Demon Slayer Isn’t That Good

So I wrote a whole post about this very topic and it disappeared on me. Thinking on it now, maybe that was for the better. I believe I would have pissed off quite a few fans and now I've been given a chance to redo exactly that!

My main issue with Demon Slayer is more to do with the manga than the anime to be honest. The anime had some pacing issues sure but looking past that, the music, combat and animation makes it rather worthwhile. I would honestly recommend Bunny Girl Senpai over this but some people might prefer shonen and that's alright.

Now with the manga, I can't be so forgiving. No spoilers! In all honesty, it was very disappointing. The art wasn't very good nor consistent so it definitely did not give off any shonen vibes because if anything, those mangas are usually a fun read regardless simply because they looked rather good.

Then we get to the bigger issues that I could already foresee from the anime. The pacing and the story. The pacing is absolutely out of control with character driven arcs lasting a few chapters at most. The author expects us to care for these characters especially if they die but he never sets them up to actually do anything meaningful because he just keeps rushing to the next plot point and introducing the next character to do another arbitrary thing.

I don't think he understands the point of introducing new characters because he doesn't make use of them outside of the main cast. Nay, he even sidelines the main cast for whatever reason to introduce these new characters for no reason at all. I can't go into specifics but know that no shonen I have ever read does things the way he does.

The plot has quite a terrible payoff. The guy builds up a lot of hype for various things but doesn't quite know what to do with it when the time comes and sort of just ignores a lot of the little breadcrumbs he had set up. It's a little disappointing to see people call this anime of the year when the plot is so incoherent that an iyashikei anime can probably entertain you a tad bit more.

Finally, a pet peeve of mine has got to do with the skills and techniques the characters employ during their action sequences. The anime did that well with Tanjiro having very specific sword styles for specific purposes, Zenitsu had that one style he perfected and Inosuke's styles fit his personality. You then had Shinobu's unique poison piercing style and even Nezuko brought variety to the table as a brawler.

In the manga, I expected the same thing. Unique weapons, unique skills and unique elemental techniques that could make fight scenes that much nicer to read through. And while the unique weapons is kind of true, the rest fall flat over and over again. The author enjoys drawing a bunch of squiggly lines, yelling out some random technique name and drawing a pose for the character in question. And that, to him, is a unique skill for that character.

It's like saying that all Luffy does is punch his enemies but he yells out his plethora of different skill names just to pretend there's some sort of variety in the execution. At this point they shouldn't even be yelling out the skills. Go the Hero Academia route and make it more action with less anime nonsense. I can't tell you how messy it was for gigantic fight scenes when all the characters are yelling out two skill names at a time and it's just literally a bunch of straight lines and squiggly lines on the page.

I do not understand how anyone can read that and still support Demon Slayer as a good shonen. The foundations of a good shonen doesn't even exist here! I honestly don't think Tanjiro is a very interesting main character. They kept making a big thing out of the fact that he's so nice to the demons he kills and then...nothing. It's just a personality trait. So then why do they keep showing us the backstory of the demons he kills? I certainly don't care about any of the demons. They're not interesting, they disappear in one arc and their deaths don't ever affect Tanjiro in any concrete way. They feel like filler demons!

And what do they do with the other main characters? Sideline them! No development other than ones we're told happened but not shown. Even Nezuko managed to be made forgettable. Even an imouto falls...

Do yourself a favour and read something else.