Review: Demon Slayer, Volume 1
Mar. 6th, 2023 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_losI watched the anime version of this when it came out, so thought I'd give the manga a try because I hear tell it is complete.
This is an odd IP for me in that I like the story fine, but I honestly cannot understand its vice-grip on the Japanese market right now. "Demon Slayer" is stylish and aesthetically mature, but some of the shonen elements are deeply clunky (the tsundere wolf 🐺 guy, Death Camp Pedagogy and the Problems of the Girl Pretending to Be Her Sister Who Loved Her Smile: hi, anime. Hi.). In places, the material is rather thin. Someone was trying to tell me about what an exciting universe "Demon Slayer" is in terms of the villains and worldbuilding, and its endless franchise potential!! It's... all right? This is just like, a cultivation story? Mechanically, it's that + five other animes that did well in the 90s and aughties (which you may not remember, or may be nostalgic about). You can smell "Inuyasha", "Mononoke", "Mushishi", "FMA", maybe even something like "Castlevania" or "Vampire Hunter D"--I wouldn’t stake my life on these coordinates, but I indisputably feel a considerable familiarity with the constituent pieces. The person I was speaking to compared "Demon Slayer" favourably to other financial juggernauts like "One Piece", "Naruto", and "Pokemon" in terms of plotting. Maybe so (and admittedly, I have no handle whatever on the mood of the Japanese market in terms of overall contemporary offerings), but several of those offered something novel and catchy, and/or made their offer to rather different audience brackets. So while I didn't dislike this anime's first series at all, thinking it well-executed if not engrossing, I find myself slightly side-eyeing its hype.
I wanted to reread the 'last time on' portion so that I could come to the train arc that's since come out re-oriented.
Some notes:
- Jfc, were there six children in this family? Too many children! (I mean, I guess this is a problem the narrative swiftly resolves.)
- He can SMELL MURDER!! (Or that a cat broke this pot, anyway.) (There is a big song in "Operation: Mincemeat" involving the line, ‘you can’t smell murder!!’.)
- Tanjiro isn’t really that characterised, is he? Fuck me, I didn't even remember his name. Nezuko is interesting, but you must admit she has older sister syndrome (the protagonist is older than her, but the other four seem younger) and then becomes the most fridged female character ever. She's got a horsebit in her mouth all show, you don't get more fridged than that. This anime glides along on a strong sense of generic cohesion, but in terms of its characters it’s pretty reliant on Types and the plot to carry the story. Very little happens because of who any particular person is, with perhaps the exception of Tanjiro's tendency to pacifism (but by now, that just feels Steven Universe/Izuku Midoriya/ten other guys rather than particular to this character and deeply considered).
- I wonder if it’s true that sideways katana usage can break the blade, and that you have to slash down rather than sideways as with a western sword? That degree of fragility sounds impractical (and as though it'd leave the bearer rather unguarded against stomach wounds, which can offer perhaps the nastiest possible sword-related deaths). But then you do use a caidao with a different motion than a cleaver if you’re doing it right (which I don't, because I haven't practiced knife skills for over a decade because I am lazy), so maybe that's just how it is.
- Here we are back at Child Death Mountain, and it’s still peak anime pedagogy. After "Food Wars" I don’t know that they’re doing All Right, over there. (What was that expulsion rate for? What a massive waste of resources and everyone's time!) This is yet another anime where no one involved should be running an organisation.
‘Our graduation exercise is DEATH FOR NO REASON!’
Why?
'Because swords: are expensive.'
...
Everyone in this world is this stupid, though. The lead villain: ‘Minions, you’re not performing well. Maybe MASS DEATH would improve our organisation’s ability to meet new challenges??’
I don’t QUITE know where we’re headed in terms of shape at the end of the first season of the anime. They try to open up the world a bit with these other demon slayers, and the pan shot parade is all rather QUIRKY ACTION FIGURE ROLL CALL!1 I'm simply too old for that shit. 'Why don't you just read older-pitched content then?' Gosh, are they going to make and distribute some, then? Wowee.
This is an odd IP for me in that I like the story fine, but I honestly cannot understand its vice-grip on the Japanese market right now. "Demon Slayer" is stylish and aesthetically mature, but some of the shonen elements are deeply clunky (the tsundere wolf 🐺 guy, Death Camp Pedagogy and the Problems of the Girl Pretending to Be Her Sister Who Loved Her Smile: hi, anime. Hi.). In places, the material is rather thin. Someone was trying to tell me about what an exciting universe "Demon Slayer" is in terms of the villains and worldbuilding, and its endless franchise potential!! It's... all right? This is just like, a cultivation story? Mechanically, it's that + five other animes that did well in the 90s and aughties (which you may not remember, or may be nostalgic about). You can smell "Inuyasha", "Mononoke", "Mushishi", "FMA", maybe even something like "Castlevania" or "Vampire Hunter D"--I wouldn’t stake my life on these coordinates, but I indisputably feel a considerable familiarity with the constituent pieces. The person I was speaking to compared "Demon Slayer" favourably to other financial juggernauts like "One Piece", "Naruto", and "Pokemon" in terms of plotting. Maybe so (and admittedly, I have no handle whatever on the mood of the Japanese market in terms of overall contemporary offerings), but several of those offered something novel and catchy, and/or made their offer to rather different audience brackets. So while I didn't dislike this anime's first series at all, thinking it well-executed if not engrossing, I find myself slightly side-eyeing its hype.
I wanted to reread the 'last time on' portion so that I could come to the train arc that's since come out re-oriented.
Some notes:
- Jfc, were there six children in this family? Too many children! (I mean, I guess this is a problem the narrative swiftly resolves.)
- He can SMELL MURDER!! (Or that a cat broke this pot, anyway.) (There is a big song in "Operation: Mincemeat" involving the line, ‘you can’t smell murder!!’.)
- Tanjiro isn’t really that characterised, is he? Fuck me, I didn't even remember his name. Nezuko is interesting, but you must admit she has older sister syndrome (the protagonist is older than her, but the other four seem younger) and then becomes the most fridged female character ever. She's got a horsebit in her mouth all show, you don't get more fridged than that. This anime glides along on a strong sense of generic cohesion, but in terms of its characters it’s pretty reliant on Types and the plot to carry the story. Very little happens because of who any particular person is, with perhaps the exception of Tanjiro's tendency to pacifism (but by now, that just feels Steven Universe/Izuku Midoriya/ten other guys rather than particular to this character and deeply considered).
- I wonder if it’s true that sideways katana usage can break the blade, and that you have to slash down rather than sideways as with a western sword? That degree of fragility sounds impractical (and as though it'd leave the bearer rather unguarded against stomach wounds, which can offer perhaps the nastiest possible sword-related deaths). But then you do use a caidao with a different motion than a cleaver if you’re doing it right (which I don't, because I haven't practiced knife skills for over a decade because I am lazy), so maybe that's just how it is.
- Here we are back at Child Death Mountain, and it’s still peak anime pedagogy. After "Food Wars" I don’t know that they’re doing All Right, over there. (What was that expulsion rate for? What a massive waste of resources and everyone's time!) This is yet another anime where no one involved should be running an organisation.
‘Our graduation exercise is DEATH FOR NO REASON!’
Why?
'Because swords: are expensive.'
...
Everyone in this world is this stupid, though. The lead villain: ‘Minions, you’re not performing well. Maybe MASS DEATH would improve our organisation’s ability to meet new challenges??’
I don’t QUITE know where we’re headed in terms of shape at the end of the first season of the anime. They try to open up the world a bit with these other demon slayers, and the pan shot parade is all rather QUIRKY ACTION FIGURE ROLL CALL!1 I'm simply too old for that shit. 'Why don't you just read older-pitched content then?' Gosh, are they going to make and distribute some, then? Wowee.
