I am often intimidated by double-length episodes because they often contain double the content. Not so with the premiere of this newest season of Demon Slayer. A full fifteen minutes is given over to a Bad Guy Meeting scene that could have easily taken less than five. The overly indulgent soaring shots of the Escher-like Infinity Castle, and the dramatic musical stabs whenever anyone says anything, get old fast. This had no business being a double episode – the content just wasn’t there.
This is overwrought, inessential Demon Slayer at its worst, and while it sucks it occurs at all, things are made worse by the fact it’s what starts an otherwise standard easing-back-in episode. For the first time in 113 years, the Upper Moons have been summoned because one of their own has been saved. Kibutsuji Muzan berates them and tells them to do better. As they (probably) say in Texas, it’s a 3-ounce steak with a whole cow’s worth of sizzle.
Thankfully, what follows is much better. There’s some immediate intrigue as the episode switches gears to someone that looks like an adult Tanjirou with a wife and babe, but it’s more likely this is an ancestor, since he has a different name, Sumiyoshi. This ancestor is hosting a guest wearing the earrings that will be the Kamado heirloom.
Tanjirou wakes up from a two-month coma, and the first person he sees is a surprised and tearful Tsuyuri Kanao, who manages to utter quite a few words to mark the occasion. She’s soon joined by the three tiny stretching girls, a relieved Aoi, the Kakushi who rescued him and his friends (and who gets a brief POV monologue).
Inosuke also appears, though it seems he had been hanging from the ceiling for over a day and no one noticed him until Tanjirou, who is lying face up. He makes his usual enormous ruckus about Tanjiou worrying him, and he and the Kakushi bicker until Tsuyuri yells at them.
When Tanjirou asks the 3 girls if he got his repaired sword back, they present him with Haganezuka’s letters to him while he was out, which grew increasingly disturbing and threatening with time. He must travel to the Swordsmith Village to make amends and get his chipped sword fixed.
The process for traveling to the village is extremely complex due to the intense secrecy of the location, so he’s blindfolded, ear and nose-plugged, and carried on the backs of a sequence of crow-guided Kakushi. Xhibit would surely be proud of the sight of Tanjirou, carrying Nezuko on his back, being carried on someone’s back.
As soon as he arrives in the Swordsmith Village and thanks his last Kakushi, his gesture of gratitude is heard by the keen ears of the Love Hashira, Kanroji Mitsuri (Hanazawa Kana), who is having a nice soak in the village’s healing waters. Mitsuri runs down the steps and flies into his arms in tears, because someone at the hot spring ignored her when she greeted him. He later learns this is his former fellow recruit Genya, who has no desire to speak to him either.
Mitsuri, on the other hand, is a warm and bubbly presence throughout Tanjirou’s first night. After his bath they have a meal together (in her case, a very very big meal), and she and Nezuko hit it off like sisters. Tanjirou learns that she joined the Demon Corps and worked her way up to Hashira for nothing more complicated than wanting to find her future husband, figuring it had to be someone stronger than her.
When someone reports to Mitsuri that her sword repairs are complete, she heads off to attend to another matter, but wishes Tanjirou the best. As both she and the Mist Hashira Tokitou Muichirou are both in the OP with him, I’m sure she’ll be back soon, for which I’m glad. Over-the-top her design may be (like Uzui) but she’s just a fun-as-hell character, and I can’t wait to see her get serious in battle.
Before bidding him good night, Mitsuri tells Tanjirou about a secret weapon that could help Nezuko. The next day, Tanjirou and Nezuko strike out to look for it, and run into what sounds like a heated argument between Tokitou Muichirou, a young swordsmith, and most puzzling of all, the man with the earrings from Tanjirou’s flashbacky dream.
From a frozen forest to a train and through the Entertainment District to here in the Swordsmith Village, Tanjirou’s been through a lot, and he’ll go through a lot more, but with not one but two Hashira by his side, I’m sure it will all work out. And hopefully future episodes will be a tighter 20-odd minutes, with fewer forays into the infinite CGI castle…
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