This is a continuing journal of the great anime series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. Produced by Ufotable and released in late 2019. I'm re-watching each episode, providing a synopsis, and adding my own observations. You can read the first episode coverage here.
Episode 6 Swordsman Accompanying a Demon
Tanjiro sets out on his first mission as a Demon Slayer. Urokodaki has made a small cedar backpack for his sister, Nezuko, to travel with him while she sleeps. Urokodaki tells him about special "Blood Demons" who have supernatural abilities and to look out for them.
Tanjiro arrives in a small town where young girls have been disappearing at night for several weeks. He encounters a young man who has been roughed up and is wandering the streets hopelessly. This is Kazumi. He was with one of the girls who disappeared and whose father beat him thinking he was lying. Tanjioro befriends him and at night they travel to the location where this young girl disappeared. He smells the lingering odor of three demons.
At that same moment, the demons snatch another young girl from her bed. They appear to travel underground by making the floor a kind of liquid pool. Tanjiro immediately smells their strong scent and quickly travels to their location in an alley right outside the new girl's home. Tanjiro stabs into the ground and disrupts the demon so that he can snatch this new girl away from them.
A short flashback occurs at this time where Urokodaki tells Tanjiro about the very first demon, Muzan Kibutsuji, who appeared thousands of years ago and whose blood turns humans into demons.
Tanjiro fights the three demons who appear out of puddles and splashes in the walls and on the ground. He is brave and keeps them at buy, but is unable to finish them.
Tanjiro gives the unconscious young girls to Kazumi but is limited in his attack because he must stay close to defend them. At one point in the fight, it looks like the demons are going to get the upper hand, but his sister emerges from the box and kicks one demon's head so that it spins round and round. The three demons are puzzled and disturbed that another one of their kind is traveling with and defending a human.
Another flashback occurs where Urokodaki tells Tanjiro he has placed a hypnotic suggestion into the mind of the sleeping Nezuko to hate/fight demons and love humans. Nezuko looks warmly at the young man and unconscious girl then turns to charge the demons as the veins on her face pop out in anger.
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Comments
This episode is the first of two that will tell the story of Tanjiro and Nezuko's first mission. The background is laid about the first vampire, Muzan Kibutsuji, who becomes Tanjiro's nemesis and perhaps only hope to turn Nezuko back into a human.
The action sequences are fine as usual and the demon design continues to impress with its strangeness. The music, in particular, is great in this episode with a chorus and orchestra contrasting with simple flute music. The depiction of the small town Tanjior travels to is detailed and wonderful.
