There are moments in life when you’re hit by a memory so hard you feel your teeth rattle. It can be good, bad, momentous or mundane, but it’s always followed by a brief pause in everything you’re doing, allowing you to reflect on that fleeting past. Oftentimes, there is peace in this newfound recollection. Other times it is a reminder that you totally forgot that Zenitsu comes from your least favorite tradition in Shonen manga…the Manta. Or, for a western animation touchstone, the Snarf.
Cover by Koyoharu GotougeWritten and Illustrated by Koyoharu Gotouge
Translated by John Werry
Adapted into English by Stan!
Lettered by John HuntTanjiro and Nezuko cross paths with two powerful demons who fight with magical weapons. Even help from Tamayo and Yushiro may not be enough to defeat these demons who claim to belong to the Twelve Kizuki that directly serve Kibutsuji, the demon responsible for all of Tanjiro’s woes! But if these demons can be defeated, what secrets can they reveal about Kibutsuji?
For those who are unaware of Manta, he is the main character (technically) of “Shaman King” and is, among other things, an insufferable presence with a voice that, even just through paper, destroys your eardrums for a good 5 volumes before quietly being shuffled aside to have character growth occur in his own less attended sub-plots before making a resurgence as a presence that doesn’t make you want to tear your own hair out. Snarf from He-Man is much the same, though he is far more “funny sidekick in a Disney movie.” I’m sure everyone reading this has that one character which drives them up the wall every time they make an appearance. This is the mode within which Zenitsu operates. He is every cowardly, insufferable, sniveling trope rolled up into one.
And yet I love the little shit.
“Demon Slayer” fans and eagle-eyed readers will know by now that the sparrow kid I gushed about last week is, in fact, Zenitsu. I slag him off because I care and because Gotouge has made me care. I could have easily hated this kid and Gotouge gives us every reason to. His first appearance after the mountain is him clinging to and begging some random woman he literally just met to marry him because he’s afraid he’s gonna die in his first mission and thought because she showed him an ounce of kindness that she liked him. We are treated, then, to an absolute masterwork of visual and slapstick comedy for ten pages where we get a real good look at how pitiful Zenitsu is. But in that scene is also what makes Zenitsu work so well.
Yes, his personality is deeply insufferable and his actions borderline immoral but there is no malice behind it, only fear. He may not have a heart of gold or altruism but his ease in being guilted into doing the right thing later belies a moral core that can be nurtured. As a companion to the unflappable Shonen protagonist, that is a perfect foil and one which allows for plenty of room to grow alongside the story. Zenitsu’s whole schitck is that he has to fall asleep/be knocked unconscious to do anything right and even then he only knows how to do one stroke too, the complete opposite of Tanjiro! Moreover, as he shows at the end of volume 3 in chapter 25, he is fiercely loyal to his friends and will gladly throw himself in harm’s way to protect what they value. It also helps that his insufferability is cut by Gotouge’s strong as fuck face game and comedic timing.
I don’t think I have to tell anyone reading this about how fucking funny “Demon Slayer” is in-between its bouts of intense action and then tear-jerking, fist pumping, “DON’T YOU HURT MY BABY” moments. Every panel of Zenitsu whining is accompanied by a face which instantly supplants any feeling of frustration with a chortle and, more often than not, a full throated laugh. I could literally fill this entire review with Zenitsu faces and nothing else and be satisfied. I won’t, mostly because, as established, a lot happens in these 18 chapters.
Continued below
The main thrust of volumes three and four are of Tanjiro learning how to work within the world he is now a part of while on a variety of missions: three, specifically. His morality and desires clash with the likes of Inosuke and Zenitsu, with one being a murder happy hothead and the other being the aforementioned wuss with a heart of jelly, as well as with the demons he’s fighting because, you know, Tanjiro sees himself as alive and they see him as dead. Now, because Tanjiro is Protagonist Perfected, he befriends Inosuke & Zenitsu instantly, twisting them around his little finger like a piece of bakery string. Tanjiro instantly clocks what each of them is about and the effortless manipulation is *mwah* perfect.
With the demons, however, things are a slightly different story. Tanjiro’s main mission, to save the now-demonized Nezuko, is already at odds with the vast majority of the world of “Demon Slayer.” This, in turns, fundamentally changes his outlook on demons and their inherent humanity. For a protagonist like Eren Yeager, Titans are monstrous beings who live only to destroy, as that was the event that shaped his childhood. For Tanjiro, he harbours no hatred towards demons, save for, I would argue, Kibutsuji. He can’t, because if he does, then that would extend to Nezuko, no matter how much he loves her. He is motivated to take demons out not because of personal revenge but because they are a literal threat who eat humans and, oftentimes, take pleasure in it.
He does what he does because he must, and because most of the demons he finds want to kill him, but he still approaches each situation individually. While this doesn’t mean he’s going around asking all these demons to go all Vegeta and become his bestie after a fight, he has shown a penchant for empathizing with each of the demons’ struggles, even when he isn’t privy to the details. That is reserved for the audience, and the audience only.
He doesn’t know why Kyogai, the Tsuzumi Drum demon, reacted the way he did to him not stepping on the paper. He didn’t know the specifics of Kyogai’s devaluation at the hands of a family member, why that’s the reason he never leaves the house nor why that formative event caused him to craive Kibutsuji’s approval AND ultimately his rejection at Kibutsuji’s hand. Tanjiro doesn’t know any of this, and he knows he cannot let Kyogai continue to kill innocent humans, but also he knows what Kyogai needs to hear to let him die in peace.
The same is true for one of the spider demons he fights in chapter 32. He changes his form mid-swing without a word being exchanged, going from first form to fifth, a stroke which conveys no pain. It is a gentle death and only we know why that was a fitting one for this character. Gotouge contrasts these deaths with those at the hands of other demon slayers, which are notably less insightful and more violent. They do not have this same connection and thus do not see the necessity to be empathetic at the end.
I have some complaints about these two volumes, mostly centering around the larger worldly aspects being underdeveloped and confusing at times, but I’d rather have an ill-defined but ultimately unimportant ranking system than a constantly referenced one where everyone is obsessed with it; the world flows better without dwelling on them.
My biggest gripe, actually, is with the exact nature of Kibutsuji’s curse in chapter 18. Tamayo, the demon doctor, says his name and is fine but if Susamaru (Ball demon) says it, she gets brutally murdered by her own cells? And also if Tanjiro says anything that’d happen to? The curse Tamayo uses is a truth serum, though. Does it kill you if you lie or is it forcing the truth which activates a latent curse in Kibutsuji’s cells which are in every demon who says his name? If that’s the case, why would Tanjiro be in danger? It’s just poorly defined and kinda out of nowhere. For such a pivotal moment in that arc, that’s a problem.
Continued belowThat said, I don’t want to dwell on what I didn’t like, like Nezuko not having a lot to do after her STUPENDOUS kickball fight with Susamaru, at least not until a potentially more egregious example arises. Volumes 3 & 4 of “Demon Slayer” were an excellent next step for Tanjiro and Nezuko, bringing in new characters and deepening our understanding of Tanjiro and how he is going to operate in this world going forward.
Next time, volumes 5 & 6, wherein I believe we’ll be re-introduced to the fifth member of the “We Didn’t Die on the Mountain” class of 18-whatever, my favorite sparrow continues to sass Zenitsu, and we conclude this spider arc which I didn’t avoid talking about because those sid-toy-looking spiders freak me the fuck out. Nope. Not at all. Not in a million years.
…*shudders*
