Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 17 [Never Give Up]

Welcome everyone to the penultimate episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba S2! I’ve heard some rumblings comparing this to the fabled Episode 19 of Season 1, and you know what? They aren’t to far off. So without further ado lets dive in!

For now lets start positive with the production. Because as anyone with eyes can see, this week was rather pretty. You could probably argue that Yaiba went a bit to heavy on the effects in places. It’s certainly not a style everyone will enjoy, especially not those who value subtle, realistic movement. But even those folks would have to agree that what Yaiba did this week was technically impressive. Nozomu Abe, Masayuki Kunihiro, and others really nailed the sense of 3D space. I especially liked the heavier linework you’ll see in Abe’s scene I linked below the break. If you’ve read me for any length of time, that shouldn’t surprise you. I love heavy line work. And Yaiba is one of the few series I can consistently get it in. My only real complaint production wise is the photoreal fire simulations don’t quite fit the rest of the scenes.

Narratively though… this is where I have problems. Lets just rip the band aid off and say it clean: This felt like a week of asspulls. Like the worst kind of schlock Shounen writing. I’m talking Zenitsu pulling out GOD SPEED with a fucked up leg, Inosuke being able to rearrange his internal organs from a sneak attack and Uzui stopping his own heart/turning a fight into a song. And the attack names! Oh so many attack names. There was so much dialogue, it was so dense. But it was like 70% attack names so nothing actually got said. It’s like technobabble but for Shounen and it annoys me so freaking much. Like yes, the fight is pretty. But I don’t care how pretty you make a spam sandwich, its still going to taste like shit.

Is there a reason writers can’t just have characters implement what they already have in clever ways? I’m talking about Inosuke sawing Daki’s head off since his blades are fucked up. About Tanjiro taking both of his breathes and combining/switching between them as one grows to arduous. I use these specific examples to show that Yaiba can do this. It’s done it before, to varying degrees of success! So why are we falling back on the tried and true DBZ method of power acquisition: Scream louder when you’re in danger, get new power up. I thought that was fun as a kid, sure. But now that I’m in my 20s? I want a bit more meat in my action battle-to-the-death Shounen. Is that so wrong?

Moving on, I was a tad disappointed in how Gyutaro was handled. I was really hoping for a small moment of humanity from him. Some kind of connection between him and Tanjiro in regards to being big brothers. Something to show us who he was before Muzan. Instead Yaiba kind of just doubles down on him being an evil asshole. Bullying, mocking and smacking Tanjiro about despite their personal similarities. Yeah he offers Tanjiro the chance to become a demon, to become “friends”. And I like how this parallels to Rengoku from last arc. We get to see Tanjiro’s resolve, see him become resolute in his decision and that despite it hurting him, he knows its for the best. That’s all good stuff, I have no complaints there! I just wish I was given more of an opportunity to connect with Gyutaro as a villain.

Now to be fair to Yaiba, it does attempt this later on in the episode via Tanjiro. It tries to bridge their gap by showing Gyutaro and Daki as what Tanjiro and Nezuko could have been if Tanjiro had become a demon. And in spirit, that’s what I wanted! Its the recognition of humanity in even their worst opponents. But the fact that it comes from our goody-two-shoes MC rather than our villain, like say the Spider Mom Demon from season 1 who didn’t defend herself, weakens it for me. I think that had Gyutaro been the one to recognize and vocalize this connection, that Tanjiro resolving to kill him would have hit a lot harder than it did. As it is, its not even a question that Gyutaro needs to die after all the destruction he’s wrought. It feels like a big missed opportunity is what I’m saying.

Finally we come to Tanjiro and the reveal that, yes, he is a chosen one. I was disappointed when I read this in the manga and I’m disappointed here. A few episodes a go we got this whole spiel about how Tanjiro wasn’t the chosen one. About how he got his scar saving his sibling. And while I wished that had been presented better, I liked that Tanjiro was just a normal guy. However we learn this episode that it was all a red herring, that he is special! Now granted, this does explain why Muzan went out of his way to kill a random family of coal sellers in the mountain. That’s been a question for a while now. I was just really hoping it would be a coincidence rather than an almost prophecy kind of thing.

So yeah all in all I think this was a beautiful episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba that displayed many of my issues with how Shounen are written. That isn’t meant to be a jab, I love Shounen. Many of my favorite series of all time are in that demographic. I think that coming of age stories, battles, action fantasy set pieces, have some of the most variety you can find. It’s a kind of story you can fit into any setting, any conflict, any genre. We most often see stuff like Yaiba because it tends to be the easiest to write, with works like Ping Pong and Fullmetal Alchemist being outliers. Suffice to say that, getting off my soapbox, Yaiba was good fun this week. But that’s all it was for me. And I think it could be so much more with just a few tweaks.