>>281742626 (OP)
It's very enjoyable, it's not "good" overall (and this applies to the entire genre, btw), but it's certainly not much worse than any similar series. Whatever you can criticize it for, it's also present in any other battle shonen.
Power ups? A staple on the genre.
Asspulls? What battle shonen doesn't have them?
Power of friendship? Same, even shit like One Piece does it (except we replace "friends" with "will" in order to do things that were established as not possible - like Kuma having enough consciousness to save Bonney even though it shouldn't have been possible), and as much as people shit on Fairy Tail for it, at least that is consistent and is quite literally established that magic in that setting is amplified by the power of bonds, so even if it is a shitty copout, it is consistent within its universe, certainly no different from "oh no, i ran out of ki/chakra/haki - oh wait, i just got more because of whatever reason!"
If anything, shonenfags hate it because how unapologetic and self-aware it is. Mashima just goes "yeah the good guys win through bullshit, so what?" while other series of the genre try to make sense through convoluted bullshit that in the end can be reduced to "well of course the good guys have to win, no matter how deep is the hole they got themselves into, no casualties, of course".
One thing Mashima does that other battle shonen authors fail often to do is that the group actually feels like friends that hang out and know each other, rather than the whole thing gravitating around Natsu (looking at OP and Naruto in particular for this).
It has hot girls, it's fun and doesn't take itself seriously and it's stupid fun, what's not to like?
If Kimetsu no Yaiba proved anything, it's that people like things they've been told to like or look pretty, even if they are complete garbage.
