It is not a secret that Demon Slayer is second
only to Moses when it comes to splitting things in half, as its fandom is akin to water and oil set
on fire. Yes! It is the best-selling manga so far, a very good looking show and my own door into
YouTube, but God damn it it sucks on so many levels. Hello comrade, my name is Mahis! Come,
get yourself a beverage and sit down with me, we got a tough pill to swallow. Before I
yamate kudasai your view on this show with actual facts and constructive arguments, the
warning has to be made. We're going balls deep and spoilers are very much present in this video.
Good luck. The very first troublesome part of the anime shows his face early on and becomes more
apparent as the story develops - Tanjiro Kamado, AKA our main character who is often criticized
for being too kind, crying a lot or being a Mary Sue for not taking any Ls after he becomes a
Slayer. For me, that's all fine and I've talked about it already in one of my previous videos.
Even though he's kind, demons are still slain, crying is just part of his personality that
doesn't affect anything and him beating everyone... dude it's a shounen! Regardless of
how it's structured, we all know he is going to win one way or another. My beef is that I find
his character completely unbelievable and, as a result, unrelatable because my moderately sized
brain can't comprehend how the combination of his backstory and what he went through manifests in
his subsequent behavior. Prime example - Episode 2, the section where he buys a basket for Nezuko.
You mean to tell me that this is how a person who just lost everything acts? You realize
he just dug five graves in the frozen soil, which is an achievement in and of itself as
you need some Nen infused shovels for that, proceeded to drag five mutilated corpses of his
mother, sister and three brothers there, buried them, and went on his way to buy a basket next day
because otherwise his sister will turn into a pile of ashes (ha-ha-ha). A regular f!@#$ing Thursday.
He should have had a thousand yard stare, complete apathy or some sort of freak out because "Hello!",
your world just turned upside down, most of your family is dead, the remaining one is now a demon
who you didn't even think existed, and you just stand up, look back and move forward? That's what
people do in the dentist office, not when their family is murdered! Seriously, he looked more
miserable after a training session with some kids. OK, let's slow down for a second and consider that
him acting normally is not a sign of psychopathy, but a coping mechanism instead. The brain is
a very funny thing that some people even live their entire lives without and it may deal with
trauma in a plethora of ways. Like, ignoring it completely until a certain stimulus is introduced,
Muzan for example. Remember how he reacted to his smell in the city? Those were emotions, the rage,
the other disregard for food and his own safety pushed him to face an opponent who could have
clapped his cheeks instantly. Or that moment was Daki killing innocents, which no doubt triggered
some memories and a rush of adrenaline so severe, his dead sibling had to calm him down. Does
his behavior make more sense now? No, it's just a half-assed mental gymnastics to attempt to
explain a half-assed piece of writing. Secondly, we have another thing that contributes to my
detachment from the story - everything is shallow. The world building, the plot, the characters with
a few exceptions... it just falls apart the minute you apply any amount of logic. I swear, I felt
like a four-year-old kid continuously asking: why this? why that? Since one contradiction
followed the other. You see, I can believe anything as long as it makes sense within the
story, that's why I don't mind watching sci-fi, high fantasy or whatever this is. Here even the
fundamentals of the exposition are shaky at best, because what we are told doesn't add up with
what we see nor with historical precedent. Nobody believes in demons. Sure, the events of the story
take place during an industrial boom in Japan when people started to move into the big cities, adopt
Western practices and abandon faith in everything supernatural. But, but, but. This is all according
to our history books which don't include millennia of demons slaughtering people, well, not like
they have any records of it apparently, but that doesn't mean it wasn't happening. Which begs
the following question: if Japanese already have Yokai/Onii folklore and this sh*t has been going
on for centuries, why in the world would they stop believing in demons, when they have literal family
members who survived an encounter with them? There's no internet, hardly any press and most
people marinate their own tight knit communities, making it nigh on impossible to get a different
perspective, as you don't have access to any other information. Same thing with plot and those who
participate in its development. Tell me if this sounds familiar - a special abilities kid fights
progressively stronger enemies to save his loved ones and destroy the main bad guy with the help
of a colorful cast of quirky for the sake of being quirky characters, whose mostly terrible
attitude is justified by their tragic past. Add the fact that without the MC no progress
would have been made on killing Muzan and this clown fiesta turns into a Child of Prophecy
garbage, which immediately diminishes the value of everyone involved as everything they
have achieved is thanks to our one and only. Ah... There is no complexity here. We're being
presented with this bigger than life conflict that lasted through dozens of generations
and affected tens of thousands of people, only to see a grade school level squabble
with flashy moves and no strategy at all. Seriously, this next complaint I have is
so vast and expansive that I have to divide it in two - everybody's dumb. Like, legit, from
individuals to their respective factions, there's hardly anyone with an IQ above three digits.
Let's start with the lesser of two evils - the Demon Slayer corps. I've made a full video on the
subject a while back, so I won't go too in depth, but I will sprinkle some new thoughts on the
matter. Firstly, the recruitment process. They look for individuals whose life was ruined by
demons and train them to become Slayers. Makes sense. You aren't going door to door like some
Girl Scouts asking people to give up their life fighting a threat they didn't know existed. What
doesn't make sense is the subsequent training and examination process. Who trains them? These
no names can't all be trained by Hashiras, so are they self-taught? There is no standardized
routine, no textbooks on demons, hell, only a choice few get taught breathing techniques, which
is basically the only thing that allows humans to compete with anything above low level Muppets.
No sh*t you lose 90% of your Slayers before they even become one, because they're sorely
not prepared. Oh, and speaking of the test, you're gonna send some teenage newbies to fend
for themselves for an entire week on a mountaintop full of thirsty bloodsuckers with no supervision?
So they can show you that they're able to fight for seven nights straight with no backup or
rest? Well... Better get used to that soon, Mount Natagumo guys won't let me, lie except
they will because they're f!@#$ing dead. Not a single fight in Demon Slayer lasted longer than
one night. Once you engage a demon, you either die or don't, in in which case you are transported to
a dedicated healing facility and do not receive new orders for months. Moreover, the exam site
is not monitored in case there is a demon who is overstepping his dietary boundaries. It sure would
have been nice to have a dozen Urokodaki students alive for a bit longer, along with untold hundreds
who faced the challenge they weren't supposed to. Here's why this exam fundamentally sucks - Guiyu,
who didn't kill a single one of the schmucks, turned out to be Hashara material. While Sabito,
who cleared the entire place better than Makarov, just died to some f!@#$ing chungus! Then we have
the actual missions. You get an avian buddy who guides you in the general direction of trouble, a
set of overhyped clothes that don't protect sh*t, and an RGB sword on the house, at least,
so you can go and kill some demons. Solo, no backup weapon, no medkit, no intel in advance.
You have to rely only on yourself to conduct an investigation and talk to local people, which you
were so passionately taught during your training. Oops, you weren't, and unless Plot Almighty
was generous with some extra abilities or fancy clothes, you are dead. The thing is, I would have
forgiven most of what I've talked about if Demon Slayer corps was like a hundred years old, but
they've been doing the same sh*t over and over again for centuries, and we all know what that's
called. Allright, now to the only person who eclipses the combined stupidity of all Slayers -
Muzan the demon daddy or Mommy depending on how he feels this particular day. Ahem. If the core is
not looking for a way to stop the demon plague, the Smooth Criminal is providing them with every
opportunity to put an end to this madness. How? By doing nothing about his enemies for example. Yeah,
if you didn't notice, he doesn't go around killing Slayers or setting up hunting parties. Instead,
he enjoys his cosplay hobby and lets demons take care of the rest. Right... He does have this side
gig of going after a certain family, but since he still hasn't finished them off in a good few
hundred years now, it's not that important for him I guess. Seriously though, dude has only one goal
in mind - conquering the Sun, that can be achieved through consuming a demon with such an ability
or getting a hit of this blue spider lily flower. Both of which he pursues so religiously that he
forgets to check Nezuko's vitals and f!@#$s off to his inevitable doom. Over the years, Muzan did
go around sprinkling people with his juices in hopes of someone becoming a Sun Walker. But when
it comes to the lily, he only has himself and one stripy boy looking for it. Why? Can't you just
pay a few bucks to some people and say you need it for research purposes? Or promise immortality
to whoever brings him this mystical flower. I guarantee people will buy that sh*t faster than
discounted bath water and will scour every inch of every forest with a magnifying glass if they have
to. Oh well, he'd rather blame others and tear books like it's gonna change anything. Wait...
doesn't he dislike change? Hmmm. For someone so focused on eternity, he certainly likes to
embrace new drip, company and even faces! Anyway, once Tanjiro becomes a thing, the demon king gets
a sudden urge of wanting to do something about it and sends two of his weakest henchmen after
our boy. The result is underwhelming as usual and he stops sending assassins after his ultimate
Nemesis because it obviously doesn't work and he's not the one to make the same mistake twice so...
He proceeds to make other more moronic moves like not sensing that the upper Moon 6 was fighting
for their lives, sending progressively stronger enemies for our MC to level up on and splitting
his forces during the final battle, before teenage horror movies became mainstream. All that barely
scratches the surface of everybody's idiocy and, while writing this script, I realized that I have
so much material, it will fit in at least two more videos on the subject, so stay tuned for those
or check this one out if you haven't seen it yet. Now I want you to quickly recall everything we
talked about, as the last point is the result of all these problems amalgamating together.
We have an unrealistic chosen one MC, shallow world building and stupid f!@#$ing everyone.
So, in order to make this story somewhat work, the author invokes the power equivalent to a
fusion between duct tape and WD-40 - Plot Armor. It's so thick here, not even Mount Lady in her
giant form can compete with its juicy curves. It's absolutely vile and so blatantly shoved in
our face that even most of the cast dying by the end doesn't make it more tolerable. Why?
Because they all died practically for nothing, as it wasn't them who won, it was Muzan who lost.
Here are a few examples where the plot had an extra convenient sequence of events - Giyu coming
to save Tanjiro absolutely out of nowhere. Was he hunting someone during the day in the middle
of the forest or just traversing difficult terrain because it is somehow faster? Sh*t...
Urokodaki finding Tanjiro makes more sense, since he at least has an enhanced sense of smell
and could have just been checking out the source. Which is also a bit of a stretch as he showed
up without his sword. Then we have the mother of all facepalms. Our boy literally puts his hand
on the biggest, baddest of them all and gets away scot free with some wannabe moons chasing him.
What? Muzan's ultimate nemesis presents himself on the silver platter with sugar are on top and
this imbecile doesn't do anything about it? OK, I understand his PTSD that he honestly should
have gotten over already, yet it doesn't prevent him from giving Kokushibo a call and be like: "Hey
bro what's up? You remember these Kamados we were after? Yeah, I have one right here in such and
such city. Wanna come over and have some fun? OK, my people will leave you to him". Boom! Tanjiro's
dead, Muzan has won, the shows over. But no, we have to pretend we're all high and mighty.
Ignore this threat while he kills Rui, Enmu, Daki, Hantengu, until he spills the beans to Slayers and
teaches them about the biggest plot device of the show - The Demon Slayer Mark. My favorite type of
the power-ups by the way - an asspull that comes in handy when there is no way the main character
can survive. However... is this the only time I say "however" in this video? huh... weird. The
worst offender in this category is undoubtedly the Yoshiwara arc. Zenitsu getting snatched and
put in the fridge instead of being eaten, Inosuke shifting his organs and not bleeding out somehow,
Tengen laying in there pretending to be dead... Ain't no way the Slayers were surviving that,
as, after such an intense fight that must have drained the demons, they should have been munching
on their corpses like they're being paid for it, not to mention the direct bloody orders from their
beloved leader. What a joke! In conclusion, Demon Slayer is a series of highs and lows. Some things
are done really well, some are done pretty bad and if we are too average them out, it turns out that
this show is unfortunately mid. It was I - Mahis, memeing into the microphone. Check out Discord
and Patreon in the description if you like, otherwise, have a great... whatever time of
the day you have. Until next time, cheers.
