This post is a little late because I was working on another project yesterday (one ironically not unrelated, but more on that when the time comes).  I can point to a couple of pluses for this episode right off the bat:

• Recycle of recycled footage (rerecycled?) was only about 90 seconds rather than three minutes.
• Absolutely no Shimono Hiro.
• Enmu (and Hirakawa Daisuke) exit stage left.

So we’re off to a good start, then.  And perhaps unsurprisingly, this was rather a good episode.  It doesn’t look or especially feel different from the TV series to me, which one could certainly argue it should as a movie folks are splashing out fifteen or twenty bucks (or the equivalent) to see.  But yes, quite good.  As always the action sequences here are full of CGI but entirely competent, and the depictions of the various breathing styles are quite artistic.  None of it screams “¥300 billion in economic impact” to me, but if you’re a fan I wouldn’t imagine there were any complaints (as least not the first time you watched it).

The addition of Ishida Akira to the cast is an interesting one.  He’s a seiyuu who can be stunningly good – I’d be hard-pressed to think of a better performance than the one he delivered in Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu.  But he can also be a bit precious when he’s type-cast.  As Akaza, the “Upper Three” ranked youkai who appears as soon as Enmu throws off his (im)mortal coil, he’s not overly on the money – he can stretch a little here, and Akaza is a definitely step up from Enmu.  He’s a step-up in power, too, which I suppose he should be given the difference in rank.

Kimetsu rarely surprises, and Enmu signing off was entirely to be expected.  There’s no explanation yet for why, specifically, Akaza was waiting in the wings – it’s certainly convenient from a plot standpoint that he was, because the narrative can move directly from one set piece to the next.  It’s adult swim time now, as Rengoku declares that the kiddies should stay the hell out of his way for both his sake and theirs.  In Tanjirou’s case there’s the stab wound as a pretext (that had to be the fastest piece of power-up instruction I’ve seen in a long time) but I don’t think it would have mattered.  As Boaris says, they would just have gotten in Rengoku’s way.

So will Rengoku die in this fight?  Well, it is the last episode of the “movie” part of the season, so the timing makes sense.  And looking at genre convention (which KnY usually respects pretty faithfully) it makes more sense for Rengoku to die here than Akaza.  That’s not to say either of them necessarily has to die here – but I wouldn’t be buying any green bananas if I were Rengoku.  In any event it’s a nice fight, and as they usually do in this series, the demons have a more interesting take on events than the humans do.