Kimetsu no Yaiba: Katanakaji no Sato-hen Episode 3

I knew things were going to fly off the rails soon, but I didn’t think it would be this soon. Especially when the episode started off very silly and things went from 0 to 100 REAL FAST. I knew that the demons were going to find the village… BUT I’M STILL DISTRESSED OVER IT. Especially since this village had been hidden away for hundreds of years and with each swordsmith killed, is a pretty severe hit to the Demon Slayers. How did they even find it? There’s just a lot of intrigue that came from this episode that made me wonder what is going on with certain characters.

Things started off fairly silly and innocent when Tanjiro was getting all worked up over possibly getting a rare sword only to find it rusted. But dang, I didn’t expect Tanjiro to be so into swords like a guy being into cards. Him being heartbroken about it not being usable was both hilarious and confusing. Are you THAT into swords, Tanjiro? XD Haganezuka finally shows himself to Tanjiro… BUT WHY IS HE BUFF???? I guess he went through his own training arc to be able to make Tanjiro a better sword so he won’t end up dying because of it. To which, I was right to the point of him going out of his way to hone his craft for Tanjiro since it seems like he’s the only one who is able to handle his outrageous personality and constantly comes back to him when he needs a new sword. To which felt really sweet that despite how he acts, Haganezuka does seem to appreciate Tanjiro in his own way. Though it was funny how he just wanted to be dramatic and just tell Tanjiro to leave the newly found sword to him without telling him his intent. The guy should probably brush up on his social skill from time to time lol.

I may not particularly like Genya all that much yet, but I am loving his dynamic with Tanjiro. Every time we see them interact this season, the funnier it seems to get. I love how it just starts off with Tanjiro casually talking about what happened earlier to him as if they were already friends. This literally feels like Tanjiro and Inosuke 2.0 except more angry. I absolutely lost it when Genya brought up how Tanjiro broke his arm when they first met and Tanjiro just brushes it off saying he had it coming lol. Despite Genya being essentially everything I don’t like in a character, he does incite a bit of intrigue. Especially how suspiciously quiet he got as soon as Tanjiro comments about his missing tooth. Also, TANJIRO WHY DID YOU KEEP THE TOOTH??? What is he even supposed to do about it once you give it back to him???? It’s honestly hilarious how hard Tanjiro seems to be trying to get closer to him for whatever reason and wonders if he’s angry all the time because he’s hungry. BOY PLEASE. Though I suppose that Tanjiro is a very social person so with Mitsuri gone and Nezuko unable to have a conversation with him, that just leaves him hanging out with Genya who doesn’t even want his company.

There’s definitely a lot of mystery surrounding Genya as to how his tooth had grown back despite pulling it out earlier and what is going on with his situation with his brother. The fact that he refers to Sanemi as “aniki” as opposed to “nii-san” seems to indicate a form of respect despite the two not being on good terms from what Mitsuri has mentioned. Also the fact that he uses a freaking GUN to fight is all sorts of unexpected and pretty cool. Especially when it doesn’t seem to be a common weapon used at this time from what we’ve seen so far. I look forward to seeing what is going on with this guy, especially since he seems to have been stabbed right through the gut but I’m pretty sure he’s not dead. He definitely has the potential to be interesting and hearing how a couple of my friends who have read the manga really like the guy, I am curious to how this guy will develop.

Speaking of mysterious, there is obviously SOMETHING going on Muichiro. Funnily enough, I literally just noticed how in some shots in the opening, Muichiro has some light in his eyes while normally he doesn’t. And before I could ruminate on it, they actually address it, well kinda, in this episode where there were a couple instances where light returned to his eyes. The way he reacted to what Tanjiro said felt like he recalled something familiar, but a second later he was back to his regular self. And then again when he was running through all the high priorities rather than take the time to save Kotetsu, when he recalled Tanjiro’s words, he actually stopped and saved Kotetsu. At first I was like: You better turn around and save him or Mitsuri come in to save him instead. Thankfully it was the former, which makes me a lot more curious about Muichiro and his circumstances. While I do know a little about it because of spoilers, but I don’t know the full extent of it. So it’ll be interesting to watch things unfold and learn more about him. Though it was really cute and hilarious how he just had this head tilt and contemplating expression on his face with Tanjiro and Nezuko doing the same.

But holy crap, even if he was crying, to have a demon that they didn’t even sense until they saw him and that’s not supposed to know about the village just slowly crawl into the room like that… that was freaking scary. I really like how that scene was done with everything moving slowly when the realization dawns that there is a demon crawling into the room. An upper rank at that. The momentum of that scene felt so good with how slow it started to the fast paced action and actually cutting off his head fairly quickly. However, because of what happened with Daki and Gyuutaro, Tanjiro has learned not to underestimate the situation even when an Upper ranks’ head gets cut off. And boy was he right when the severed head immediately grew a body and the headless body sprouted a head.

At first I thought it was just going to be another Daki and Gyuutaro situation, but it ended up being infinitely worse. I did accidentally see that Hantengu had another form, but I didn’t realize that he literally is like a hydra situation where whole new bodies just form from the severed parts. And all of these different bodies have different abilities, making them hard to deal with. Especially since they just keep growing in numbers if someone cuts off their heads. Also, while I know that Tanjiro will be fine, I felt actual terror when he was about to hit him again with that screech attack. Also, I totally didn’t realize that a freaking head sprouted from the leg at first. I thought he came back down to finish the job, BUT I GUESS NOT. That is legit horrifying. Due to the form change, I do rescind my former dislike on Hantengu’s design lol. Also I just realized that in the form we were introduced to the Upper Four didn’t have the Upper Four in his eyes but once he split apart, the number became visible. Which makes me wonder if that previous form of his wasn’t his true form? I am very interested in knowing more about this Upper Rank now that he has shown us what his true power is.

I totally called that the information that Gyokko found had to be the location of the Swordsmith Village and lo and behold. As soon as I saw the scene of that one swordsmith walking around in the dark, things were not going to go well for him. And man, his death was absolutely terrible as you can just hear his bones break while he was forcefully pulled into the vase. Things are looking incredibly dire with how OP Hantengu ended up being. Not to mention that Gyokko is still out there apparently conjuring up terrifying fish demons. I don’t see how this confrontation ends without the village being completely destroyed with how things are going. I love how these demons actually feel like a real threat and it’s only episode 3 but everything just feels so hopeless. I’m so excited for the next episode because things are just going CRAZY.

Also I just wanted to pause and acknowledge that Nezuko’s hair being braided to look like Mitsuri was all sorts of adorable and I love that Tanjiro was just trying his absolute best with it. XD