Welcome all, to another week of Kimetsu no Yaiba! For how simple the premise is, how little promise the arc seems to have, I’m enjoying myself a shocking amount. It’s nice coming back and seeing these characters again, spending time understanding who they are and what they think of the current situation. It’s what the series needed! I just can’t believe we actually got it. What do I mean? Well lets dive into the episode and find out.
All things considered, this was a pretty straight forward training episode. Tanjiro returned, we caught back up with Uzui and saw what he was putting the Demon Slayers through, had a motivational speech, then moved on to the next Hashira. Nothing big happened, no fights or major revelations, just Tanjiro getting to show off how far he’s come and how great the difference is between him and a regular Demon Slayer. So why am I so happy with it? Well that’s simple, Yaiba executed a basic premise very well. Rather than being about empowering our lead, making him stronger, it was about how our lead can empower and raise up those around him. It showed us the nameless, faceless mooks and made it clear that, even if we don’t see them at the final battle, they will be there. Doing their part.
I think the second half of the episode is what really makes it all work though. That slow fall as they see just how far behind they are, that despair thinking about what exactly they are meant to fight, before they all buck up and commit to helping Tanjiro fight against Uzui, thus committing to fighting against Muzan and the Upper Moons. It was all solid! Not super exciting, there isn’t a lot to talk about and it’s still looking like the highs of this season won’t reach the previous seasons. But it also seems like the lows won’t be as bad either. The scope is small, and leaving very little rope for Yaiba to hang itself with. There’s hints at a greater conflict, what with an Upper Moon’s eye in an alley, but I have hope Yaiba won’t go overboard with it.
So yeah, not much to say, another surprisingly solid episode for a surprisingly consistent season. There’s no big action sequences to talk about, nothing that’s going to get the Shounen Twitter-Sphere excited, so I’m expecting a lot of them to complain about the lack of action. For me though, I’m enjoying seeing Uzui again, hearing him lament about not being able to do enough because of his injuries, his concern about the Demon Slayers he’s training, and the camaraderie and respect he has with Tanjiro. Feels good to actually revisit old characters instead of introducing new ones for an arc before throwing them away. I hope Yaiba can keep it up.
