Kimetsu no Yaiba: Katanakaji no Sato-hen Episode 10

Compared to last episode, I definitely felt more engaged with this one. The pacing still was a bit weird, especially when they had the need to throw ANOTHER freaking flashback right in the middle of Mitsuri about to get punched. Once or twice happening in the season, FINE, but three times? That feels a bit much. Anyways, it was nice to get to know Mitsuri a bit more despite it being quite late in the season. Better late than never I suppose. And while I wouldn’t put her on Rengoku or Tengen level of liking, I do like and appreciate her. Maybe even a smidge above Muichiro. Mitsuri is just so fun and bubbly. She’s like a breath of fresh air in this depressing world. Especially when it comes to her backstory, but I’ll get to that later.

The more I watch Demon Slayer, the more I feel kind of shallow in absolutely loving the incredibly flashy fighting styles of certain characters. Like, Muichiro’s abilities were cool, but I felt like he didn’t have as much of a chance to REALLY show us everything he’s capable of. But then Mitsuri just GOES OFF this episode. “Can I take out this many?” Takes out that many BRUH. I absolutely love Mitsuri’s fighting style. Especially since it’s not the conventional sword fighting. Which makes both her and Tengen’s fighting styles stand out so much. The way she fights reminds me of those ribbon dancers in gymnastics. It has a level of grace and fluidity to it that just makes it so fun to watch. So much that I literally couldn’t catch a good screenshot of her fighting because the shots looked better in motion than it does in standalone shots.

We get to learn more about Mitsuri this episode (even if it did feel slightly out of place for the pacing of the episode) and I’m honestly glad she doesn’t have a tragic backstory like all the other hashiras so far. It’s kind of shocking to see what a pleasant upbringing she had without her parents being brutally murdered in some form or another. Not to mention they probably were the most supportive family that’s still alive. Which makes sense as to why she seems so much more carefree and genuinely cheerful compared to all the other Hashira. Instead of trauma and tragedy being the basis of her backstory, it’s her insecurities. She was so many things that wasn’t considering normal and she essentially had to suppress her true self in order to match expectations of society. Not to mention Japan in general adheres to a “don’t stand out” sort of mentality and doesn’t take to individuality or glorify differences like the west does. Also who does that freaking glasses guy think he is to say that kind of stuff to her like that?! Like, BRUH, that was beyond rude.

Because of this external pressure, Mitsuri feels as if she isn’t allowed to be herself and nearly loses herself. She wants to be loved by others for who she is, not by society’s standards. Thankfully she finds a place to fit in with the Demon Slayer Corp. Especially since literally all of the Hashiras are all kinds of weird in their own right. So she fits right in with the oddness of each individual. It was also really sweet to see the master uplift all the qualities she thought were troublesome. Essentially going against what so many people have told her and giving her a place to belong. Though that does raise the question on HOW she ended up finding out about the Demon Slayer Corp to begin with since demons are not widely known. I think it’s also worth noting how the Master is always portrayed in such a supportive manner, especially in the cases of the Hashira. It shows a drastic difference in leadership between him and Muzan. While Muzan CONSTANTLY tears his upper ranks down and calls them worthless like 99% of the time, the Master is always uplifting and never once talks down to the Hashiras and always encourages them. The Twelve Upper Moons fear Muzan, while the Hashira all respect the Master.

While we haven’t had the best impressions of Iguro so far, I still think the scene between him and Mitsuri was really cute. Especially since we get to see a softer side to him as opposed to what we have seen so far. To which I’m sure a lot of people, including myself are like: …Is this a ship? If it is, it’s certainly not a ship anyone expected lol. And honestly, the line of him saying that he’ll just get her a new pair of stockings if she ends up tearing them was just… STOP BEING CUTE DANG IT.

However, one of the big point of interest was the fact that Mitsuri also ended up developing a mark on her somehow. Before, people who have read the manga would often say that the marking is why characters are so powerful, but as an anime-only (for the most part) that means nothing to me. Especially since we don’t know what those markings even are at this point. However, it was at this moment where Hatred comments on how it looks to be a “demon’s crest” where it actually makes me really wonder what it is. When the marking first showed up, I mostly thought it had to be some sort of family thing. However, it seems like it doesn’t necessarily need to be from a specific bloodline as I don’t think Mitsuri is related to Muichiro or Tanjiro. Unless they decide to reveal that she’s somehow distantly related to them, which I don’t think that’s the case. Previously, when the marks initially showed up it was more of a “I wonder what that is”. Now it’s a “WHAT ARE THESE MARKS????” Especially now that they might be linked to demons in some form or another. And now that Mitsuri developed a mark, how do people acquire it? What exactly does it do to them?

While Mitsuri is busy being a boss, Tanjiro and company are trying to go after the main body. Though the task proves to be quite difficult. Which results in Genya basically noms his way through the wood body or whatever it is. And so it revealed to how Genya is able to gain demonic powers by eating them like a freak lol. I already knew this about him and was wondering when they would drop this information. Though I was surprised that he actually bit off Upper Four’s lower jaw to gain it. Which explains why that part was just gone when we see it. It’s definitely a very interesting concept since it’s literally just an uno reverse card of what demons do to people though to a lesser extent. But it does make me wonder how Genya even thought to do this and if he has special properties to make it so that he doesn’t end up losing himself. Not to mention how being exposed to demon blood doesn’t make him turn. I do wonder if they’ll address this or not because I’m very curious to how this even works and if it’ll have repercussions.

It’s honestly amusing how angry Tanjiro gets when demons try to run away from the fight. He got SUPER mad at both Muzan and Akaza when they tried to slip away from the situation. And now he’s yelling angrily at Hantengu about running away from his responsibilities. Though given the context that he’s basically just yelling at him to not run and let him kill him is comical in a sense. Also at this point, I too am just really annoyed with Hantengu and his victim mindset. He keeps going on about how he’s a coward and how no one has shown him sympathy, but he’s STILL killed hundreds if not thousands of people over the couple hundred years he’s been alive. So I don’t think he deserves any sympathy in that regard. We also don’t know if Hantengu is genuine about not lying once in his life since demons tend to be unreliable narrators. So hopefully we do get to see a little more about Hantengu’s past since I feel like we were given just a small taste of it. Genya also seems super done with him as he just chucks a random tree at him lol.

And then the freaking audacity of that cliffhanger. Demon Slayer is notorious for their absolutely terrible cliffhangers, but GOSH. This one was just obnoxious. You really gonna leave me THERE??? Anyways, I definitely enjoyed this episode a lot more with this episode than the previous one. Maybe because it feels like there’s more stakes in regards to this fight and there was a lot more fighting than talking. We got more of Mitsuri and her backstory and while I can see someone say that it’s boring, I still ended up really liking Mitsuri as a character and that you don’t need a tragic backstory to be an interesting character. I’m still a bit bummed that this was basically the only time we’ll get a Mitsuri focused episode for this season despite her being marketed as sharing the spotlight with Muichiro and he got several episodes dedicated to him. In any case, the next episode will be a special hour long episode for the finale. Hopefully this series goes out with a bang even if I still think this arc wasn’t as well executed as the Entertainment District arc.

Also, the fact that Mitsuri’s hair changed color because she ate so much Sakura mochi is so amusingly dumb. I had a guess that was the case when her mom placed a bunch of them in front of her in the flashback and the colors were reminiscent of her hair. I don’t think hair color works like that, but sure I suppose lol.