Anime ATM 101 Kimetsu no Yaiba

Confession time: I put off watching Demon Slayer until maybe three weeks ago because it's rated R on MAL and the last time I watched something rated R on MAL was ReZero and I couldn't sleep for days after. And because I love myself and didn't want to not be able to sleep again I refrained. I was pretty adamant about not watching it, but I was eventually persuaded because my housemates said they would watch it with me.

{Spoilers, but so many memes are out there you've probably seen the equivalent of the anime}

For the first couple of episodes, my housemates would say "warning" before any blood showed up. And for the first half of the season I was super disturbed. But I figured that you know I'm 20 years old now so I should be able to handle it now. I'm a strong independent woman and I can for sure watch gore and demons no big deallll. And even though I watched the entirety of this season, I can't say that I could handle anything more gore-y. Already this was kind of hard to watch at some points. *wheeze*

So, as we all probably know at this point, the concept of Demon Slayer is that there's this boy named Tanjiro who's really hardworking and wholesome. One day he goes to town to sell firewood to provide for his family and comes home to his whole family slaughtered and his sister Nezuko who "survived" but is now a demon. RIP the most cute checkered family :(

With a crazed Nezuko in tow, Tanjiro runs into Giyu who's the first demon slayer he's encountered. Because apparently in this world, demons aren't commonly encountered and most people don't even know about their existence. With Giyu trying to kill the only surviving member of Tanjiro's family, Tanjiro stands up against him to protect her and earns Giyu's respect I guess? So then off Tanjiro and Nezuko go to Urokodaki's house for Tanjiro to train to be a demon slayer. All the while Tanjiro's training for the Final Selection where he would go, as the name would suggest, to the final trial for him to become an official demon slayer to avenge his family.

The arc with Urokodaki and all of the children that he trained to go to the Final Selection that died was a really well-emotionally developed story line. It showed the anguish and difficulty people that want to become demon slayers must take and how it's not without risk. And I think that even though the demons are so ugly, they juxtapose the demon slayers so well in making their feats even more impressive. (LOL if this sounds terrible it's because I'm exhausted and my apartmentmates are playing MarioKart behind me)

One of the charms of Demon Slayer is how well-developed all of the characters are. Even though Tanjiro could come off as "holier than thou" because he's so wholesome and genuinely compassionate towards everyone around him, it wasn't ever annoying or overbearing. This is probably because the man's work ethic is actually insane. And the way that he cares for Nezuko is really amazing like he just carries her in the wooden box on his back for miles and miles even when he's injured.

Because the season is 26 episodes, I kinda feel reluctant to go through each of the arcs. But they linked nicely together with only a few filler episodes in between that felt more like a welcome reprieve for our heroes to rest up while they trained for the next battle instead of a complete waste of time. And every time they were in the middle of an arc and the episodes would end it would be almost a given that there was a cliffhanger. That's one of the reasons I was happy to binge the show because the cliffhangers weren't too bad on my part. Especially during the spider arc that went on for what seemed like forever, it was handy that all of the episodes were out by the time I started watching.

As I finish up the season, V has actually just started it (honestly one of the only times in this day and age that I'll have watched a show before him) and he says that the first two episodes outline a plot very similar to Jojo. Personally I haven't watched Jojo, but even so, this is amazing.

Especially the final fight with one of the Lower 12 when it was Tanjiro and Nezuko against Rui, visually the whole fight sequence was amazing. In general, the way that they animated the show was so engaging and beautiful, it was hard to tear your eyes away from the screen.

As all shounen hero anime go, a lot of this show was about personal growth and development to defeat the bad guy. However, it was so interesting to watch with all of the interesting and unique characters like Inosuke with his pig head and Zenitsu with his awesome lightning power but cowardly nature. And the Hashima! They're so cool! Everyone is honestly so cool in this show because of their power/specialty. So no I didn't get bored with the endless cycle of personal growth, probably because Tanjiro is so hardworking and the gore kept me on my toes.

Overall, I think this was the most hyped anime of the season and it was well-deserved. It also has this season's best girl, cutie Nezuko who really stole the show. But just the way that they would animate the characters with vacant eyes were super cute as well hehe. And Kanao!! Such a cutie!! It was a good balance of cool powers and fight sequences, scary gore scenes, and engaging characters.

It was refreshing to watch. It's been a long time since I thoroughly enjoyed a show and couldn't put it down this way. It reminded me once again of why I fell in love with and started watching copious amounts of anime in the first place.

Honestly I'm kind of disappointed in how unable I've become in conveying how amazing this show was and I should've allowed myself more time to just soak in how impactful the show was, but alas I just jumped in headfirst. So, just know that even if my review is quite brief and all over the place, I genuinely enjoyed watching Demon Slayer. It was especially cute to watch it together with my housemates hehe.

Anime ATM 54 Hanayaka Nari, Waga Ichizoku: Kinetograph

What the heck did Youtube recommend to me? Admittedly I watched this anime because it was conveniently on Youtube, but also because I was interested in watching an anime with episodes longer than the traditional 24 or so minutes. I should've done my research beforehand from which I would've realized that this is actually an OVA based on a manga. Whoops.

Sorry if this sounds super scatter-brained but I legitimately just finished an 8 hour shift at work and needed to rant.

{I would say there's spoilers, but wtf is the plot?}

This was a complete and utter mess. From the first ten minutes I thought this would be a political drama with all the women being catty with one another or not being allowed outside of their houses and with all the rich people having their fancy af hanabi. And then from there I thought it was going to be a semi-decent historical reverse harem anime with Haru falling and all the guys getting annoyed with her and having their 'lightbulb moment' where they realize they really like Haru. But she just keeps falling and apologizing for the entire show so I can't even say that it was a true romance anime, it was its own genre starring a ditzy girl and loose ends. There was no plot point followed through except a rushed romance and even the romance seemed more in the line of getting more fans rooting for their respective ships rather than an intentional and well-thought out plan of how each of them would fall in love with her. What happened to who would inherit the family business once the Miyanomori head stepped down? His instructions of "You have ten months to make me happy" were so incredibly vague it made me want to stop watching right then and there if Haru hadn't annoyed me enough. And what was with Tae and Chitori hating her at first and magically starting to support her? Why was the premier shot? What happened to the guy that shot him? He revealed himself to be the seventh son, but so what? Why don't the two eldest sons want to get married and why was it only revealed super late on that Isami was similar to Tadashi in not wanting to get married? (Also Tadashi's glasses just bother me. The round ones are just ugly and the rectangular ones are marginally better but I prefer him to have a consistent pair of eye wear. There's already enough guys to differentiate without him being like this.)Maybe all of this was to make people read the manga to tie up the loose ends, but if this was a standalone piece it would have failed terrifically. If the plot, if you can even call it a plot, weren't enough of a let down full of holes and question marks then surely Haru would've annoyed you enough to the point that you question watching this in the first place. It was so incredibly bad. She drops absolutely everything and says that she'll try her best but she just keeps asking questions when everyone told her to stop and do her job. And they try to play it off as "oh she's just a country girl, she doesn't know any better" when it'd be common sense to be careful with those fragile glasses and keep to yourself so you don't get fired. Is it too much to ask for some common sense? I guess I give her a little nod of approval for staying a maid instead of getting married. No need to be tied down before you're ready and be forced to live someone else's lifestyle if you have a choice otherwise. Also why are all of the boys at least a little tsundere? Like when they're planning to visit Haru during the holidays why are they like "We're definitely going for the hot springs" when everyone's worried. And they're all like "Don't touch me" but a couple days later they're dancing at a ball together in public?! There's so many questions that could be answered with a fabricated answer, but it all seemed just too forced and rushed. I suppose it was because they were trying to fit a whole manga's plot into essentially 100 minutes, but it still seemed raw and unfinished. It was a bit like a slice of life anime where they have a very subtle plot but the genres were historical, josei, and drama not slice of life so it wasn't very successful.

All in all I wouldn't recommend this. If you're looking for a trashy reverse harem I'd say Diabolik Lovers...wait no I think this is better than that. That one the girl was really just a blood sack. But like UtaPri is pretty good, a better reverse harem and actually good songs. This really wasn't that great, but if you'd like to see just how weird it was for yourself it's on Youtube, all two episodes.

Even here you need a vacation arc

One thing that I actually enjoyed about this anime was the depiction of a different period of Japan, the Taisho period, in which you can see the modernization of the world as well as the clash of western and Japanese fashion (aka with the French maid uniform vs Haru's traditional clothing) I don't watch much historical drama or know much about the Japanese timeline of modernization so this might not be accurate, but I found it fascinating nonetheless.

The biggest tsun out of all the brothers smh

If you're in it for the doki-doki eye candy I guess this is pretty good (save for Tadashi because those glasses?!)