This Week in Anime

All Aboard the Mugen Train!

Nick
ALL ABOOOOAAAAAAAAARD
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
AY AY AY

Be sure to check your ticket, properly secure your luggage in the overhead storage, and get your Blue Hearts playlist ready because this train is barreling onto streaming now that it's made its way through every single Japanese box office record imaginable. It's Mugen Train time.

God, future film historians are going to be so confused when they reach this part of their textbooks, and I love it.

To be honest, it is a bit intimidating to be covering this film. Like even when we're covering the other big shonen properties, it generally feels like we're still in our own wheelhouse. But Demon Slayer has effectively become a cultural phenomenon in Japan over the last two years, which is crazy when you remember it stars Inosuke.

So yeah, for the 12 people living in total media isolation who just clicked onto this article, Mugen Train is the film followup to the first season of Demon Slayer, adapting the, well Mugen Train Arc. It picks up literally right where the TV series ended, so I hope you're all caught up on that!

For those who aren't, here's the short version. This is Tanjiro. He's a very good boy who has to hunt human-eating Demons and kills them with his cool sword and cooler sword techniques. He has a sister in his backpack who should be more important than she is:

Inosuke is essentially the kid from Where the Wild Things Are if he never learned any lessons and then stole some cool swords off a random bystander. He has both the power and sanity of 40-50 feral hogs.

What's fucked up is he's the one with super-hearing, yet somehow he doesn't drive himself to drink with his own voice. Thankfully, Zenitsu factors very lightly into this movie's story. He literally spends the entire movie asleep save for the first and last 10 minutes

I mean it could be worse. Zenitsu is basically this franchise's Mineta, so let's be thankful this glimpse into his mind was kept G-rated.

Then there's Rengoku, who technically showed up before now but gets his proper introduction here. He's the Flame Hashira, which means he's a big deal in Demon Slayer. And boy do I hope anyone watching this movie loves Rengoku because this movie 1000% banks on that notion.

I'm gonna be honest—and also commit fandom heresy—by saying I don't really get the love for Rengoku. Going back even to the manga, I liked him well enough, but the fandom and subsequently the overall DS franchise has embraced him with a level of reverence usually reserved for some of the most iconic and classic characters in all of anime. And I just do not catch that vibe from this man and his loud hairdo.

Then I'd say another 20% is the fighting animation—specifically the ridiculously pretty effects work that basically made DS's animation exemplary.

There are a few issues exclusive to this movie, though, mostly to do with the titular train, but that's getting ahead of ourselves. First, we have to see how our determined and diligent protagonists will take on their mission of hunting down the demon preying on the train's passengers.

Aw beans.

Honestly that's giving him too much credit. He puts his enemies to sleep and then has OTHER people kill them in their dreams. My dude's super power is being a walking bottle of melatonin gummies.

This is one of those parts where adapting a manga arc into a movie kind of runs into a problem, in that the first act of this film is basically self-contained character vignettes that largely don't effect the second half, as we get a look into each of the cast's deepest desires.

You'd think with these two largely being comic relief this would be a good time to give them a little bit of depth, maybe tease out some details about Inosuke's largely unknown past or play around with some of the stuff from Zenitsu's character stuff from the Spider Mountain arc. But nah, springtime of youth and cave train fighting is what they get.

Sad part is I think Dream Nezuko gets nearly the same amount of screentime as the real one.

Yup, Tanjiro is the one to figure out they're trapped in dreamland, but that just makes trying to escape the thing he wants the most all the more miserable to consider.

I think it's the way he starts apologizing that makes it work. Wanting to see dead loved ones is well-trod ground for this kind of lotus eater setup, but expressing Tanjiro's lingering survivor's guilt does a lot to give this one texture. That said, I did find the part where Tanjiro's wouldbe assassin was so moved by his kind a pure spirit that he gave up on murder a tad overwrought.

OK I would accept this plot point much more easily if the guy ran into a bewildered walrus man who healed his spirit instead.

But yeah, while effecting, Tanjiro's dreamscape is mostly a reminder of his personal emotional stakes. The only person who really gets developed here is Rengoku when we get to look into his Anime Dad Issues.

This is still shonen storytelling, so broadstrokes are often the only ones allowed, but it gives us some idea of how he ticks and why he's an admirable person. He got into the Demon Slaying business to do the right thing, and that defines every decision he makes for the rest of the story. I may not get the sheer intensity of fandom's affection for him, but I do like Rengoku overall.

What I can't understand is why Nezuko's entire role in this story is go wake up, get angry about her brother sleeping through Head Pat time, and then pratfall her way into waking him up.

It's just baffling to me because Nezuko is the entire inciting incident for this series. She's the most important character to our protagonist and is literally always with him, yet she still gets sidelined. And here it's especially egregious because we see what she was like pre-demonification, so it contrasts especially badly with this weird, feral toddler she is in the present.

Nope, no time for that. Gotta get to Tanjiro fighting the Goo Train demon.

It's weird because Ufotable has a pretty solid in-house CG team. They've made some very good looking CG creations that meshed perfectly fine with their 2D animation. But for whatever reason this overly shiny goop is all over the final version of this film and it never stops being distracting.

It's especially noticeable when it's next to the digital effects work. It's like Tanjiro is cutting through a Windows 98 screensaver.

Oh right, turns out the way to wake up from demon sleep is to fucking off yourself. Tanjiro's Ghost Dad drops that little tidbit on him which is technically the most positive thing a father does in this whole movie.

Meanwhile Inosuke also gets up, and it turns out being an absolute weird little dude is the key to avoiding a Sleep status effect.

I just appreciate that Inosuke hates magic anime eyes as much as I do.

They probably would have, but Tanjiro remembered learning the Safety Dance from his dad and uses that power to cut off the head of..a..train...yeah not gonna ask about those logistics. And along the way he gets stabbed by one of the train demon's thralls for his trouble.

Like I said, Tanjiro being a good boy is fine, but it can be a bit much at times. Dude gets his leg crushed by a train and our hero's first reaction is:

I genuinely think Koyoharu Gotouge doesn't understand how breathing works. Or biology in general.

But hey, the demon is slain, nobody died, and the day is saved! So all-in-all a mixed bag of a movie, but overall a fun enough ride, even if it's on the short side at just 80 or so minutes.

Ah yes, the traditional Third Act New Antagonist. Always a good idea to end a story with 30 minutes of fighting a guy we've never seen before.

This movie is basically paced like 4 or so episodes of the TV anime stapled together, and I won't be surprised if they repackage it like that in some form later on. It'd still be an abrupt way to conclude this arc, but it wouldn't feel quite as disorienting when this guy shows up out of nowhere and takes over the narrative for the rest of the runtime.

It's funny when this happens once, not so much when it keeps happening for the entire fight.

Like the least you could do is have Akaza try to tempt Rengoku in some personal way. Tell him becoming a demon is the only way he'll be strong enough for his father's approval. Threaten Tanjiro or the others to blackmail him into becoming a demon. SOMETHING besides asking politely.

This actually kind of feeds into my overall biggest issue with Demon Slayer. It likes to bring up some interesting big ideas—here being the importance and value of a finite lifetime and passing things on to the next generation—but it all comes about without any buildup or connection to the preceding story.

Like that's a nice sentiment, but what does it have to do with anything that came before it in this arc?

And that brings us to the conclusion of this whole thing. So quick question Steve, you've seen both versions of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime right?

Alright so then you know about the big death that happens in both versions, and how in Brotherhood they really ramp it up, make it into like a whole episode beyond what it was in the manga, because of how effecting it was in the '03 series?

So that's basically what's happening here. In the manga, Rengoku's big fight and subsequent death are important, pivotal even, but they're still relatively par for the course. But somewhere between then and the manga ending, Rengoku took on an almost holy level of reverence and adoration in fandom, and this movie seems to have been made precisely to reflect that. The final 20 minutes of this movie are The Apotheosis of Rengoku, complete with heavenly choir.

It works as spectacle, but I'd be lying if I didn't get a little tired of literally ever character talking about how cool and great he is for the entire denouement. Zenitsu says this despite only sharing 1 line with the guy through the whole movie.

Instead the ending is basically just every named character reacting and crying to Rengoku's death. Which is, again, a tad much.

Look, this film was obviously made for diehard fans, and judging by the box office it absolutely delivered for them. But as a casual Demon Slayer enjoyer I was mostly here for the pretty lights show, and looking forward to Season 2 covering a much better arc. But as for this train ride on its own?

So yeah, if you are one of the small population of fans who haven't already watched this, it's probably best seen in (virtual) company of big fans. For more casual people it may still be of interest to you, but just be prepared to run when the Nezuko Stans start coming for your head.