Review of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Entertainment District Arc
The 11th episode came out today, and I just got done watching it. This season was pretty good overall, and I seriously don't understand all the overly negative commentary it's been getting. For the most part, it was great! The sound and animation with this season, as always, is spot on. Especially during the fight scenes (which will always been one of my favorite things about this anime). ((From this point onward, there will be spoilers)) I thought the whole main trio having to dress up as girls in the beginning episodes was actually hilarious. I especially loved Zenitsu's reaction to the whole ordeal, and justoverall how absolutely ugly they made the poor guy look.
I also loved how they showed that Nezuko has improved greatly when it comes to battling demons. Well, "greatly" might be an understatement. They basically made that girl into one of the fiercest demons we've seen yet this season. I gotta admit that I definitely was not expecting that at all, but it made the season so much more heart-racing after seeing her like that. Next season, I definetely need to know more about how she got to be so powerful since we last witnessed her battle a demon.
I also really liked how we got more info on the fire dance thingy that Tanjiro was trying to research. The most powerful of all the breathing techniques? Now I can't wait for them to explore more of this concept next season, and maybe see Tanjiro grow even more powerful than he's already been shown to be.
Another small thing I liked was how they made Zenitsu stay asleep for the entirety of the battle sequences towards the end. He was able to help out a ton and show off his amazing lightning abilities at the same time. Now, I know that some people will look too much into this and be like, "Wow, that's so unrealistic for someone to be asleep that long and with all that commotion going on"... and honestly, you may be right, or maybe there's more to it, I don't know. But regardless, although I still love Zenitsu's character when he's not passed out and fighting like that, realistically, we all know that without him being asleep, he can be a very burdensome person to have around during battle because of his fear that he has trouble overcoming. That is why I can appreciate the writers of the show making him magically stay asleep for so long.
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Now, onto what I DON'T LIKE about this season. I was hoping for at least one significant death this season. I know that probably makes me sound like a psycho, but let me explain. Main or side character death is something that makes a show seem more realistic and creates more depth and development to characters who have to live with that death.
In a show that revolves around human-eating demons, it honestly shouldn't be a stretch to expect a significant death at least once every season. In this season, there were so many main and even side character's like Tengen's wives that could have been killed off to give even more depth to the story and it's characters.
Ughhhh I feel bad even writing this... It's not like I don't want characters to be happy and whatnot, but this show as it is right now is not about people being happy. Without Tanjiro's family dying in season 1, he wouldn't be a demon slayer right now. Without Kyojuro dying in the last movie, Tanjiro, Inosuke and Zenitsu wouldn't have become as passionate about their training, nor would they have been able to properly realize and process just how powerful the upper rank demons are in comparison to themselves at the level they are at now.
From the beginning, this show has shown its viewers that it's story is tragic and terrifying at it's core. You are immersed into a world full of demons that want to kill and eat innocent people around every corner, and they rarely show mercy unless they want to turn you into a demon. I got some feel of that this season when Daki made her ribbons slash up everyone down a whole block at once and killed many people. And yes, this did allow Tanjiro to get a sort of power-up, and it did look really cool. But again, the deaths weren't like they were in the past movie and season because those people who were killed weren't even side characters, they were just the usual deaths that are always occurring in this show.
One more thing I hated was that the writers decided to devote a huge amount of time in the last episode to give a backstory to the 2 dying demons. Why even do this? They didn't do that much backstory (if any at all, I can't remember) to the main demon who died in the Mughen Train movie, so why not do the same here? I get why they did that with the first few demons Tanjiro came across, because they wanted to get the point across that all demons were just humans with feelings at one point and then were made into demons. But at this point, we really didn't need a backstory that long. I'm sure at the very least they could've shortened it to show a basic story and then show that new demon who made Daki and her brother into demons. I was just so hyped for this last episode, and felt really disappointed when most of the time of it was wasted on a couple of dying demons' backstories instead of focusing on Tanjiro and the others. Maybe they could've even taken the time to hint more about exactly what was in store for the trio next season to get the viewers more hyped.
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Overall, this season wasn't the greatest in comparison to the first season and the Mughen Train movie, BUT it was still pretty good and definitely worth a watch. Don't let the 4 score reviews scare you off. This season was not as bad as they're making it out to be.