Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Hashira Training Arc
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Everlasting Coconut
 Posts: 302 |
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You know, Demon Slayer may be ridiculously formulaic and its characters abysmally shallow, but at least the manga had the decency not to stretch things out more than needed. The anime, on the other hand, is taking an already dull story and doing everything in its power to keep the IP alive for as long as possible, and the results are painful to watch.
And while James might like the idea of multiple movies, I'm of the belief that they're all gonna feel just as awkward as Mugen Train. The movie format simply doesn't suit this kind of story, and we certainly don't need as many as three (or four?) to cover the rest of the manga. |
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bassgs435
 Posts: 293 |
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Is it really a mistery why they want to make more stuff to sell of a franchise that still sells ridiculously well?. Making it shorter means less time to profit on it and less discs and such to sell. Demon Slayer is a massive success in terms of sales and these are the consequences Yep. I'd say there's no mistery as to why it's being stretched |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4648 |
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Or, y'know, it could be that this series (or at the very least its anime adaptation) has massive glaring structural issues, and that James is doing his due diligence as a reviewer by highlighting them. A good review shouldn't just be blind fanboying, but should take a closer look at the work and judge how it well it does what it's trying to do. |
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RGaspar
 Posts: 243 |
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Yeah, me too. These last two episodes were pretty awful and slow and still, I prefered this to the neverending battle against the 5-people demon of the previous season. The films are going to be pretty slow but interesting, I guess. Some of my favorite backstories are coming. And, for the people that didn't read the manga, all I'm going to say is that the show will keep being as formulaic as ever until the end but, at least, for my money, the battles and stories to come are some of the best of the whole thing. It's going to be hilarious and fun to watch it all in super slow-mo and treated like it's the second coming of Jesus. The animation is really over 9000 here. |
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MemoBookworm
Posts: 15 |
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I swear this show feels like:
Me: I wish we could get an anime adaptation that didn't feel like it was being made on a shoesting budget with overworked animators Monkey's paw: *curls* Seriously I never thought a show could be overanimated but here we are I guess |
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ZiharkXVI
Posts: 378 |
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I'm a little tired of anyone who actually thinks James is wrong and enjoys the series being labeled as a blind fanboy. A review isn't what I read. It was a rant. A rant that was entertaining - most of it being hyperbole and random metaphors - but is blowing up very minor issues into larger ones. I'm not sure how James Cameron fits into this discussion, but I suppose that's besides the point. As far as I can tell, James has two main problems with this episode. One is the lack of character of Muzan and Ubuyashiki. The other being that there needed to be some sort of payoff for the training arc in this episode. I'll deal with the latter first, since its the easiest to counter. The series isn't over and the payoffs haven't happened yet. I'm not sure why it needed to happen in this last episode. If anything, the only real criticism to be had is that this season is really a part of the larger story of the final arcs and would fit better if you could watch all of them together. I suppose if we didn't know the rest was coming, he could be forgiven for complaining, but as it is it's a rather meritless criticism. The complaint of lack of character building. This was a fascinating complaint because isn't that the whole point of the conversation? We know far more about both characters now (although we already knew a fair bit concerning Muzan - Jame's complaints that he had no development are flatly wrong) given the words exchanged and the actions taken. Muzan is still mysterious up to this point, and that isn't going to change, but his character is solidified. He reaches for immortality, to make his world last forever. It's all he dreams of, and he doesn't realize that the world he dreams of is false. He is truly a monster - and that's not bad characterization. Monsters don't have to have particularly nuanced backstories. He has obvious callbacks to one of the greatest horror characters ever written - Dracula. Ubuyashiki on the other hand isn't as major a character (as he even admits), but we find out that he is wise, he is fiercely determined, and he will do anything to see the demon his family produced destroyed. We find out why he's done what he's done, and then he kills himself to attempt to stop/slow Muzan for the final showdown. What is there to criticize? He doesn't have to be a major character with an abundance of backstory. No story, manga, anime, or otherwise has to be filled with major characters. And now I'm done. I've given James the benefit of the doubt, but those who disagree with James should be given the benefit of the doubt as well. I feel like some folks just tune to these reviews to tell those who like DS that their opinions are dumb. |
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TsukinoSpoon
Posts: 37 |
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I mean...fair enough lol I think it is obvious that they have a cash cow that they feel the need to milk, but the general public is bound to lose interest eventually. |
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ManjirouYaiba
Posts: 7 |
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Anyway, this has been a magnificent finale! I'm really happy they decided to stretch this arc out. If it were just added on to the tail end of S3 and given 3 episodes as the story's usual pacing would have provided, we would have jumped from Nezuko conquering the sun to falling into the Infinity Castle way too quickly and abruptly.
A lot of this arc has kind of been like sitting down at the beach and just looking out into the horizon of the ocean. We get to sit in the peace, sit in the calmness and comfort - something that many people clearly can't appreciate. Yet there is still that lingering tension of the storm we all know is coming. I think this arc will be something that many fans will look back to with a better appreciation for it. Muzan and Kagaya's conversation was riveting. Kagaya's statement about him stepping on the tiger's tail and incurring the wrath of the dragon, time and time again, was incredibly powerful imagery and my favorite part of that conversation. The dichotomy between Kagaya's concept of humanity's eternal will and Muzan's transient eternity; the fulfillment of one of last season's core themes - Connected Bonds - carrying down the will of the ones that came before you; Tamayo finally facing Muzan, the man who ruined her life, giving us a beautifully emotive and cathartic argument out of her. Plus, the irony of that one, small, insignificant life Muzan thoughtlessly turned into a demon coming back to bite him in the ass; and of course the fighting - all of it culminating into this grandiose finale. Though it's more like a cliffhanger than a finale tbh. 10/10 |
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Cryten
 Posts: 1044 |
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Well I am glad you enjoyed it Manjirou, even if that was not my experience. What I did like was the non slow mo portions of the explosion, as it looked great. It was kind of a contrast as the slow mo part looked like it came from the original matrix movie, but the facility shattering rapid explosion really nailed it.
Positive I got from the season: Tanjirou standing up to wind Hashira guy was a neat personal dynamic, I quite liked it. I liked the 7 words from Nezuko that I got, but I wish we had far more of it. For a series that advertised itself constantly with images of Nezuko she sure has had very little to do with moving the story outside of providing the needed magic spell to several stories. I kinda appreciated the Rock training, but mostly for the character of the stone Hashira. It still wasnt enough personality to get me to remember his name though. Production: Good Graphics: Great Story: Extremely Stretched and basic, but not offensivly bad by any margin. Audio: Okay Character Work: Ranging from Bad to Good. Voice Work: Ranging from Superb to Offensive. Overall: B, I wanted to give it a B- for the boredom episodes but its just too good a production to warrant a B-. |
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Aerodynamic41
Posts: 232 |
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Kindly read James's reviews for The Fruit of Evolution. Now THAT is what happens when he really hates something. This is nothing by comparison lol. |
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gumbaloom
Posts: 299 |
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It's a critics job to be critical (and if the situation warrants make the prose interesting and engaging) Maybe James can come over harsh a little but a lot of what he said was true - The pacing of this season sucked - especially the 2 weeks of "lets drag out 3 pages of Manga just to sell more blu-rays" episodes. And the "slow Muzan walk" that was recycled for the finale. - UFO Table sometimes overkills it on the animation at the expense of story. - There is a lot of narrative weakness in Demon Slayer at times - I mean it's true - Nezuko hardly ever spoke this season and what she did was like heh wut? How much are we invested in the sub characters ? - I mean he's right - the conversation between Muzak and Ubayashiki - we've hardly got to know the guy and he comes out with a sob story but we have no emotional investment in the guy beyond "oh he's the demon slayer boss" and we're supposed to be sad ? Or the past few weeks of the Hashira's sob story flashbacks ? Have those flashbacks been earned at all generally ? Sorry to say but in terms of narrative strength Demon Slayer falls down shockingly - if you want to see exquisite work go and watch Sound Euphonium 3, KyoAni has done a fantastic job with it - so much artistry and visual storytelling that has meaning. They were not just out to be like "OMFG BBQ look at our flashy animation it gets you hot under the collar right" which UFO Table seem to like doing (don't get me wrong I was watching and going 'ooooohh ahhh' but it was there to showboat not to tell a story. Demon Slayer most definitely fall in to the "Turn off your brain and watch the pretty pictures and chomp your favourite snack on auto" Category of Anime Looking at it from that standpoint sure - its the GOAT of "brain cell turned off" binge anime but critically as a whole.- animation, storytelling , direction..uhh nope. I'm sure I'll go to see Infinity Castle films when they release here in Japan (because this time I'll have at least 10 months to wait if I don't unlike the "recap / preview" malarkey we've had for the past 3 seasons. But I'll be going in and turning off my brain as soon as I sit down 
Last edited by gumbaloom on Mon Jul 01, 2024 9:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Sekaro
Posts: 374 |
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We will see if the general public will "lose interest" as u say eventually when the Movies come out & how well they sell. But if u ask me, personally I don't see this series losing steam anytime soon. Its really well received by the casual viewer & we know there's alot of those. Anime aficionados don't make up majority of the views. |
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Covnam
 Posts: 3737 |
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When I started the episode I couldn't believe they repeated the entire ending of the last episode.
Muzan essentially saying that this conversation was a waste of time was amusingly meta, though presumably unintentional. There was one bit of info that did seem important though, and that was the implication that killing Muzan would kill all the other demons, which would include Nezuko. So I would expect that to be an issue in the future. Unless being immune to the sun saves her from that for some reason, or she turns human before he's killed since there's now apparently a cure. That development probably would have been a more interesting episode compared to what we got. Those twins suddenly appearing and playing gave me real The Shining's creepy twins vibes. @Nyren Thank you for the info. spoiler[You'd think their father wouldn't want them there regardless of them staying willingly though...] The last action scene was, as you'd expect, great. Overall, this season is a big miss for me. It probably could have been half the length and accomplished just as much (which wasn't much). The training didn't feel meaningful (other series have done it better, heck, even the early episodes did it better) and it just made most of the slayer corp look ill equipped for their job. |
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5510 Location: Mexico |
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For real, I had to do a double take and ask myself if this had been mentioned before. I always assumed they were some kind of homunculi or shikigami because they were always so blank and robotic in their behavior and treated Ubuyashiki like servants rather than family. I also have to agree with the sentiment of why the fudge did he allow his family to stay with him if he was planning to explode himself. I'm sure there's gonna be some "they all knew what they were doing and were willing to make that sacrifice", but the thing is, they didn't need to. There was no reason for the children to be there and paints Ubuyashiki in a rather questionable light.
This is the main flaw of the whole thing for me. Training arcs can be fun and interesting when we see our characters work hard towards improving themselves and developing new techniques or gaining a new understanding of their powers. In the entirety of this training arc, however, the only thing we see the characters achieve is... push a very big boulder. That was the only meaningful struggle Tanjiro faced and the only "technique" he learned (the repetition thing). We didn't see the Hashira struggle to get their face tattoos, or some scenes of them maybe managing to manifest the mark and it fading away, or anything to indicate they were even trying to achieve that beyond one passing mention. So really, the whole "training arc" could've well been a montage of Tanjiro faffing around and occassional shots of the Hashira sparring and nothing of value would've been lost. |
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1572 |
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Sure, but we both know they're gonna repurpose those films (complete with lots of new footage) to make another season of the TV anime. Your sentence isn't over yet, James. |
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