Typically I am not someone who watches anime, I have nothing against it, but it just is not really my thing, but I heard about this movie that came out called Demon Slayer Mugen Train, and all of the records it was breaking for varying things. This got me extremely interested in it. The show is on Netflix, and it is only one season. The season is 26 episodes, and without credits and the intro, each episode is about 20 minutes, so in total it is about eight hours. Going into to the show I had some expectations because clearly if it is setting box office records, it must be good, and it did not disappoint, it was even better than I had expected it to be. This also continued through the movie. The movie was incredible and extremely engaging.
To summarize the movie, it would be best if I tried to summarize the whole series to date so far to create a better picture of the story. So initially the show starts with Tanjiro’s family was murdered by a demon while he was in the city, but one of his family members “survived,” Nezuko, his sister, but she was turned into a demon. Normally demons try to eat humans, but Nezuko refused to do so making her special. This led to Tanjiro starting a journey to convert his sister back to a human. On this journey he became a demon slayer himself, and one of the only ones to travel with a demon as he goes. Along his path he makes some close friends and becomes acquainted with the most powerful demon slayers. They were skeptical of him at first because he travels with a demon, but eventually they became okay with. This leads to the movie. Tanjiro, and his two friends, Zenitsu and Inosuke, must go on a train with Rengoku to try and defeat the demon that has been preying on the passengers. At first the demon slaying was pretty easy, but as the movie progresses the difficulty increases, and just when they think they have defeated the last demon, one of the most powerful demons shows up and fights Rengoku.
There are a few big themes in the show and the movies, and the biggest of them is the importance of family. From the first episode, Tanjiro loses everyone in his family except for Nezuko, and he immediately tries to help her even though she has changed. This shows his massive love for her. She basically turned into a monster who wanted to eat him, but he showed her so much love that she became one of the only demons to not try and eat human flesh. Clearly there is the biological family one is born into, which Tanjiro found especially important, but there is also the family that a person makes on his journey through life. While on his journey as a demon slayer, Tanjiro added Zenitsu and Inosuke to his clan, which he considered his family. One of the biggest themes of fantasy stories is that family can consist of the people that one chooses, not just those that one is born to. Tanjiro defends these people and loves them just as much as they were family. He would do anything for them, including sacrifice his own life.
One of the biggest examples of this holding true in stories is Harry Potter. Harry loses his true family when he is a baby, but when he goes to Hogwarts, he chooses a new family. Him, Ron, and Hermione essentially become a family, and then even more so Ron’s family basically adopts Harry into it. There are also occasions of this occurring in Game of Thrones. Jon Snow becomes a family member of those at the wall, and Tyrion was basically outcast from his family, but finds other to fit in with. It reminds me of college. It is the first time a person is typically separate from their biological family for a long period of time, so many of the bonds created in college are extraordinarily strong because a person needs to replicate those strong ties they have with their loved ones at home. I know I have many people that I am not biologically related to that I will forever consider family due to the strong bond I have formed with them over time.
The other powerful theme of this film/show is the power of the human will. There were numerous times in the film and in the show where Tanjiro is clearly the less powerful person in the fight, but due to his love for his family or his unwillingness to let anyone get hurt, he refuses to lose. He still has the strong sense of humanity whereas the demons he is facing do not. The clearest representation of this comes in the film. (spoiler ahead) In the film the train crashes, but largely the people on the train were okay and not going to die, but this is when the most powerful demon of the movie shows up and fights Rengoku. Rengoku gives it his all and refuses to submit to the demon’s will, but in the end, he was not quite strong enough to win. This led to Tanjiro, who was almost deathly injured to have to step up and risk his life so that all the people on the train would survive. So in a very selfless act he and Inosuke risk their lives to face a demon who was well beyond their power. Even from the beginning of the series this was shown. When Tanjiro was on his trial to become a demon slayer, there was a massive demon who was way stronger than Tanjiro at this point in his journey, and the demon was about to devour another guy who was trying to become a demon slayer, but Tanjiro attacked without fear to help his fellow man. Repeatedly Tanjiro proves the power of the human will and the power of selflessness.
The last theme that Tanjiro helps example is compassion. He is always caring about those around him even when they do not deserve it. It starts out from the beginning for the compassion he has for his sister, who became a demon without wanting to do so, and he still had the compassion and love for her to continually try and help her return to normal. There were also other occasions where Tanjiro defeats a demon, and although this demon had just moments before been trying to kill Taniro, Tanjiro goes over to the evaporating corpse and shares a moment of pain with it. In these final moments some of the demons show remorse for the murders that they have committed and Tanjiro is willing to give them some comfort in these moments, which most of the other demon slayers are not willing to do.
So as far as movies in 2021 go, this has definitely been one of the best ones. I only have it ranked behind Judas and the Black Messiah. It was action packed, and it also gave some great themes that transcend the violence for a more wholesome message to the audience. So there was a great blend of positive messaging, engaging action scenes, and scenes that pull at one’s heartstrings that make this movie excellent. It was clear to see why it did so well at the box office and set a few different box office records. Some involved anime releases, and some involved movies from Japan. I would highly recommend watching the series on Netflix, and then once that is finished going and seeing the movie. I gave it an 88.
Some of the other movies I watched this weekend were: Wrath of Man, Saw III, and Tenet. Of these, the only that was really noteworthy was Tenet. Tenet was an incredibly interesting movie, but the whole concept was almost impossible to follow. It was a time heist, so there were multiple story lines going on at once so that the same character could be in two places at once. I would still recommend watching it, but it was a hard concept to comprehend. Wrath of Man was probably the best of the most recent action movies to come out, at least out of Nobody and No Remorse. It was somewhere in between a heist movie and a revenge movie. Jason Statham was trying to get revenge on the people that killed his son, but the whole movie Statham was a very boring character, and this held the movie back some, if he would have put some emotion into it, it probably would have been much better.
New Rankings:
Demon Slayer Mugen Train: 88
Tenet: 85
Wrath of Man: 79
Saw III: 56
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