Review: DEMON SLAYER

 The 2010s was a sterling decade for Weekly Shonen Jump as far as content was concerned, with a steady and fairly diverse selection of big hits.  I could have chosen any number of recent series for this spot, but it just felt right to pick the one that became the biggest sensation during the pandemic, as well as the one with a movie that's making records for anime movies in the US as I write this.

DEMON SLAYER (Kimetsu no Yaiba), by Koyoharu Gotouge.  First published in 2016 and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

Tanjiro was just hoping to sell some charcoal to help support his mother and many siblings.  When he returns home, he discovers that his family has been slaughtered by demons.  The only survivor is his sister Nezuko, but she has transformed into a demon herself.  Tanjiro is determined to save her, but his only hope of doing so is to become a demon slayer himself through long, arduous, and dangerous training.

STORY:

So what is it about Demon Slayer that made it such a sensation in the first place?  That was the way I approached this first volume.  I don't have all the answers to that question, but I do think at least I have a few.

What makes Tanjiro stand out from a lot of other recent shonen protagonists is his empathy.  Tanjiro doesn't crave any sort of power or achievement - he just wants a comfortable life with the last family member he has left.  This emotional sensitivity may be scorned by the boys and men who train him as weak, but it also lends Tanjiro a bit more character depth from the start.  He also has a super-sensitive nose that allows him to track others, which is kind of strange but at least brings some novelty to the fights.

For all the emphasis that's put on the relationship between Tanjiro and Nezuko, I do wish we got a little more insight into her.  We see more of her in Tanjiro's memories than we do in life, and since she spends the rest of the volume either muted with a mouthguard or deeply asleep we don't get anything from her perspective.  All we have are the moments where her humanity prevails, using her demonic strength to aid and protect her brother.  At the very least, I wish they were training as a duo, since her super strength and size shifting would be a major strength.

I've never been a fan of shonen training arcs, and I appreciate that Gotouge doesn't seem to be a fan either.  He's definitely breezing through it a lot faster than I'm used to seeing in your typical Weekly Shonen Jump manga.  That's fine by me as it means that Tanjiro is almost done by the end of the first volume, which means this manga will get to the real meat the story faster.

ART:

While the sensitive lead and accelerated pace helps Demon Slayer, I suspect that its art style helped it appeal to audiences even more.  There's an intriguing angularity to the character designs, which is most obvious in their hair.  There's a little more texture to it and it reminds me a little bit of woodcuts.  But what truly stands out is how this series uses patterns.

This is set during the Taisho era.  While Tanjiro's world is a lot less wealthy and urban than we usually see in other manga set at that time, there's still loads of period-appropriate fabric patterns full of checkerboards, stripes, and tessellations (and in the color art they are brightly colored).  This even comes through in Tanjiro's special attacks, which take on a wave-like pattern.  It may be just a part of period detail, but you don't see a lot of bold patterns like that in manga art (shonen or otherwise) and it helps to give Demon Slayer a visual identity of its own.  

That's not all Gotouge has going for their art, though.  The action scenes are laid-out well on the page, with a subtle rhythm.  There's also a minimum of sound effects and few speedlines, which lets the backgrounds shine even mid-battle.  They use a lot of small hatching for everything from tree bark to scars that gives the art a sense of dimension and texture.  There's just a lot of character to the art here, and I think that character is what got so many people on board with this series in the first place.

RATING:

I don't know if I'm personally sold on Demon Slayer, but I think I have a better understanding of why it became a sensation in the first place.  It has an unusually empathetic lead, an emphasis on compassion and family, and some interesting use of pattern and texture to give it a unique look.  Now it just needs to figure out a way to let Nezuko play an active role in it all.

This series is published by Viz.  This series is complete in Japan with 23 volumes available.  21 volumes have been published and are currently in print.