Thoughts on the Anime 'Demon Slayer: Entertainment District Arc'
Thoughts on the Manga 'Demon Slayer'
Thoughts on the Movie 'Demon Slayer: Mugen Train'
Essay 'On the Publication of the Final Volume of Demon Slayer'
Upon hearing the news of the final episode of the Demon Slayer: Entertainment District Arc, I binged it on Netflix. The quality of the animation, which could be mistaken for a theatrical release, is nothing short of brilliant. However, the unbalanced aspect of the original work—where the characters explain their own state, their allies' state, the enemies' state, and the surrounding situation entirely through dialogue—has been highlighted once again by the anime adaptation. In the first half of one episode, the characters' bust-up shots kept bobbing up and down with every line of dialogue for so long that I couldn't help but retort, 'Hey, hey, stop yapping and just fight already.' But when I looked back at the original manga volumes, I realized the anime was faithfully adapting those scenes. This stems from the same root as 'the issue where a light novel protagonist's signature line is so long that it sounds unnatural when read aloud by a voice actor,' and the same can be said for the anime adaptation of FGO.
Returning to this world once again, the Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps are all psychopaths, and the high-speed combat is so dizzying that I can't tell what's happening, yet I still find myself deeply sympathizing and crying at the demons' flashbacks in the final episode. The 'reason for becoming a demon' is the core of the Demon Slayer story, and in the way it makes the reader feel, 'If I were in the same situation, I would have done the same thing,' it is structured just like Shoplifters, Joker, and Parasite. At the same time, it forces those who are blessed to realize that their current situation is due to a combination of 'environment and luck,' and confronts the strong and the wealthy with their responsibilities. As I have written before, the essence of the ugliness possessed by survivors of the ice age generation lies precisely in this point: the unconscious gesture of looking down at their fallen comrades from a warm place and feeling relieved that 'I am glad I wasn't there.' Watching the final episode of the Entertainment District Arc, I realized that the discomfort I felt toward 'forty-something self-narratives' was the 'tone of voice used by those who know the future to speak while excluding those who cannot see tomorrow from their field of vision.' This is common in the SNS era; only the arrogant words of those rocking in chairs with a glass of wine while warming their backs by the fireplace float on the internet, while the actions of someone running barefoot into the cold sky to lift a comrade from the snow are never described anywhere.
I have digressed quite a bit, so returning to Demon Slayer, I love the English subtitles for each episode of the TV version of Eva (wait, I'm not back to that!), and I think they were the subject of much speculation at the time, but the one that leaves the biggest impression on me is episode 22, 'Don't be.' A literal translation is 'do not exist,' but I remember being very impressed when I saw it interpreted somewhere on the internet at the time as 'you shouldn't have been born.' In the final episode of the Entertainment District Arc, the protagonist's act of covering the demon's mouth to prevent him from saying these words perfectly matches his character design, and combined with the short dialogue, it strikes the heart even more. In the scene after the flashback where the demons turn their backs to the light and walk into the fires of hell, I was truly moved by how they expressed all their emotions without having the brother say a single word, despite the excessive dialogue-heavy script, using only the acting of 're-embracing' his sister. The scene in 'Hana no Keiji' where the protagonist monologues, 'Even someone like me is in this much pain, so how much more must the horses and cows be suffering?' came to mind, and I think there is an aspect where not saying 'it's heavy, it's painful' has become a virtue for me. Perhaps too much time has passed, and 'heavy, painful' has become like Master Roshi's turtle shell from Dragon Ball.
Also, as for my prediction on which story the next movie will cover, it will be the battle with Akaza in the Infinity Castle. It is a reveal that can bring back many viewers who only saw the 'Mugen Train' movie, and at the same time, even for those who only saw the first episode of the TV series, I think that particular team-up will make them feel the long passage of time in the story and move their hearts. Oh, and which one will the final volume be? It will be a TV broadcast, I suppose. Adding the story after reincarnation to the end of a movie would just be a long, unnecessary addition, and above all, Muzan-sama is so pathetic and uncool that if you saw it on a big theater screen, everyone would surely get frustrated... (looks away).