I gotta be honest here. For me this whole season of Kimetsu no Yaiba was pretty meh. And that’s coming from someone who’s not a huge fan of the series to begin with. There’s no way in hell this should have been 12-13 episodes (equivalent). There was maybe 4-5 episodes worth of good material here, and it ended up being very thin gruel indeed. Compared to say, “Yuukaku-hen”, it’s not even close. That was better in every meaningful way (and it had Zenitsunosuke in it!).
One of the interesting tidbits from the Sakurai Norio interview released this week is that she’s a huge Kimetsu fan. Well, good on her – most of Japan is, seems like. In the end it still doesn’t really add up for me, even if I do think I’ve grokked the key to the appeal. Yes, Gotouge-sensei’s utterly shameless dedication to fanservice is impressive – but in the end, it still doesn’t get me to really understanding why so many people (some of them smart) revere this thing the way they do. While it’s occasionally very good (like Yuukaku) most of the time it’s comprehensively middling. And much of this arc was worse.
Amazing, in a way, that you could take out Zenitsu and Inosuke and still come up with a season this mediocre. Lack of interesting villains doesn’t help. Gyokko was truly execrable, and while Hantengu was much better, it’s not like he was particularly memorable. And neither of them remotely seemed to pose a real threat to anyone that mattered in the larger story. How can the supposedly 4th and 5th-ranked demons be taken out so routinely by relatively low-ranking humans without an ounce of suspense to it?
And then there’s Kanroji, who was completely irrelevant in the end. She never even fought an actual main body of one of these paper tigers, and she was about to lose to one of the staellites (I guess the little drummer boy’s name was Zohaukuten) before Tanjirou claimed the glory. The disparity in the portrayal of her vs. the male hashira is hilariously wide. She barely appeared in the season at all until the very end, and at that point was largely sidetracked from the real battles. I don’t know what the message being sent there is but I don’t think it’s a good one.
The whole business with Nezuko miraculously “conquering the sun” was just classic Kimetsu, basically. Whatever needs to happen to make it work will happen. I’ve accepted that as not so much a necessary evil of the storytelling but indeed the very foundation of it – it doesn’t even really bother me at this point. But again, it leeches out a lot of the drama. You need enemies much better than this to create any sense of doubt about how things will turn out, and we’re starting to run out of those. Muzan will have his moment in the sun (pun intended) but that obviously can’t happen until the final arc.
I’m just going to have to trust that Katanakaji no Sato-hen represents a low ebb for Kimetsu, and that things will pick up from here. The upcoming Hashira Training Arc is only a few chapters long, from what I hear, so the fact that it was announced as a “season” is rather ominous in the wake of the glacial pacing of this one. I don’t honestly know how much better this arc would have been had it not been so stretched out – the flaws are pretty fundamental – but it certainly would have been better at several episodes shorter.
Shadow
June 21, 2023 at 12:47 amDemon Slayer may have lost me after this. I think it’s been a slow downward trajectory since season 1, but it always felt watchable. Until this past season. Boring, generic villains and Hashira that weren’t far behind.
DukeofEarls
June 21, 2023 at 5:03 amI feel the same way about this series as you do. I also felt similarly about Attack on Titan. Serviceable entertainment, but the degree of popularity baffles me. I couldnt finish AoT and Ive really struggled to get through this season of Demon Slayer.
Either the anime fandom zeitgeist long left me behind, or I never really was a part of it to begin with.
Guardian Enzo
June 21, 2023 at 7:00 amI actually sort of get it more with Shingeki, for all its flaws. It has sheer spectacle and a certain uniqueness to the hook that Kimetsu doesn’t, for me. It’s more distinctive I think, but with graver and more troubling poblems.
Stephen
June 21, 2023 at 8:08 amI couldn’t even get through the last season. It was too slow. They could have easily merged two arcs into one. Why not milk it with side stories?
BluBlu
June 21, 2023 at 3:14 pmLucky you (plural). Me, I am still on my mission to try to figure how a series with the most boring, generic, unwatchable characters, scenario (sorry, maybe it does not even deserve it?) and so on, can still make the same people watch it during 3 “seasons + movie”.
This is still a battle between masochism and free time in my mind (no animosity here. On the contrary, sincere envy). But for sure, next arc (if they really do it as an “arc”) will definitely finish the most masochists off considering how it is heavily rich in boring useless characters.
On my side, always good OST, always happy to rediscover the manga (which I still appreciate more than the anime),happy than Ufotable made a different choice of “over the top” contrary to previous season and also curious to see if their staff choices (trainings?) of this season will pay off for the future.
Marty
June 21, 2023 at 8:24 pmConsidering how stretched out this arc was, I dont understand the narrative logic to not condense it and pair it up with the training arc for 1 cour?
Anyways, my personal guess is that since KnY is a relatively short series for WSJ standards, UFOtable is probably trying to stretch it out as much as possible.
Kurik
June 22, 2023 at 7:40 amYeah, this was a very meh season for me as well. They should have made this a 90mins movie and called it a day. Definitely no longer on my must watch list or even recommendations to watch. A pity as it has style and potential but absolutely little to no substance after first season.
Guardian Enzo
June 22, 2023 at 9:05 amI did like some elements of Yuukaku-hen quite a lot. Ohsaka Ryouta was absolutely fantastic in a series where I’m not always enamored of the seiyuu performances (including this season).
Archaon
June 22, 2023 at 12:53 pmI don’t get your complain that mitsuri didn’t fight the main body. The point of Hantengu power is that his main body just suck at fighting so he create more powerful clones to fight for him and the last clone is the most powerful. The upside is that the clones are effectively immortal as long as the main body doesn’t die. Pretty much no one can beat the clones as they would just regenerate.
Ikramit
July 12, 2023 at 3:50 amYeah I agree Enzo is completely off on that one but it is a shame that battle didn’t get any screen time outside 30 seconds at the end .