It’s another conversation about the Breathing Styles, yes.
Summary:
- Breathing Styles aren’t real in Demon Slayer, they are just visual effects.
- Demon Slayer is so popular because of its visuals.
- Breathing Styles played a major role in the series’ success.
Demon Slayer: Hashira Training Arc (Kimetsu no Yaiba: Hashira Geiko-hen) has recently started airing and made a couple of old fandom discussions resurface. Seems like fans can’t let the Breathing Styles go.
They Are Merely Visual
The thing with the Breathing Styles is, they aren’t real. Of course, they do exist in the Demon Slayer universe and characters can really use them, but all the visual effects that you see in the manga and in the anime adaptation were just added to make them look more appealing.
When Tanjiro uses his Water Breathing, he doesn’t really generate any water. And the same goes for other styles. There’s no real fire in the Flame Breathing, no thunder in the Thunder Breathing, and so on. All the effects are merely visual, and no real magic is happening with the characters.
Fans were highly disappointed to learn this back in the day. Of course, it’s easy to forget about the truth while watching the anime, since there are stunning effects on the screen, but viewers can’t get the thought out of their heads: this is not real.
Visuals Are the Best Things About Demon Slayer
It’s truly upsetting because these effects are the best part of Demon Slayer. Viewers have been saying this for ages: Demon Slayer is mostly special because of its animation and visual effects, and learning that they shouldn’t even be in the series in the first place is wildly depressing.
It’s true that Demon Slayer is an example of a pretty tropey shounen. The main protagonist loses his entire family, his sister is the only one left, and now he’s got to save her, while becoming stronger and fighting demons. It’s as generic as a battle shounen can get.
But that doesn’t mean Demon Slayer is a poorly-written story. The series manages to take a simple and rather overused premise and turn it into something special. It does everything right, and that’s why fans love it so much.
However, the thing that made Demon Slayer stand out so much and turned it into one of the most popular shounens nowadays is its visuals. Ufotable did a masterful job and produced an anime so stunning that it’s considered one of the most beautiful series out there.
And Breathing Styles play a major role in the series’ success. There’s nothing more exciting and appealing than slayers using this “magic.” That’s why it’s so disappointing that they aren’t real. So disappointing that fans choose to pretend that they’ve never learned the truth about the styles.