#I need to start on the zenitsu patient episode

[saffron0v0]

Context: Aoi and inosuke hang out a lot (unintentionally, they just find themselves together without realizing) , and senjuro, who came to visit mitsuri and aoi, decided to confront them, because he would be hurt if his one and only best friend decided to get into a relationship and not tell him.

*senjuro is helping her make dinner, so he will wait for the proper opportunity to ask her. Unlucky for him though, inosuke decided to join, aoi promised to teach him how to make tempura*

Aoi & Inosuke: *Aoi is showing him how to prepare the tempura and inosuke is following attentively because it involves food*

Senjuro: *gathering every single bit of confidence in his being* *inhale, exhale**praying this wouldn't ruin their friendship* *opens his mouth and-* Aoi-san!

Aoi: Ah! Senjuro! Is there something you need help with? We're almost done.

Senjuro: Ah, uhm yes, *fidgeting slightly before working up courage and-* AOI-SAN-ARE-YOU-DATING-HASHIBIRA-SAN *he burst out in the most robotic, loud voice because he panicked*

Inosuke & Aoi: Eh? HEYYYYYYYAAAAAAH??

(inosuke understands the concept of dating after shinobu explained it to him once, tanjiro also explained it to him, because shinobu's explanation was a bit on the sadder and bittersweet side, so he gave him a more positive take.)

Inosuke: *laughing like a maniac*

Aoi: Senjuro, no, we're not. He's more like a little boar in my kitchen, his company is tiresome, but it's quite decent from time to time. *she said coughing, trying to hold back her laugh, she couldn't believe that senjuro misunderstood their relationship, did they look like a couple?*

Senjuro: But you argue like an old married couple, and are almost always seen together...

Inosuke: HA. If she was my wife, I'd put poison in her tempura!

Aoi: If he was my husband, I'd eat it. *she said with most deada## straight face*

Senjuro is both relieved and scared now.

Taisho secret!

✨Moi✨: Senjuro and aoi haven't seen each other since Kyojiro's funeral, but they continued exchanging letters twice a week since then, courtesy of aoi wanting to give senjuro emotional support.

✨Moi✨: Aoi sees senjuro as a baby owl she wants to protect and be there for, like the sibling she always wanted. Senjuro sees aoi as his very first friend, his best friend, and someone he can come back to for comfort, he appreciates her a lot.

-----------------------00------------------------

I love the senaoi friendship with my life 😭😭😭💙💙💙💙 They'd be such good friends! I need to start focusing on other characters damn.

[ransprang]

hi! can i request a romantic sfw + nsfw demon slayer mashup for demon slayer pls (males preferred)?

im 4’9”, female (she/her), an aries & infp. i have medium length straight black hair w/ curtain bangs. i also have a somewhat very light tan/beige skin tone.

im generally a bit awkward & introverted but with the right people i can open up, be pretty loud, & be very affectionate (probably because i’m touch-starved lol). according to my friends im kinda silly, honest, easygoing, accepting, supportive, nice to everyone, and i also like to think that im quite cheesy & romantic! people also often come to me for advice & comfort whenever they’re having trouble so i think i offer a comforting presence to people & i am also both a sympathetic & empathetic person, so i kinda… cry a lot 💀 i also tend to kinda space out & daydream quite a bit? and i idealize things a lot. also maybe tmi but i get horny a lot out of nowhere LOL💀

my dream clothing style is cottagecore-like w/ lots of light pinks, whites, light blues, and light brown. but since im broke (lol), i dress pretty casually trendy w/ the same color schemes (if that makes sense).

if i had to describe my type, i generally would want someone who can be patient with me, accepting of me & my (sometimes) extreme emotions, open with their emotions & feelings for me, loyal, open minded, and supportive of me and goals. i also would like someone who can be honest & rational to balance my “emotional and idealization” side of myself out lol. also it’s maybe kinda basic but i have a really big thing for guys who are good with kids </3 since one of my biggest dreams is to have a big family one day, i’d love someone also loves kids (someone that i can see being a good father one day).

some of my hobbies include anime & manga, games, baking, music, art, and ive recently started getting into cooking for fun! im also an art history major in uni & i plan to specialize in japanese art!

some things i hate are injustice & unfairness, close minded people

my top two love (receiving) languages are words of affirmation & physical touch! the way i display love is through giving gifts & physical touch too

i apologize if this is really long 😅 thank you so much! have a nice day/night!

your demon slayer match up is............Zenitsu!!

SFW

Zenitsu has to be the perfect fit for you. He is the best person to make a shy person feel comfortable and help you open up instantly.

He is very affectionate and will hug and kiss you out of excitement since you are pretty touched starved.

SILLY? HONEST? EASYGOING? thats Zenitsu...of what that's you too! perfect.

you can be cheesy and romantic all you want in front of this boy. He is 10x worse than you for sure.

He needs to be comforted every episode, you can help give him advice and comfort him easily.

You cry a lot? so does he. Now you two can cry together for hours.

N/SFW

Zenitsu will always entertain your horny moods cuz this boy is also wayy too horny for his own good.

Expect loads of PDA, such as secret quickies behind trees.

He cant keep his hands off you, constantly caressing you and groping once you become his.

Your slayyyer,

admin sav

[demonslayedher]

Any Kny character you've grown to love/appreciate more??

Thanks for waiting, Anon, I have been trying to really, really hard to narrow this down, but the answer remains: the vast majority of the cast. The only character I loved right away was Tanjiro and that love kept me watching, as with almost every new character I was like, "ugh, I hate this guy. Here I was, having fun being emotionally invested in a high quality anime, and this might ruin it for me." But then the instant I see a different side of their character, I'm like, "...Oh." To go into some examples...

Zenitsu: I could not stand him right away, I hate womanizers, and his conniptions would go on so long that they held up the story. But Gotouge/Ufotable strung me along perfectly, the first glimpse of Thunder Breath made me immediately pay attention and think, "oh, that was cool. I want to see more of that." Seeing him protect the box pretty firmly put him in the "I need to protect this child" box in my heart. And then the spider demon happens, and I'm sending desperate reaction messages to a friend like "NOOOOOO!!!! BABBBBBBBBBYYYYYYYY!!!!" And then he annoyed me all over again at the start of Functional Recovery, ahaha. It's hard to remember how annoyed I was because I'm such a Zen Stan now, and he was a very firm favorite of mine by the time I finished binging the anime up to the last couple episodes, which I waited for as they came out. Inosuke: He was one of the reasons I was curious about the series, I saw some promotional art and was super curious about Nezuko's muzzle (I was one of the people who thought it was some ancient scroll or something, haha) and the kid with the boar mask. The art I saw showed his face, and I assumed he'd be some kid with a cracking voice performed by a female seiyuu. As much as I love Matsuoka's performance now, initially, since I knew what his face looked like, I found it grossly off-putting the moment I heard it. Then every chaotic thing Inosuke did dug a deeper hole; I very quickly decided I hated him, especially when he started beating up on the kid I was starting to like. As his chaos subsided he just became a character I tolerated, and then this happened:

Images you can hear, am I right? This immediately flipped the "BABY" switch in my heart. It was also a lot of fun to understand the Inosuke memes I was seeing everywhere. So by the end of the anime, I loved, loved, loved, loved the Tanjiro/Zenitsu/Inosuke interactions and desperately wanted more (still didn't like how Zenitsu bothered Nezuko, though). I was so impatient for more, but the manga art looked disappointingly off-putting. I figured the anime was successful enough that there'd eventually be more of it, and I wanted to be patient, but then I poked around, read some spoilers, got back into Tumblr to look at fanart and memes, saw a spoiler image of Tanjiro affected by Muzan's poison and the binge-read began. (That's kind of a lie, but I'll get to that.) Let's back up a few episodes. There I was, having a great time, the guy who I forgot about from Episode 1 was back and haha, I guess everyone hates him, and the chick who I figured was going to be a medic who saves Zenitsu in the nick of time turned out to be savage, awesome. I was sending reactions to my friends who were ahead of me, and then we left off seeing the Pillars staring down Best Boy. And I...

Well. Uh. Here, I've dug up an old convo for you, my comments are in blue.

Immediately followed by a passionate vocal rant, which I have transcribed here:

“I feel like what happened was that the mangaka was sitting around with his assistants and was like, ‘welp, gotta make this whole cast of characters, they gotta be so-o-o-o many more levels of extreme than all the other characters I’ve had so far, which isn’t hard, because all of the background characters are cannon fodder and I’ve just gotta leave them all with black hair and no personality traits. So! Gotta go to the opposite of the spectrum with the BIG! POWERFUL! People so no-o-o-body can be normal.’ And so he and his assistants sat down, and they all wrote down just random words or traits, and them put ‘em all in a hat. And then for each character, they pulled out a few of them and said, ‘OK. We’re gonna put these things together, now we have a character.’ And he was probably also like, ‘Iiiiiiiiiiiii’ll flesh them out later. For now, they just need t’… be there, and make an impact. How do we make an impact? By making sure it’s super, super clear what their character traits are. Here, we’ll have this guy repeat the word //HADE//…. ////HA DEEE//// over and over and over… to show that he’s a /showy/ person. Because he /cares/ about that. And he //should// care because that is his character and that’s why he’s powerful.’ OH MY GOSH, it’s so dumb.”

......orz I feel like Genya looking back at how he acted at the end of the Final Selection. I'm sorry, Gotouge, I had not even encountered your love for these characters yet in your little alligator form. Nor had I encountered the yet unseen-sides of these traumatized dragons and tigers. ...*coughs* Um. So. I was pretty harsh.

So this was my mindset, I went into the manga not caring about most of these characters and just wanting more Kamaboko squad interactions and wanting to hurry up and catch up to the battle with Muzan. And it's worth stating that I didn't mean to read it at first. I encountered a few spoilers, and just wanted to look for the context surrounding those parts, and then hunt for the (non-existent) build-up to those parts, and so... uh.........

I read a lot of the manga out of order, and yeah, that did affect how much I cared about what was going on. I didn't actually properly process a lot of it until later re-reads. But to try to state some things simply about each Pillar:

Giyuu: He was just 'ok' to me for a long time, I could see the appeal for why people I knew were fangirling over him but he didn't do it for me. His soft spot for Tanjiro was indeed endearing, though, and I firmly liked him by the time chapter 200 came out and I was properly heartbroken on his behalf.

Shinobu: She was intriguing, and then I liked her as soon as I saw her savage side, she was one of the characters I went hunting for spoilers for.

Rengoku: That stare really put me off at first, but I fell for him over the process of Tanjiro falling for him. When I first finished the train arc I sat back and said, "wow! That's going to make for a good movie!" and then in psyching myself out for the movie several months in advance, I fell hook, line, and sinker and was totally excited for him each time I saw the trailers. And then the movie was *stunning* and I love him even more. Uzui: He was the Pillar I hated most upon first meeting them. I blame the repeated use of his catchphrase. But then when he let his hair down to sell the kiddos the change in design helped warm me up more to him, like, "oh, there was a human in there." It took a long time for him to become more interesting to me, and an uncharacteristically subtle journey to becoming a character I liked. I am currently getting more and more psyched out for him and eager to see how much more I'm going to like him with the shiny Ufotable treatment. Mitsuri: At first I didn't remember her name, I had code-named her as "Boobs." But I kinda had a feeling she was going to grow on me quickly, and I was right, she's one of my easy favorites now. Muichiro: Who? Oh yeah, that kid who always kinda fell to the wayside in my attention. I'd see a lot of Muichiro-themed blogs and hear a lot of little girls looking at merch and showing a clear favoritism of him, and I'd like always react like Muichiro and just be like, "...", and then when I read his major battles I was more emotionally invested in things going on concurrently with other characters, and I was still like, "...", and then two days ago I revisited a Muichiro scene and was suddenly like, "......OH!!! MUICHIRO!!!!!" Himejima: I never really hated Himejima, even if I found his first impression kind of wimpy (haha... oh, I was so wrong). I had a pretty easy acceptance of him too, so I would generally count him among characters I like, but if you were to ask me why, I'd draw a blank. It's kind of a weirdly mature, subdued appreciation for him rather than passionate fangirling. But weirdly when I was daydreaming the other day I found myself thinking, "if I had to marry someone in the KnY cast, it would be Himejima." So like, not a fiery romance, but I see him as my dependable, sturdy rock to grow old with??? What is up with you, sub-conscious?? Iguro: My interest in him rises and falls. Being a Mitsuri fan helped warm me up to his character in the first place, which was the emotional tie I needed since his backstory didn't grip me much (I found it a frustrating distraction while I was desperately reading weekly updates). Reading more subtle details about his character in the fanbooks has brought me around and made me more curious about him, like I'd really like to be a fly on the wall for the conversation he had with Uzui one day about their pasts.

Sanemi: Hahaha, wow. He was so unlikable in the beginning, wasn't he? His character design (yeah, the eyes) was really off-putting too. But then I got to know him and there was no going back, I got totally played. He's a character I'm pretty fond of now and one of the characters I've enjoyed delving into most in fanfic. To keep this answer from getting too long, for the vaaaaaast majority of the cast, I was initially like, "meh" or "OK" or "ew" but now am like, "EEEEEEEEE, I LOVE THIS TOTALLY RANDOM UNIMPORTANT SIDE CHARACTERRRRRRR" so you know... times change. And the more time I spend obsessed with Kimetsu no Yaiba, the more I like them all, so even the characters I'm lukewarm on will probably have their eventual days when they take over my heart and smash it.

[inumaqi]

top ten tagged by @linkspooky 🍊 explanations under the cut! sorry for rambling xo → rules: name your top ten favourite characters from ten different fandoms, and then tag ten people - @osomanga @kara-suno @anonimarevolts @zeninmaki @wildbishonen @shysheeperz @tkmewthyou @kaldurlenn @joxterism @marshmallowdonutsprinkles

snufkin okay so he’s the only one not from an anime or manga but i had to put him on bc he’s the most important fictional character to me, ever. i grew up watching the moomin cartoons in the 90s and thinking about it instantly calms me down - they used to air the episodes early in the morning when it would still be dark outside: the landscapes were moody and cosy, the characters were so softly spoken and articulate... it’s just peak nostalgia. anyway, snufkin is moomin’s best friend; he returns to moominvalley every year to be with his friends during the spring and says his goodbyes to go adventure again come winter. it upsets moomin when he leaves but snufkin is adamant that quiet and solitude are important and healthy, and it’s not fair to expect him to compromise on his independence - that made a really big impact on me as a kid, especially as someone who never really had their ‘own’ space (twinsies). relationships aren’t weakened by physical distance or time, they’re about communication and understanding. that was important too. i don’t think i realised just how influential it had been until i was an adult but snufkin is an anarchist. he first shows up in the comics when moomin and sniff are talking about opening a bank - he tells them they should plant fruit trees instead. he destroys private property and rescues orphans, he refuses to participate in things that don’t bring him joy. when he’s asked where home is, he replies, “nowhere. or everywhere! it depends how you look at it” - the whole world belongs to him, and the whole world belongs to everyone else too.

yomo renji in general, i like characters that trudge along in the background and do the nitty-gritty work that supports the main story. i like people like that irl too. more than anything else, yomo is desperate to form human connections, even though he’s shackled by self-doubt and self-loathing. he just wants to positively contribute to a community, thinking he’s most useful keeping a quiet eye on people who might need protection/guidance (while still giving them space to grow and act themselves) or foraging for human corpses so that others aren’t in danger or moral anguish doing it for themselves.

bird boy is a total weapon - “the perfect ghoul” - and you’re reminded over and over again but a lot of his growth is about rejecting violence and repurposing his power as something productive that he can use to help the people around him instead of hurting people (the yang to uta’s yin). in the first few chapters, he says he kills humans (he’s a ghoul, humans are food, it’s natural) and yet he’s consistently framed as a scavenger who seeks out ‘roadkill’ [suicide victims] for sustenance, even before coming to anteiku, and implements a system so other people can do the same.

suguru getou i was originally gonna say meg bc i love him but, having just finished The Flashback Arc, i can’t stop thinking about getou and i’m beyond impressed with how akutami has managed to ground him so well, so sympathetically. getou is the sick, warped darkness to the hopeful light that gojou commands but... in an uncomfortable twist, the reverse is true, kind of.

actually, gojou is arrogant and confrontational and hyper individualistic. he’s a dissident. getou is obedient, compassionate, self-aware... he has a sense of social responsibility and passionately believes that his skills should be used to protect those who can’t protect themselves - non-jujutsu sorcerers - and all of the suffering he endures as a result is worth that. idk if others are reading his downfall differently but, from where i’m standing, that overwhelming responsibility never goes away, he doesn’t give up on it - he just starts to view the social landscape differently and begins to see how jujutsu sorcerers are vilified and mistreated in spite of all the good that they do. the ‘weak’ aren’t really weak when they’re able to organise and assert collective power over a minority, and so his sympathies shift.

the nail in the coffin for getou is learning that the hurt and pain could be eradicted from the world by cutting the head of the proverbial snake: non-jujutsu users generate cursed energy, so get rid of non-jujutsu users and cursed energy won’t be generated. it’s all horribly, weirdly rooted in good intentions that weigh him down and misdirect him.  shinazugawa genya i feel like the bond that slowly starts to develop betwen tanjirou, and zenitsu and inosuke (in particular) is nicely foiled by genya’s lonely journey towards becoming a pillar. after losing almost all of his family and having sanemi walk away, genya is angry, antisocial, rude, violent, evasive...

he’s characterised as competitive, as if he hates his peers and wants to leave them in the dust as an act of self-satisfaction, a power fantasy or whenever, but this is a deliberate misdirection to cover for the fact that he’s scrambling to be a pillar so that he can reconnect with his brother and prove to him that he can protect himself; that sanemi doesn’t need to shoulder everything alone like he used to. his entire goal is an act of apology.

and in a story where so many characters are able to hone these exceptional skills, genya is uniquely disadvantaged as the only one who can’t master breathing techniques. rather than having a hero moment and powering up, his need to reconnect with sanemi is so strong that he essentially decides to compromise his humanity and become a kind of monster by ingesting the demons he’s pledged to annihilate. amajiki tamaki i wish i had a a longer explanation for this one but it’s actually super simple: tamaki is a really, really, really good portrayal of a person burdened with severe anxiety. the way he physically carries himself, the way he hides his face, his manner of speaking, his dependency on his mirio, how he interprets compliments as trickery, how he needs to be pushed and pushed and pushed before he’s finally able to release his potential... every single scene with tamaki felt deeply personal when i was reading bnha and i knew exactly what he was supposed to be feeling. shinmon benimaru sometimes good, nice people don’t fit a little friendly mould and i like that benimaru is hostile and rough and antisocial, even with people he cares about. he doesn’t expect anything of people, he doesn’t want them interfering with him, and he wants to help and support them all the same because he believes in community. he’s completely oppositional to the special fire force because he thinks it’s a tool to pursue an ideology rather than to protect people, which is why it’s so important when the eighth are finally able to win his approval - they become the only company the seventh consider allies, and it’s proof that their objectives are righteous. despite his reputation as... kind of a nuisance, his skill is acknowledged by everyone and he’s universally regarded as the strongest fire soldier there is. in spite of his antisocial attitude, he agrees that it’s important to share that with younger fire soldiers - he’s incredibly patient and understanding with them, helps them to individually adapt. the way he (and others in company seven) operate in contrast to the other companies when fighting infernals is really cool to me for two reasons: (1) it provides a commentary on how cultures and traditions often struggle to survive when they’re systematically (forcefully) replaced through power and wealth - although the subtext is a little troubling because it’s unclear whether ōkubo is conflating multiculturalism with globalisation which, uh, big nope; and (2) philosophically speaking, the approach to death is interesting. where the other companies essentially perform last rites and offer absolution to the deceased, benimaru personally takes responsibility - at the request of the people in his district - for sending them off in huge public display, kind of like a festival intending to celebrate their life. i think it speaks to how profoundly he values life. akihiko kaji i liked akihiko from the beginning because he’s stoic and introspective and also excitable and dumb. he’s a people watcher and waits for opportunities to softly guide uenoyama and mafuyu when they’re quietly crying out for help but doesn’t interfere any more than he thinks is necessary because he knows they can make their own way to where they need to go. i liked akihiko even more when he got really fucking messy. his relationship with ugetsu is sweet and it’s incredibly ugly and unhealthy because they both fail utterly to communicate with one another - they’re both to blame for avoiding and hurting each other, and i think that’s a really normal issue that people find difficult to overcome. i’m super interested (and really nervous) to see how his relationship with haruki develops. he’s done some horrible things to haruki and i want him to be accountable for those things and have them affect their relationship in a realistic way.

tanigaki genjirou one thing i really, really love about golden kamuy is the way noda satoru incorporates the importance of minority cultures into the story, and tanigaki’s apparent abandonment of his matagi heritage is really beautifully written. matagi hunting traditions shaped his life as a young man, it’s how he was able to really assimilate to the people around him and form relationships and - without getting too spoilery - he divorces himself from it all when he’s overcome by grief and hatches a plan for revenge against the person responsible. so, by allowing himself to surrender to negative feelings and thoughts instead of seeking support and learning to heal from what happened, he becomes a total shadow of himself. 

makimura takeshi i know i’ve gushed about it before but i can’t properly explain just how incredible it felt seeing an asexual character in manga dialogue about being asexual, and devils’ line does it twice. the reason i’m so attached to makimura in particular is because he doesn’t seem to have fully figured it out - and he’s kinda... comfortable with that. he wants to be with someone and he wants to be monogamous but he can’t understand why he doesn’t feel sexual desire towards her; he knows his feelings aren’t platonic but doesn’t know whether they can really be called romantic either.

not to go dark mode but i very vividly remember just how lonely and horrifying it was battling with those uncertainties when i was a teenager, thinking i was broken because i didn’t have Normal Human Feelings and needed to be fixed. i was so worried about it that i thought about all the boys i knew, picked the one i thought was the nicest and actively tried to develop a crush on him. it was dumb as fuck but, ten years later, i realise it was really desperate and sad too. i forced myself to have ~my first kiss~ (it was horrible) because i felt like i was getting left behind and i think i would’ve put myself in worse situations as i got older if i hadn’t suffered with such bad social anxiety.

i hadn’t really thought too much about a lot of this stuff for yeaaars but it all came flooding back when i was reading devils’ line. it was bittersweet bc i was remembering all of those shitty feelings but also watching this character grapple with those same questions and go: i don’t know yet and that’s not weird, let’s just grow with it. i still don’t totally know whether i’m ace or aro or bi, or whatever, but i’m trying to be okay with just... not knowing.

misora shuuji anyway, devils’ line isn’t actually a manga with a specific focus on sexuality and gender but shimanami tasogare is and all of the characters are written beautifully. if you haven’t read it yet... then why haven’t you read it yet? misora is only about twelve years old and watching them battle with their growing pains is really compelling - they’re closeted but, through the lounge, they have somewhere to explore their gender and all the questions they have about it. they’re amab and present as traditionally feminine wrt clothes, wigs, makeup, etc. but can’t quite tell if they see themselves as a girl, a boy or non-binary.

with the onset of puberty and anxieties about physical changes to their body, misora’s story puts a lot of emphasis on the pressure they face to just ‘make up their mind’ about something that’s actually incredibly complex and doesn’t have any easy answers. they snap and shout and get upset, especially when tasuku (the protag) tries to push them into a corner because he wants a concrete label or identity he can attach to misora, even though space is exactly what misora needs.

[drink-n-watch]

I has been a week of blistering afternoons and wild festival movies and lots and lots of work. And lest you think I be complaining, these are all very good things. Except for the heat – I could do with less of that. But good and fun as these things may be, they can end up a little exhausting, so I was looking forward to lazing around on the weekend and having a nice little Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba chat with my friend Crow. How are you Crow?

  I’m well, thanks for asking! It’s pretty hot down here in the States, too. Better than a couple of weeks ago, though. I’ll be bold his week (it still feels like an unnatural state!) and to be clear, there may be spoilers!  What an episode, too! I can’t wait to dig in!

This week opened up not on our heroes battling the giant spider demon, but on what I can only assume is fan favourite Giyuu (if fan art is to be believed, this guy is everywhere!) and the butterfly girl whose name I’m not sure we know.

They mentioned her name like once in the previous episode. She’s Shinobu Kocho. 

Crow, is she the same girl that passed the final trial with Tanjiro? If so, she must have risen in the ranks extremely quickly to be accompanying Giyu now!

She looks just like her — seems to have an affinity for butterflies, too! So I dug deeply into the archives and searched for hours (okay, I Googled for a few minutes) — I think they’re separate. The other survivor from the trial is Kanao Tsuyuri. They have absolutely got to be connected somehow. I think that Shinobu is a demon. Can they have kids? Or maybe Kanao is her younger human sister? 

So, the scene opens on these two arriving in Spider forest to either rescue the surviving Demon corp members (about time there guys…) or kill the demons. The organization seems rather martial and hawkish, so my money is on the latter.

The butterfly girl whose name I don’t know (Hey! I just told you! Oh, right, writing is asynchronous! Sorry — carry on!) I just forgot sheesh – whose name is Kachow, is extremely cheerful through all of this and has this high pitched sing songy voice that clashes with the surroundings. I’m not scared of spiders at all, but butterflies creep me out. And this girl sends chills down my spine. It’s likely only due to my personal brand of crazy, but I have immediate distrust towards this poor young lady.

Actually, I think she earned it. I found her attitude to be quite scary. Not head spider-level terrifying, but enough to make me draw a sword. If I had one. And I don’t.

After the opening credits, we catch up with Inosuke and Tanjiro trying to deal with giant spider papa. Throughout the fight, he keeps repeating “Stay away from my family.” He’s consciousness seems a lot dimmer than all the other spider demons. Despite Tanjiro’s insistence to the contrary, I’m almost certain this guy is not one of the 12. Sure, he is very physically strong, but his mind seems mostly gone, like one of the underling demons.

All the higher ups have been frighteningly smart. They’ve needed to use some brains to survive,  I suppose. And we know that Kibutsuji isn’t exactly the patient type. I don’t see him putting up with spider dude for very long. Nope! I’m calling super obvious red herring on this one.

I don’t know for sure, but I agree with you! 

This said the fight was fun to watch. Choreography remains stellar. I think my favourite moment was seeing Inosuke skip across the water like a flat stone.

In my notes, I had written, “Inosuke skipped like a stone…” Great minds and all! The water animation, too, I thought was just fantastic! 

My second favourite part was seeing Inosuke run away. It was played for laughs and possibly that’s all it was. A gag. But in the context of that character, it’s a huge growth moment. Inosuke does not know when to quit. Often putting his life at risk and losing the advantage. He is a straightforward brawler without any strategic sophistication who considers anything other than raw strength embarrassing. But he still opted for a tactical retreat without anyone telling him, and he wasn’t that wounded yet. To me, it shows forethought and strategic thinking that were out of reach until now. Not to mention that he had to let go of whatever “honor” or “power” ideals he was holding onto. Even I think I’m reading too much into this.

I hope you’re not, because I picked up on the same thing. I think Tanjiro’s a good influence on him! 

We got a quick look at how Zenitsu is doing as well. In short, not great. Even the little nightmare spider creatures felt sorry for him. In what he thinks his last moments are, all he could do was uselessly apologize to Nezuko. I’m not sure for what. Not saving her I suppose. Still, it wasn’t a show of self pity, grief or vengeance fueled anger. It was regret of not being there for another. I thought that was sweet.

Of course, I don’t think we’re going to lose Zenitsu any time soon. It may be very gory but Demon Slayer is still something of a children’s show. Like those old terrifying fairy tales. The heroes don’t just die in the middle like that.

Sadly it’s suspicious butterfly girl that comes to his rescue so he  may wish he had died…

The animation of her butterflies, then her descent onto the cabin, was hauntingly beautiful. Her outfit even looked like butterfly wings as she landed. Given her cheerful and carefree attitude, I wonder if Zenitsu thought he was hallucinating? I’m pretty sure I would have thought so.

Now all three main Demon hunters are separated. Tanjiro, having been thrown far from Inosuke and the Spider papa, is just landing in another part of the woods. I almost expected him to fall on Giyuu. Instead though, he pulled off a pretty smart move, using his water wheel to curve and slow the trajectory of his fall allowing him to survive the landing. Although not exactly unscathed. I really liked this. It was a smart functional use of water breathing. Were you as impressed as I was, Crow?

Yes, I was! He used a similar technique when he fought the dying vector demon back in episode 10, didn’t he? Tanjiro never stops thinking, and I like that about him.

Tanjro may not have landed on Giyuu, but he did seem to land on little brother and sister demon instead. There were some really interesting speculations in the comments of last week’s post, over on Crow’s blog, that the two may actually be one and the same. It seems they are physically separate at least, not that they couldn’t turn out to be linked on some level.

That little sister is just so meek for a demon. She seems gentler than Nezuko and aside from calling for her daddy when a maniac wearing a bore head started screaming that he was going to kill her and brandishing weapons, she actually hasn’t done anything even remotely aggressive. And from my description, I bet you can tell I don’t think that was aggressive either.

The story is purposefully showing her not attacking a lot. I’m thinking there’s a reason behind that.

I had a hard time finding her name, but it seems to be Kumo oni: Ane. I’m reading her character the same way you are. And though I’m sure it’s just because I’m wired to feel sorry for a sobbing female, I really felt bad for her. Rui’s obvious cruelty helped that along, I’m sure! 

Out of the blue and unbelievably unharmed, not scared and rather jerky demon slayer shows up to give little bro a chance to show off his overpowered skills. I understand the function of the scene, but considering all that has happened, the odds are just too impossible that a random guy got separated from the group, has been just fine all this time and is happy about bumping into demons he can attack? It was way too contrived. There must have been a better way to establish little brother’s skills and power level. Magic glasses or something?

Even the little extra bit he said — about advancing up the ladder so he could earn more money, almost hinting at some kind of fiscal corruption, didn’t help. His attitude was the most un-Demon Slayer like we’ve seen. 

I could only come up with two explanations. First, we’re going to learn something amazing about that character in the near future that’ll blow us away. Or, the main writer went to get a drink or take a restroom break, and the junior writers just wanted to get to the next scene. 

I’m thinking number two. And you know what – you tried guys!

We got back to Inosuke, and I suddenly had a series of revelations. First, I realized that the characters are better individually than together. They just don’t have the proper chemistry as a group. They should be pen pals from now on. Second, as a wounded Inosuke is hiding and trying to survive, I realized that I was genuinely worried for Inosuke. How, why huh? Is it just a function of proper tension and dramatic timing? Inosuke is my least favourite character and I think he is responsible for a lot of the elements that don’t work in Demon Slayer, but I was biting my nails wishing that he would be ok. I’m so fickle!

Then, as he had his grand moment chopping of the demon’s arm, we got a fantastic scene where papa dropped everything and high tailed it out of there! I loved it and instantly changed my mind about the papa demon character (for now). Do I just like people who run away? Maybe I do. Maybe that’s why I’m a lot more forgiving of Zenitsu than most folks are. I respect people who know when to give up!

Pen pals? “Dear Insouke. I hope the day finds you well…” Well, it would certainly make for different pacing! But I see what you mean. I loved seeing Inosuke develop as he was apart from Tanjiro. He was forced to be honest with himself, especially given how powerful his opponent was.

But do you know what else I thought was really cool? You could see the impact Tanjiro has had on him in their short time together. Inosuke probably couldn’t put it into words, but he’s starting to really respect Tanjiro. Remember, just before papa spider sent Tanjiro practically into orbit, Insouke watched Tanjiro power up and thought, “He’s about to do something totally mind-blowing!” That’s not something Inosuke would have said just a week ago. 

Character development rocks.

Sadly, papa isn’t actually a huge demon version of Zenitsu, and he was just finding a safe spot to turn into… basically the same thing. A bigger version of himself with more eyes and I’m guessing even stronger and tougher but still just a brute strength gear check.

Too bad, he was really interesting for a second there.

Not that an unstoppable force isn’t an impressive opponent. Inosuke took quite the punishment and the skull crushing scene was difficult to watch. But at this point, it just seemed like something we’ve seen before. What do you think Crow?

Sure, papa spider 2.0 was an upgrade, but you make a good point. The only thing I thought was different was how Inosuke reacted. He nearly gave up, re-found his courage (always a stirring moment for me!), and tried again. 

Was that Inosuke’s mom we saw as he hovered on the edge of unconsciousness? Now I want to know more about his past! 

I think it was. It’s how I read the moment.

For the third time in the episode, we had a Demon Slayer unexpectedly showing up next to one of our main characters. This time Giyuu. Ok, I get it. Giyuu has a great design. I would draw him too!

Moreover, Giyuu uses water breathing. Did we know that?

Okay, now I know you somehow snuck into my computer and read my notes. At 20:19, I had written, “Did we know Giyuu uses water breathing techniques like Tanjiro?” 

I guess the other way to answer that is by just saying, “No!” Pretty cool, though. Assuming Tanjiro survives (and I’m trying not to get ahead of ourselves here!), he has quite a powerful future to look forward to.

Since Tanjiro learned his technique from Urokodaki, does that mean Giyuu also trained under him? And Crow, did you see if Giyuu had a black sword? They made a big deal about that but then just sort of forgot about it. So many questions!

Re-watching the scene, I think you’re right — it does look black. Good catch!  

The very last scene returned us to Tanjiro facing off with little brother. Nezuko still presumably in that crate on his back. I still don’t understand why we haven’t seen her in this arc. The episode ends on a first-person cliffhanger. Cheeky! And quite visceral. I felt that one!

I think this is the worst cliff-hanger they’ve sprung on us. What the heck, Demon Slayer? 

I’m excited to see what Giyuu and Butterfly girl can bring to the mix and curious about what little sister is hiding. She even looks a little like Nezuko. I think… We haven’t seen her in a long time. Any final thoughts Crow?

I’m still annoyed about that cliffhanger! That aside, I enjoyed seeing Inosuke and Tanjiro both pushed to their limits. Isn’t it interesting to see what a character does at the point of greatest stress? It really shows what they’re made of.

That cliffhanger, though…

Reviews of the Other Episodes

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 01: Cruelty

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 02: Trainer Sakonji Urokodaki

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 03: Sabito and Makomo

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 04: Final Selection

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 05: My Own Steel

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 06: A Friend fo All Humans

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 07: Muzan Kibutsuji

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 08: The Smell of Enchanting Blood

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 09: Temari Demon and Arrow Demon

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 10: Together Forever

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 11: Tsuzumi Mansion

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 12: The Boar Bears Its Fangs, Zenitsu Sleeps

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 13: Something More Important Than Life

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 14: The House with the Wisteria Family Crest

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 15: Mount Natagumo

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 16: Letting Someone Else Go First

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 17: You Must Master a Single Thing

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Episode 18: In which Tanjiro Dispenses Good Advice I has been a week of blistering afternoons and wild festival movies and lots and lots of work.