'Demon Slayer' anime strikes chord with pandemic Japan

Demon Slayer” has spun off video games, toy figures

This is literally the only reason any manga gets made into an anime

McDonald's is doing a Demon Slayer Happy Meal from today. I recommend avoiding streets with McDonald's on them because traffic will be hideous like the Sunday lunch crowd.

I must admit to being a bit nonplussed by the extreme popularity of this. I watched a few hours of the TV show to see what the fuss was about, and it seems to be an incredibly generic 'fight the monsters, learn new techniques' anime. The animation looks lovely, but the story and the characters seemed to be identical to a few dozen other anime. Even the name sounds generic.

The only female character seemed to be a girl who was kept in a box and kept gagged... which I can only assume must be a clever comment on the role of women in japan or something.

It's also incredibly violent for a show that seems to be highly popular with preschoolers. Having to explain what a Brothel is to a 5 year old seems like it wouldn't be an issue for the parents who are happy to let their 5 year old watch people having their heads sliced into bloody cubes.

It occurs to me that during the pandemic, audiences have tended to turn to nice easy familiar shows and movies that are somewhat comforting and easy to deal with. Maybe it's that.

I am actually surprised that it was not banned in the US for depicting Asians in stereotypical ways.

Every week there is a different spin on the popularity of this anime. How many ways can the J media spin this story? Unless it can clear away the ‘rona before this Summer’s Big Event, we’ve grown tired of it.

Points taken @Nator. First anime was good but, similar to many ‘westerns’: ‘True Grit’, ‘Jeremiah Johnson’; “The Revanent(?).

What alternatives do you recommend?

@ Nator

It's also incredibly violent for a show that seems to be highly popular with preschoolers. Having to explain what a Brothel is to a 5 year old seems like it wouldn't be an issue for the parents who are happy to let their 5 year old watch people having their heads sliced into bloody cubes

I agree, young preschoolers shouldn't be watching this.

However, actually the rating is for kids over 15 years old, if I remember correctly (for the movie). The TV anime may actually have had an Adult only rating, since its original run was exclusively in midnight (between 1AM and 3 AM) slots all over Japan.

Kids only were able to see it because of 3 things:

1) Being stuck at home due to Covid school lockdowns,

2) Streaming services like Netflix, UNext, etc carrying the anime for free, and also being mostly available in YouTube, and finally

3) Parents not controlling what their young kids watch.

By the time I realized my preschool and elementary school kids were watching some of it in YouTube and took time to see it myself, it took some effort to completely remove it so they would have no access to it any more. By that time mostly all their friends had watched it. So very bad parenting is involved. But also

over accessible streaming services, and a pointless lookdown of schools.

The only female character seemed to be a girl who was kept in a box and kept gagged... which I can only assume must be a clever comment on the role of women in japan or something.

Give us a break, and spare us of your PC crap. Firstly, this is the case for the first episodes, but other types of female characters do appear. Secondly, JUST because the character you saw is in that condition doesn't make -her irrelevant or unimportant or non-protagonist, if anything IT'S the contrary. I actually went on and watched the whole thing and the movie. Her characterization and her importance are at a level never seen in Japanese anime, I would argue.

SHE IS the story, period. Thirdly, even though the above is true, that doesn't mean every single female character

should be heroic nor that every anime should have a balanced number of female and males, this looking to serve equality cold in everything is unnecessary. You do realize there are always several ALL girl animes as well, right. Let us judge a story for its story. Nothing else. Forthly, this is Japan, spare us your Western viewpoints. If you don't like JP way, leave and go back to your preferred society.

Fifthly, do watch something entirely before commenting is a good old fashioned, advice.

The only way it could possibly strike any chord that is true is if all the demon slayers sat around and talked about what they should do while the monsters destroyed everything, and then not do it, then shrug and say they could not have known.