enjoying this season as much as previous seasons. |
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Cryten
 Posts: 987 |
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In my opinion the above is quite a good summary of Demon Slayer in its current position.
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18182 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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While I do think user scores have some value, I always take them with a grain of salt when it comes to media, partly for the reasons that The Anime Binge-Watcher spelled out. Also, the bulk of public media raters seem to take an attitude of "it engaged/entertained me, so I'll give it a max rating" about episodes or titles as a whole. (This is more pronounced on some sites than others; for instance, on CR, a user rating below 4.4/5 is uncommon at best.) I expect more from an evaluation than "entertaining = great." As for this series, while I don't always agree with James, I don't think he's being at all unfair with the most recent episode. The last few episodes have dragged badly, and yes, for as pretty as the series looks, it is quite firmly mired in more classical shonen action tropes and gimmicks, and not in a good way. In particular, the writing either has no idea what to do with female characters or is deliberately limiting them so the guys don't get upstaged too much, and quite probably both. And yes, other major shonen series out there are way more notorious about dragging things out than this one, but that doesn't mean it's not a problem here, too. Demon Slayer has shown that, at its best, it can be one of the best action series in recent years. This season is not DS at its best. |
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MyMasterMatthew
Posts: 118 |
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Don't forget about Shinobu. Although, to be fair, she's done very little in the story, so I can understand why she might be forgettable. Well, to be more precise, she's done very little on the battlefield. She's the only Hashira we've spent time with that hasn't gone to battle with Tanjiro and friends. |
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Cryten
Posts: 987 |
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So is everyone gonna have some kind of demon blood descent power up mark now?
No need to answer just speculating since this arcs theme seems to be demon ancestory. What with Tanjiro and Nezuko's power ups, the Bakugo demon slayer lad being recruited after one of his parents was a demon and now quite possibly Muichiro. I see two possible angles, either his father having Tanjiro eyes indicates a branch family of each other, or simply they are descendants of the demon slayers primary family, which seem to be very demon blighted. All guess work. It seems like a given that everyone gets a tragic back story to justify themselves. It is a bit hard to be moved by it after so many others have done the same thing. On a side note this episode had a rare moment of the Ufotable CG work giving me an uncanny valley feeling. It was the shiney glossy leaves in the sweeping shots. The scene just shouted THIS IS ALL CG. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2294 |
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I kinda broke out into laughter in the middle of the maudlin backstory.  When he was like 1/3 of the way into his story and piped up with, "I wasn't alone. I had a twin", I just couldn't handle it; Demon Slayer really thinks subtlety is a demon it has to slay. 
Dug the fight scenes, though. Really where DS shines. |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2112 |
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Mathematically, should we say "100% More Demons", or "Infinitely More Demons"? |
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SinisterOracle
Posts: 182 |
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The main thing I took away from “The 'Mu' in Muichiro” was there were a **** ton of leaves falling in the forest during that flashback scene, yet there wasn’t the slightest indication of any breeze shown. *shrugs*
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Guy Tizio
Posts: 58 |
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But I think it's clear that they are stretching it because they want the season to cover the whole fight with the two Upper Moons and that's it.
If it had been a longer season, we probably would have had a faster adaptation, like at the beginning of the season, where the first episode covered the five chapters. To understand, the others all cover two or three chapters per episode. Muichiro's flashback could very well have covered half the episode instead most of it. Looking at the episode I'd say it's clear that there are several elongated scenes compared to the manga. |
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