Category: Finished Series: Action

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]” →

Welcome to another episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba everyone! This week Nezuko discovers the power of family, Uzui shows us why he is the God of Festivals and we meet the true villain of the arc. Sound fun? Good. Then without further ado lets dive in!

Starting off I need to, as usual, praise Yaiba for looking good this week. Not just in the animation this time, though the blood blades, lighting and 3D camera work all looked good. Rather I want to praise it for something a lot of anime seem to ignore: Shot composition. There were some really good ones this week! I’m talking stuff like Daki sitting passively behind Uzui, always in the background after his entrance. Or the framing of her brother as he appears out of her back and takes up the whole frame. Uzui and the way he is suspended in the air while dodging blades and tossing out bombs. Yaiba usually looks good in movement, that’s what its known for. But I’m glad to see these slower, wider, epic shots like what we saw with the spider family last season make a return. They are the truly memorable ones.

Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 14 [Transformation]” →

Welcome back everyone! Apologies for missing last week, I didn’t have much to say and combined with the new year just put it off until now. Is that lazy? Yes. But this is a hobby so I do what I want! That said, this week and episode 13 were pretty eventful. So lets dive in and talk about those.

First, we have a lot to talk about regarding the production of these last two episodes. Had this post just been about episode 12, I wouldn’t be very positive. The CGI models, and their compositing with the backgrounds and other 2D characters, is starting to become very noticeable here. It isn’t a massive drain on the enjoyment but sometimes I’ll see a scene and think “Oh yeah, that stands out”. But it seems that is only because Yaiba was saving a lot of its best for episode 13. Like seriously, just look at this cut by Nozomu Abe after the break. Do the CGI cloth strips stand out? Yes. Do the fire effects and Tanjiro’s quick movements look so good that I honestly don’t care about the clothing? Also yes. And that’s basically the entire episode in a nutshell. Highs so good they make me not care about the lows.

Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 12/13 [Things Are Gonna Get Real Flashy!!/Layered Memories]” →

Welcome back everyone to a special double feature of Kimetsu no Yaiba! Apologies for missing last week, I caught the Covid and surprise surprise, it fucks you up pretty bad. I’m back now though, feeling fine and ready to talk about some demons! So without further ado lets dive in.

Starting off like we usually do, lets talk visuals. This should come as no surprise but, by and large, Kimetsu no Yaiba still looks good! The entertainment district still makes great use of Yaiba’s lighting and bright colors. Sure the CGI can still be off in a few places, mostly the wide shots with full-body models. But for every shitty one of those we get a first person sequence through a house, so its cool. The only real complaint I have is with last weeks episode which felt like it cut a tad to much. We were switching scenes all over the place, constantly cutting between characters and shifting the tension. Yaiba had to tell 3 different character experiences, I get that. But maybe just… let them linger a bit longer rather than constantly jumping, yeah? Otherwise though, looked good!

Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 10/11 [What Are You?/Tonight]” →

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba! Last week kicked off our new content but this week is what sold me on it. I have a lot of positive things to say so lets jump right in.

First the obvious: Kimetsu no Yaiba look good. I normally have a lot to say about Ufotable’s dependency on post-processing and after-effects, not all of it positive. They actually really over due it at times if I’m being frank. Just look at some of the recent Heaven’s Feel movies. But that very same love of after-effects and lighting lends itself really well to the nightlife of the entertainment district. The glow of the lanterns contrasting with the night sky, the colorful yukata, makeup and accessories everyone is wearing. I think it’s really nice, a veritable treat after the CGI tentacle fest of the last arc where the only light came from the train! That the entire arc is going to take place here is exciting and I’m looking forward to whatever bombastic fight they have planned.

Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 9 [Infiltrating the Entertainment District]” →

It’s here, it’s here, the next Kimetsu no Yaiba arc has arrived! Finally some new content. Sorry this took so long, I’ve had to tear myself away from Final Fantasy 14’s new expansion to get this out. Enough about fantastic RPGs though lets talk demons!

First up the obvious: This is a double feature! And it really didn’t have to be! Now to be fair, had this season started with this episode then I could see the argument. The movie released over a year ago and it’s been awhile, a small refresher to get us back into the mood is warranted. So I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt to Ufotable that they originally planned for that to be the case. But sadly it isn’t. Instead we got the entire movie in TV format, yes I know MAL and Anilist have it as separate entries and its stupid because the first episode is original content, for the first half of the season. So we’re already caught up. We don’t need a lot of this and the episode probably could have been condensed. That said? I did like some of the original content.

Continue reading “Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 8 [Sound Hashira Tengen Uzui]” →