Welcome all to another week of Kimetsu no Yaiba! If last week was Zenitsu’s, this is Inosuke’s! As he comes to learn the value of friendship, Tanjiro meets the big bad and the Senpai’s show up to save the day. Let’s dive in!
Starting off, I wanna talk water, because damn did Yaiba’s water look good. I’m not even talking the water sword effects, as those are highly stylized. No no, the actual riverbed that was entirely CGI looked really good. From the splashes to how they layered the 2D characters and environment in with it. A lot of effort and physics simulations clearly went into getting it right just for this scene and it paid off. Really, this arc in general has looked really good. From Zenitsu to Shinobu, the butterfly woman’s entrance, to this water and the demons. Ufotable chose a really good arc to end on and pull out all the stops at, because it’s building up for a better finale than I was expecting for a long running Shounen that’s still in print. Enough vague clues though, onto details!
Before I get into the good stuff, I want to talk about my only major issue with Yaiba. That issue being, Yaiba’s combat system. There are no rules to it. No system, you can’t predict anything nor compare abilities and that leads to dissatisfaction for me with some of the fights. Just look at Tanjiro’s Water Breath, that seemingly changes to fit the situation. I mentioned it before this in a previous episode, but it’s these rules that separate a good Shounen from a great one. That separates Yaiba from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood or HunterXHunter. All that said, that doesn’t stop it from being fun. Nozumu Abe and Masayuki Kunihiro have proven that with their animation chops. Yaiba is beautiful to look at and hype to actually experience. It just leaves you wanting more is all.
That said, onto the content I did enjoy this week, specifically Inosuke. Just like Zenitsu, Yaiba has done a good job taking an annoying character and making him likable. Progressing him from this loud and brash swordsman to a socially deprived child who never really knew love. I really liked how we actually got to see this, see Inosuke at his weakest. See him giving up, falling from blood loss, that our leads aren’t invincible. How his short time with others have affected him, and reinforced an otherwise weak will that he never built up alone. Most of the time this sort of thing comes off as cheap. “Power of friendship” and all that. But Yaiba took the time to do it steadily, slowly showing Inosuke’s change and reactions to it all. This is what makes it work in my opinion, the groundwork that Yaiba put in.
Yaiba also did a good job with Inosuke’s combat style I think. He’s very impressionable, and I like that we can see that in how he fights. The big example of this is Tanjiro doing something smart, and then Inosuke thinking he has to do something smart to. Running away and trying to plan. Until he eventually realizes “wait a second, that isn’t how I do things, fuck it”. It’s one of many moments of Inosuke staying true to himself and his loyalty this episode. It was also nice to see him actually lose. I was fully expecting Inosuke to find a way to defeat the Demon. Either through some screaming power up or via using his head in some way out of character for him. But no, he actually loses and has to be saved by Giyuu. It’s a good reality check.
On the topic of Giyuu, let’s talk about our two new Demon Slayers, because their intro’s were great. I do like seeing them banter a bit, with the differing philosophies, but more specifically I enjoy Shinobu. For one, Yaiba has beautiful women. The series designs just look phenomenal on them. You need look no further than Shinobu’s arrival to Zenitsu for that. Everything from the music, to the designs and presentation were beautiful. Props to Go Shiina and Yuki Kaijura for their stellar work on Yaiba’s OST. There are so many memorable tracks, its legitimately surprising. Yaiba got very lucky with this adaptation. On the other end we have the return of Giyuu, who is still just as stoically competent as he was in the first episode. We didn’t get to see much of him this week sadly. But I hope to see that change next week.
The last bit we need to talk about is Tanjiro’s confrontation with, no doubt, the Kizuki demon. Even before Tanjiro’s sword got broken, I was expecting Shinobu or Giyuu to save the day. Now it has just become a race against time. Still, it does add some tension, as now there is legitimately no way for our lead to win. Yaiba also did a good job introducing his strength, as the brutality of cutting up that nameless slayer was unexpected. Personally, I expect Nezuko to come out of the box to even the playing field until Giyuu shows up to save the day. Probably with both of them getting cut up in the process. Regardless though, I know its going to be a fun fight to watch. Yaiba has never disappointed in that regard.
So all in all, how was this week? To be frank, after Zenitu last week, nothing was really going to measure up. Everything was going to feel ‘lesser’ in comparison to what was maybe the best Yaiba episode of the series. But I still enjoyed it. Yaiba is an incredibly competent shounen with fantastic production, that just can’t seem to pass that line into “great” for me. It’s like an ocean with the depth of a puddle. Beautiful to look at and fun to watch, but light in details and doesn’t hold up if you look to deeply at its narrative. For me, for a good saturday morning cartoon of fun? I’ll take it over the series that try to moralize and shove their messages in yoru face, without ever actually being enjoyable to watch.
The reason why Tanjiro’s Water Breath seemingly changes to fit the situation… because it is. Each Breath style have the characteristic of the element they name after. For Water it’s change and adapt to the situation, move the the flow of a river. While Lightning is more about speed and sudden strike.
I get the basics behind it. I suppose I was unspecific there, so my fault. I was more talking ala the restrictions of say… FMA:B’s alchemy and the science (They though philosphers stone did break that near the end) or say… Naruto is a great example of this. The series started with a bunch of simple techniques and tactics based around them, then devolved into giant monsters and chakra lazers.
I don’t mean to say I hate Yaiba’s, more that it simply could be more. As the system was never really explained. Perhaps in the manga it goes more in depth later on. But Yaiba’s fast pacing in the start hurt it a bit here on the details of its combat system.
Still fun to watch though!