In sharp contrast with Mix, a story I know intimately, I go into Kimetsu no Yaiba knowing almost nothing specific.  And to an extent that’s by design – after the anime was announced and the premiere crept closer and closer and I still hadn’t checked out the manga, the idea of going in totally cold turkey was increasingly appealing.  I know the basic premise, I know Togashi Yoshihiro is a fan (supposedly – I haven’t seen the actual interview) and I know ufotable being chosen for this sort of shounen anime was kind of a big deal.  And that was about it.

On balance I’d have to say my plan worked out fine, because I liked the premiere quite a lot.  And while I didn’t know any story details not much that happened in it surprised me, which fits with my broad impression of Kimetsu no Yaiba as a very traditional shounen fantasy that slants towards execution over innovation.  One more thing I do know is that this series is quite popular – a couple of notches below the likes of Boku no Hero Academia and a notch below Yakusoku no Neverland, but nevertheless one of Weekly Shounen Jump’s more important next gen franchises.

If one had any doubts about that, the presence of ufotable should quell them – this is not a studio a production committee will generally go with when budgets are tight.  If you were worried that a series like this would be taxing for them, there’s no signs of it in the premiere, which looks pretty great.  Yes, there’s a lot of CGI but one thing that makes ufotable stand out is that their CGI is very well-integrated.  And the character animation is almost all traditional, thank goodness.  It’s all unmistakably a ufotable project – one doesn’t necessarily realize how much of a signature style they have until reminded of it.

The hero of the piece is Kamado Tanjirou (Hanae Natsuki) and he makes a positive first impression.  Tanjirou lives with his mother and five younger siblings in the mountains, acting as their protector in the absence of their deceased father.  He has a big scar on his forehead and a superhuman sense of smell, neither of which are explained in the premiere.  What is explained is that there are oni in this world, man-eaters who haunt the woods at night.  And once the old man with whom Tanjirou spends the night after a trip to town to sell charcoal relates this tale to him, it’s obvious what he’s going to find when he returns home.

This was in many ways the classic setup episode – introduce the protagonist, set up the event which upends his life and sends him on his quest, and watch him take his first halting steps.  The premise too is pretty classic – man-eating youkai, demon hunters, a human turned into a demon but retaining part of their humanity.  In lesser hands this could be at best routine and at worst tedious, but Goyohouge Koyoharu (still a relative rarity as a female mangaka with a WSJ series turned into an anime) seems to have a very sure hand with the material, and the execution on the anime side is thus far elegant and stylish.

So far we’ve met the aforementioned sister Nezuko (Kitou Akari), the lone survivor of Tanjirou’s family but now a demon, and demon slayer Tomioka Giyuu (Sakurai Takahiro, perceptibly too old for the role), but there are other main characters still to be introduced as I understand it.  That’s fine – the premiere does its job well.  Tanjirou is clearly possessed of some notable abilities and comes off as very likeable, and the world-building is effective enough to make us feel like we know the lay of the land.  Especially considering that shounen action series tend to be slow starters, this was quite encouraging, and I’m more than interested enough to stick with Kimetsu no Yaiba and see how fertile this well-cultivated ground turns out to be.