Welcome back all, to another week of Kimetsu no Yaiba! This week continues the fight, shows us just how large the power gap is, and tries to give us a ray of hope in Kanroji. Does it succeed? Let’s dive in and find out!
Starting off I want to give some credit where credit is due: The fish demon things actually don’t look to bad. Their models, and how they were composited into the scenes, was a bit rough at times sure. But the way they moved was actually really nice! I loved how the flopped around on screen, scrambling up walls and generally acting like uncoordinated fish. After the weirdness that was the Tentacle Train from the movie, I was worried that Yaiba would double down on that same sort of process. But it looks like Ufotable has genuinely learned and improved from their past works, and that’s pretty cool. It won’t be able to replace any of the real sword-based action, sure. But it makes me a bit less apprehensive about some of the CGI shots we saw in the OP and other marketing.
Speaking of those sword fights, lets move on to the Upper Four. Last week I mentioned I was a bit apprehensive about his power and how similar it was to Daki, but was pleasantly surprised to see it become its own thing. This week continues that trend as we learn his primary weakness: He can only split so much, and each split makes them weaker. That’s a tough line to ride, making each copy weaker while not overwhelming them with numbers, but it should be fun if Yaiba can pull it off. There’s also the added weakness of their tongues, the characters representing emotions, being a sort of weakpoint that’s slower to regenerate. While we don’t know what that really means in regards to their power yet, I like how much focus is going into setting the ground rules for the Upper Four’s power.
As for those fighting him, lets first talk about Genya. The simplest way to put it… well… Genya is getting his ass kicked. Yet for some reason, he isn’t dead yet. We talked about this a bit last week. How Yaiba is setting him up to have some kind of regeneration or something, like maybe he’s half-demon. And while we haven’t gotten any confirmation or information about that this week, it does make combat interesting. Watching him get fucked up to demonstrate the Upper Four’s power is cool. I especially think the way he integrates a gun into combat, the only character in the show to really “modernize”, is kind of awesome. It’s not something demons have probably had to deal with before and I like how effective it’s being against them. It’s a good strength-equalizer for non-hashira, and makes this fight feel different from previous ones.
Moving on we have Nezuko, who is also getting kind of fucked up. On one hand, this is nice. It helps establish just how powerful the Upper Four is and his electricity staff seems especially dangerous. On the other hand, after soft-ball kicking Daki’s head off of her shoulders I feel like Nezuko should be a bit stronger than she is. We get some of that, she kicks one demon’s jaw off and we see just how effective her fire Blood Art is against them. So long as that’s not all of it, that she gets to have some cool team maneuvers with the others, I think Nezuko will be fine. It’s really early in the fight after all, way to early to count her out or overly criticize her. Just consider this what I hope will come more than anything else.
Finally lets move on to the Hashira, Tokito and Kanroji. Again, last week I mentioned that Tokito was a tad lackluster as a character. His deadpan face and lack of emotions just weren’t that memorable next to the strong personalities of the rest of the Hashira. This week however, it seems as if Yaiba is aware of that and going to try to address it. And while amnesia isn’t the best way to do that, I still appreciate it being done at all. Depending on what gets revealed as he remembers more and more of who he was before his injury, he could become just as memorable as Uzui and Rengoku. I’m expecting him to, I love Rengoku. But literally anything would be better than him having no personality at all. So really, as I see it, this can only be good for Yaiba
Meanwhile with Kanroji, we only barely get to see her at the end of this episode as she charges towards the village. It’s a bit convenient that her mission placed her so close, you have to question why Yaiba had her leave the village at all. But it works well enough, and it does operate as a sort of time-delay before reinforcements arrive, allowing the demons to gain the upper hand for a bit. I think there are cleverer ways to have done that, and there’s also a missed opportunity with the Swordsmith Villagers being able to fight back/defend themselves a bit more considering their profession. But it’s hardly a big deal and more of a “Hindsight is 20/20” sort of thing.
So yeah, all in all this was a fine week for Yaiba. About par with what I’ve come to expect from the series. Some cool action, some light narrative, a few questionable decisions here and there, but an ultimately enjoyable, simple experience. It makes for some nice light eating between Vinland Saga and Wolf’s Rain for me, and that’s rather valuable. Not everything needs to be some deep philosophical treatise on what it means to live. Sometimes you just want to watch demons get beat up you know?
