The ‘Demon Slayer’ Swordsmith Village Premiere Raises Eyebrows And New Mysteries

On Sunday, the Demon Slayer Swordsmith Village Arc season 3 premiere finally debuted on TV instead of in movie theaters, something Ufotable did after Mugen Train became an absolutely massive smash hit.

I’ll be talking about Demon Slayer week-to-week to some extent, but know that I am coming from the perspective of A) someone who had not read ahead in the manga, and B) someone who honestly doesn’t watch all that much anime to begin with. But it’s a great show with tremendous animation, and I’m excited that it’s back.

The episode starts out with Muzan berating the Upper Rank demons for their incompetence now that one of them has been killed as of last season. This is the first time we get to see all the remaining Upper Rank demons, we have:

Doma – Upper Rank Two, who has a playful demeanor and is repeatedly dismembered for being annoying by Akaza. I get this impression he’s extremely powerful.

Akaza – Upper Rank Three, who previously killed the Flame Hashira in the Mugen Train arc, and his powers are mainly…punching extremely hard, unlike some of the more complicated demons.

Hatengu – Upper Rank Four, a cowering demon I really don’t understand quite yet.

Gyokko – Upper Rank Five, A demon that comes out of a pot which has two mouths on his cheeks and little baby arms on his head, certainly the weirdest one.

Kokushibou – Upper Rank One, revealed at last, and he appears to be the great mystery of the season. Tanjuro has a dream about him in human form where he’s staying with him in the future once Tanjiro has a kid. Then later, he appears to see him at Swordsmith village talking to the Mist Hashira. Given his outfit and his Sun Breathing earrings, it seems he has a direct link to Tanjiro. Again, without knowing anything, I wonder if he might secretly be Tanjiro’s “real” father or lost older brother or something. They certainly look related with that hair, in addition to the other clothing similarities. Or uh, Tanjiro from the future? I have no idea.

The other portion of the episode was far more lighthearted, with Tanjiro waking from his coma after the big fight after two months, and everyone celebrating his return. This was probably one of the funniest Demon Slayer episodes I’ve seen, during all these parts. It seems that Inosuke and Zenitsu may be separated from Tanjiro for a while, as he travels to Swordsmith Village by himself to try to get a new sword from his surly blacksmith, who has now apparently gone missing.

He’s greeted by the Love Hashira, Mitsuri Kanroji, who first appears during a 1:1 manga panel translation where she rises from a hot spring completely nude, and runs at Tanjiro uh, bouncing around quite noticeably. While Demon Slayer is not a stranger to some amount of fan service, this was pretty prominent, and that moment was certainly a GIF I saw appearing alllll over Twitter in the wake of this episode airing.

We know both the Love Hashira and the Mist Hashira will have a prominent role this season, and the two main demons that are on the way are Gyokko and Hantengu. Misturi gives Tanjiro a quest to find some sort of hidden power in Swordsmith Village, which Tanjiro thinks is some sort of super-sword buried in the ground, but I mean, I doubt it’s that. We’ll see. Tune in next week.

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