The acclaimed Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) franchise is currently airing its 4th season, releasing its first episode on May 12, 2024. Now, the most recent episode caused quite a stir in the Kimetsu no Yaiba community, as the vast majority of it is original content that was not in the manga, animating only a little more than one page of the manga. This is why fans are angry, as it gives the feeling that it is trying to lengthen the story.
Demon Slayer is trying to lengthen the story of its 4th season?
From the beginning, it was communicated that this 4th season of Demon Slayer would only have 8 episodes to develop its “Training of the Pillars” arc. Each chapter covered approximately one full page of the manga (in the case of the 1st chapter it was 2), and everything was going normally, until last Sunday we had the 3rd episode, where only a page and a half of the 132nd chapter of the manga was animated. Being the rest of the content we saw in the episode completely, something that was added in an original way by the animation studio, so many fans noticed this.
In chapter 132 of the Demon Slayer manga we see Tanjiro saying goodbye to Tengen Uzui, former Pillar of Sound who is participating in the training of The Pillars and who authorizes Tanjiro to go with the next one, Muichiro Tokito, to continue his training after having passed the first phase with Tengen successfully. When he arrives with Tokito, the same thing happens, he successfully overcomes the training of this Pillar, goes to the next one with Kanroji Mitsuri, Pillar of love, completes his training and goes to Obanai Iguro, pillar of the snake to perform his training and when he finishes, goes to the next pillar, Shinazugawa Sanemi, Pillar of wind.
Instead of having animated what was described above that we could read in the manga, what we saw was a further development of the training that Tanjiro follows with Tengen Uzui. This fact caused a lot of commotion among Demon Slayer fans, since, this franchise has been praised before for how faithful the animation is to the original material, so not all fans of this series were very happy with the decision that was taken in this fourth season of the anime. In social networks, users expressed their opinions on the matter.
Some people wondered why they had done this, since they did have material to continue the original story, unlike some manga where they run out of original material to continue and the animation studios must continue in any way they can. Someone else added that it seemed that they really wanted to extend this season and even commented that this reminded him of Naruto Shippuden. However, not all were negative comments, as many people thought it was a fantastic idea, especially because it allowed us to see more of one of the favorite characters such as Tengen Uzui.
One user commented “Honestly, I’m fine with this: while Tengen has already had a lot of development, I wouldn’t mind having a whole episode of the others”, someone else talked about how much they are enjoying this season of Demon Slayer saying “And the episode was too. The interactions, the dialogue, the animation, the foreshadowing, everything was perfect. I’m really enjoying this season a lot because I really want to see all of The Pillars and characters in moments leading up to the next arc.” What do you think of the decision Demon Slayer’s production made for this season of the anime?
