Demon Slayer 2 Episode 8: A Flashy Entrance

I wasn’t sure how to title this post. Is this the 8th episode of the second season of Demon Slayer or the first episode of the Entertainment District Arc? I wonder how people will look for this in the future. 

I was a little worried about this episode. Not about the episode itself or about watching it or anything like that. Just about putting together an episode review on an “hour’ episode. More like 42 minutes but you know what I mean, double-length. I haven’t done many of these types of reviews before so I wasn’t sure if it would change anything.

How about you Crow, have you reviewed hour long shows? Do you have a handy dandy link to those perchance?

Hi, Irina! The naming made me stop to consider, too. How people will search for it is the biggest consideration, so the best I could do was pattern it after Crunchyroll, MyAnimeList, and Anilist. I’m splitting it between Mugen Train Arc and Entertainment District Arc. Which meant I had to rename the posts! Ugh. 
The most recent hour long episode I can remember was The Detective is Already Dead episode 1. I think I’ve done some before where I included two favorite quotes and moments, but I’m still can’t determine if the readers prefer that or a standard review. Guess we’ll find out!

I really shouldn’t have been worried mind you. The episode went by in a flash!

It started out with a short recap of the Mugen Train arc. This can be annoying to those of us who have been following along as the episodes aired as we’ve really seen a lot of this arc by now, but I figure there is a good part of the audience that saw the movie and may have decided to skip the train arc. So for them, this is the first episode of the season and a recap of a movie they saw a while ago. That works well. Besides, it was pretty short.

It also included something I hadn’t seen before. Which was the scene of Senjuro (The younger Rengoku brother) receiving the news from the crow. It was a few seconds with no dialogue but I really liked the body language and lighting in this scene. It was very pretty.

We don’t often see the aftermath of these battles from the perspective of family and loved ones. The single shot of Senjuro receiving the news and collapsing to his knees felt poignant. Kid’s been through quite a lot. 

I sort of thought we were going to be done with the train arc at the end of last episode and everything would just magically snap back this week. But the better part of the episode was a sort of epilogue to Rengoku’s story. 

At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. After all, I was very ready to move on. But I warmed up to the idea. It was a nice respectful send off to the character and gave a sense of importance to death. In a show so littered with dead bodies, it’s easy to trivialize loss of life after a while. I’m glad they took some time to mourn. 

It does help that Senjuro is a very likeable character. Almost too perfect really. And even deeply flawed Shinjuro had something compelling as a father tormented by deep grief and unable to deal with pain in any sort of remotely healthy way. It was sad but also brought some closure. How did you feel about the Rengoku family?

Very much the same way. At first, Shinjuro came off as Enji TodorokiEndeavor light, but I wasn’t being fair. The more we saw, the more we realized just how broken the man had become. Not sure what he went through, but it instilled a pervasive sense of bitterness in the man. 

I do have to admit that I chuckled as Shinjuro pounded Tanjirou’s forehead. Talk about fruitless!

Moreover, Senjuro seems like a very sharp young man. If his brother got the brawn, he got the brains. I’m thinking what our little team of demon slayers needs most right now is an intelligence officer or at least some type of coordinator. I’m hoping he comes back in some way to fill that role.

That’s a very interesting thought! I mean, Senjuro did say that he was walking away from swordsmanship, but that he wanted to “be useful to others in some other way.”

And by the way, I thought Tanjirou’s encouragement was hilarious: “Walk down the path that you feel is right. If anyone dares to badmouth you, Senjuro, I’ll personally head-but them!” 

It’s the thought that counts.

I also thought it was interesting that Shinjuro accidentally gave Tanjirou a clue about his power, which we now know is called Sun Breathing. Turns out that’s the original and most powerful type! I’ll be interested to see where that clue leads.

This said, it’s not like we didn’t get any new information this week. First and most intriguing/confounding was that opening tab which let us know that Muzan is posing as an older couple’s adopted son. A bit of an homage to FMA’s Pride perhaps? If so, then it’s awesome.

But in any case, it’s a puzzling bit of information. Why is he doing this? We do know that Muzan has a family and from the little we’ve seen I,ve come to believe that he cares for them, in his way. He also seems to have some resources and sway in the human world. He does not need an alter ego to infiltrate society. Is there something he wants from this particular couple? Something he couldn’t simply get by force? What could it possibly be? 

I definitely want to know more about this. Any idea, Crow?

I puzzled over that, too. I thought Muzan’s female form would be perfect to blend into the entertainment district. Not as a worker, of course, but as a Madam. So when we saw him as a child, to parents who appeared to be simple business owners, I’m stumped.

Unless that business supplies the entertainment district in some way. But at this point, I’m tossing random ideas around. This will also be interesting to watch play out.

Kinda feel sorry for his adoptive mom and dad, though. And the librarian! Muzan just ripped that book apart!

Of course the other bit of plot development was the introduction of flashy ex-shinobi, current hashida: Tengen Uzui. The show went out of it’s way to give him a ridiculous and fairly unlikeable introduction. I’m going to assume that this is in part because they want the character to grow on us. In part because they want a contrast to the brilliantly wholesome Rengoku and in part because the core audience of the show is young boys. 

It was ok, but it got a bit loud at times. I did get a pretty good laugh and Inosuke and Zenitsu appearing out of the blue and all three of them striking a superhero team pose. It was cute. What did you think, Crow?

That was probably my favorite moment in the episode. I think their shared grief brought them closer together, because the seemed much more in sync. In this scene, I liked how both of them supported Tanjirou without even asking what was going on!

I really did not like Tengen Uzui’s introduction. It was much more like a villain introduction, leveraging a ‘kick the dog’ moment. I mean, treating Aoi Kanzaki and one of the three little girls like that was just not cool. Tanjirou was right to charge in.

Also loved how Kanao Tsuyuri worked up the courage to try to detain the Hashira. That was an important step for her!

I should have mentioned this sooner but I like the idea of setting an arc in the Entertainment district. It Seems like it would be rife with opportunities for wacky shenanigans. I foresee a lot of crossdressing and the ED (which is likely the OP) seems to prove me right!

I really am quite psyched for the coming 11 episodes. It looks like it’s going to be a fun time. Any thoughts on what’s to come?

Well, cross-dressing Zenitsu has very high humor potential! But with Muzan as a child, I don’t yet see how the pieces are going to fall together. Certainly, the strong demons that Tengen Uzui mentioned make sense to be denizens of that district. But how will Muzan fit in? I guess the fact I’m spending so much time thinking about how it might play out is a good sign. I’m interested, and I’m ready for this arc to get underway!

I have a question for you, Crow. The timing of this season is a bit off compared to other anime. Anilist has the entertainment arc at 11 episodes which would mean both arcs together add up to 18. This is like a cour and a half which is a bit awkward. Do you know if they plan to do another short arc after this one?

I have not heard. In fact, as you pointed out earlier, I think the title convention wasn’t well known. A few sites (like Random Curiosity) seemed to know about it. And it’s entirely conceivable that I just missed it. 

It would be nice if they had some to flesh out the season. It’ll leave a gap in our editorial calendars!

Previous Episodes

• Demon Slayer 2 Episode 1 Review: He Brought Us Bento!
• Demon Slayer 2 Episode 2: Bliss
• Demon Slayer 2 Episode 3 Review: I Wish I Could Stay Here Forever
• Demon Slayer 2 Episode 4: Sleep When You’re Dead
• Demon Slayer 2 Episode 5 Review: Right on the Money
• Demon Slayer 2 Episode 6: Still Fighting
• Demon Slayer Mugen Train Arc Episode 7: Until The End