Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Entertainment District Arc

Episode 3

Well, that was fast! I'm not entirely sure how many episodes that the Entertainment District Arc will end up filling out before this season is up, but I still expected at least one more episode of buildup and hijinks before the Demons started wreaking havoc left and right. I'm not expecting Demon Slayer to be something it's not here; I had no delusions that this arc was going to play out as some kind of epic, Monster-esque psychological thriller. Still, given how much the previous episodes seemed to be emphasizing the “infiltration” and whatnot that would color this particular adventure of Tanjiro and the boys, I maybe have gotten my hopes up a bit too much over how this whole ordeal would play out.

I think I'm also still trying to wrap my head around the structure of this episode, which just felt odd to me. “What Are You” begins by picking up with Inosuke's search for Makio at the Ogimoto house, and things are actually tense after we're reminded that Makio is indeed caught in the Demon's trap, which causes Inosuke to give chase in a pretty well-animated and funny little sequence. Now, at this point in the episode, I was still under the impression that each house had its own unique Demon manifestation to battle; I no longer believe this to be the case, but that original expectation did shape my assumptions for how the episode was going to primarily focus on Inosuke's portion of the investigation and put the other boys' escapades on the backburner.

Then the episode abruptly shifts over to Zenitsu and all of the drama he's dealing with over at the Kyogoku house. This isn't a problem in and of itself, and despite my, er, strong feelings about Zenitsu as a character, I had no qualms with splitting the time between the three boys' investigations more evenly. Except that isn't what happens either—Inosuke only gets one additional comedy-relief scene before disappearing for the week, and Tanjiro is afforded even less screentime, to the point where you could cut his material entirely without making a single difference to the plot of the episode. Zenitsu's material is uncharacteristically dramatic, too; after hearing the wails of one of the younger Kyogoku girls from inside a room that has been positively torn to shreds, Zenitsu's weird girl complex kicks in and he goes barging in to rescue the kid, which immediately earns him the scorn of the Oiran Warabuhime. It only takes a second for Zenitsu to instantly clock the Oiran as the Demon everyone has been after.

So, first of all, I was a little disappointed for the identity of the Demon to become so immediately apparent, and for it to be revealed with almost no work having been done on our heroes' part. Zenitsu basically figures out that the Oiran is a demon on accident, and his whole stunt ends up coming across as kind of stupid, since the way he can resist the Oiran's physical punishment has completely blown his feeble disguise, only a single episode after setting the whole scheme up in the first place. Then there's the way that the Oiran's backstory and relationship with Muzan are just dumped on us with a really long flashback, which is so hellbent on info-dumping everything we need to know about this villain that we get another flashback inside of the flashback. All we learn from this is that the Warabuhime (aka Daki aka aka Upper Six) killed the original madame of Kyogoku House (duh), and that she's in cahoots with Muzan (also duh). I just can't help but feel like there is a much more interesting and character-driven way that Demon Slayer could have communicated all of this information.

Ah well. The episode isn't bad by any means, and as messy as it feels in places, it gets all of the story's pieces into place without dragging its feet too much. I don't really like how the show keeps insisting on tying every single act of heroism that Zenitsu accomplishes to his insatiable lust for girls' affections, but this is the least irritating the character has been in a while, so I guess I will take it. Also, I won't lie to your faces and say that I didn't appreciate the fact that our current Big Bad is a sexy Demon murderess with cool body art and a solid fashion sense. So far as character designs go, she's a definite step up compared to That One Train Guy, that's for sure.

Rating:

Odds and Ends

• We've got a post-credits sequence in addition to the usual omake, this week. I'm of two minds about it, to be honest. On the one hand, Zenitsu's habitual flirting plays really weird when he's trying to look suave to a trio of abused sex-workers-in-training that don't look a day over nine years old. On the other hand, the very final shot where Zenitsu gets nabbed by Daki's Spooky Fabrics was pretty sweet. I'll go ahead and call it a draw.

• The funniest joke of the episode, outside of Inosuke accidentally caving a pervert's skull in during his Demon chase, probably had to be how Tanjiro is just so goddamned helpful that it's even starting to overwhelm the Tokito madame. Stay golden, Tanjiro. Stay golden.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Entertainment District Arc is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.