Popverse's top stories

• DC Comics cancels Red Hood comic book series
• Simon Kinberg on writing X-Men movies, producing Glenn Powell's The Running Man remake, and co-creating Star Wars Rebels [Popversations]
• Better angels and online demons: A trip down the rabbit hole of Downton Abbey fandom

There have been times when even the most patient and understanding of us have been tested, pushed toward casting judgment on characters because they made a bad first impression on us. That was me with Zenitsu from Demon Slayer. No matter how many cool things he did throughout the series, I simply couldn’t get over the image of him screaming, crying, and generally making a fool of himself any time he was awake. However, after watching the Demon Slayer Infinity Castle movie, I must repent of that assumption.

In fact, I’m considering starting a GoFundMe for Zentitsu’s medical bills after he threw his back out carrying the Demon Slayer Infinity Castle movie to the top of the US box office over the weekend. It may have taken four seasons and two movies, but the boy has done good in the end.

Obviously, some spoilers for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba The Movie – Infinity Castle are going to follow.

The structure of the Demon Slayer Infinity Castle movie is pretty much exactly what you’d expect; the Demon Slayer Corps, including the Hashira, Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke, were transported into the twisting maze of Muzan Kibutsuji’s Infinity Castle in a desperate move to finally destroy the Demon King. Between multiple flashbacks (I counted 12 of them during my viewing), we get three impressive fights against some Upper Ranked demons.

They all look great. There is no denying that. Ufotable has performed some sort of wizardry to make these scenes pop. Give their animators all the flowers (and also a long period of paid time off) for delivering bigger and better than was reasonable to expect from them. However, as impressive as Shinobu’s fight against Upper 2 and Tanjiro’s battle against Upper 3 were, neither was as fun or satisfying as Zentisu’s fight against Upper 6. While everyone else fights for revenge, Zentisu fights and mourns a friend.

There are a lot of reasons why Zentisu’s fight in Demon Slayer Infinity Castle is so memorable. The visuals are just as stunning as everywhere else in the movie. The use of lightning effects with both combatants’ strikes adds to the sense of energy and movement. The pace follows the usual back-and-forth that Shonen fights usually have, with momentum shifting between Zenitsu and his enemy, a former friend who trained with him as a co-successor to the Thunder Breathing school of swordsmanship.

It is this relationship that stands out among the other fights in Demon Slayer, which are also broken up by multiple flashbacks to flesh out the story and give pathos to the non-stop action on screen. There was a time, before the events of the Demon Slayer manga, when Zenitsu and Kaigaku were students together; brothers and rivals for a place as successors to the Thunder Breathing school. While this trope is overused at times, it frames this fight differently from any of the other fights in the movie.

But there is also something beautiful in the way that Zenitsu wins this fight that, as someone who has studied martial arts, spoke to me. Zenitsu can only do the first – and most basic – form of Thunder Breathing. Kaigaku can do everything but the first form. He loses because he lacks the fundamentals, the structure upon which everything else in the school is built. It is like being able to do a wheelie on a bike without learning to ride it normally; sure, it looks impressive, but it is woefully impractical and actively gets in the way of your studies.

That is why Zentisu was able to create his own technique, which he used to defeat his former friend. He understood the fundamentals of the school and could build upon them. Kaigaku had no foundation to build on.

It isn’t that the other scenes in Demon Slayer Infinity Castle are bad. They are perfectly serviceable anime battles, with some pacing issues that are balanced out by beautiful animation and some inspired storyboarding. However, nothing in this movie is as good as Zenitsu getting the glow up we all knew was coming, but waited far too long to see. Zenitsu spent 90% of Demon Slayer being an annoying, frustrating character, but, somehow, the payoff was worth it in the end.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• Aggretsuko vs Chainsaw Man: Two Wildly different anine with the same anti-capitalist message
• The Summer Anime season return of Kaiju No. 8, Sakamoto Days, & Dan Da Dan are forcing me to break my vow of watching less anime
• From Tomo-Chan to Oshi No Ko: How some of your favorite manga creators got their start in hentai
• Piracy is baked into anime's past, but, like Crunchyroll, we should move on from it
• Flying whales, mechs, and Miyazaki vibes: Inside Netflix's Leviathan anime with the people who made it
• How AI translations of manga continues the 'enshitification' of the medium, and why Japanese publishers are "less precious" about it
• I never wanted a Cyberpunk Edgerunners sequel, but God help me I'm going to watch it
• The Summer Hikaru Died delivers its cosmic horror at an agonizingly slow pace
• The one thing that Dan Da Dan does better than Demon Slayer ever did
• Studio Ghibli movies have never been as cozy as you think they are and that's what makes them magic