Quarantine Control #68: Demons and Songs

DC Staff | July 22, 2021 | Animation, Features, Music, Television | No Comments

The COVID-19 situation — surprise, surprise — hasn’t improved from previous weeks, with cases rising again in many parts of the world. But the craziest part is how this is all happening in the face of a committee of people who felt it was still fine to go ahead with the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (still hilariously called that even though it’s 2021). They took the last-minute step of barring an in-person audience, but the logical decision would have been to delay the games for a second time. Even in the unlikely chance that the world, including dumber countries like the United States, would get it together regarding fighting COVID, pushing it back would have been better for nearly everyone. Yet, they’re going through with it with predictable results. Whoops.

Geoffrey Barnes

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (2019)
Source: FUNimation
Episodes: 26 (The entire first season)

It hasn’t been possible for anyone who even lightly follows anime news to avoid how large of a phenomenon the Demon Slayer franchise has become in terms of the anime’s popularity and the manga’s sales, the latter to the point of stealing the top spot from One Piece for a short time. Its popularity extends outside Japan, with the movie, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, also taking off in theaters in western countries like the United States. This was my personal opportunity to see whether it was really that good, or whether its fans simply haven’t seen enough shonen anime for this to feel unoriginal in terms of its themes.

To my benefit (and free time), I indeed enjoyed Demon Slayer quite a bit. It deserves the praise it has received. But that’s not to say I didn’t have a few problems with it, which mostly lie in the way it tells its story.

Demon Slayer takes place in an alternate universe version of Japan’s Taisho era, a time largely unexplored in fiction where westernization was starting to manifest within the country. The biggest distinguishing factor in the series’ world compared the real one is, to no surprise given the title, the presence of demons.

The story begins on a tragic note, when protagonist Tanjiro Kamado returns home to discover that his family has been massacred by demons. The lone survivor, from a certain point of view, is Tanjiro’s little sister, Nezuko Kamado. But Nezuko is stuck in a midpoint between remaining human and transforming into a demon. She’s lost the ability to speak and interact with humans as she previously could, but doesn’t require human blood and flesh to survive. The starting incident leads to Tanjiro training to join the Demon Slayer Corps to get revenge for his family and help prevent further such disasters from happening, while convincing the world around him that his sister isn’t one of the demons who needs to be slain.

This sounds like a typical shonen anime/manga story with a touch of horror through demons on the surface, and… that’s because it largely is. Tanjiro himself gets into encounters with demons over the course of this first season’s 26 episodes, but defeats them after taking a few scrapes after outsmarting them and using special techniques they didn’t expect. He also befriends zany allies, including the extremely cowardly (unless he’s sleeping) Zenitsu Agatsuma and the fight-first-ask-questions-later Inosuke Hashibara. What helps it stand above the pack is how its story well told, with solid writing and character development for its main characters, and great pacing to maintain the viewer’s interest. It notably avoids to trope of having a dipshit for a main character; Tanjiro is already one of the better shonen protagonists.

The series is also a sight to behold. Koyoharu Gotouge art style is well rendered in animation form, and the series contains some of the most well-done action sequences I’ve seen in a TV series. Only Attack on Titan comes close, but this series wins out thanks to its CG blending better with the exquisite 2D animation. Ufotable doesn’t tend to handle shonen anime adaptations, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t take on more of them after this series’ success — perhaps after they’ve finished adapting the entire affair. Hopefully they won’t take on too many at a time like MAPPA.

Enjoying a series like this makes its flaws more present. It’s fine that Zenitsu is a huge coward who isn’t much of a fighter (unless he’s sleeping) at this point in the series, but it’s established a little too hard, even if it’s faded into the background by the end of the season. The biggest issue, though, is how Tanjiro’s solutions for getting out of difficult battles with demons are too convenient, and the logic in which they’re pulled off. He’ll sometimes use attacks that the viewer didn’t know he was taught, a plot contrivance sometimes justified through too-convenient flashbacks that show how he indeed learned that specific move before applying it in battle. It’s a lazy storytelling technique, and evidence that the author should have put a bit more thought into the segments where Tanjiro was learning to use the Water Breathing style.

It’s a testament to how good the series is that the issue only feels like a minor blemish. The story feels like it’s just getting started by the time the first season concludes, despite several important battles and character establishment events happening over that time. It ends in a way that leaves the viewer wanting more, the kind of cliffhanger that can only happen when the producers (and Gotouge, by extension) knew they had a hit. I won’t be waiting too long to watch the film, and subsequently the second season covering the Entertainment District Arc starting this fall.

Joseph Daniels

I can’t believe that they thought it was a good idea to go ahead with the 2020 Olympics this year. Surely they could’ve delayed them for one more year, given the vaccine hesitancy in many countries in the world, including the United States? It’s also no surprise that cases are surging in the United States thanks to anti-vaccine conspiracies spread by the right, and also no surprise that the right are using the surging cases to attack the left, conveniently forgetting the massive death count that Donald Trump racked up in office when everyone was begging him to take the virus seriously. Of course the right only care about COVID-19 if it means they can score political points against the left, like when the House Democrats from Texas left the state and started catching the virus, but then hypocrisy was always one of the core values of Trump’s supporters. Don’t pretend that you’ve always been concerned about the virus when you yourselves refuse to get the vaccine.

Anyway, this week I have a podcast for everyone.

Song vs. Song (2019)
Source: Your favourite podcast app
Episodes: Ongoing (66; 65 plus pilot, not counting Grammy Awards coverage episodes)

In the past, I’ve recommended a podcast and Netflix show that talk about how the songs we love are made. This is how they’re debated.

Every couple weeks, hosts Alina Morgan and Todd Nathanson (you’ll know him as Todd in the Shadows if you’re at all familiar with music review channels on YouTube) debate a pair of songs with some kind of thematic similarity. Episode 51, for example, is a debate about which Christmas charity single is the best, “We Are The World” or “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. My vote is neither, since they’re both pretty much overdone by this point. Another episode put “Ghostbusters” from the movie of the same name up against “Men in Black” from the movie of the same name. My vote is also neither, since “Black Suits Comin’ (Nod Ya Head)” and “Bring It (Snakes on a Plane)” both exist. Hey, there’s an episode idea!

Your mileage may vary regarding how the show is presented. Todd Nathanson can have a delivery that sounds like he’s bored out of his mind, but that could just be how his voice sounds when recorded. He also seems to have picked up some of his review habits from The Nostalgia Critic, which can also be off-putting to some. I’ve gotten away from watching what’s increasingly become the wacky adventures of Doug Walker and the movies that tie tenuously to the events unfolding in his daily life. I’ve seen amateur “Epic Rap Battles” clones with better special effects than his.

Fortunately, from the few episodes I’ve heard so far, the Todd in the Shadows style of review is absent here, and both hosts bring interesting insights to each episode. I never realized that the band members from Bon Jovi went into making music without the same egos that have been known to rip apart bands like Oasis and The Verve. Come to think of it, both of those bands are British and Bon Jovi’s from New Jersey so that might have something to do with it. Other than on the TV show Jersey Shore, people from New Jersey seem to just be able to keep it real.

Anyway, if you want to hear two people debate your favourite (or possibly least favourite) songs, give Song vs. Song a spin!

Reading stories about people who didn’t get vaccinated but suddenly wanted it before realizing they were dying are heartbreaking, and a country like the US should be striving to prevent further similar scenarios from playing out. But for every couple of stories like that, there are other infuriating examples featuring people who’d rather risk a second trip to the hospital before getting vaccinated. We live in a woefully inane time. Just prioritize protecting yourself, and making the smartest decisions you can. It’s the best, and perhaps only, action that can be taken.

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