Demon Slayer: Just a Spectacle?

Demon Slayer’s visual presentation is very… striking. From the distinct character designs to boldly outlined and flashy attack patterns to the detailed and gorgeously rendered CG backgrounds – almost every visual element is seemingly intended to leave some impression on the back of my eyes. It didn’t take me long to develop a strong liking towards the art style – it pops, the demon designs look menacing for the most part, and the facial expressions are very anime as well (as evident by the memes circulating social media). The color palette of the characters’ wardrobe give them personality, the color grading during the night scenes set the tone really well, especially in the Natagumo Mountain arc.

The animation is fluid and for the most part, even the CG modeling didn’t particularly distract me from the fight scenes – it’s ufotable, they are known to have well-rendered 3D animation. And since 3D modeling allows for shifting camera angles, I think it added some cool cinematic effects to the animation. The edgy blood animated bits and the overall gore are fantastic, they feed into the theatricality of what prime, big-budget shounen action-oriented shows need. The attack sequences rarely feel over-indulgent and the fights don’t waste time – which is always good to see in a shounen series.

The soundtrack stood out to me as well, it’s folky and orchestral at parts, each of them having some gigantic cinematic flair to them. Frankly, it would be a difficult task for me to pinpoint issues I had with the production quality of the whole season – and since that really adds to the entertainment factor of the anime, I am not surprised that the show has gotten so popular to the masses.

But disappointedly so, in stark contrast to the visuals, the writing of this show is just so flat and flavorless. From the premise to the character writing, nothing about them struck to me as not being very by-the-numbers. The introduction of Tanjiro’s family had nothing to offer that would make me feel sad for their subsequent deaths (it happens in the first episode, so I don’t think it’s a spoiler), it felt super rushed – which brings me to my point that the first episode felt storyboarded pretty tightly but it also felt really dry with the emotional feedback. I think most of my issues with the first episode wouldn’t exist if Tanjiro actually had some interesting personality and the family had some more substantial interactions.

Now onto the cast of characters. Perhaps, the only character I would call “interesting” is Inosuke, I like his aggressive attitude – a thing I missed in the main cast of the show – and I thought his short ego-death arc at the end was great. Zenitsu is like a really obnoxious combination of Chopper’s neurosis and Sanji’s romanticism – I really have a hard time “rooting” for him in fights. Speaking of obnoxious, almost all of the Hashira is that – I don’t care how cool their character designs look, they are annoying to listen to. It’s that the way they are depicted lends no nuance to them. The only tolerable Hashira, for me, are Shinobu Kocho and Giyu. As cute as Nezuko is, it’s pretty disappointing how under-written she is even after 26 episodes – she’s basically a Pokemon at this point, a mere mascot. Muzan has no note of interest at this point – he’s pretty bland, except that moment when he got insecure about his imperfection was pretty funny.

The script lacks the smallest inkling of subtlety, and that doesn’t bode well for the emotional narrative of the show. Then there is the whole demon hierarchy thing. I know it’s a common thing in shounen, but the way the demons are ranked like some video game bosses just makes the plot progression feel so blunt and predictable.

Okay, now I will get to the meat of my criticisms for the anime – the damn flashbacks. It’s near formulaic at this point – as a demon starts to disintegrate, the narrative side-steps into their past. Now, I would be okay with this if the show hinted that the demons have some semblance of humanity in their personality through some cues or something. No, instead, they are objectified as bodies of hatred with cool designs and then when they are trapped in their death flashbacks, the show cashes in for “emotional resonance”. The flashbacks themselves are narrated very bluntly and the demons turn into pure saints within 5 minutes of an elaborate character arc – the worst offender of this is probably the deaths in Natatumo Mountain arc. I was honestly impressed by this the first time it happened, in the Final Selection episode, but as more demons died, the more unsubtle and hacky the whole ordeal felt. It really cheapened my appreciation for the show. And I began to notice and think about other aspects of the writing in the anime that bothered me. Flashbacks through which Tanjiro overcame his final fight in the Natatumo Mountain arc also bothered me.

I would frankly be okay with the blunt way the story is written if it was just Tanjiro getting powerful and beating more demons to get the cure – I’m all for that, the production of this show would make this anime a real spectacle to watch. But the way the show took cheap shortcuts to milk emotions from the audience annoyed me and took me away from being fully entertained by the fights a bit.

Demon Slayer ticks all the boxes in the production aspect but misses almost all in the writing department for me. It’s not that it’s a horrible show – if it was, I wouldn’t have binged all 26 episodes in a week. It was overall a fun experience when I watched it, but when I sat down and collected my thoughts for this post – I realized there’s not much to get out from the characters and story. It’s like cotton candy, the sweetness gets you coming for more. But there’s really nothing to chew on.

That’s it for my rambling. I hope you have a good day/evening.