"Demon Slayer: Hashira Training" (Season 4) Talkback Thread

[wonderfly]

The News Team's PicardMan has a new review up on the front page of AnimeSuperhero.com:

"Review: “Demon Slayer: Hashira Training Arc”: A Filler-Filled Season"​

"Demon Slayer is arguably the single biggest anime of the entire 2020s, but it is also a frequent punching bag for professional review websites. The series is known for having a focus on spectacle and flashy action sequences taking up significantly more priority than drama or character development. To be fair, the second and third seasons of Demon Slayer were two or three episodes of setup followed by fight scenes that lasted the vast majority of the season. I can’t deny that seasons 2-3 were 90% action, 10% plot. It feels like somebody made a monkey’s paw wish for a season that had something other than flashy sword fights, because we got this season.

The Hashira Training Arc in the manga was, as it’s title implied, a training arc before we got into another big action-based arc. This arc was incredibly short in the manga and couldn’t sustain itself it’s own season with lots of stuff added, and lots of stuff was indeed added to the anime adaptation to make its own season. The cool action sequences are why people see Demon Slayer, but this season is mostly sparring brief matches rather than the long and tense life or death struggles that the series is known for. The question is if this added material was worth the viewer’s time."

Read the full review here.

 

[Yojimbo]

The News Team's PicardMan has a new review up on the front page of AnimeSuperhero.com:

"Review: “Demon Slayer: Hashira Training Arc”: A Filler-Filled Season"​

"Demon Slayer is arguably the single biggest anime of the entire 2020s, but it is also a frequent punching bag for professional review websites. The series is known for having a focus on spectacle and flashy action sequences taking up significantly more priority than drama or character development. To be fair, the second and third seasons of Demon Slayer were two or three episodes of setup followed by fight scenes that lasted the vast majority of the season. I can’t deny that seasons 2-3 were 90% action, 10% plot. It feels like somebody made a monkey’s paw wish for a season that had something other than flashy sword fights, because we got this season.

The Hashira Training Arc in the manga was, as it’s title implied, a training arc before we got into another big action-based arc. This arc was incredibly short in the manga and couldn’t sustain itself it’s own season with lots of stuff added, and lots of stuff was indeed added to the anime adaptation to make its own season. The cool action sequences are why people see Demon Slayer, but this season is mostly sparring brief matches rather than the long and tense life or death struggles that the series is known for. The question is if this added material was worth the viewer’s time."

Read the full review here.

It was a needed season because several of the Hashira were underdeveloped heading into the series finale as they never had team up arcs with Tanjiro and co. and a nice bonus was it fleshing out the redshirts of the Demon Slayer Corps and their relationship to Tanjiro. The finale was worth the price of admission. At first it was an eye roll that this leads into a trilogy of movies but then upon further thought, that means A+ animation quality, knock wood, and eventually there will be a TV adaptation like Mugen Train so Toonami will be able to air to whole series in theory. Eventually.

 

[PicardMan]

It was a needed season because several of the Hashira were underdeveloped heading into the series finale as they never had team up arcs with Tanjiro and co. and a nice bonus was it fleshing out the redshirts of the Demon Slayer Corps and their relationship to Tanjiro.

I think the issue is probably with the source material if the anime adaptation needed to fill in for characterization. In my opinion, it probably would have worked better for fleshing out the Hashira if they had one shot filler episodes where they killed the demon of the week. That way we could flesh out the Hashira and have action. The issue is that I personally find the Hashira to be boring characters even after spending a season with them and the best Hashira is the dead one. Still prefer the main quartet. I do think the movie trilogy will be everything fans wanted and more after this slow season as the cool action scenes have always been the reason to watch Demon Slayer, even if competing battle shonen have better plots and characters.