Kimetsu no Yaiba – 17 [You Must Master a Single Thing]

Welcome to Zenitsu week on Kimetsu no Yaiba! This week we get a flashback, Zenitsu goes super saiyan and we meet 3 more of the demon family. Lets jump in!

Now, I could talk about a lot of things here in production. I could mention the hit or miss CGI spiders, and how the quality varies by scene. I could talk about the comedic faces and what not. But no one cares about that. Infact, people only care about one thing in particular this week, and thats Zenitsu. Because the simple fact is that even if he hadn’t gotten a decent backstory this week, I wouldn’t care. I want Yaiba to keep him around, hell show more of him, just so Nozomu Abe can do more of what he did today. With an entire episode building up to a single cut, the man and by extension Yaiba knocked it out the park. I just… I can’t explain how beautiful this scene is. Sound, animation, pacing. Screw Tanjiro’s water effects, make this the Zenitsu show just for more lightning!

Beyond the sheer beauty of Abe’s animation, lets talk Zenitsu, this week’s focus. Because simply put, I am conflicted on him. I despise how he is presented in the present. The whiny nature and nasally voice, it’s just all turned up to 11. However, Yaiba more than justified his character archetype with his background. Answering most everything we have ever wondered about him. For instance, I have previously asked why Zenitsu doesn’t just… leave. Go to a different profession. Well the answer is simple, because he doesn’t want to disappoint the one person to have ever believed in him. Normally this wouldn’t fly with a coward like Zenitsu. However his strange sense of honor was previously shown with how he handled the food Tanjiro gave him and defending Nezuko’s box. So it fits now, when it’s relevant to the story.

This isn’t all however, we also see how he came to enter into the profession in the first place. That being his grandfather once being a powerful Demon Slayer. This even introduces a rival for the future, though we see little of him. There are some aspects of this that were sketchy of course. Such as surviving a thunderstrike and it changing his hair color. However I am more than willing to forgive this, because the rest worked so well. In particular, my favorite part of the backstory has to do with the episode title. How Zenitsu only knows a single form, yet has practiced it day in and day out. Honing it to beyond perfection, no doubt to heights even his grandfather never expected. This sort of single minded focus is an archetype I enjoy, and I think lends itself well to Shounen. So well done here, Yaiba.

Before moving on from the backstory, there is one last thing I want to touch on. That being that Zenitsu himself is aware of his faults, and clearly hates himself for it. He knows he is a coward, he knows that how he acts isn’t acceptable, yet he doesn’t believe he has the ability to change. However we the audience have seen him live up to these ideals more than once. As I previously explained, his odd sense of honor in regards to Tanjiro’s food or Nezuko’s box. Those are the exact sort of actions he believes he is incapable of, yet doesn’t see he is doing. So in this respect, I think Tanjiro and Inosuke’s blunt natures will help him look up and acknowledge that he isn’t a complete waste of space. Once again, they work best as a trio. Now we just need to cut down the crying.

For the fight itself, what else is there to say really? The CGI spiders were creepy as hell, and I found Zenitsu’s constant jumping to the First Form to be interesting. Aside from that, it only really used the environment once for the finale. Such that the house might as well have not existed outside the Demons entrance and um… exit. However, with the finale we saw, I don’t think it needed to be more than that. The focus was Zenitsu, not the demon. That’s why none of them have even gotten names yet. This arc doesn’t exist for them or compelling villain’s, not really. Rather it exists for our leads, and I fully expect to get a backstory for Inosuke coming soon. The one worry I do have about the fight is simply the poison and how Yaiba will save him without making it seem cheap.

Finally, we have the Demons themselves, as we meet a total of 3 this week. 1 is dead, so we don’t need to talk about him. Instead let’s focus on the daughter and the father, as their actions surprised me. We saw with the mother that the Father was abusing her in some way. Yet, here he is, leaping to the defense of his daughter, her calling out to him. It makes me curious what’s going on deeper here, and who the Kizuki really is. Most likely, it’s the one we saw at the start, the young child threatening the mother. He has had the most striking appearance and always seems to be in charge. Yet then you have to wonder, is the father being threatened to? Forced to beat his family at the whims of the child? I have to say, I am looking forward to finding out.

So all in all, how was the episode? Sure, I could critique every little aspect of the narrative here. Point out the flawed CGI on the spiders or the brisk pace of it all. But really, I can’t find it in me to do that. Yaiba is a Shounen, and a Shounen’s job is to excite the audience, to give us fun battles and epic moments. I have heard some refer to it as the junkfood genre of Anime. Well here is what I have to say to them, screw you! Because Zenitsu’s buildup and climax all throughout this one episode was enough to make me actually want more of him. Sure, part of it is Abe’s animation, but it counts! So, in terms of raw enjoyment, I loved this week. To the greater narrative whole, there are problems, but sheer fun factor? I am all in.