‘Demon Slayer’ Episode 3 Reveals The True Form Of Upper Rank 4, Hantengu

Well if you were wondering how long Demon Slayer would take to get to some demon slaying in the Swordsmith Village arc, we finally have our answer with the arrival of Upper Rank 4, Hantengu, and Upper Rank 5, Gyokko. Spoilers follow.

The opening of the episode is Tanjiro being a bit ridiculous as he freaks out over the 300 year old sword he found, which will now go off to be polished into something he can actually use. Then he spends time to try to befriend Genya, who absolutely hates him, but Tanjiro will not give up on forcing them to be friends, despite their rocky history.

But then, the demons arrive. Not really…stealthily. Hantengu just literally creeps through the doorway where Tanjiro and Muichiro the Mist Hashira are. Hantengu has been a pretty weird figure since we first saw him in the opener this season, a cowering, sniveling figure that seems reluctant to go into battle and terrified of displeasing his boss. He skitters around avoiding Tanjiro and Muichiro until finally his head gets lopped off.

This is, however, Demon Slayer, where previously a demon turned out to be an entire train. So, there was obviously going to be more to Hantengu than meets the eye. His detached head and body then heal into two separate demons, both Upper Rank 5. I’m still not clear on if they’re all one shared entity or separate, but I think they’re all just him with different powers.

Then Genya shows up with a sawed off shotgun (???) and blasts the two heads off the new demons. But guess what? Now there’s four demons. And they keep getting new powers. One has some sort of fan that blasts Muichiro a mile away into the woods. One has an electric staff that zaps Tanjiro. One can fly and has some sort of face-melting beam attack from its mouth. I’m actually not sure what the fourth one does. Something dangerous. It’s also unclear if they lose more heads if that just keeps making more of them, but the point is that you cannot beat them that way, and there’s some other weakpoint no one has actually figured out yet. So right now it’s Tanjiro and transformed Nezuko versus the Hantengu demons, and Genya has just been stabbed through the stomach which seems like it should probably kill him, but who knows.

Muichiro, meanwhile, is saving the child swordsmith in the woods from what appears to be a Gyokko construct. I do not know where the Love Hashira is but she probably is going to want to get involved soon.

Demon Slayer always jumps to a whole new level once the demon fights start, and season after season has to keep finding ways to top itself. So far, it’s been able to do so, but I’m wondering how these fights will evolve from here and what insanity we’ll see to come.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn