Aspect Analysis – Demon Slayer: An Excellent Example in Showcasing the Strength of Your Enemy

in #anime4 years ago

image.png

The other day I went in pretty hard on Demon Slayer, and while I think the show deserved it I do want to highlight something about the show I really loved. I couldn't go into it in the review because I would be essentially spoiling the climax,so I decided to dedicate an Aspect Analysis to it instead. So you have been warned, if you are at all interested in watching Demon Slayer, I will be spoiling the main fight of the first season.

A big thing about the show up until now is just how talented Tanjiro really is as a Demon Slayer. He's got a Sword of a unique color, he has an inhumanely hard head, the ability to smell if a person is trustworthy or not (This is still the dumbest thing about the show), he's basically a prodigy. Pair him up with the secret badass that is Tanjiro, and Inoske who is basically a very strong berserker, and you have a group that looks destined for success. We've even seen Tanjiro take down a former member of The Twelve Kizuku, the title held by the strongest Demon's given out by the antagonist, very early in his career as a Demon Slayer.

The three get sent on a rescue mission into a forest, and in here lives one of the Twelve Kizuku. Fighting against one of the demons, he is so much stronger than any they fought before and assumed he was one of the Twelve. Inoske ends up fighting him solo and manages to break through his skin and cut off the monsters arm. The creature, however, transforms into an even stronger form than Inoske is desperately trying to escape from.

image.png

That is a great moment, though not the highlight. See, in his weaker form he was so strong that Tanjiro just assumed he was one of the Twelve, and the guy wasn't even fighting at his full power at first. When separated from Inoske, Tanjiro comes across the actual Kizuku, Riu. This is clearly a fight that is not going to go in Tanjiro's favor, as this guy's power is far beyond the previous demon.

Typically when a character first reveals their ace card, you can expect them to overcome insurmountable odds. It's something that is engraved into most anime.But Demon Slayer goes farther than the reveal of a trump card. Not only do you finally get to see the Tenth Form of Water Breathing, but he pairs it with a technique he learned from his father, Fire Breathing, that essentially allows him to ignore his fatigue and fight on at full power regardless of your physical state. On top of all of this, Nezuko is suddenly able to use her Blood Demon Art, an ability each demon has that seems unique to it.

Every stop was pulled out here, three ace cards had all been pulled out for the first time, we even had a huge epic speech from Tanjiro about his bond with his sister as this was building up. Every sign points to this being the moment Tanjiro ascends to the next level of anime Bad Assery and manages to overcome a foe whose motives and desires serve as a near-perfect foil to Tanjiro's. There is no way this could ever end any other way that Tanjiro managing to come out triumphant. And he fails, and it doesn't even feel like he failed by the narrowest of margins. All he managed to do was really piss off Riu. Through all of that build-up, he was soundly defeated and saved by one of the strongest Demon Slayers around.

image.png

Now, I dislike how quickly the guy managed to defeat Riu with little to no effort, but that isn't' really the point here. The point is the show got something across that a lot of anime tend to skip over, and that is no matter how much of a Prodigy Tanjiro turned out to be, no matter how strong his bond with his sister is, he's only been in a fight with a handful of demons. Of course there was no way he was ever going to be able to face off against someone who is considered to be among the twelve strongest demons in the world.

The reason I love this so much is you never see an anime protagonist lose after pulling an ace card out of nowhere for the first time, and as the audience, it just feels like there was no way this was going to end with it failing, especially with Nezuko simultaneously awakening to her Demon Art. All that managed to do was keep Tanjiro from dying. The Subversion of that trope, whatever you would call it, ends up painting the shows foe in a very threatening light and it was the moment of the show I really felt the strength of the Demons.

It may have undercut its own impact with having Riu so easily dispatched, but at least in relation to the main characters, you see how terrifying they really were. Despite my not enjoying the show nearly as much as other people, that doesn't take away how wonderful this moment was. I hope to see more writing of this quality come season two.

Sort:  

This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.
@c-squared runs a community witness. Please consider using one of your witness votes on us here

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.36
TRX 0.12
JST 0.040
BTC 70446.49
ETH 3571.68
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.73