Demon Slayer tangent

[JuanSorel]

Split from here

I have no knowledge about Demon Slayer. Briefly, and without deriding this thread... is it worth watching?

[hui43210]

I have no knowledge about Demon Slayer. Briefly, and without deriding this thread... is it worth watching?

Never seen it, but I think it depends if you like Shonen shows as it is a Shonen Jump property. If that's your thing, I gather it's pretty good.

As for me, it really does not look like something I'd be interested in.

Edit: Based on the replies below, maybe I'll check it out. I fully respect that the animation itself is fantastic, but I'm not sure I'm sold on the story/characters. But it's widely available so I may as well check out a couple of episodes.

[Joseki]

The anime deserves to be watched for the animations alone. What they achieved is marvelous. The first season itself in terms of plot is pretty much a long prologue that ends on a cliffhanger for the movie.

Episode 19 is great.

[pwhodges]

I have no knowledge about Demon Slayer. Briefly, and without deriding this thread... is it worth watching?

I enjoyed the series, but I wouldn't say it's perfect; well worth watching, though. I took a couple of episodes to get really comfortable with the visual style, but then the animation really is something.

The film I found a disappointment in comparison - still good, but things to criticise in the pacing. Some of the CGI also felt poor, but maybe I couldn't judge that right on a camrip.

[Archer]

I have no knowledge about Demon Slayer. Briefly, and without deriding this thread... is it worth watching?

I enjoyed the series, but I wouldn't say it's perfect; well worth watching, though. I took a couple of episodes to get really comfortable with the visual style, but then the animation really is something.

The film I found a disappointment in comparison - still good, but things to criticise in the pacing. Some of the CGI also felt poor, but maybe I couldn't judge that right on a camrip.

The general opinion of the story is that there’s a reason why it had almost finished without anyone knowing about it until the anime blew it up. By most accounts the story is average at best and the ending was rushed and subpar.

[JuanSorel]

Thanks.

[Mr. Tines]

The general opinion of the story is that there’s a reason why it had almost finished without anyone knowing about it until the anime blew it up.

I guess it depends where you take the pulse of the anime/manga scene. The manga was regularly featured on /a/, right from the beginning, in the same way that Shingeki no Kyojin had been, enough that it getting an anime came as no real surprise.

[Archer]

The general opinion of the story is that there’s a reason why it had almost finished without anyone knowing about it until the anime blew it up.

I guess it depends where you take the pulse of the anime/manga scene. The manga was regularly featured on /a/, right from the beginning, in the same way that Shingeki no Kyojin had been, enough that it getting an anime came as no real surprise.

Manga sales before/after the anime (which I think is a pretty objective figure) shows the massive boost it got.

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[busterbeam]

I think the manga art is underrated. It has such a great human touch and looseness to it, while I would not be surprised if the anime uses heavy AI inbetweens. Some of it just looks unnaturally fluid. The mix of shoujo softness and shonen harshness in the manga also fits the series very well thematically.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

The show's pretty good. I'd definitely sell it more on the designs and skill of the animators/voice actors than the plot, though it's also enjoyable from a story standpoint as well. I'm sure there are plenty of issues to dig into for people who have a bone to pick with KnY, but I quite liked it and am waiting to have time to watch the Infinite Train movie.

[Heaven Piercing Man]

Demon Slayer is way too stock and derivative for me. Can't really understand why it's so big.

[FullMetalBiscuit]

It was a'ight. Not as good as the hype would lead you to believe, at least for me. Zenitsu was also the most annoying thing I have had to bare witness to in a long time and genuinely made me enjoy the show less.

[hui43210]

Yeah I can't do it. When one of the biggest selling points is character design and I don't personally like any of said designs, I don't think this show is for me.

[pwhodges]

Zenitsu was also the most annoying thing I have had to bear witness to in a long time and genuinely made me enjoy the show less.

I can't disagree; the annoyance factor does reduce a bit with time, though (and somewhat more so in the film).

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

Zenitsu pisses me off too, but I agree it does get easier to tolerate him over time.

I agree KnY is definitely an overhyped show, but I don't want to veer so hard into overhyped that I make it sound like the show isn't worthy of some hype, which I would say it is. I personally like the character designs, I like the music, I like the animation design. It's a nice little package that may have similarities to some other stories, but I find it a unique and enjoyable viewing experience.

[Archer]

I mean really, it’s just the Naruto/Bleach of this generation. If you’re older than 15-16 you’ve already grown out of the intended target demographic and have probably developed a taste for things beyond tropey Shonen fare.

MHA is another show I think is massively overrated, but at the same time I do get why it’s so popular. They know their demographic, we’re just not part of it anymore.

[pwhodges]

Maybe one day you'll reach your second childhood

[El Squibbonator]

I'm no fan of Demon Slayer myself, but I'm fascinated by it for a different reason. See, the movie adaptation, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train achieved what many believed to be impossible. With a $19 million opening weekend, it now has the second-largest US opening weekend of any anime film, behind only Pokemon: The First Movie. This is all the more impressive given the fact that it was not distributed by a major studio, and had an R rating.

This makes me wonder-- will the success of Demon Slayer at all impact the trajectory of the American animation industry? At the very least, might it convince American animation studios to greenlight movies in a similar vein, now that it has demonstrably been shown that a market for such movies exists in the United States?

[Alaska Slim]

I enjoyed the series, but I wouldn't say it's perfect; well worth watching, though. I took a couple of episodes to get really comfortable with the visual style, but then the animation really is something.

The film I found a disappointment in comparison - still good, but things to criticise in the pacing. Some of the CGI also felt poor, but maybe I couldn't judge that right on a camrip.

The general opinion of the story is that there’s a reason why it had almost finished without anyone knowing about it until the anime blew it up. By most accounts the story is average at best and the ending was rushed and subpar.

The plot beats of losing a family, introduction to the other world, and taking up arms as shinigami-lite, sure, but the presentation is far from average.

The striking difference is in Tanjiro himself, the mindset he takes to his opponents and how the series builds around that. He is empathetic to every single one of his foes, looking for the humanity in all demons he encounters. The show then shows us the back story, the griping terror, or the existential drive sitting behind the demons; motivating their actions.

This is Shonen more in vein of Trigun, or Mushishi. Violence and aggression is thematically sidelined and in their place is empathy; there to make the lingering final moments of a fight, even in victory, somehow bitter sweet.

On the technical side, the fights are also not entirely magic or jutsu-driven. The demons have plenty of that to spare but the swordsmen themselves are more at a Rurouni-Kenshin level of performing still near-human feats, matched with a visual flourish meant not to symbolize chakra/chi power, but to help the viewer distinguish visually what is different about each fighter's particular style.

I'd argue that this focus on near-human scale along with the the emphasis on breath work is what makes these fights so incredibly visceral.

So, nothing the show is doing story-wise is incredibly complicated, I'll agree to that. It's just well executed, and offers a protagonist that allows empathy to be an omni-present theme. It also technically flexes on fights in a way that'd make One Punch Man proud.

[Xenoblade]

Demon Slayer is pretty good. It's obviously aimed at teenage boys and it's clearly designed in a way that pushes that demographic choice's buttons hard, but season 1 was fun, and Ufotable is simply an excellent studio.

Characters are fuelled by believable goals and there's basically nothing creepy in it at all. It'll age fairly well. If there's a problem, it's that Demon Slayer is perhaps too safe for its own good, and the "monster of the week" tends to get old when it takes 2-3 episodes to slay them. Nevertheless, there are some excellent episodes in there, especially the first episode and that don't focus on a "monster of the week".

Don't get me wrong, I love Evangelion, but not everything needs to be pretentious to be interesting, and yes Evangelion was aimed to a significant extent at an identical audience. If you think Demon Slayer is something you outgrow, the same could be said for any anime really, including Evangelion. It's all just entertainment at the end of the day. Demon Slayer deserves its success.