Tanjiro begins his first Demon Slayer mission and things get hectic pretty quickly as he faces off against the kidnapping demon. While slow, the episode had an eerie atmosphere. The kidnapping scene was very creepy and well done with the show tapping into its more horrific elements that I love. And finally it looks like Nezuko is finally going to get her time to shine.
Tanjiro gets a taste of the supernatural demon Urokodaki mentioned before with this kidnapping demon. Before leaving on his journey, Urokodaki gives Tanjiro a specially-made box to carry Nezuko in during the daytime. He departs and makes it to the town relatively quickly and in no time he hears about the kidnappings from the gossipers. The brother of the girl we saw disappear last time walks by him and Tanjiro calls him out to hear his story. Kazumi leads him to where his sister disappeared and immediately Tanjiro starts investigating by sniffing around. For the entirety of the day, he goes around town sniffing walls and the ground, which was kind of funny seeing. And strange. I felt so bad for Kazumi, who felt extreme guilt for letting his sister get kidnapped. His father beat him for what happened, even though it’s not his fault. He wandered around town, but from what we find out later, his sister is long gone. When nighttime falls, Tanjiro senses the demon and goes after it.
I really loved the kidnapping scene. It really felt like a scene from a horror movie, where you know something bad is going to happen but it doesn’t happen immediately. The tension and suspense builds up, with the girl getting ready for a normal night of sleep. She lays in her futon, closes her eyes, and underneath her the large black hole appears and slowly widens, arms come up beside her and pull her down. Very well done.
It’s so interesting to see Tanjiro use his sense of smell. He was able to pinpoint where the scent was heaviest and was able to drag the demon and save the girl. The triple demon was pretty troublesome and Tanjiro ended up having a little bit of trouble, mostly because he wasn’t able to go totally all out or else he would accidentally harm Kazumi and the girl. Tanjiro has shown that he’s perfectly capable of going up against demons, and his attacks this episode were powerful and gorgeous to look at. Another thing about Tanjiro I adore is that when he goes into a rage, he doesn’t completely lose himself. He gets angry but he still keeps his cool, after hearing one of the demon personalities talk about his love of devouring the girls. I’m just glad that Tanjiro isn’t like one of those protagonists that act before they think, be rash, a little dumb, etc. He’s methodical, which I really appreciate.
At the end, Nezuko kicks the box open and kicks one of the demon’s head. We got a lot of important tidbits this episode, one being that Urokodaki used some sort of hypnotism while she slept to tell her that humans are her family and that she should protect them. Hm, kind of convenient. While that’s nice and all, I don’t know if I like it just for one reason. Last episode when she went to hug Tanjiro, was it because she sees him as any other human that she needs to protect, or does she actually see him as her brother who she loves? From her past behavior like in the first episode, I think it’s the latter but it still left some doubts. Another few pieces of info, the black color of the sword is a little strange because there’s been so few. Because of this, the black color signifies swordsmen that don’t make it far. Thankfully, Tanjiro doesn’t let this bother him and he stays positive. It’s still pretty worrisome to think about, though.
And lastly, but the most important piece of info is the demon Urokodaki mentions to Tanjiro. The only demon to maybe be their best bet at helping out Nezuko. The first demon to have been turned into one, someone by the name of Muzan Kibutsuji. They don’t know where he is, but at least this is the best lead Tanjiro has. How exactly he’ll find him, we don’t know.
A great episode, and I can’t wait to see Nezuko join the battle next time. I was worried about her as a character because she’s so limited in what she can do, so it’ll be awesome to really let her do her thing. Which is kick. A lot.
This is just my personal interpretation of the hypnotism aspect but I think it was a case of using what was already there. It’s Nezuko’s strong bond with her family and perhaps especially Tanjiro that has allowed her to hold onto some semblance of humanity until now.
i would say she has been hypnotized so that she feels the same way about any human as she already does for Tanjiro and the rest of her family. When she looks at other humans she overlays them with the image of her own family and draws on that pre-existing emotional connection.
They say hypnotism can’t make you do something you really don’t want to do. Whether or not that is entirely true I have heard of some possible workarounds.
For example most people would never shoot someone they care about with a real gun but many would do so with a water pistol. If you hypnotize someone to believe they are shooting someone with a water pistol when actually it’s a real gun you could theoretically get them to shoot someone.
Yeah I see what you mean, that makes perfect sense!