Filthy Casual for Life

It should be no surprise that my favorite anime is Demon Slayer. However, you probably don’t know that Zenitsu almost ruined the whole series for me. That’s right. I couldn’t stand Zenitsu. He grated my nerves like fingernails slowly scratching against a chalkboard. His grating voice. His whining. His crying. Everything about him annoyed the ever-living-fuck out of me.

But, then it happened. Zenitsu went into badass mode and I understood. I understood that there was more to Zenitsu than meets the eye.

As the story continued, Zenitsu became less annoying and continued to grow stronger beside Tanjiro. Sure, he still whined and complained, but it grew less.

The more I learned about Zenitsu, the more I saw some of myself in him. I think out of all of the Demon Slayer characters, Zenitsu is the most relatable. He’s engulfed by anxiety and fear and does his best to live up the expectations of his grandfather. And yet, despite his shortcomings, he honed his skills into one art form. There is a lesson to be learned from Zenitsu. You don’t have to be good at everything. In fact, you can be badass just focusing your effort into perfecting one thing.

Zenitsu’s story is a bit sad, and I think most of us have a little bit of sadness in our backstory. Despite his circumstances, he does his best to keep up with Inosuke and Tanjiro. Despite being selfish due to his high self preservation, he is compassionate. He protects Nezuko from Inosuke even though he knows she’s a demon. He did it all because Tanjiro mentioned that the contents of the box was something very precious to him. Not only did Zenitsu show compassion, he showed bravery and loyalty.

The more I got to know Zenitsu, the more he became one of my favorites. Unfortunately, his story arc gets even more sad. Despite that turn of events, Zenitsu managed to create a new lightning form to defeat an upper demon on his own.

Say what you will about my boy. He’s badass and I’m glad I was able to look past his not-so-easy-to-stomach personality to understand who he was as a character.