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.
Speaking of Zenitsu, he was actually tolerable this week! Some of you might take that as a joke but I mean it. This is the most tolerable Zenitsu has ever been. Turns out when you allow your character to be more than a single exaggerated character trait they become able to hold actual conversations with people. Don’t get me wrong, I still think the sleeping thing is stupid. It’s just a way to write him out of this arc while still allowing him to take part in the fight with no expectations for growth. But if it results in him acting this way, maybe its worth it?
As for his partner in crime, I’m glad Inosuke got some time to shine this week. He’s been largely uninvolved in the Upper Rank fight. Yeah he helped against the belt demon, freed the people and the wives. But he hasn’t had any big moments against Gyutaro and Daki yet. He hasn’t gotten the chance to strut his stuff. And that’s what he gets this week! We get to see this unwavering faith in Tanjiro and Zenitsu, this single minded focus and bullheaded nature as he runs headlong into Daki, trusting the others to protect him. It was a good scene! And I especially liked him running away with Daki’s head, that was funny. Sawing her head off with the swords was a bit much, I don’t think that would really work that way, but who cares its a battle shounen and we’re over analyzing it at this point.
Moving on we come to Uzui’s backstory. I think this was all rather quaint. The small bits of history we get between him and his wives to contrast his normally so flamboyant attitude. Yeah, I like these quiet moments. That said though not much really happens or is learned here. In fact it feels like Yaiba is pinning all the death flags it can to him and Hinatsuru. Personally though? I’m pretty sure this is all a ruse. A trick. A red herring. Yaiba wants us to think Uzui will die so that we expect another Rengoku moment. But my belief is that they will win without anyone dying. What’s the point of all that training and growth since Rengoku if they can’t do better against an, ostensibly, weaker opponent (Upper 3 vs Upper 6, etc). And if I’m wrong? Then congrats to Yaiba for following through on the flags.
Finally we come to Tanjiro and this is where I have to back up and be a negative nancy. Now this isn’t about his character or his fight animation or any of that, I had a good time with those. Rather this is me being incredibly pedantic. To an almost ridiculous degree. So please feel free to disregard this entirely. That said I need to get this off my chest: I don’t like Yaiba’s magic system. It has no rules, no explanation, no… limitations. It’s the softest of soft magic systems in that people “breathe” and then get “stronger”. And yeah, thats fine at it’s core. But now Yaiba is starting to try and be clever with it? To invent… loopholes for Tanjiro to use to get stronger? It just doesn’t make much sense to me.
Now I get it, Yaiba isn’t meant to have rules. And Tanjiro’s whole thing about adapting the Kagura breath to what fits him best is fine on paper. It’s just that… It feels wrong to me. It only makes sense because there were no rules or explanations preventing it to begin with. Do you see now why I said I’m being really pedantic and that you can disregard this? Great, cause I’m not done. These breathes have no limitations. No ceilings or floors. They just arbitrarily make people stronger, like the Dragon Ball Z system. And yeah that system can be stupid fun for a bit, I still remember the Cell Games fondly. But it inevitably leads to asspull power ups and an ever escalating power ceiling that doesn’t stop until we are throwing galaxies at each other. So yeah. I don’t like soft magic systems. Pedantic rant over.
Anyway when all is said and my pedantic rant is done, Yaiba was fun this week. It continues to look pretty, the fight is still entertaining and if you ignore my pedantry, it’s more of what we’ve been getting. I do personally think the fight has started to go on a bit long, it could have been cut a tad shorter and allowed us to spend more time in the investigation phase of the mission. But it’s personal preference at that point. It’s not like the fight is bad. I’m just starting to wish something would happen to break the balance, and we seem to have gotten that with Uzui losing his arm and Inosuke uh… dying (?). Hopefully Yaiba can wrap this all up in a satisfactory way with its remaining two episodes. See you next week to find out!
