Author: Lenlo

Hello everyone and welcome to the final post about the second season of Kimetsu no Yaiba! This is going to be a shorter one since I’m prepping the final review but there’s still plenty to talk about. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off lets talk about my overall thoughts for the arc. As a whole I think Yaiba has everything it needs. All the basic beats, all the important core pieces of the narrative. An MC struggling against stronger and stronger foes, a few groupies with distinct personality traits, the mentor and a villain with a tragic backstory. Everything you need for a basic Shounen story is present in this season. So why then for the past few episodes now have I really only praised Yaiba’s production, which is indeed rather good. I’ll be answering this question more in depth in my final review but I can answer the spirit of the question now: The way Yaiba tells its story is very simple and straight forward, the most basic of Shounen tropes. And to prove my point I want to talk about the core of this weeks episode, the Demon’s backstory.

Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 18 [No Matter How Many Lives]” →

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.

Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 17 [Never Give Up]” →

Alright everyone its another episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba so you know the drill. It’s time to talk pretty lights, simple fights and everyone’s favorite sleepy boy. So without further ado lets dive in!

Starting off some small praise to Yaiba. Visuals continue to look good. To follow up on my point last week about poor camera usage, I want to say the wide shots were some of my favorites this week. Seeing everything in motion together, the belts, the blades, the characters, is always the best for me. That said, there was one Uzui clip in particular that caught my eye. You’ll find it below the break but suffice to say I loved its entire aesthetic. The different colored lights, the sound of fireworks going off, the wide full body shot as he swings his blades. It’s all so in character for Uzui, so his style, yet it falls perfectly within what Ufotable like to do. I’m really glad they found a way to depict his Sound Breathing since they can’t give that proper elemental effects like Tanjiro and Zenitsu.

Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 16 [Defeating an Upper Rank Demon]” →

Welcome everyone to another week of Kimetsu no Yaiba! While last week was the quintessential Yaiba episode, this week is a bit more subdued. Not in the fight or anything like that, more in what you can expect from it. Interested? Then lets jump in! Once you find a site to watch the new episode come back and tune in. You can easily find a free site online, but does anyone know where to watch jackass forever movie?

Immediately I need to get something off my chest: I have issues with Yaiba, and by extension Ufotable’s, animation style. Oh its all technically very good, we can all see that. The lighting, the movements, the coloring, that’s all obviously good. But this week also shows a big issue of mine: The speed. So much of this weeks fight just moved to fast. We cut from camera to camera at lightning speed, the blurs and closeup shots, the overreliance on the 3D camera. I get it, we CAN move like this. But SHOULD we? The episode cut between so many different close ups so quickly it make it difficult to follow what was going on. I almost always found the wide shots, where we could see and follow the characters movements, to be more appealing. Does this mean Yaiba looked bad? No. But it was difficult to follow.

Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 15 [Gathering]” →