Demon Slayer really does have one story structure and uses it in every arc. For what it's worth though, the Swordsmith Village is the worst arc in the series. The next season's material should be great as it begins wrapping up the story (animation should be extremely Kino as well).
Kimetsu no Yaiba
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The series peaked at the Red Light District. The final arc is a bit better than the swordsmith arc but not by much. It was too rushed, clearly needing at least one more arc to flesh out characters and set up the finale. The power creep was too much when you went from needing multiple people taking on the weakest member of the super evil group to 2 to 3 people being able to beat the top tier villains. All the villains have pretty much the same tragic backstory except for Upper 2 who was the most interesting villain (and unfortunately had the least screen time). Muzan never really developed beyond being a boring I wanna be immortal villain and felt less powerful and threatening as much as he was absurdly tanky and spongey. And
I think the biggest sin is despite the story being founded on and marketed on the relationship between Tanjiro and Nezuko and how they had to help protect and save each other, Nezuko was essentially written out of the final arc and barely mattered in the story at all other than the very end where instead of contributing in the conflict, all she could do was scream oniichan and act like a cute imouto to bring her brother back to her senses.
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Also for all the rep the anime gets for being super good, it feels like UFOtable spends more money in flashy hitsparks and far less on actual proper scene composition.
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@TLC said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:
Also for all the rep the anime gets for being super good, it feels like UFOtable spends more money in flashy hitsparks and far less on actual proper scene composition.
an example where their scene composition has been bad?
HOW COME LUFFY NEVER KILLS AN ENEMY?
ODA:ITS BECAUSE IN THAT ERA EVERYONE USES THEIR LIVES TO FIGHT FOR THEIR DREAMS. FOR AN ENEMY WHEN THEIR DREAM HAS BEEN SHATTERED,IT IS AS PAINFUL AS DEATH,I BELIEVE FOR A PIRATE NOT TO KILL AN ENEMY , IT'S GIVING THEM A SECOND CHANCE TO FIGHT FOR THEIR DREAMS.
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nah the japanese cared about the manga when it was running but the west, most of the people here and anime communities included, just didn't because visuals bad thing bad. most of the world have a dogshit approach to the manga medium compared to the Japanese where if everything isn't visual, moving, flashy and looks nice it isn't worth the monkey brain time. There's great series and manga everywhere, this was literally running in one of the world's best selling magazine but hey, that would actually require reading and some mental effort on our part. You see how that can be very difficult to do if everyone isn't already talking so you don't need to think to form your own view, just join the train.
"Maybe they wasn't interested because the plot/everything else beside the visual wasn't good" is not an argument because people are crazy over it and you won't see any debates about themes and plot and character writing anywhere close to the mainstream conversational topics these series have.
People just didn't care to bother searching or reading if the thing didn't blow up and then proceed to pretend that it was the best thing ever when it was already there. This series is THE series that should be judged on the source material and the adaption separately. Not because the adaption strayed off but if it amazes you why the series is doing so well, because it is one of the most sobering thing to have to remember how the masses gives so little shit about writing and quality overall. Sort of like Transformers, but not really, because I'll argue that this series is actually pretty decent.
I'll say it fall more towards good and different instead of generic because while it can be slightly longer and the ending wasn't as good, it at least didn't drag itself into sheer boredom like everything else in the genre.
My Hero, who ran alongside this, was great and a fresh of breath air (despite hitting the checkboxes for every trope there is) and look at it today.
But no, of course we have to judge this series outside of its genre, like this is going to compete with Sanderson in writing. I genuinely don't get the complaints. The ones where there are tropes when the execution itself wasn't terrible or that it's so shounen when at the end of the series, the power of friendship did nothing but sent everyone to their deaths. Everyone pretty much fucking died."KnY is only good because of the studio" is one of the most tiring back and forth to deal with. No, it is good because the manga is there for them to work with. Which really translates to just because people can't be assed to judge the series on its original medium and have to follow crowdsay doesn't mean they get to have a opinion. You really cannot bake a cake out of shit. This is such an obvious thing but after the countless time I have to imply this, I don't know anymore.
I agree fully with Robby's points on why the anime blew up as it did. Ufotable did Fate and it was mildly successful because of the reasons he listed that Fate did not get to enjoy. And Fate is actually objectively superior a franchise/story/series but it suffers in popularity because it didn't have all the ingredients for mass appeal. Which is to say, people actually have to put in a bit of mental work to enjoy it.
There are actually way, way more manga and novel adaptions with better ideas and execution than this series that have been ruined by a studio bad handling over the ones that have been elevated by an adaption. As a source, those series are still enjoyable to read. But just because a studio didn't go all out on a series doesn't make the manga less good, it makes it less popular. KnY was a series that by all metrics wasn't the best thing yet it was still decent but put a bullet through my head if I have to deal with another person calling it bad because the anime exist.
Can you imagine drawing and writing something so dear to you for years with little breaks in a working environment akin to a hellscape and actually surviving to the end only be considered a second, even third or fourth, thought to your own creation? And the irkling feeling that you can't exactly call it yours because of how big it is and everyone wanted a slice of that pie. It's like this giant shadow, constantly whittling down on you. No way in hell I believe that Gotoge feels this way herself because all things considered (she did comment on how she is given peanuts for the money the series make) she did walk away with a decent payout and fame. And I do believe that in her own country, that respect matters more to her than internet nobodies from the west. All I'm saying is that on a personal note-take, that opinion of the anime being the only reason the series is good is insufferable.
If we put the anime aside and if people don't get why the themes of this manga were successful to an audience in a culture that is different from yours and from a work that is created for said audience with different receptors than yours all the while without considering even delving deeper into it, then really? I'll spare people who think that way the pain and pretty much predict and guarantee that One Piece will end the same way, in a way that the Japanese will love and enjoy but the international audience will have their own mixed and controversial takes. There's a bunch of examples but a good one is Attack on Titan, the international response and subsequent action is a whole clownshow. You would like to think that the author would adore and love their international fans and adhere to their projected writing quality criteria checklist over their Japanese audience and the very culture and country they grew up with that has seeped into their very core. But that would imply that the whole world revolves around you so no, I do think he is going to stick to a very Japanese ending.
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@kevo_koma said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:
@TLC said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:
Also for all the rep the anime gets for being super good, it feels like UFOtable spends more money in flashy hitsparks and far less on actual proper scene composition.
an example where their scene composition has been bad?
I dropped the anime after the first season but from what I've seen here and there
this shit, I know a lot of anime fans lose their shit over this.
No real choreography, camera work, scene composition, just a bunch of money thrown to make the flashiest looking mess of colors while the camera slowly rotates around the characters.
If you like this, you do you, I just find it boring.
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Hmm well thanks for the input everyone, given my giant backlog the whole series will probably be on streaming services by the time I actually go "yeah lemme start this". If it means anything I did watch a handful of episodes just to get a feel for the series.
My Bleach headedness already has me think of the Captains when I saw all the Hashira lol.
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@TLC said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:
@kevo_koma said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:
@TLC said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:
Also for all the rep the anime gets for being super good, it feels like UFOtable spends more money in flashy hitsparks and far less on actual proper scene composition.
an example where their scene composition has been bad?
I dropped the anime after the first season but from what I've seen here and there
this shit, I know a lot of anime fans lose their shit over this.
No real choreography, camera work, scene composition, just a bunch of money thrown to make the flashiest looking mess of colors while the camera slowly rotates around the characters.
If you like this, you do you, I just find it boring.
Its just my opinion but the scene directly preceding the one you posted was composed pretty well.
The way we see how the sound hashira depicts the world through music was done fantastically.
Sure that one scene looks kinda messy. But the rest are pretty good IMO. -
Throwing money at an adaptation and having crazy visuals is 100% a factor.
Ranking of Kings is fantastic, one of my favorite series now, but the original manga art is awful for a long stretch and it was so unknown and unrecognized that translations of the series still haven't caught up.
People enjoy the original webcomic for One Punch an, but its Murata's version that set the world on fire. Mob Psycho, from the same author, had its adaptation go insane on the animation in some sequences despite the mediocre art (they also moved away from the artist's style gradually) They put 20,000 frames into one episode!
One Piece's anime sucks, almost entirely as a result of it STILL being weekly. Whenever it blows up? When they have the one really good director or when they had someone spend six months going nuts animating a fight scene, and then its ignored the other 40 weeks.
In American comics the 90's were personified by by writing but "good" art and everyone was trying to be Jim Lee.
The Transformers movies make a billion dollars aand they're dumpster fires but the visuals were neat.
Both Avatar movies.
AQUAMAN is the highest grossing DC movie. AQUAMAN.
Visuals go a long long way towards covering up a mediocre story for a very large chunk of the audience.
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actually Demon Slayer anime feels like the polar opposite of One Piece's - seasonal, high quality, etc. I guess tbf it's a)shorter and b) what anime besides One Piece and I guess Dragon Ball has episodes all year around, which happened because it was so popular right? Or maybe things were just different back in 1999.
Because yeah. 1 or 2 "wow toei went all out" episodes will not make me slog through the rest of the anime. Stopped watching around Fishman Island lol
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@MetaMario said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:
actually Demon Slayer anime feels like the polar opposite of One Piece's - seasonal, high quality, etc. I guess tbf it's a)shorter and b) what anime besides One Piece and I guess Dragon Ball has episodes all year around, which happened because it was so popular right? Or maybe things were just different back in 1999.
All manga based anime used to be year round. Having filler and filler arcs was just the accepted tradeoff for getting that year around exposure to hype sales of the manga. Its why Naruto and Bleach and Inu Yasha all have so so many episodes.
But somewhere along the way they realized they can just do 10-25 episode seasons to avoid filler and up the quality, and still get the same (or better!) returns and that's probably going to be the standard going forward after how well its worked out for My Hero and especially Demon Slayer.
Only shows grandfathered into the weekly format, One Piece, Sazae-San, Detective Conan, Pokemon, Doremon, SHin-Chan, are going to keep that nonsense up when they don't need to.
Dragonball was a weird case because it was all filler and it and the manga varied wildly based on the same outlines. I imagine whenever it returns again they might just make it an event instead of a two year marathon. But its Dragonball, so its hard to say. Boruto I guess feels obligated to do the same thing?
Notably for all of those others though, they're super episodic and its easy to do standalone episodes without padding. One Piece is the only ongoing shonen running that sacrificing its pacing to the altar of the weekly format... because they just refuse to do extended filler arcs for some reason. (Though even filler arcs would have only helped so much when Wano ran FOUR YEARS)
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Hey, here's a compromise. Give One Piece a 15-minute time slot like on Adult Swim!
......yeah, okay, probably not.
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Ironically if One Piece was less popular and the Japanese didn't view it in the same vein as a Sunday morning cartoon show (I'm not saying that they view it as a cartoon but that they see, from a business and marketing perspective) and slot it there every week, we might have years in between seasons and something that doesn't move at a snail pace. We will get Kai eventually because this prints money and so we can all gather here again from our senior homes but it's not the same and it will never be. I'm also slightly doubtful we will get movie-buster level of episodes if this ran seasonally, it'll likely be more of a KnY or Jujutsu approach where it is consistently good and then tops at the end of the season over "what the fuck was that?!" because we were all used to mediocre. And the anime was the very definition of mediocre up until Whole cake island and that was just me being generous because I'm sure a lot would say Wano. In hindsight, how they handled post time skip arcs was nothing short of an embarrassment and obvious way of saying "we'll get away with it anyway" because it's that popular. And they did.
Having great animated seasons would actually require the audience to be patient though and we all know that is not going to happen with something as big as One Piece because the popularity will skydive if it is no longer relevant. A huge, huge part of why this community works and is one of the biggest is because of how hard-wired our brains are to weekly simulation and because we are all habitual people. It's the JUMP model and you sitting in front of the TV waiting for your favourite series to air on a Friday night model and there's a good reason why it works. The world was crazy about streaming and on demand and hoooolaaaa! we loop right back into waiting for weekly.
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@TLC yeah but you also took like 1 minute out of a fight that is 40 minutes long (I'm sure it was longer). I'm not saying it is an unfair judgment on that scene because I get where you are coming from but this scene does what it needed to. It's a very simple brawl panel in the source material. I'm inclined to think that you are more upset about how people just throw the terms composition, direction, and choreography around without understanding what they mean. And that is very common nowadays. Maybe you are upset at how the general audience perceives this more than how they did this.
And the take that everything needs to be interestingly composed, directed, and unique from everything else is a good approach for things like movies. But for a series targeted at young boys, it's good to have but not essential. And this is a particular scene where all those elements you mentioned need not be "out of the box" or top-notch. I would say watch the series but honestly, I won't even take the argument that KnY is where you'll find movie S-tier directing/elements.
Deviation, but Chainsaw-man went the route of trying to movie compose its adaption, and the Japanese hated it. The author is a huge movie buff and has a fairly obvious good comprehension of composition and scene direction (it shows in his works). It also throws money at the adaption like everything big nowadays but did try to be creative in its approach. Didn't necessarily work because once again, the masses don't get those elements and are looking more for an adaption that doesn't deviate from what they know while making it all flashy and polished.
BUT Chainsawman manga does do weird ass composition at times and does play with the camera (in a way manga can) so maybe their complain is that you shouldn't try to out creative an already creative work. I don't know but what i do know that not every manga artist is a film buff or studied good composition/scene direction and more than enough times, animation studio has done a way better job in adapting something that was just an average scene in the source material. There's a whole list.Oppenheimer is coming out soon and I'm sure we've all at least been through the confusion where more people than we thought has never heard of Christopher Nolan. There's the "MCU" and "Transformers" crowd where everything is boom baaam wam and predictable and there's the Nolan crowd. Most of us are in between anyway but I'm just saying that the KNY approach is primarily for the MCU crowd. You can never win against crowd think and you won't because you'll enjoy it anyway.
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@TLC said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:
The series peaked at the Red Light District. The final arc is a bit better than the swordsmith arc but not by much. It was too rushed, clearly needing at least one more arc to flesh out characters and set up the finale. The power creep was too much when you went from needing multiple people taking on the weakest member of the super evil group to 2 to 3 people being able to beat the top tier villains. All the villains have pretty much the same tragic backstory except for Upper 2 who was the most interesting villain (and unfortunately had the least screen time). Muzan never really developed beyond being a boring I wanna be immortal villain and felt less powerful and threatening as much as he was absurdly tanky and spongey. And
I think the biggest sin is despite the story being founded on and marketed on the relationship between Tanjiro and Nezuko and how they had to help protect and save each other, Nezuko was essentially written out of the final arc and barely mattered in the story at all other than the very end where instead of contributing in the conflict, all she could do was scream oniichan and act like a cute imouto to bring her brother back to her senses.
I agree with some of the points here, the Red Light District was the peak and it felt like an arc was cut somewhere because Zenitsu just gets a rushed character arc that feels out of place with everything else happening, and there's clearly a demon missing somewhere (Why does it jump from Upper Rank 6 to Upper Rank 4? Where is 5?). Upper 3 is the only one who gets taken out by a small group, and even then it's just two people (Tanjiro and a Hashira). It's meant to show tanjiro's growth. Upper 2 only dies because he's poisoned from the inside and Upper 1 fights several of the best hashiras all at once and kills 2 of the people he's fighting and seriously wounds another (who then also dies from his wounds later). And then Muzan literally only loses because of the sun. Everyone else works to keep him in the sun and slow him down but no one manages to beat him. The power scaling is very consistent.
As for the Nezuko and Tanjiro thing, Nezuko is unfortunately gone for most of the final arc but the role she does play is exactly what you said earlier. The story is founded on the relationship between Tanjiro and Nezuko and in th end it's because of that relationship that Tanjiro is held back enough for Kanno to save him and then all of the relationships Tanjiro's made symbolically save him.
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IMO One Piece anime has been great since the end of WCI. They delivered on almost every major events and the added things are decent to awesome now.
A shame years of mediocrity did irreparable damage to its reputation.
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@black-leg-jex said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:
(Why does it jump from Upper Rank 6 to Upper Rank 4? Where is 5?).
Gyokko, baby-armed mouth-eyes demon that Muichiro fights is number 5.
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@Robby said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:
Only shows grandfathered into the weekly format, One Piece, Sazae-San, Detective Conan, Pokemon, Doremon, SHin-Chan, are going to keep that nonsense up when they don't need to.
I kinda figured a lot of these guys were along the lines of "family status" too and, coupled with some of the subtle groanings and jokes from Gintama, they probably have a timeslot they don't want to lose. Gintama lost their 6pm "golden time" / prime time timeslot after taking an anime break and had the characters jokingly complain about it.
On top of that, I'm not sure if the title change with the symbols was a legit issue before they turned it into a gag (Gintama', Gintama°, and Gintama.), but the first time it happened they said they had to because of "adult reasons." It made me think, maybe that's why Naruto became Shippuden too? But you don't see that with any other series so I have no idea what's up.
Behind the scenes on anything is fascinating, so I wish I could know about how this stuff worked.
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One comment that sticks with me is that if One Piece was seasonel they would have to cut a lot of stuff to fit the timeslot. So the biggest trade off we get is the certainty that everything will appear on tv. And now we have some movie-caliber episodes here and there, so I see it all as a win in the end.
and, lol, Nolan being considered the epitome of cinema is the dumb's person idea of a smart person meme all over again.
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@puffing-cinema I mean he's not the best but is an example of someone who actually tries doing things differently and experiments with said film elements. There are countless other better ones that I could list but Nolan is popular just like how certain anime series are popular but not there in terms of mass appeal. Doesn't meant that they are the epitome but they at least try and come on, even if Nolan isn't intelligent enough by your standards you can at least admit he tries to be different every time. I guess in anime terms it would be like comparing Trigger works to KnY's ones but that doesn't mean Trigger peak in (list of what makes a film good). You'll be looking at Satoshi Kon for that. It's just that they generally try to do something different.
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@Cinder with how closely Oda is with the anime staff this makes me wonder if he intentionally holds himself back and avoid writing/showing scenes that he would otherwise want to show. But it won't fly for the family crowd
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@Cinder said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:maybe that's why Naruto became Shippuden too?
That was almost certainly a Dragonball Z situation, where they wanted to use the timeskip to rebrand and serve as a fresh exciting new jump on point for anyone that had lapsed. They were 220 episodes/27 volumes/ 6 years in, and they'd just done two YEARS of filler, providing a fresh jump on was ideal. I don't know the specifics of the time, but the ratings HAD to be suffering after two solid years of filler, otherwise OP wouldn't be so terrified of doing filler arcs longer than like 2 episodes..
The english manga followed suit and switched the spines from white to black but they didn't change the numbering even though it was a clean break point at the start of a volume, like they did with Yugioh and Dragonball.
Presuably the only reason One Piece didn't do similar is because it was already longer than the entirety of Dragonball when its timeskip happened.
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@Robby said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:
@Cinder said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:maybe that's why Naruto became Shippuden too?
That was almost certainly a Dragonball Z situation, where they wanted to use the timeskip to rebrand and serve as a fresh exciting new jump on point for anyone that had lapsed. They were 220 episodes/27 volumes/ 6 years in, and they'd just done two YEARS of filler, providing a fresh jump on was ideal. I don't know the specifics of the time, but the ratings HAD to be suffering after two solid years of filler, otherwise OP wouldn't be so terrified of doing filler arcs longer than like 2 episodes..
The english manga followed suit and switched the spines from white to black but they didn't change the numbering even though it was a clean break point at the start of a volume, like they did with Yugioh and Dragonball.
Presuably the only reason One Piece didn't do similar is because it was already longer than the entirety of Dragonball when its timeskip happened.
I think Oda could have been opposed to it, but I dont have evidence so meh. Also I am super glad they didnt separate it because that forces people to start from the beggining. You cant just start in the second half.
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what a season though I loved it. I can't wait for the final? season with infinity castle because ufotable does not miss.
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Just saw the most recent episode.
Wow, that is a hell of a death defying cop out. Even for a shonen series.
The story had a moment of legit tragedy and sacrifice and unexpected twist.... and then noped out.
I guess I can forgive it since other people can't help but yell out spoilers so I already know what happens to... everyone, but still that felt like a real major cheat of a climax.
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I expected Nezuko to at least get some scars out of it, especially since so many other characters have them.
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@Robby in the early chapters of the manga, when Tanjiro was having a flashback of his life (including scenes he have witnessed when he was a child), there was a small panel of the blue spider lily. Implying that his family has knowledge and he himself have seen the lily before. There's a theory that his family might have consumed it like how people in the past consume herbs, leading to this. It was never followed up but all I'm saying is there is a trail there and wasn't exactly a cop-out but you also need to be paying a lot of attention to details in the manga.
And it's also manga only so it is reasonable you felt that way.
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@zeltrax225 said in Kimetsu no Yaiba:> And it's also manga only so it is reasonable you felt that way.
Ooof. If you have a key emotional moment that hinges on an earlier setup in order to not be a deus ex machina... its a good idea to actually have that setup.
They rambled about "changing blood" afterwards so they gave an explanation but its still a hell of a cheat.
But like I said I guess I'll give them the one time since I know what happens to... everyone.
Because people just love to shout spoilers at the anime only crowd.
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Am I the only one who thinks that this season was a let down compared to the last one? Or am I just being too harsh?
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So while y'all have been watching season 3 I finally got caught up on the Entertainment District arc.
While this show certainly has its flaws and probably leans a bit too much into the action, I really appreciate the brother-sister dynamic between Tanjiro and Nezuko. Seriously, Nezuko's, like, the best anime sister ever.
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Nezuko is basically a pokémon.
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The leader of the good guys committed extended suicide and it was presented as an admirable sacrifice. Muzan of all people is the one who was shocked about this guy killing his wife and daughters.
Wash your hands.
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The fact that they specifically say it's adapting the "Infinity Castle arc" is bothering me because that would suggest it won't be covering the final battle outside the castle (so a 4th movie or another season incoming ?). That seems like too few chapters for 3 full-lenght movies with not much room to add stuff (besides Zenitsu's fight and maybe some more UM4 action) and it will be an odd split.
I would have liked something like :
Movie 1: VS UM6, UM3, UM2 (ends at ch.163)
Movie 2: VS UM1, "UM4 fight" (ends at ch.183)
Movie 3: VS Muzan + epilogueThat's more than 20 chapters by movie but since they are action-packed it could work.
What they will do is probably:
Movie 1: VS UM6, UM3
Movie 2: VS UM2, half of VS UM1 (end of ch. 171?)
Movie 3: end of VS UM1, "UM4 fight"That would be a cruel cliffhanger if they end it there IMO. Hopefully the wait for the last arc's adaptation isn't too long then.
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@El-Matematico yeah it was terrible even with culture/samurai/honorable/clan context of traditional japan.
Mr.Wise guy here doesn't think its wise enough to spare his family.I don't really care enough to like or hate the movie format at this point since it was obviously going to come with how successful Mugen train was but going as far as a Trilogy did surprise me.
Ufotable got to milk that cash cow until there's nothing left.
Distasteful but whatever.
Oh and I'll also like to point out that while they do really well with CG/2D, the directing can be a pain in the ass. Some scenes felt like a bollywood movie at times.
What I am curious is, is how and what Gotoge feels about this incessant milking of her series. Considering she did give a statement that she make a miserable amount from Mugen. Even if there were to be another wave of volume buyers, the net total she'll walk away from the franchise is probably significantly lesser than 10% of the total profits the movies make.
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I'm sort of a fan of having epic conclusions conveyed with a movie (worked out for Gintama at least), but I'm not sure about a trilogy of movies... is it going to be a movie every few years? Is it going to be like Evangelion? I'm already needing to suffer the pain of waiting years for FF7R part 3, wasn't expecting to do the same for this one.
Even worse for the people only watching the anime. I luckily read the manga but I got a couple people into the anime, and we were watching an episode a week in English as they came out.
