Kijin Gentoushou

After Jinta and Suzune ran away from their home as children, they were taken in by Motoharu—the virtuous sentinel of Kadono Village—and his daughter, Shirayuki. The settlement was ruled by its shrine maiden, Itsukihime, whom only a select few were allowed to interact with. When Itsukihime ed away, Shirayuki was appointed in her place. Wishing to stay in with her, Jinta worked diligently for years and was finally selected as the next sentinel.

As the protector of the village, Jinta's duty is to eliminate any threats. One day, he encounters a demon in a nearby forest. At the end of the battle, the demon makes a proclamation about the destined ruler of all demonkind. He attaches his severed arm to Jinta, turning him into an unaging demon man. By the time Jinta comes to, Kadono is on fire. Suzune has transformed into the demon from the divination, and due to a series of misunderstandings, she murders Shirayuki and flees.

Devastated, Jinta cannot forgive Suzune for her actions; he departs on a journey to find her. As Jinta travels around Japan across the eras, he endeavors to protect as many people as possible from aggressive demons. In his quiet moments, he contemplates what he should do when he once again faces his childhood friend.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Jinta Main

Yashiro, Taku Japanese

Suzune Main

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Shirayuki ing

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Ofuu ing

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Kiyomasa ing

Kumagai, Kentarou Japanese

Clairvoyant Demon ing

Kondou, Yui Japanese

Mosuke ing

Kameyama, Yuuji Japanese

Natsu ing

Aizawa, Saya Japanese

Kihee Owner ing

Ueda, Youji Japanese

Yuunagi ing

Fujita, Yoko Japanese

Aoi, Hiroyuki Producer

Kaneko, Hirotaka Producer

Hashirayama, Taisuke Producer

Ogasawara, Yuki Producer

Reviews

Apr 16, 2025

CJustawaye

Recommended

Preliminary (3/? eps)

This anime surprised me. I loved the setting of the story and the characters feel like they truly belong in this world, taking the narrative seriously.

The animation was also great, I didn't expect much from the studio, but they did a pretty good job. The art style is pretty good too and I like that the makers clearly put effort into making this show.

While the story isn't particularly unique and it doesn't feel like they're trying to be, it's enjoyable enough with some really good emotional beats.

The opening was okay, but there are spoilers in it so watch out for those. looking forward to ... seeing where this story ends up.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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May 6, 2025

ChouunShiryuu

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (4/? eps)

The story kicks off in Edo‐period, where our plucky heroine Suzune—blessed with half-demon blood—is relentlessly shunned and side eyed by her "own" dad. Big brother Jinta, allergic to injustice (and apparently decent), absconds with her and they crash with a widowed father and his bright Not-Mary Sue daughter, Shirayuki, in the remote village of Kadono. All goes well until a pair of petty demons, masters of relationship sabotage, trick Suzune into believing Shirayuki’s plotting to betray Jinta’s heart. Long story short, Suzune offloads Shirayuki, and now furious, Jinta the only person who she cared about (maybe a bit too much ♥~(˵ ͡~ ͜ʖ. ͡°˵) *pachi*) ... cold shoulders her and tries to kill her (out of human decency), driving Suzune to plot world destruction out of spite. Torn between fratricidal hatred and his familial love for his sister, Jinta, now a wandering demon killing ronin, embarks on a 170-year globe-trotting sabbatical: mastering “how there’s more to life than sister-killing” (Like enjoying some flower symbolism), boosting his empathy stats, and seriously dulling his Edge[lord] before the ultimate bro-versus-sis Mortal Kombat.

The themes of the work are the impermanence of things (as quoted by Not-Mary Sue's dad), love that transcends time (with all the wisteria petals flying around), and a journey of understanding and broadening one's horizons on life (As taught by Not-Willow, Not-Sakura). Sounds like your standard "find my feelings, understand life, find myself" slop, so why should you watch this when frieren's probably coming back next season? Hmmmm...seems like it's a drama with some cinematic qualities to it, some beautiful looking visuals with detailed foregrounds (mid-spatially), good colouring sense and grading, competent use of hazes (and the components that define it), some beautiful applications of cool-warm contrasts throughout (trad jap lamp incandescents vs environ), and glowing purple wisterias and dull wailing willows abound. Here's a couple screens:
https://i.imgur.com/wgkTd7a.png
https://i.imgur.com/dUoW9p7.png
As a show, it looks decently good and it's cinematic, so is it peak cinema or just peak Vibes and hipster haze? Chouun-chama shall investigate… with great great skepticism pero~


To start with, the MC falls on the chadlette spectrum, so don't expect any subtle emotional responses from him towards situations, he won't be any more refreshingly organic than chadlettes in other such artsy "peak cinema" titles. Chadlette-kun is far better than the Manhwa Peak Chad™ but he's chadlette enough to deflate the emotional weight in any emotional scene through a preponderance of poorly crafted inhuman and weak emotional responses to events and opinions that pile up over the show, which also tards the pacing. The Chad spectrum disorder, in its milder forms, suppresses subtle emotional responses that don’t align with the animanga and related mediums' Chad persona; in more severe cases, it completely eliminates meaningful character interactions (see Manhwa examples like Pick Me Up or Dungeon Odyssey, because there's no better medium that captures this inhumanity better than manhwa even in titles that are otherwise creative and have a lot going for it). Chadlettes can even twist the empathy based values on which such stories rely to be relatable and non obnoxious and make them bad as compromising, tolerating, understanding, being hurt and still holding to values is tough and detract from their "chadlette-ness", and is also tough to execute (see manhwa FFF class trashhero, MC isn't wrong, it's the corrupted world that literally conspired to make him so). You can’t write playful dynamics or have genuine vulnerability between characters when one of them is operating on the Chad spectrum.

The result from the above is hipster philosophising with the depth taken out as its depth comes from the depth of the characters and their struggle which is shown through their emotional responses. So situations/events where even when the philosophical moment is solid, you can't feel any weight in it. It essentially destroys the organic structure of an emotional story such as this. It's further exacerbated by the little things, an example of this from the show would be:
The first episode moving forward to the future and highlighting that this is a story that the MC tells to someone in the future 170 years from now, that it's a recounted tale of his journey. But instead of using a conversation in the future as a launchpad to tell the various tales, the show abruptly shows the future character, the show then quickly comes back to the past after showing the person to whom he will recount the story, skips 3 years even in the past and starts the journey again.

The story doesn't flow well. These small choppy inorganic moments combine with the choppiness introduced by the MC's character to deflate the emotional weight of the story. They are issues borne from the cinematic vision of the anime, not the source. I had an inkling seeing the confession scene and how the first scene with the servant on episode 2 started that made him seem central to the arc, which he wasn't, it works in an actual movie if it's the first scene of the movie to start it and then relegate the guy to the background. Here's the scene difference from the manga for your convenience to further butress and drive the points till now home: Refer to chapter 4 of the kijin gentoushou manga and contrast it with the moment starting 23:40 in the first episode of the anime. Refer the ending scene of the anime with the time skip to the future and contrast it with chapter 11 of the manga. That's more than enough to drive the point home.

Does this mean, I think the source material is superior or the manga is superior? not at all, I would think the manga's even worse, with poor pacing and a duller experience. It's relevance is in pointing out the inorganic nature of the screenplay and characters. If the show was a bit more organic and only didn't create a chadlette out of the MC in adapting it, it would still be a decent style over substance show because of its visual direction. It had the potential to be decent, which the manga did not even though it's more organic. The anime also frontloads the themes a lot, delivering it episode by episode and rushes developments like the MC becoming suddenly so much more understanding in ep 2 regarding his father's dislike of his half sister, its logical that a person grows with time, but in fiction you need to show this through some device, but again this is a point in the vein of it being inorganic once again.

Another aspect that further buttresses the point above is that while the show hints at exploring the theme of everlasting love, it won't do it in either of the two ways in which you'd like to see it:
1. A future reincarnation of his love interest with whom the MC weaves a new love story. It's precluded by the fact the staff didn't find it necessary to adapt the recounting part in the future, and that the tale moves with 3-4 year skips which also mean an age by age and era by era skip. it's that kind of "learn through experience on a journey through time" story.
2. His love interest is not a driving force in affecting his values and life lessons so far, and the major themes have already been introduced. There's a lack of weight in that "love that transcends time" so far despite all the wisterias blooming.
So you're certainly not seeing it for this aspect.

The MC's sister transforms into a hot demon who has incestual feelings for him, and it's a story of the MC being on a demon hunting quest to gain power and confront her, but nothing truly visceral or new is going to come out of it because:
1. The theme of love transcending time is not regarding the sister, but probably regarding his hipster tier vow with Mary Sue made worse by the anime. That's why the "nothing remains the same" and wisteria symbolism co-exist in the same episode. I don't hate my sister anymore, nothing remains the same. Done.
2. It's a find myself and appreciate life story which also takes narrative space aside from the familial love aspects which relegates his story with his sister to someone he overcomes his hatred for and spares. It's not a tale of the two, don't expect anything enjoyable and unpretentious from their dynamic.
3. The chad nature of the MC itself is a further confirmation that it's a story of forgiveness, not of acceptance, and the writing lacks the unpretentious and unashamed larger than life character where the author would execute what he wants another way with values of empathy. Don't expect an umineko like acceptance and the MC ending up with his imouto in a melancholic 'fire punch' kind of format (the bits with the tree and eternity with imouto lookalike).

All in all, the only thing you could do and do right would be an emotional style over substance plot combining the cinematic direction of the show with organic emotional aspects of the original. Any other original approach for organic emotions minus chadlette spectrum experiments work too, considering chadlette humanising requires the kind of writing ability to make right which the industry severely lacks. Btw Did i mention the show has the MC do random short fetchquests tier demon slaying quests ep by ep for random clients with their sob story mixed into those fetchquest arcs.

Another topic I thought I should broach at the end due to its lack of importance is the animation, there's discussion that the action scenes belong to the "Samurai Chopping fruits By teleporting past them" school of thought, put more specifically to this case a non coherently flowing action, but it's a trivial and inconsequential aspect of the visual side of the show. The big fights with demons aren't exactly an appeal at the core of the show. In battle shounens and the like, the structures that create an expectation of a good fight are one's expectations of battle stakes, of getting stronger, of overcoming a battle challenge etc, the plot progression is through battle and then emotions are tied to it and while here it is through learning experiences and emotional resonance from the people one meets in their journey. Animation is very irrelevant, and it has its visual aesthetics down right.

It's not a show that I would recommend as good, but it's still something worth watching as a seasonal, and probably for those who are jaded and are looking for something a bit more cinematic. 6/10


Lastly, hilchryme's rap at the end with the scrolling pan of characters made me more emotional than the contents of the show itself, so give it a listen if you're skipping it.

Nikushimi mo kanashimi mo koeta
Kikoeteru ka kono koe ga
Soko ni inai kara todokanai
Demo kakitsuzukete iru monogatari

Sen no yoru o koete wa mata kimi to deai

Just wish that the author or the director had the guts to make it about the brother and sister.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 3, 2025

yummycat49

Not Recommended

Funny

Preliminary (4/? eps)

Spoiler

This anime is so mid ngl. Here's why:
OP: Boring as fuck. Typical black haired stoic guy whos name cant even be ed. No personality. No development. And not a single reason reason to be liked.
Story: The story is cleary a copy of Demon slayer. Demon sister, swordsman brother, demons who hunt humans, bro gets to turn into a demon himself.
Animation: Its honestly mid. Sometimes it can get even bad.
Characters: No interesting characters. NOT A SINGLE ONE.
If you are like 12 or 13 you would probably like this anime, but if you are anything above that then just dont.
Mid
5/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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