Recently I finished watching all 3 seasons of the anime Demon Slayer on Netflix directed by Hauro Sotozaki and produced by Hikaru Kondo. My honest opinion about the anime is that throughout the whole series, it gave me a mix of strong/emotional feelings that struck me in my heart while watching it. Demon Slayer is the first anime that I ever watched that I connected to as an audience member. It gave me a scene of laughter, love, excitement, and a bundle of things that makes me want season 4 of this anime to come out right now. The Details to keep in mind is that this anime is beyond amazing, and a lot of the fighting scenes are gory but amazing. It also doesn’t shy away from the emotional scenes making us the audience connected to the characters that we’re learning more about as more episodes come. The genre of Demon Slayer is Adventure Dark and Fantasy Martial Arts which the creators can come up with while not copying straight from the manga.
The plot of the story is that we get introduced to Tanjiro Kamado who is a very kind, gentle, caring, and compassionate-hearted boy who lives in a small house in the mountains in a rural village with his mom and his five younger siblings. Later in the anime after a gruesome incident, Tanjiro discovered that his mom and his 4 siblings had been attacked and killed his younger sister Nezuko survived but was injured but soon found out she had been turned into a Demon then that’s the real story begins where Tanjiro wants to find a way to turn his sister back into a normal hero but he has to train hard by master Sakonji Urokodaki to become a Demon Slayer to help Nezuko and help avenge his family with help with some other demon slayers. The main characters are Tanjiro Kamado, Nezuko Kamado, Zenitsu Agatsuma, and Inosuke Hasbira.
I only watched the Dub version of the anime but here is my honest opinion on the English actors/actresses who voiced the main important characters who added the most impactful performances.
Zach Aguliar who voices Tanjiro during this year’s comic con was asked “How did you become a voiced actor and how did you get the role of Tanjiro.” His response was “ When I was a young lad I loved watching anime I also loved playing video games like different types of JRPGs so I was just super interested in voiceover and how people got into it I googled it one day and I noticed that some of the voice actors didn’t necessarily look like their characters but of course, they sounded like their characters and I started taking voice-over classes long story short I ended up trying out for a voice acting competition it was at Anime Expo in 2014 with bang zoom entertainment and I ended up winning that competition and then I slowly started working as a voice actor and one day that same studio sent me the auditions for Demon Slayer which was for Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu.” In my opinion, he did a great job at capturing the voice of the sweet and kind-by-nature character that each season continues to grow more as a Demon Slayer.
Abby Trott, who voices Nezuko during an interview at Fan Expo HQ was asked “How much of Abby is Nezuko ?” Her response was “ I always try to find a way to relate to every character I voice there’s always a way to relate to anything everyone right Nezuko I feel like I’m similar to her and like she cares about her family and there’s a scene where she’s talking the flashback of her being kind of selfless and like she’s saying to her brother like we don’t need expensive kimonos to be happy you know and she’s always taken care of her siblings as a human and like even when she’s a demon she still cares so much about her family that she protects Tanjiro like is willing to able to resist her bloodlust so I relate to that I think that’s such a great quality in any human.” I love Nezuko Because even though she doesn’t talk her facial expression makes her character so easy to love and want to protect at all costs her love for her brother is unmatched and Abby is doing a wonderful job at making Nezuko a character people can love.
Aleks Le, who voices Zenitsu during an interview at Megacon was asked “ How do you get into the mindset of playing Zenitsu? His response was “ Well I’m a very quiet guy in real life so a lot of people are very surprised when they meet me for the first time because I tend to not talk a lot but at events like these where it’s really loud and hard to hear you kind of have to speak up that way fans can talk to you and feel more comfortable talking to you as well but I find myself to be very different from the character but that’s what makes him so fun for me is that it’s like kind of an extension of myself that I don’t get to visit a lot so voicing somebody who’s so out there I think is really good challenge not only as an actor but just you know all you want to do sometimes when you get down to it like at the end of a long hard day of work it’s just to get inside a padded room and scream your head off.” Aleks is doing an amazing job at capturing the anxiety-filled character even the first time I saw Zenitsu I immediately started to hate him but as the series went on I quickly started to love the character more and more as a main character.
Lastly, Bryce Papenbrock who plays wild boar boy Inosuke during an interview was asked “What made you realize that you wanted to become a voice actor.”? His response was “ I didn’t think I was going to be a voice actor my first passion was martial arts I was a gym rat all through high school and spent a lot of time training and competing in muay Thai Then I thought you know I wanted to be an attorney as you do that’s a logical leap and I went to UCLA and studied political science and philosophy but voice acting has always been around me and having two parents who are actors I’ve always seen that world and been part of that world and it was during college that I started to kind of explore it a little more and kind of booked a role and booked another one and started having fun doing it I think that was the first piece that I enjoyed it but the true moment that I knew I was going to pursue this was for my dad so my dad passed away and I had that opportunity to carry on the torch for him so I did and I gave it everything I could and didn’t look back.” Bryce captures the short-tempered brave, and fierce boar demon slayer with absolute skill. He makes the character so awesome, and it delivers every time he is on the screen for audiences.
The overall message of the TV series is to never give up on your goals, no matter how difficult they may seem. As you see in the anime our main character’s journey is trying so hard to get his little sister turned back into a human, but challenges come the way, Tanjiro doesn’t give up on his sister which to me makes him the best brother ever in animation shows that I’ve seen.
The TV show is rated TV-14. Even though it’s rated for teens it has a lot of gory scenes, strong language, and some nude scenes but overall, anybody who loves great storytelling, animation, and awesome character development would love this anime as much as I did watch it.
I give this series a 10/10 Nezuko rating.
