One of my core maxims of Kimetsu no Yaiba is that the demons are more interesting than the humans.  But I guess there’s always the exception that proves the rule, and Gyokko is that exception for me.  My goodness, what a bore (and a paper tiger at that).  This episode really makes one realize just how vital a really charismatic and frightening demon figure is for Kimetsu, because without one there just wasn’t much- well, much of anything.  The whole exercise came off very flat.

While there was some minimal entertainment value in Muichirou suddenly tapping into his latent snark gene, apart from that this fight couldn’t end fast enough.  It was never in much doubt, first of all.  But even against a hashira you’d hope an upper rank demon would put up more of a fight than that.  The grade-school level baiting and the kindergarten-level empty bragging – the whole thing was kind of sad to be honest.  The poison apparently did impact Tokitou, but conveniently not until after he’d already sealed the deal.

So, Gyokko was a major disappointment.  He did manage to inflict enough damage on Tokitou to take him out of the Hantengu fight at least, which has the positive impact of finally giving Kanroji something to do.  As for Kotetsu, it was Tanjirou’s sword hilt (via Rengoku) that saved him, though he ought to get that arm wrapped at some point.  Fortunately Hantengu seems to be an order of magnitude more interesting than Gyokko, so I’m hoping the coming fight will be a lot more involving than the one that just ended.  And if Kanroji gets a chance to really shine in it, so much the better.