Review of Sword of the Demon Hunter: Kijin Gentosho

Kijin Gentosho is such a frustrating watch because it’s unquestionably an amazing story. It’s mature, it’s full of twists, death, pain, amazing character development, realistic dialogue, themes such as learning how to overcome grief and moving forward in life. It’s got all of that plus the whole badass MC out for revenge and redemption hunting demons across the centuries angle. It’s such a great story, but it suffers from some of the worst production values this season and it gets progressively worse as the season goes on. It’s such a shame because if this show’s staff were given more time to fully develop everything, thisprobably would’ve been a lot more popular and better received. It’s not lacking for substance at all, but this is the anime medium we’re talking about and it is important to look good as well as having a good story. Luckily, this show isn’t too action focused, it’s much more about the MC’s growth and his journey from angry ronin to being at peace with the past. If you can look beyond the slideshows that are the last 3 episodes or so, you’re going to get one of the most memorable stories this year.

This is yet another example of how much better novel stories are compared to light novels and manga. Not to say manga and LNs are childish as there’s demographics of each targeted at every age group, but the sort of prose and approach to storytelling is different. In my experience, novels are aimed at older audiences and contain more complex characters, themes, darker subject matter and feature more authentic feeling conversations. That’s exactly what makes Kijin special to me. It’s not trying to be a demon slayer and focus on the flashy fights, Jinya’s life journey is the main attraction. He’s forced to grapple with so much loss at such an early age and that shapes him into this jaded and angry young man who struggles to connect with others for fear of being betrayed again. It’s thanks to the people who come in Jinya’s life that he’s able to forgive himself for his failures, accept the past and regain his humanity. The various cases that Jinya takes on all help him grow a little bit. I loved most of the cases and pretty much all of them involved some sort of twist that kept you on your toes. Nothing is ever quite as it seems in this show and that unpredictability makes every episode so fun to watch. While it’s episodic for a while after that first arc, eventually you start seeing all the threads come together. It’s so cool how the author would set up things and pay them off 5-6 episodes later. Every detail matters in this show, there’s no wasted dialogue or characters. Even if it’s not apparent for months after an episode aired, they paid it off at some point. Again, novels just feel much more purposeful to me. There’s not the sort of fluff and unnecessary bloat you get in manga and LNs. There’s no fanservice or the usual cringe tropes here either.

The characters are the conduit through which Jinya’s character development is achieved and they’re all great. Nice diverse cast of women and bros who need Jinya’s help and then usually end up becoming friends with him. Some are better than other, but generally enjoyed all the jobs he takes on and while they seem like they’re random at the start, everything starts coming together around the halfway point of the show and it’s extremely satisfying. I’m a huge fan of Ofuu, I felt like she was the single most influential character to Jinya and the way she always knew the right thing to say to cheer him up and keep him focused was beautiful. All the dialogue between them felt so natural and I really wanted that ship to sail all season. It’s not just Ofuu, though. Every conversation in this show sounds like normal people talking, not anime archetypes and that is so refreshing. I watch so many seasonals every season so when I get a series that’s not overdramatic and is more chill and realistic in how characters act, it sticks with me. Undead Girl Murder Farce is also based on a novel and was one of my fave shows from 2023 with a lot of the same things I like here, so I’m convinced novel anime adaptations are just better. The only issue with the story I have is the time jump stuff. We went all over the place in the timeline here and at times it felt pointless because we’d do stuff in present day and go right back to Meiji/late Sengoku era. I’m not sure if that’s how it went in the books as I still haven’t read them yet, but in anime format it was jarring at times. Things do start getting much clearer with the various timelines later on, though.

Now the big elephant in the room is the animation. Honestly, the show looked decent enough up until about episode 18 or so. At that point, you could tell this show wasn’t complete and the staff were likely under unreasonable time deadlines, like most of the modern anime industry. At one point we literally got an unfinished episode released with unfinished backgrounds and character models. The show got delayed for a few weeks, but even when it came back it looked bad in the action scenes too. This staff just ran out of steam and were likely facing some really toxic work conditions. I’m not going to blame them, I’ll blame the execs. As I said before though, the fights are secondary here. The story and characters are the primary focus and they’re all great. If you can tolerate the unfinished fight scenes, especially that bridge scene.. you’ll be fine. The voice acting and direction are great throughout to compensate as well.

Kijin Gentosho was easily a top 5 show of spring/summer for me. Even with the production issues, there just aren’t many series like this. I got so invested in Jinya’s journey and I couldn’t tell you the number of times I cried while watching this. There’s so many emotional moments and turning points for Jinya’s character that resonate because you’ve seen his struggle and all he’s had to overcome. It makes the joys of the story feel earned and you appreciate all the slower peaceful moments. It’s one of those casts that starts to feel like a family for you and a story you want more and more of each week. Bad animation aside, I loved this one and can’t wait to start reading the books.

Kijin Gentosho gets 9 out of 10.