Since the fight against the Upper Moon 6 Daki began, ufotable has delivered some incredible action scenes for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Entertainment District Arc, and episode 8 continued to get increasingly more intense with Gyutaro getting involved. This week started with Tanjiro getting Nezuko back in her box, and then immediately going back to Tengen. The Sound Hashira now stood against both of the Upper Moon 6 demons, and we learned that Gyutaro poisoned him. He bluffs that poison doesn’t affect him due to being trained as a shinobi, but his body quickly gives away that it’s not true. Another bluff of his is calling the young demon slayers his brilliant Tsuguko, and he’s determined to not give the demons any chance to feel like they have the advantage.
Episode 8 of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Entertainment District Arc also brought Tengen’s backstory. He comes from a line of shinobi with a rigorous training regime and way of life, and he decided to abandon that at a certain point. He met Kagaya and joined the Demon Slayer Corps, being called a brilliant child by his new leader. We saw he respected Kyojuro, saying he can’t be quite like him, likely referring to the way he was reliable and could save everyone. When Gyutaro told him he probably had talent from the moment he was born. Tengen denied it. He praised Gyomei, who’s an enigma but apparently more talented than him, as well as Muiichiro, who became a Hashira within 2 months after picking up a sword. Later on, he even gets a vision of the Flame Hashira, where he is passed the torch to look after the young demon slayers in a short emotional appearance.
Despite the emotional parts, the biggest highlight of the episode was definitely the insanely flash animation for the fight between Tengen and Gyutaro. Zenitsu got his own badass moment when he engaged Daki and separated her from her brother, even managing to tell to apologize to the girl she abused before. However, the fight between the main fighters of both sides was on another level. In several minutes of non-stop action, Tengen and Tanjiro faced Gyutaro in a beautifully choreographed and animated fight. We saw them struggle to actually corner the Upper Moon demon, but an unexpected action from one of Tengen’s wives gave an opening, which then made for the cliff-hanger that the episode ended on.
Episode 8 is the third big episode of the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Entertainment District Arc, and it keeps getting more exciting as the fight continues. The anime ranked 1st in the both week 1 and week 2 of Winter 2022, and Attack on Titan has not been able to outrank it so far. You can now vote the episode as the best of week 3! The title of episode 9 is “Defeating an Upper Rank Demon” and it will release next Sunday on January 30, 2022 on both Funimation & Crunchyroll. A preview image is also available:
Images via Crunchyroll
©Koyoharu Gotoge / SHUEISHA / Aniplex / ufotable