Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) is a work that is still as relevant as the day of its premiere, now with its new season, this demon hunter series is once again in the spotlight. The fans of the franchise are really loyal and will not last a moment to express their immense love for this series, like the fan named @Lio_MDB, who shared on the Twitter/X platform some beautiful illustrations of some characters in a completely different style than we are used to seeing.
The style of the 90’s takes over Demon Slayer
The 90’s were a golden age for anime, with an explosion of series that became classics and greatly influenced Japanese and global popular culture. Many of these wonderful works are now part of classic or cult works, thanks to their stories and their very distinctive animation that marked an entire era, among some of these series we have: Cowboy Bebop (1998), Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), Rurouni Kenshin (1996-1998) or Ghost in the Shell (1995) among others.
Now imagine a current series with that distinctive style of the 90s, and this user of the Twitter/X platform made it possible with these illustrations of Demon Slayer. And these have undoubtedly taken the series through a trip back in time, where mainly and as you can see in the first image, we can appreciate the beautiful Mitsuri Kanroji.
The image has Mitsuri as the main character and it is almost impossible not to notice that distinctive style where what stands out the most are undoubtedly the contour lines that we can see very defined, this gives the illustration a sharp and distinctive appearance. In addition, that the image is shown in a sepia style gives it an antique touch and look at the expression on his face, the animators of the 90s were experts in conveying emotions through detailed and somewhat exaggerated facial expressions, this feature can certainly notice it in the character of Demon Slayer.
Another element that is very present in these images is light and shadow, which play a very important role in the animation of this era, this was used to add depth and realism to the scenes, remember those battle scenes in Rurouni Kenshin? Or how about those scenes of Spike smoking a cigarette? All this was achieved thanks to the use of shading and highlighting techniques in traditional animation, which gave the images a three-dimensional appearance.
As you can see we have Tanjiro starring in one of those illustrations, we can see the protagonist of Demon Slayer in profile in front of a window in the middle of the night, the moonlight through the glass bathing the face and part of his body, where we notice the hard expression that tinges his face of fury and a growing concentration. Here we can notice those elements we mentioned before, where lines, color and shadows predominate.
Same case as with Tanjiro we have the unforgettable Rengoku whose image contrasts with that of the young Kamado, the pillar of fire we can see him in an outdoor setting where we notice the leaves of the trees. And as on this occasion the moonlight bathes his back darkening his face, we could say that this looks even melancholic given the fact that we already know the end of this character.
Finally we have one of the most beloved characters of the Demon Slayer franchise the very charismatic and flamboyant Inosuke who we see in an image that gives us a very different look to the aura we are used to perceive from this character. Here we see him leaning on some wooden beams, his hard expression frames his face, we notice his muscles a little bit illuminated, his scars take most of our attention and we must mention that he is not wearing his boar mask which we are so used to see, now it seems that he wears a skin of this same animal on his shoulder.
As you could see in the Demon Slayer illustrations the actual style was completely changed, it’s amazing how the 90’s style that characterized these anime series was completely transferred to the images of the Demon Slayer characters. Needless to say, these elements helped define the distinctive visual style of that era and contributed to the enduring popularity of many 90’s anime, tell us do you like this style of animation?
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