I’ve noticed complaints about the pacing here cropping up more than usual in anime discussion circles lately.  I sort of get it – this arc is pretty deliberate (though it has nothing on Mahoutsukai Hogwarts).  But to me as someone who’s very much on the periphery of Kimetsu no Yaiba fandom, it seems to be that the pacing is both wonky and generally slow pretty much since the end of the first season (which was the only one that felt like a traditional anime to me).  Is this really that different?

Be that as it may, the focus of this episode was certainly narrow, though not uninteresting.  Between Gyokko and Hantengu I continue to find the latter orders of magnitude more watchable – it’s classic scenery-chewing vs. genuine menace and mystery.  He gets the A-part this week, and continues to be a tough nut to crack.  The little demon is “Fear”- fittingly – but he’s tough enough not to be decapitated by Tanjirou’s Nezu-flame blade.  “Anger” is much more formidable by appearances – and it’s he who turns up just as Tanjirou is realizing this isn’t going to work as it stands.

But that’s when things take a really intriguing turn.  Another demon shows up (voiced by the always excellent Yamadera Kouichi), and seemingly absorbs the existing emotion demons.  He looks like he dropped out of Dragonball and starts lecturing about what villains the slayers are (especially for attacking a tiny enemy like Fear).  His aura is enough to make the onlooking Genya (who certainly isn’t human to have survived that damage he took last week) wilt. A top-ranked demon with a warped sense of justice who thinks he’s doing the right thing arguing semantics with Tanjirou – that makes for an unusual turn of events.

Meanwhile Gyokko continues to gloat over the fate of Tokitou, who’s running out of air at last.  A stoic by nature, this one – but visions of his master and Tanjirou force him to admit that he cares whether he dies or not.  Which is seems very much as if he will, until Kotetsu shows up.  “What the hell can he do?” Is indeed a logical thought here, and indeed it seems not much apart from get himself critically wounded by one of Gyokko’s zaku.  But he does manage to give the hashira an oxygen boost (how does that work, exactly?), which lets him power up enough to finally burst the bubble.

Gyokko, bored by this point, has turned his focus to the shack.  And inside is Haganezuka, so intensely focused on that Sengoku blade that he’s oblivious to everything going on outside (and inside).  His protector can’t even slow Gyokko down, but Gyokko is so irritated by Haganezuka’s intense focus that he becomes obsessed with breaking it rather than killing him.  Which is rather convenient, but I guess in-character.  Is this the first time we’ve seen Haganezuka’s face, by the way?

Incidentally, considering she’s all over the ED it’s kind of weird that Kanroji has barely appeared in the series with only three eps left.  What’s the deal there?  I have no idea whether that’s a good or bad thing, since we haven’t seen enough of her character to really figure out whether she’s part of the Jekyll Kimetsu or the Hyde.  But I would at least like to find out, and it would be a nice change to see a female slayer who can seriously kick some ass in action.