Demon Slayer Season 1 [SUB] (2019) Review

 Demon Slayer Season 1 [SUB] (2019) 8/10

Hello and welcome to another anime review. Today, I’m going to go over the first season of the anime phenomena Demon Slayer. Demon Slayer is a 26 episode action shonen anime season that aired from April 6 - September 28, 2019, with Ufotable being the producers for the show. Since its debut, the show has taken the world by storm, spawning several seasons, movies, games, stage plays, and lots of merchandise.

I have seen the first season of Demon Slayer two times now. First time I thoroughly enjoyed it and gave it a 9/10, and the second time dropping it to an 8. It's a solid foundation to a great story, but my God was this overhyped to high heaven. I like a good action anime as much as the next guy, but people were dickriding this show WAY too hard. Let’s begin.

Our story follows Tanjiro Kamado during the Taisho period (early 20th century). One day, he’s selling charcoal to the local village. When he returns to his family up the mountain, he discovers that they have been slaughtered by a demon. Amidst the bloodbath, he finds one lone survivor: his younger sister Nezuko and it turns out she has been turned into a demon. Determined to find a cure and turn her back, Tanjiro sets off to join the Demon Slayer Corps. Along the way, we’ll meet Zenitsu Agatsuma, Inosuke Hashibira, Giyu Tomioka, Shinobu Kocho, and the main villain Kibutsuji Muzan.

The story for this is actually really good. The plot seems fairly basic but it’s how this story gets told and unraveled that puts it at such a high pedestal. As the season continues, it feels like this world is being built block by block and setting up some really interesting stuff that’ll (hopefully) come up later. The world building for the show is done very well.

The characters are all well developed. Even the side characters and the one-off demons that Tanjiro kills are developed in a way that they’ll stick to you after you finish watching. I love Tanjiro. He’s an excellent protagonist. A very kind soul, intelligent, great moral compass, and isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty to save his friends. Another one of my favorites is Zenitsu. He’s annoying as fuck, but in a very good, comedic way. When Tanjiro first officially meets him on the road has to be one of the best character introductions ever. He’s such a lovable loser. When he knocks himself out and becomes serious though, you don’t want to fuck with him. I also want to go over Shinobu Kocho. Kocho is one of the few Hashiras, meaning she’s one of the strongest Demon Slayers. She’s not physically strong, but she’s very quick on her feet and very graceful with her movements. After the shit that happened at Natagumo Mountain, the show develops her even further. She’s super sweet but will uphold the Corps rules no matter what. The way she fights is very brutal. She can’t decapitate demons, but she uses a very special poison on them and it’s just brutal. There’s much more to her, but I’ll leave it at this. Also shout out to Inosuke, the wilderness man who wears a boar’s head. This doofus is such a lovable, brash person. We don’t get to see him shine too much here, but he’s a welcome personality that I can’t wait to see more of.

I do need to go over the most overhyped scene I have ever seen in any anime: the Hinokami Dance. During Tanjiro’s battle with Rui (the head of the spider family), he’s about to kill Nezuko when Tanjiro remembers the flame dance that his father used to do. As Tanjiro is charging at Rui, slicing his webs, Nezuko unlocks her Blood Demon Art that burns demons. All of this excellent build-up, so much tension, and it ends with Tanjiro decapitating Rui. ONLY FOR THIS TO NOT MEAN ANYTHING AS HE ALREADY REMOVED HIS HEAD PRIOR TO BEING CUT! This was so fucking bullshit and such a waste of excellent animation. All of this amounted to nothing, creating one the biggest “fuck yous” I have ever seen lmao. And I’m only so riled up about this because everyone and their mom on the internet was saying this was peak anime. If it was peak, Tanjiro’s attack would have connected. It’s the same shit with Vegeta’s Final Flash against Cell. Looked dope as fuck, but amounted to nothing. 

I do love the art style for the show. It’s VERY unique compared to a lot of other anime which helps it stand out among all the other anime. I love the use of the thick outlines for the characters while still keeping with the traditional anime art style. The bright, vibrant colors used for the special attacks (Tanjiro’s water stance, Zenitsu’s lighting stance, or Inosuke’s animal stance) help with the show’s uniqueness.

The animation for this is phenomenal too. Ufotable did a fantastic job for this season. Everybody’s movements, the camera work, and the overall fluidity of everything is done excellently. One of my favorite moments is the Tsuzumi Mansion. The demon shifting the rooms of the house looked very fluid and it’s just eye candy. That’s what this show is: eye candy. Overall, the show’s art direction is another reason to watch it.

Sound design is great too. Every breath, every sword clash, every step. It all sounds great. I love the voices for the characters. I watched this in Japanese dub and despite not being able to speak the language, I could tell that the voices were spot on for these characters. My favorites being Natsuki Hanae (Tanjiro), Saori Hayami (Shinobu), Hiro Shimono (Zenitsu), and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Inosuke). Toshihiko Seki (Kibutsuji) also had a very menacing voice that I need to commend too. Shinobu probably had my favorite voice because of just how unique it is and how perfectly it fits the character. Saori Hayami nailed this role.

The music is great too. The score seems to derive mainly from Japanese sounds and instruments, which is great. The enchanting, female choirs fit in perfectly with the show’s overall sound. The OP song “Gurenge” by LiSA is such a banger. However, the ending song is a decent closer, but not memorable.

One thing I love about the show is the power system. Very similar to the Hamon system from JoJo, Demon Slayer uses breaths and oxygen usage to power up the show’s attacks. Imagine Hamon mixed with sword martial arts and you get this awesome power system. So far, we’ve been introduced to several different types of sword stances (water breathing, lightning, beast, flame, and insect to name a few). Obviously there’s so much more to see with the different types of Hashiras and their abilities. The demons also have their own unique power system called Blood Demon Art. Depending on the demon’s strength (which coincides with the amount of humans they’ve eaten) the Blood Demon Art will be much stronger. Each demon has a unique power to them which makes each encounter with a demon very different from other encounters on the show. I can’t wait to see what other bizarre, crazy powers will be unveiled later on.

Overall, this show is amazing so far. I feel like it’s missing that extra oomph to put it in the masterpiece category, but it’s still a phenomenal show so far. Despite some shortcomings here and there, this is a solid start and I highly recommend it to everyone. Until my next review, stay frosty.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.