As we enter the second half of the season, all of my airing contenders have more or less settled into their default modes, as hope and anticipation solidify into weekly expectations, and rambunctious young stories find their mature footing. Demon Slayer’s episodic strengths and weaknesses have become relatively predictable, while Carole & Tuesday’s consistent genius is now the one goddamn thing I can rely on in this blighted world. Predictability gets a bad rap, but being predictably terrific is a pretty good thing in my mind, so I am all in favor of Carole & Tuesday’s choices. Let’s check in with our young rock stars and all this season’s other heroes, as we plow through another Week in Review!
This week’s Demon Slayer could shroud itself in neither the lowered expectations of a training arc nor the inherent novelty of the escape from that arc, meaning it was likely a pretty good indicator as to what we can expect from “default Demon Slayer.” And as far as that goes, it was… alright? The conclusion to this week’s demon battle had its strengths and weaknesses, which pretty neatly aligned with which of the siblings we were actually following. Nezuko’s battle topside offered some excellent choreography and nice cuts of animation, keeping the natural tension of two demons in combat high. Demon Slayer has wisely chosen to define its monsters as deadly, but fragile, meaning fights between Nezuko and other demons always feel like they could turn fatal at any moment. Unfortunately, Tanjiro’s battle in the enemy’s swamp dimension just totally lacked any real tension, and mostly just served to debut one more of his sword techniques.
Outside of the battle itself, the storytelling here was predictably pedestrian, but I did enjoy the siblings’ visit to “modern” Tokyo. I’m far more accustomed to seeing either genuinely modern Tokyo or resolutely old-fashioned Tokyo in anime, so it was a unique pleasure to see the city in the era of cobbled streets and rail cars. Demon Slayer’s mediocre storytelling means many of its pleasures remain incidental ones, but a high enough volume of incidental pleasures still makes for a pretty enjoyable show.
Sarazanmai at long last disrupted its formula this week, foregoing its usual bank footage-based second half to instead offer an entirely original rescue operation. We also got plenty of intriguing information regarding the relationship between kappas and otters, some personal texture for the otter cops, and some of the most endearing material between our three leads to date. Altogether, it was one of the show’s most satisfying episodes so far, succeeding both in terms of its larger plot beats and its copious incidental gags.
The thematic contradictions at this show’s heart are at this point starting to come into focus – like how every character in the show is haunted by shame regarding their desires, and yet to remove the desire-filled shirikodama is to remove someone’s humanity altogether, condemning them to never truly connect with others. That thematic point was illustrated in searing human terms through the flashback to Haruka’s meeting with Kazuki’s birth mother, where Haruka’s “selfishness” that he saw as shameful ended up serving as the clearest indicator of his love for his brother. Between its narrative invention, visual creativity, and thoughtful union of emotional and thematic intent, this episode basically embodied all the things that make Ikuhara anime so special. You aced it this time, Sarazanmai.
Carole & Tuesday’s heroines hit their first major, inevitable failure this week, meeting a hostile crowd for the first time at a stage far too big for them. Carole & Tuesday is fundamentally a very warm, almost idealistic production, but I felt it delivered a great sense of panicked, angry energy during that performance. This show has fifty million standout qualities, but one of its most distinctive and powerful is its ability to express emotional development through music. All series long, the developing friendship of our leads, as well as their growing strength and confidence as musicians, has been clear in their every performance. Here, their manic take on “Dancing Laundry” managed to beautifully convey both their fear and their pride, illustrating a clear emotional feeling through the energy of the soundtrack.
Along with that highlight, this episode also spoiled us with two terrific performances by genuine stars, while its dramatic new approach to light and shadow perfectly captured the energy and communal solemnity of a festival at night. Carole & Tuesday continues to impress in new ways every single week. If it keeps up, this could easily be my favorite show of the year.
And over in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure land, this week’s episode offered an even distribution of new enemy Stand drama and long-simmering reveals regarding Bucciaratti’s condition. Golden Wind has consistently capitalized on both the tactical and emotional possibilities enabled by pairing up enemy Stand users, with standouts like the train battle demonstrating the opportunities provided by giving their foes a friend to bounce off. This week’s villains did a fine job of distinguishing themselves from previous pairings, while their Stands naturally synchronized in an intelligent way as well. On the other hand, Bucciaratti’s condition has always felt like a weirdly arbitrary dramatic device, and this episode didn’t really do anything to change that. There aren’t that many hard rules in the JoJo universe, but having Bucciaratti be Only Almost Dead for half a season is still testing my ability to invest in his drama.
