It's that time of year where I rave about a manga series that should be more popular than it is. Last time it was Psyren, and this time it is Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. The reason I chose this one is because it is on the cusp of breaking out. It is also one of my favorites of the currently running series out of Japan.
Of course, I already reviewed volume 1, but there is far more to talk about beyond that. I wanted to wait a little while between official releases to give this series the focus it deserves, but I can wait no longer. There's quite a bit to go over since these three volume build the world and lead up to the first longer story arc in the series. Essentially, with volume 4 you learn everything you'll need to know going forward about our main characters and the conflict they are embroiled in.
This is a review of volume 2, 3 and 4 of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, a series that, outside of My Hero Academia, is the best thing currently running in Weekly Shonen Jump. Viz waited a bit longer than I would have liked to license it and give it an official push, but they are bumping up the release schedule to make up for it with one every other month.
On top of that, Ufotable, the studio behind all those different Fate/Zero anime series will be making an animated show for this starting in April 2019. That's right, it begins next season. You can see a trailer for it here which, coincidentally enough, covers much of what happens in the first four volumes.
The smooth animation and visceral direction is picture perfect. This is far beyond what the likes of Naruto, Bleach, or even One Piece, got when they received anime. Jump is putting all they can into this one.
In other words, this series is either destined to take off big very soon or is liable to get totally overlooked and overshadowed by the also great My Hero Academia. I want it to be the former so I will try to be honest with why I think so highly of this series. This one deserves every push it can get.
As far as shonen action series, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba hits all the marks and avoids the pitfalls so common with the worst of the genre. I'll explain that side more later, but first I want to start with the story.
In volume 1 we met Tanjiro Kamado as his family was slaughtered by demons with only his sister, Nezuko, surviving. However, instead of dying she was transformed into a demon. Somehow she managed to hold her mindless rage in check and the demon hunter present spared her life. He sends Tanjiro on a quest to become a hunter himself to find the cure for his sister. Along the way he learns more about the demons than he thought possible.
Volume 2 continues where volume 1 started showing how Tanjiro became a demon hunter and how he learned their sword techniques. After his first few missions he finally faces down the one who created all these demons in the first place, a man named Muzan, in a crowded street. Chaos very quickly ensues. These demons are a bit more complicated in their origins and what they can and can't do, and Tanjiro receives a hint as to how he can possibly turn his sister Nezuko human again. All he needs is the blood of a higher level demon.
To do that, he needs to become one of the best demon hunters out there. But that isn't going to be easy. All the demons he has fought so far are low level.
Volume 3 finishes off the previous story, but also finally gets into the meat of why this series is so good. With this volume we meet two new characters and enter a story arc inside a haunted mansion with a demon that twists and turns the rooms with seeming randomness. Volume 4 wraps the arc up, but the whole thing ramps up the horror, tension, and action, from the earlier chapters. The series hits its stride here.
In this arc, three demon hunters and a group of children become trapped in a mansion where drum beats shift the rooms around and a group of demons await inside and wait to feast on them. It is here that two more hunters are properly introduced to the story and we learn their personalities and what it is they can do.
The first new character (also on volume 3's cover) is Zenitsu Agatsuma, another member of the Demon Corps. Tanjiro is now a part of. Zenitsu is a strange addition to the series, ostensibly being comedic relief, though he does also act very cowardly. But he has a hidden side to him that comes out when his back is up against the wall and it is time to act. He is different from Tanjiro in that he has no reason to be in the Demon Corps. and doesn't really have any tragic backstory. At first glance he appears to be fodder that will either die and be forgotten or exists to show the audience how much the main character has progressed. But one thing that separates him from most coward characters, and gets me to like him far more than I would otherwise, is that the way he deals with his cowardice.
This is difficult to explain, but most such characters are used as the butt of jokes and are usually the weakest characters in any action series. This is for good reason. Shonen doesn't have much respect for selfish people or those with weak wills, and God bless them for it. However, Zenitsu's craven nature is a bit different than a coward. He whines, complains, thinks up excuses, and will do anything to avoid fighting demons . . . until he has to do it.
Zenitsu acts selfish, but he still helps anyone who asks, fights despite his fear, and is a pretty good guy that happens to have weak nerves. All he wants is to find a wife, settle down, and have a family that he can be of use to. He just doesn't want to die before it happens! And he can't quite settle down as long as demons threaten the peace, can he?
The way he contrasts with Tanjiro and the second new character adds a good dynamic to the series we didn't have until now. It's honestly not one I've seen in many action series, period. Most demon hunters go after demons because of personal reasons or because they just hate evil that much. Zenitsu doesn't have the composure, talent, or build for this line of work, and yet he does it anyway. Though there is a hidden piece of him that does, but that is for another time.
As far as coward characters in Shonen go, I think Zenitsu is one of the best. A warrior who fights past he nerves to become the warrior he needs to be. The readers must agree too, because he was ranked the second most popular character in the series in Japan in the character popularity poll. He definitely helps elevate the manga and brings it up to the potential seen back in the first chapter. I'm eager to see where he will end up as the series goes.
The other new character is the demon hunter with the boar head sitting atop his shoulders: Inosuke Haibara. He's not actually a boar-man, just a swordsman who wears one instead of a shirt. He's really that simple and straightforward. And boy is this series better for having him in it.
Inosuke is the hothead of the group, always doing before thinking, but his sense for battle is definitely the best of the three and he knows how to fight. He has no problem killing any enemy that gets in his way, and longs to be at the top of the food chain. Why? Because that's all he knows. At least, for now.
Raised wild in the mountains as an orphan, Inosuke is completely tactless and ignorant of the modern world and is without any semblance of sociability. He's tenacious and one step short of being a reckless fool and dead. He behaves like a rabid animal who lives for the sole purpose of slaying bigger enemies and washing himself in the blood of said foes. What else is there in life?
As you can tell, Inosuke is not a subtle person in any way. He's simpleminded and without any semblance of complexity or depth to his characterization. He's also one of the best characters in the manga for it.
But it's when the three of them get together that the manga really shines. Each of the trio (and Nezuko) offers something different to the group and a different dynamic to each of the others among them. They all give each other something they don't already have and can't get from anyone else. This is a group that meshes and does it well. I'd go more into it, but that's just ahead in the story to come.
The entire story of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is about good versus evil and those involved in the conflict. The good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. As simple as I make this sound, few action series get this balance right these days.
Where most shonen (and modern action stories) fail in this is in how they fail to establish stakes and character goals and how they need to tie in to each other. This is how you gain investment: we want the main character to succeed and the villain to fail because they are opposites and the hero's goal is the better of the two. Without that duality you have no power.
One of the worst things One Piece and Naruto did to shonen is to inspire so many up and comers to turn their protagonists into flat, simpleminded, and shallow, characters due to their goals. They're no longer characters but shonen protagonists to hit a checkbox.
Naruto wants to be the Hokage of his village so that people (who bullied and hate him) will acknowledge him. Why does he need this? Purely selfish reasons. The character then spends most of the series being a screw-up idiot who can't do anything right and who we're meant to laugh at. His enemies are frequently generic bad guys who have no real reason to do what they are doing except that otherwise Naruto would have no one to fight. Not that it is bad on its own, but the villain has no direct tie to Naruto or what he's trying to accomplish thereby making the conflict weak. This leads to many arcs and chapters centered on things other than what the central premise is supposed to be about with no movement towards the overarching goal and repeatedly reminding the audience that the main character is stupid. Not to say the writer didn't have good moments with the character in the story, but I could never really get behind Naruto as a protagonist because his goal is weak and selfish, as is he, and his enemies had little to nothing to do with him achieving it.
It worked well enough for Naruto, despite it's many warts, but its influence led to many worse and overwhelmingly generic series in its wake. You know the stereotypical loud shonen protagonist who is an idiot that eats a lot and has an innate sense of justice only because he is designated the main character? That didn't exist before the late '90s when Naruto and One Piece made it popular. The closest you can find before then is Dragon Ball, which was a comedy and was not meant as a serious action series with a defined goal until nearly halfway through its run.
That influence persisted in the genre for over a decade. For most of the '00s shonen was stuck in that rut. Aside from Death Note (where the protagonist is the villain) and a handful of series like Psyren you won't find too many outside this archetype. It ended up making shonen nothing but loud noises and flashy battles with nothing to show for it by decade's end. They successfully neutered the genre.
The '10s began to change this with series like World Trigger and My Hero Academia giving the main hero a brain and goals that tie directly with their antagonists and fight scenes that have blood. By "blood", I mean grit, purpose, and depth, beyond the surface level of two dudes punching each other in the face. Gore is not required for that. But these series made shonen great again.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba has all of that. Tanjiro is a good guy thrown into a bad situation. He lost everything he ever had, and can never have it back. But he can save one piece of it--his sister. And he can prevent others from suffering the same fate. To achieve these goals he has to slay every demon he can find and take it to the top where evil runs amok over the land. Maybe someday everyone else can have some peace, even if he never will. This is a hero.
That's the sort of person I want to follow through their adventures, and his is an enemy I want to see him slay. What he does on the way there has just been made far more intriguing in how it ties to the rest. All that comes from having weight to the goals.
This is what I mean by avoiding the pitfalls so common in modern action and shonen. Whether it's a pulp story from 1933, a movie from 1986, or a manga from 2018, I only require a few things. Blood, investment, and dynamics. Have those and I will be there. This series manages all that and then some.
Whatever happens next in the story, I hope the author can reach a wider audience with it. She has done a great job with this one. It gets even better from here.
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