Hogan Reviews

Time to cover more Spring 2024 anime with the latest Demon Slayer season, though if you thought my review of the previous one was a bit harsh, just you wait! Yes, sadly the Hashira Training Arc was just a small handful of chapters in the manga to prepare for the finale but Ufotable decided to take those couple of chapters the stretch them out for nearly 10 hours before announcing a trilogy of films to cap the series off. So in order to make the most money they couldn’t actually start the final arc at all, so it’s no wonder this “season” was so poorly padded! Oh well, let’s take a look…

I could literally sum up the first 6 or so episodes by just saying “Tanjiro trains with the Hashira to get stronger” and that would literally cover it pretty well, but there you go. The first episode opens up with Wind Hashira Sanemi and Serpent Hashira Obanai chasing some demons and getting the glimpse into the Infinity Castle as the demon escapes, which was interesting but they decide not to tell anyone about it for some reason. I’m going to assume that bit wasn’t in the manga and it was done to make the opening a bit more exciting, otherwise why wouldn’t they report on it? After that the Hashira have a meeting to discuss the marks that appeared on Tanjiro’s face as well as Hashira’s Mitsuri and Muichiro, apparently it was a sign of power for Demon Slayers during the Sengoku period. They also discuss the fact that now Nezuko can live in the sunlight head Demon Muzan will no doubt come and target her so they set up the Hashira training to strengthen their ranks. Tanjiro is late in starting the training due to still recovering from the previous arc’s battle but he is given the task of trying to get through to Water Hashira Giyu Tomioka after he refused to participate, doing the “better off alone” shtick.

Tanjiro showing the scars of being a Shonen protagonist without some sort of healing magic system!

After some stalking Tanjiro finally gets Giyu to open up and of course this leads to a tragic past flashback as all Demon Slayer characters get, in his case during the Final Selection exam he was crap and didn’t kill a single demon but a top-class student called Sabito did all the work only to get killed for it, something Giyu felt responsible for. This is the same Sabito who helped Tanjiro out as some sort of ghost during his training in Season 1, so it was a nice call back I guess. This changes Giyu’s tune and he agrees to help in the training. So episodes 3-6 and most of 7 are Tanjiro training, and that’s about it. He eventually catches up with Zenitsu and Inosuke but that’s about the only interesting thing, it’s literally training montages and some really dull padding including infamously dedicating half an episode to folding paper airplanes…

Tanjiro… continues his training. *shrugs*

Episode 7 features a flashback for Hashira Gyomei Himejima, which is of course steeped in tragedy and child death: he was a monk who looked after children but one child met a demon and made a bargain for his life that let the demon slaughter everyone else but him, so it kills all the kids but one girl who Gyomei managed to save. This led to Gyomei being imprisoned for the act when the girl he saved wasn’t very clear on the events of the night, so Gyomei had serious trust issues for a while. Seriously though, these backstories are getting beyond parody now… This leads to the reveal that Muzan has made his way to the Kagaya mansion to confront the head of the Demon Slayer corps…

Like I said already, the arc really could’ve been squeezed into two or three episodes and then deliver Episode 8 to lead into the finale, but as the finale is now a trilogy of films that wasn’t an option and so the whole season just feels like its stalling for time… probably because that’s exactly what it’s doing!

Overall Thoughts:

Gyomei realises which story arc he has a major role in.

The Hashira Training Arc is what happens when you take a really small arc and stretch it to breaking point. It makes every episode feel lightweight and padded to the point that when you actually get to the exciting bit in the final episode you almost can’t be bothered because your interest has been dulled so much. I’m sure the film trilogy will be good and everything, but after the previous season and now this my interest in seeing them has dramatically decreased.

Muzan confronts Kagaya, who reveals the illness he suffers from is because he is a member of Muzan’s bloodline and due to his demonic antics his family was cursed. Muzan doesn’t care mind you and just wants to know where Nezuko is but before he can go much further Kagaya explodes himself and his mansion in a bid to stun his foe, leaving him distracted long enough that Tamayo, the scientist who Tanjiro has been helping all series who was invited to Kagaya’s mansion at the start of this arc, appears and injects him with a drug that will apparently turn him human.

The main villain in the shadows finally does something! Always love those moments.

As this is all going on Gyomei appears and goes for Muzan’s head but the attack fails and the head Demon begins to recover. Tanjiro and the other Hashira arrive at the mansion so feeling threatened Muzan opens up portals to the Infinity Castle underneath himself and all his approaching foes, plus a good chunk of the rest of the Demon Corps that are elsewhere (including Zenitsu and Inosuke) setting the stage for the final battle inside the strange folding dimension.