Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 7 [Set Your Heart Ablaze]

We’ve done it everyone! We’re finally done with Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen Train TV extended edition! Do you know what that means? That next week we finally get some new content! Before that though I need to do my due diligence and finish up this arc. So without further ado lets dive in!

Starting off: This episode should have been a double feature, merged with last weeks. Why? Well I’m going to use the P-word everyone probably hates, and I promise this is the last time but with Mugen Train ending I have to, pacing. This episode once again suffers from being cut into a weekly schedule. Its content, this long sustained fight, was not designed for a weeks break in-between. Like… I enjoyed this fight! Rengoku is great and once you get into the swing of things the hype is real! But because of the week long break, every episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba starts cold. We have to be re-introduced, re-heated, before we can really get into the fight and I think this episode is one of the clearest examples of that. Surely this isn’t just a me thing right? I’m not alone in how sudden the opening feels… right?

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 6 [Akaza]

I’m back from New York City everyone! That was a fun trip. Got to see the city, hang out with some friends, go to a weeb convention and spend way to much money on food. Even got to see Pompo the Cinephile! Alright movie. But that isn’t what you’re here for, oh no. You want some Kimetsu no Yaiba! So lets dive into last weeks episode that I’m many days late on.

This was always my favorite part of the Yaiba movie. It has issues, especially in the TV format which we will talk about. But at it’s core this section is just unadulterated hype. It’s one big fight that they poured their everything into. From big fire and wind effects to flashy lighting and large CGI environments, this is everything Yaiba is good at. And we are only half way done with the fight! There are some issues, sure. The camera gets a little wild and Ufotable completely ignore the 180 degree rule making it a bit of a mess to follow. On top of that the CGI fire lion was a bit to much if you ask me. These are both relatively small complains though and by and large I think this scene shows us what Yaiba does best: Set piece battles.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 5 [Move Forward!]

Welcome everyone to another episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba! This week is going to be a bit of a shorter post, we don’t have to much to talk about. I’ll do my best to cover everything that’s important though so lets dive into it!

Starting off, animation! And like usual Kimetsu no Yaiba fares pretty well here. I especially like the elemental effects. These things continue to be gorgeous, I absolutely love the Ukiyo-e style water and fire effects. The thick, contrasting lines of white and black within these bright colors sets them apart from everything else. And because of how heavily saturated the colors are I find myself not caring about the lack of detail such as shading or how they are composited. Maybe its just my love for heavy blacks, but I think it looks really good and reminds me of cel-shaded animation and games graphics. And on top of all of that the 3D camera work is actually really solid! At least… as long as you ignore the poop tentacles. Yes, you read that right. Poop tentacles. And they look just as ugly as they sound.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 4 [Insult]

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Kimetsu no Yaiba! We had a bit of a break there, partly for the show and partly for me, but thats fine more time for Ufotable to work on the second half. Or maybe… maybe even to work on this half. Because if my suspicions are correct, this isn’t just a reprint of the movie. Not entirely at least. Lets dive in and talk about it!

Starting off, if I didn’t know any better I would say there were some new cuts in this episode. Stuff that wasn’t in the movie! Really Kimetsu no Yaiba? You’re going to spoil me? And indeed, going by this post from reddit user “eitherism” there was a good bit added. From the falling scene with the young man in Tanjiro’s dream to making his suicide a bit bloodier as well as moving some stuff around to better fit these new scenes. Of course not all of it is great. Yaiba is still cutting out the occasional character or exposition scene it seems and causing some continuity issues. But ignoring what are admittedly very small issues, Yaiba has added more than it took out. As someone who expected this to be nothing more than the movie cut up and re-aired, that’s kind of impressive.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 3 [Should Have Been]

Welcome everyone to episode 3 of Kimetsu no Yaiba! This week we continue our rewatch of the movie in the long wait until December for new content. So without further ado lets dive in!

This week lets skip the production talk. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it, this is a movie, it looks good. I’ve also already mentioned the pacing issues. So instead lets go right to the crux of the episode: Dreams. I mentioned last week that this was a pretty clever way to explore the characters, and I stand by that. However that’s only true if Kimetsu no Yaiba chooses to engage those characters in that way. And sadly half our cast don’t get that kind of treatment. Both Inosuke and Zenitsu seem to have been relegated to comic relief in this arc and I think that’s a shame. This was the perfect opportunity to expand on both of their characters but Inosuke especially. The guy never talks about himself, he doesn’t really share his personal feelings, and the dream was the perfect opportunity to get around that. It’s a missed opportunity if you ask me.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 2 [Deep Sleep]

Hello and welcome to the Kimetsu no Yaiba movie Episode 2 of Kimetsu no Yaiba! That’s right, this week begins the movie retread. For those of you who have already seen it you won’t be getting anything new. And for those that haven’t? Lets dive in and talk about that.

Right off the bat you can tell that this is movie quality stuff. Not because of any of the big scenes mind you. Yaiba was always, and still is, pretty good about those. It’s more the consistency of it all. The small scenes that normally, in a TV anime at least, wouldn’t get animated. Stuff like Inosuke’s various snort effects, the various facial expressions or movement of background characters, etc. Of course the big things have their moments to though. I have issues with Ufotable’s CGI coming up in later episodes but god is this train pretty. The lighting, the tracking, the smoke, this is a good looking train! And Ufotable knows it, as you will quickly find out by the amount of full-model shots in the upcoming episodes. Whatever you think of the story, and I have qualms about it, you can’t deny that Yaiba is pretty.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S2 – 1 [Flame Hashira Kyojuro Rengoku]

Hello everyone and welcome back to Kimetsu no Yaiba! Time for that classic Ufotable shounen spice. Before we get into anything though I have to make one thing clear: Yaiba is going to be lower priority for awhile since it’s just re-airing the movie split into episodes. I’m still going to cover it! But Eighty Six and Throwback Thursday will take precedence. The real Yaiba, for me, doesn’t start until December. That out of the way, its jump into it!

Of course the first thing we have to talk about are the visuals. This is what Yaiba is known for. And rightly so if you ask me. Ufotable’s effects driven presentation might not be my favorite, I think Heike is the best looking show of the season, but its still good. Kinda like a Marvel movie’s CGI-fest versus real props and miniatures, etc. One thing I do have to call it out for though is the composite. Sometimes its just so… painfully obvious that the character was added into the environment after the fact. Their visual styles, the CGI, the post-processing, they don’t fit together. Most of the time it’s fine enough. But in some of the darker scenes where light and shadow were really important it was very noticeable. Not a big problem, Yaiba is still pretty. But it’s there. And we will see more of it.

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SSSS.Dynazenon – 10-11

Looks like Dynazenon’s format-breaking episode arrived in its tenth week, rather than its ninth. “Which Memories Do You Regret?” was a challenging piece of work, much like Gridman’s “Dream,” and though I don’t think this season’s experiment went over quite as well as the previous one, the shake-up was appreciated. It wasn’t just the ‘kaiju of the week’ formula that received an adjustment, either. The character designs were noticeably looser – more angular in motion, yet rounder (and occasionally deformed) in close-up. “More with less” was the animation director’s mission statement for this one, as moments like Yomogi bursting through the barrier to Yume’s past were made hectic by limited frame counts, yet he still found time to slow down for a sisterly heart-to-heart in the second act. This assortment of styles put me in mind of the late Osamu Kobayashi, who surely would have enjoyed this episode for its aesthetic detours. That probably means a lot of other people didn’t like it, but hey, Dynazenon wasn’t built to be a crowd favorite.

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SSSS.Dynazenon – 8-9 [What Are These Wavering/Overlapping Emotions?]

You really had me going this week, Amemiya. Chise’s Kubrickian vision at the start of episode 9 left me anticipating another extended dream sequence, like the one we got at the same point in Gridman’s run, but it never came. The previous episode even ended by tinting the frame a dreamy sunset color during Yomogi’s conversation with Yume (whose name literally means “dream”). Dynazenon’s structure is a bit different than its predecessor’s, so it makes sense that my dream went unrealized this time around – it could happen in a few years’ time, though, since there have been rumblings of a future third series in the Gridman universe (unless that was just a dream I had).

Now that everybody’s feeling nice and rested, hit the jump for some thoughts on the last two Dynazenons.

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