Review of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Entertainment District Arc

Frankly, I disliked the first season of Demon Slayer, and if you go back and read my review that'll be quite evident. I didn't quite dislike the Mugen Train Arc, but I didn't overly like it either. I was probably somewhere in the realm of indifferent. So, going into this, my expectations were pretty modest. I'm happy to say this wildly exceeded what I thought it could be and this is genuinely very, very good. The visuals here are insane. It could easily be a really high-end anime movie that one goes to see in theaters. I don't know of any series that looks better thanthis does right now.

The pacing dramatically improves here, the action is fervent and the villains are super badass and threatening, both before and during the climactic fight, which spans many, many episodes.

In many ways- primarily how good it looks, how hard they nailed the atmosphere and how intense and unrelenting the action is- this really is peak Shounen. This falls just short of a 10 for me because the secondary characters are still loud and obnoxious (though admittedly a LITTLE bit less so here than in previous seasons) and because of the wild, borderline offensively stupid conveniences offered up as explanations in a handful of instances. One that really offended me was a character who was gravely wounded casually stating they can simply "rearrange my internal organs", and therefore they're fine. Likewise, a different character managed to "stop my own heart" (and of course, keep fighting with a stopped heart...) to cure the poison they'd been afflicted with. Those moments made me roll my eyes because they're cheap and stupid, but if you're able to overlook that kind of thing there's a lot to like here.

OBJECTIVE RATING- 9-10
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 9.5