Mostly fight, a little flashback. That’s a pretty common Kimetsu no Yaiba formula, and it’s not surprising to see the series return to it over and over. These flashbacks rarely do much for me – I’m just tired of the endless maudlin Tanjirou ones, and as for the stuff like Uzui’s flashback this week, they seem to have a common problem. To wit, it’s kind of lazy storytelling – a push-button attempt to make us care about the character after the fact. It would be much more effective to develop these characters organically, but that would require a level of writing Kimetsu doesn’t always seem to have.
I haven’t been following the chatter about this series so much, but I sort if wonder of the whole Uzui backstory got called out for its rather sexist undertones, either then or now. That’s a whole can of worms I don’t necessarily want to open, because Kimetsu is broadly speaking a pretty sexist work (that the mangaka is a woman is irrelevant to that), from imouto in a box on up. But if we’re honest with ourselves, most battle shounen is pretty sexist (and if that’s changing it’s happening very, very slowly), and KnY is hardly the worst offender. There’s the historical context too of course – polygamy was still legal in Japan during this time period.
Still, for the record I think the whole Uzui-wives dynamic is pretty squicky and the way Hinatsuru’s role in the battle plays out is part of that. It’s not Kimetsu’s finest hour, but hey, it’s battle shounen and pretty much par for the course. As with Rengoku this ex post facto heartstring tugging isn’t doing much for mine, and things don’t really begin to engage until the focus shifts back to the fighting itself. Fortunately that happens before the episode is half-over so there’s a lot of good stuff here. Not quite as face-meltingly beautiful as last week’s visual feast, but enough to keep you on the edge of your seat.
There’s pretty much a recurring theme here – Dabi getting herself into trouble and being beheaded, Gyuutarou saving her bacon, Tanjirou fretting over not being useful enough to the hashira. Zenitsu keeps up the preposterous but welcome sleep act and has never been better, and Boaris displays some pretty good tactical insight as he tries to figure out a way to get through Dabi’s defenses. As for Tan-chan he does actually manage to make himself useful here, saving Hinatsuru, who’s naturally gotten herself into distress and in need of saving. At least her poison managed to slow Gyuutarou down for a few seconds, but the biggest impact she had was allowing herself to be used as a weapon against Uzui.
With only two episodes to go, I presume it’s a pretty safe bet that this fight is going to end the season. As to how it’s going to end up, it’s kind of hard to say. We certainly know hashira haven’t got absolute plot armor in Kimetsu, but to have two of them bumped off in successive arc would seem a bit repetitive. Still, this is a high-ranking boss we’re talking about, and if Gyuutarou is perceived to be taken down too easily that could do significant damage to the perceived power balance within the narrative.
Marty
February 1, 2022 at 2:13 amI’m a little torn about the cliffhanger: on one hand, I understand the mangaka trying to create a sense of urgency, but at the same time… this is a long-running Shounen Jump title, I’m pretty sure Tengen and his wives are the only important characters that are in any real danger.
L0ken
February 1, 2022 at 4:33 amI don’t why you thought about mangaka creating this cliffhanger while watching anime adaptation series,clearly it’s Ufotable stuff who decides when to pull the brakes…For the record,moment where episode ended was on 7th page out of 20 in the manga, so it wasn’t even a cliffhanger there.
Archaon
February 1, 2022 at 3:51 amI think you missed the point of those flashback. The only one that will get development here is the main cast and because this is a long running series, their development won’t end until the end of the story. The Pillars on the other hand are mostly post-development characters, characters who already completed their development before the story even started and the flashback are here to show how they get to this point. Really only 2 Pillars that will have characters development. Really KnY use flashback to put little details throughout the story in context.
Guardian Enzo
February 1, 2022 at 7:54 amI don’t think I missed that point. I think that was the point. It’s kind of lazy writing.
BluBlu
February 1, 2022 at 3:59 pmThis is funny, yesterday I thought that the last sentence of Archaon would be classified borderline spoilery territory but I think that it also testifies to your (not) caring about KNY story (wait, there is a story? XD). More seriously, while I generally agree with him, I disagree with his number so it does not really matter. But again, this is relative.
My only point will be again your obsession with power balance/scaling. Again, if you apply that logic with that series, you may be extremely surprised in the future (if you stick with it. Funny enough, if you had rewatched what you skipped, you might have collapsed regarding power balance). That so-called “power” is one of the message (there is even a blatant hint since the beginning of that series). It was even a central piece of the movie and will be always present in all arcs. But well, this is true that ufotable skipping narration pages of the manga might not help if people would want to get over the nice visuals but to quote someone that you know: “There is a certain uncomplicated authenticity to it”.
However, I totally agree and respect that not caring about the characters do not help (which is indeed not my case as I always cared about them 100%.)
Brace yourself BTW, episode 11 will be a double one if I believe the internet (and I do as it will be the only reason why Ufotable really slowed down the pace since episode 8).