Thinking About How Insane The Demon Slayer Art Style And Character Design Is. Like, The The Nose, Mouth,

thinking about how insane the demon slayer art style and character design is. like, the the nose, mouth, and face shapes of everyone in the main cast are virtually identical regardless of gender, and yet every single character has a very distinct personality at first glance. And unlike other popular anime, it isn't their rainbow hair colors or painstakingly customized uniforms that help the audience tell them apart (though I do love their outfits).

It's almost entirely their eyes.

The best example of this is probably shinobu. Her eyes are enormous, round, and purple, things associated with femininity. However, they have no pupil or sclera and have a matte gradient effect. The gradient effect gives an appearance similar to an insect's compound eyes, giving a nod to her abilities and character aesthetic, but more importantly, the lack of reflected light makes her eyes look completely dead. This tells you everything you need to know about shinobu's character. She's beautiful and graceful in her appearance and mannerisms, but she's also lost the most important thing in her life, is capable of great cruelty towards her enemies, takes a sadistic delight in their pain, and her cheerful and benevolent persona is a facade. Basically, by just drawing a couple of carefully shaded circles, the artist lets you know that even if this character acts lively and upbeat, that fact that there is no light behind her eyes shows that it is false.

This is thrown into even greater contrast when a flashback is shown of kanae, shinobus late sister, who we know that shinobu seeks to imitate with her faux cheerfulness. Though their faces are identical, their eyes couldn't be more different. Where shinobus eyes are matte and reflect no light, kanaes are glossy and have three enormous highlights in each eye, making her look literally starry eyed, and that's reflected in her personality. Kanae is shown to kind, overly idealistic, and optimistic to the point of being airheaded: the exact opposite of shinobu, who is bitter, cunning, and capable of great cruelty.

Anyway demon slayer really makes the most of visual storytelling in even its smaller details.

Some other highlights in character design:

rengoku's constantly wide eyes with their rings of contrasting color that almost resemble an optical illusion perfectly convey everything about his most important character trait, his unrelenting intensity. Additionally, depending on context, his wide-eyed appearance can either be played for laughs or deeply unnerving, depending on whether his neverending enthusiasm is being directed towards complimenting tasty food or carving up his enemies with a smile.

Obanai has heterochromia identical to that of a cat, and let's be real, his personality is pretty cat-like. He's proud, disdainful, and judgemental of others, but he is also full of unconditional love for Mitsuri, even if he usually only shows it by quietly enjoying her company. Plus, it's also revealed that the reason obanai fell in love with mitsuri is because she is a genuine person who doesn't push his boundaries, giving him someone he can truly be comfortable around. Anyone who's interacted with a cranky stray cat before can tell you how familiar that sounds.

Nezuko has three separate sets of eyes throughout the series. As a human, her pupils are pink with complicated black shading and with a white highlight, once again hinting at her innocence. As a demon she usually has pink eyes with a circular highlight, but all the shading and therefore all the "depth" is gone. Since she doesn't remember that her family was killed and has somewhat regressed to a childlike state, nezuko still has her innocence (as shown by the highlight) but has lost her complexity that made her fully human. When she becomes enraged, her pupils become dark and slitted and her irises lose their reflective sheen, showing that not only is she monstrous, she has temporarily regained the capacity for anger and other dark emotions, and lost the ignorance/innocence that keeps her monstrous instincts at bay.

Muichiro has no memory of anything but the last three months of his life, and likewise, his eyes are foggy and dull

In the case of aoi, the square, blocky shape of her pupil implies a lot about her character: the fact that she's somewhat ordinary and a reliable, steady ally, even if she can be a little stiff.

I'm fairly certain that tanjirous red eyes were supposed to have narrative importance and signal that he is a descendant of yoriichi until it was decided at some point that yoriichi had no children and tanjirou was a descendant of a friend of yoriichi instead (either that or the reveal was planned from the beginning and the eye color was a red herring), but that's beside the point. Tanjirous eyes are red with dark shading, and do not have a highlight, though they do have a white pupil. This combination represents tanjirous emotional maturity, the combination of negativity and positivity. Unlike shinobu, who has no light in her eyes and is controlled by her resentment, and kanae, who has nothing but light in her eyes and was idealistic to the point of foolishness, tanjirou has both. Yes, he has suffered, he lost almost his entire family, even after he dedicated his entire self to caring for them after his father's death. However, tanjirou is still a fundamentally compassionate and hopeful person. No, Tanjirou is far from the first shonen protagonist who is kind and a genuinely good person (Luffy, Naruto, and Goku come to mind), he is one of the more emotionally intelligent ones. Tanjirou empathizes with the demons and recognizes the suffering that made them into monsters, but at the end of the day, he still kills them. There is no talk no jutsu, there is no transformation of enemies into allies, and there is no sparing of enemies out of respect for their fighting prowess. Though Tanjirou recognizes that demons are tragic and pitiful, he also knows that they are creatures that survive only on the slaughter of innocents. This isn't to say that stories about redemption or forgiveness or once-feared villains turning into the protagonists wacky neighbor are inherently bad, far from it. But for the story that demon slayer is, tanjirou is the perfect fit. And you can tell, just by looking in his eyes.

I will never - and I mean NEVER - tire of using lines from the books and movies in my fics to bring them to life just a little more (especially if they’re book lines that didn’t make it into the films). like YES let me feed you guys some fun little extra stuff <333

"pick a prompt, round two!"

author's note: alright, let's bring it on. I've enjoyed writing all the requests I've gotten from the last post, which made me motivated enough to write up some new prompts! this means that anything from my last prompt post will no longer be valid, but hopefully you guys enjoy these even better :) and for those still waiting on their previous prompt requests, don't fret! I'm still working on all of yours :)

dialogue prompts:

"I've been wanting to kiss you for quite a while."

"You have no idea who I am, do you?"

"We cannot be friends anymore... I will always see you as something more, something else."

"No, I'm not letting you go. It's too early to get out of bed."

"Please stop talking so I can kiss you."

"You're all I can ever think about."

situation prompts:

Despite how injured you are, you still can't seem to let yourself rest.

You're on the run from a pack of orcs.

You're both hiding from something or someone.

You're an assassin sent to kill them.

You and them have gotten a little too drunk, and have begun to share secrets.

You've had a bad day, and need to rest.

yeah just rip my fucking heart out, why don't you

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BRO I FIGURED OUT WHY MY FORMATTING WAS SO DIFFICULT I had legacy editor turned on! I hate legacy editor! boo!!

for everyone who requested stuff from the previous prompt post:

don't worry! I've saved all of those requests and organized them as the top of my priority list, so I'll be sure to finish those before I work on any of the new requests from my second prompt post