Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (2016)

[鬼滅の刃]

Volume 3

Author/Artist: Koyoharu Gotouge
Publisher: Jump Comics

Synopsis:
With the help of Yushirou's power, Tanjirou and Nezuko ramp up their fight against Yahaba and Susamaru.

Story/Characters:
Following Yushirou's advice, Tanjirou focuses on Yahaba while Nezuko keeps Susamaru occupied. It takes a bit, but Tanjirou figures out how to use his Water Breathing to flow with Yahaba's attacks, but the sheer volume of the attacks quickly takes its toll on him. Nezuko's first attempt to play ball with Susamaru goes poorly, but after a boost from Tamayo, she bounces back and gives her a run for her money. Tamayo worries that the fight could take a turn for the worst if the two just keep hammering at each other, so she provokes Susamaru by insulting Muzan, mixing in her arts with the oni equivalent of sodium pentathol until Susamaru accidentally says Muzan's name, activating the curse that destroys her. Tamayo then concludes that Yahaba and Susamaru were too weak to be part of the Twelve Kizuki but takes samples of their blood just in case it might help. Afterwards, we see that the charm on Nezuko activates around Tamayo and Yushirou, meaning that even though they're oni, she recognizes them as human. It's a pretty sweet moment. Even grouchy ol' Yushirou takes back what he said earlier and tells Tanjirou that Nezuko is pretty.

There's no rest for the weary as Tanjirou is immediately sent off on his next mission. We're introduced to Tanjirou's partner for this mission accosting a local girl, and by "accosting", I mean clinging to her and pleading for her to marry him while bawling his eyes out in terror of his impending death. This is Zenitsu Agatsuma, one of Tanjirou's fellow graduates of the Final Selection, who is prone to bouts of girl-craziness and cowardly histrionics. In this case, a mild expression of concern from local girl in question was enough to make her the target of his current obsession. Even the all-loving Tanjirou can't help but look on him with pity bordering on contempt. Their mission takes them to a mansion occupied by an oni and the first thing we learn is that where Tanjirou has an unusually keen sense of smell, Zenitsu's natural perk is preternatural hearing. We learn from a couple of frightened children outside that their brother was taken by the resident oni. A bloodied person is then thrust out of the mansion. He's not the kids' brother but another victim. Tanjirou leaves Nezuko's box with the kids to protect them while he and very reluctant Zenitsu go inside. The kids quickly follow as they get spooked by the rattling sound from the box. We hear a drumbeat and Tanjirou and Zenitsu are split up as the room changes around them. Tanjirou then sees the master of the mansion, an oni with hand drums growing out of his body.

Now, the kids are split between the two swordsmen and the boy stuck with Zenitsu isn't terribly impressed. As Zenitsu is desperately trying to find the exit, he encounters a man with a boar's head who bounces off after giving him a bit of a spook. Back to Tanjirou, we hear the oni muttering to himself in annoyance over the intrusion into his domain. Tanjirou tries to attack him, but with a beat of the drum, the room turns over. The board-headed individual bursts into the room and tries attacking the oni to no avail. He draws Tanjirou's ire when he uses the little girl (the younger of the two kids) as a stepping stone. Boar-head thinks nothing of Tanjirou's reproach and instead, because Tanjirou was skilled enough to successfully throw him, he changes targets, ignoring the oni in favor of the new opponent in front of him. However, they are quickly split up as the drum oni starts changing the rooms around again.

Meanwhile, Zenitsu is still running around like a chicken with his head cut off when a second oni appears, this one crawling on the ground and attacking with a long tongue like a frog. Zenitsu ends up passing out and all seems lost until we see the unconscious Zenitsu get on his feet and easily dispatch the oni. He then wakes up and has no idea what's happened and actually thinks the boy that's with him took out the oni. From this, we learn that Zenitsu's second gimmick is that he's actually a competent swordsman when he's asleep. Some people will think that he'd be better off staying asleep all the time and this joke will actually be made later in the series.

Back to Boar-head, he encounters a rather meaty-looking oni and takes it out without skipping a beat. We cut back to the drum oni (whose name is Kyougai) vowing to restore his status as one of the Kizuki. We find that he reached a point where he couldn't eat humans anymore and so Muzan stripped him of his rank. Tanjirou ends up finding the brother of the two kids. He was taken for his rare blood and the three oni began fighting over him. He managed to take one of Kyougai's drums and was able to use it to elude capture. Tanjirou entrusts the boy's sister to him so he can go defeat Kyougai. After getting bounced around the room a bit, Tanjirou is struggling to deal with the fact that he hasn't fully recovered from his injuries from the previous fight, but he falls back on his training and psyches himself up to power through. As the fight goes on, we get a flashback to when Kyougai was human and see that he was a writer whose work was held in contempt (by his father, I'm guessing). This sets up the significance of Tanjirou pointedly avoiding stepping on a page of manuscript that falls out of a drawer. Kyougai notices this and his offense weakens. Tanjirou is able to press his advantage and when he praises Kyougai's powers, Kyougai is stunned long enough for Tanjirou to land the finishing blow. A little praise was all the poor fellow wanted and though Tanjirou pities him as he has any other oni he's encountered, he remains firm that no matter what circumstances brought a person to such a state, the killing of people is unforgivable.

After collecting a blood sample from Kyougai, Tanjirou picks up the kids and heads outside, where he finds a badly beaten Zenitsu defending Nezuko's box from Boar-head, who senses an oni inside, but because Tanjirou had previously said the contents of the box was more important than his own life, even the cowardly Zenitsu is willing to put his body on the line to protect it.

Art:
It's neat to see Tanjirou figure out the trick of using his Water Breathing to deal with Yahaba and Nezuko's fun ballgame with Susamaru. Muzan's curse is suitably horrific. The fight with Kyougai is interesting from a visual standpoint (and comes off especially well once animated). Compared to how Inosuke (Boar-head) is portrayed later in the series, the boar head is rendered more realistically here and makes him look quite a bit more intimidating.

Other:
We get a dressed-up Tanjirou for another cover montage and concept art of Nezuko to match even though it wasn't asked for. We also have the response of Tanjirou's crow to Zenitsu, a Taishou Secret that doesn't get to proceed because Zenitsu is busy hyperventilating, an illustration of Boar-head explaining the different pelts he's wearing, another Taishou Secret showing that Tanjirou can distinguish Nichirintou by their scent, one explaining that Zenitsu used to have black hair before he was struck by lightning, and an illustration of Gotouge with pom-poms to accompany Tanjirou's self-cheerleading at the end of Chapter 24. We cap it off with four 4-koma.

Conclusion:
The Yahaba-Susamaru fight ends well and we go on to properly introduce two new major cast members. If Zenitsu's schtick gets on your nerves, you're going to have to brace yourself. The Kyougai fight makes for a rather memorable set piece, so that's definitely something to look forward to. There's a lot of good stuff here and I'll gladly recommend adding this to your collection.

Rating:
Own It