Review of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Entertainment District Arc
The longer it's been since I first watched the first season of Kimetsu no Yaiba a year and a half ago, the more disillusioned I become with it, and see it for what I think it really is: eye candy that unfortunately lacks real narrative or character depth. It's all about looking pretty and looking cool. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, I had a good time watching Kimetsu no Yaiba, and probably will continue having a good time watching it through its inevitable many future seasons and films. I don't watch it for narrative depth or any of that, but despiteme saying that, I find myself wanting more from the series. Because unfortunately, if a less qualified team was working on this project, or if the quality of the art degraded, this show would barely have a leg to stand on.
Like many critics of this show say, although they all seem to place a bigger emphasis on these flaws than me, what Kimetsu no Yaiba really needs is just some deeper writing. The story is generic, a simple big bad guy with his cronies and our titular hero has to go and beat him with his friends and the help of many mentors along the way. One of the most generic shounen plots ever imagined, with an equally generic good guy main character, goofy scaredy-cat sidekick and angry sidekick. Of course everything sounds awful when boiled down to the simplest of terms, pancakes become pan cooked bread and ice cream becomes frozen milk, but the cast and story really don't get a whole lot more involved than that.
Another thing I'd like to harp on about for a bit is a smaller, more focused gripe that I have with Yuukaku-hen. This arc really didn't have any moment quite as spectacular as episode 19 of the first season (that's the cool one where Tanjiro and Nezuko almost kill the spider guy if you forgot), it had cool moments and awesome fights, but nothing quite on par with that scene from S1. The music, visuals, and context of that scene really just all worked together in a great way that perfectly culminated the entire arc. Yuukaku-hen just never quite reached that level of awesomeness for me, which I found pretty disappointing.
But I've complained and criticized enough, and I should talk about what I actually liked about this season otherwise this will be the most negative 8 star review ever. Like I stated before, the strongest element of Kimetsu no Yaiba is its visually stunning battles and fights, and Yuukaku-hen is by no means an exception. The animation quality as a whole was even better than in S1 in the majority of cases, an impressive feat, and one that I very much enjoyed. This amazing quality carried right right over into the fights, which had a great energy and flow to them that really brings the show to life. As a whole Ufotable did an impressive job with the most important part of the show and it very clearly shows.
If your are someone that needs more than pretty colors and awesome fights to make a show worth your time, than Kimetsu no Yaiba is not for you. Yes it lacks depth in its story and characters and is sometimes the most generic cliched piece of television ever concieved, it's still fun to just watch and look at. Its an easy show to get an "enlightened, un-normie" opinion of because of its narrative simplicity, but I don't think that its as important as some people make it out to be. Its a show for people who like to watch pretty fights, simple as that.