Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (2017)

[鬼滅の刃]

Volume 8

Author/Artist: Koyoharu Gotouge
Publisher: Jump Comics

Synopsis:
Tanjirou successfully lands the deathblow on Enmu, but the battle is not over yet.

Story/Characters:
It may sound odd to say when we're talking about a train, but we open on Tanjirou taking Enmu's head and there's one last surge of Enmu's body that leads to the train getting derailed. With Tanjirou having a hole in his gut, he's left in a bad way, yet still he insists on Inosuke saving the engineer who stabbed him (and also asking Inosuke not to make good on his threat to pull all the hairs out of the guy's head). The remaining bit of Enmu is reflecting on his failure and tries in vain to kill the vulnerable Tanjirou before he crumbles away. Rengoku shows up to coach Tanjirou on using his breathing technique to stop his bleeding and then informs him that they succeeded in saving all the passengers on the train.

We're all feeling pretty good, but then he shows up. It's one of the Kizuki, the Upper Third, Akaza. He's come with an offer for Rengoku: become an oni and surpass his human limits. You see, Akaza is all about strength and as an "iron sharpens iron" kind of guy, he sees someone with Rengoku's potential as a path to even greater strength for himself. Rengoku, however, isn't interested and so the two come to blows. Rengoku puts up an admirable fight, but he's outmatched. Tanjirou wants to help, but even if he wasn't injured, there wouldn't be much he could do. It's interesting that Akaza is practically begging Rengoku to take his offer over death, but a flashback to his late mother encouraging him to devote his strength to protecting the weak gives Rengoku the push he needs to make a go for Akaza's head, holding him in a bind so that if his sword doesn't get through, the soon to be rising sun will. (Oh, and did I mention that he's doing this with Akaza's first having gone through his torso, one eye put out, ribs broken, and assorted internal injuries?) Tanjirou and Inosuke rush in to assist, but Akaza manages to break off both his arms and Rengoku's blade (halfway into his neck) to get free just in the nick of time. Tanjirou makes a desperation attack, throwing his sword and sticking Akaza in the chest, then starts screaming at him not to run away. It's great to see Akaza's pride pricked. Ordinarily, someone like Tanjirou would get instantly splatted by an oni of Akaza's power, but with the sun already out, his only choices are to run away or die.

With the threat having passed, Rengoku uses his final moments to offer some words of encouragement to the young swordsmen. It's particularly nice to see him acknowledge Nezuko based on her actions to protect the passengers. He then has a vision of his mother that allows him to pass in peace. No, I'm not crying. You're crying. Shut up. (Yes, I sound like Inosuke, who's bawling so much that the tears are flooding out of the eyes of his mask, so he must be positively drowning under that boar hide.) We close the chapter seeing the Hashira's reactions as they receive the news and Ubuyashiki praising Rengoku's efforts while saying that he'll soon be joining him.

We cut to well-to-do family with the lady of the house boasting of her talented little boy. Said little boy is actually Muzan in shota form. Akaza comes to report, but killing a Hashira isn't as much of an accomplishment in Muzan's eyes. He wants all the Demon Slayers dead and with three having survived, it's a failure that nearly gets Akaza killed. Needless to say, after being narrowly spared, Akaza makes a point to vent his frustrations on Tanjirou's sword and vow to kill him the next time they meet. Back at the Kochou residence, the gang is recuperating, but the nurses are in a panic as Tanjirou is missing. Though still weak from his injuries, Tanjirou heads out to the Rengoku family home to pay his respects. He meets Rengoku's kid brother and then runs into his father. Now, we weren't given a great impression of the elder Rengoku from our Rengoku's dream sequence and meeting him in the flesh doesn't improve things any. He's drunk and cursing his son for his weakness. Then he notices Tanjirou's earrings and goes into a rant about the users of the Sun Breathing technique and their supposed superiority. He starts fighting Tanjirou and smacks Senjurou (kid brother) when he tries to intervene. Between the insults to one son and the violence against another, Tanjirou snaps back. Not only does he not know anything about Sun Breathing, but he couldn't be farther from feeling superior when made the viscerally feel just how weak he is. Of course, the elder Rengoku isn't in any way rational or reasonable and he ends up being on the receiving end of one of Tanjirou's patented headbutts. Later, a mortified Tanjirou apologizes to Senjurou, but Senjurou was happy to see someone stand up for his brother. He offers to help Tanjirou find out more about Sun Breathing and the Hinokami Kagura. However, one of the old family records has been ruined by Senior in one of his fits of pique. Senjurou says he'll do what he can to recover as much usable information as possible and Tanjirou leaves him with his brother's last words to him and to his father. Senjurou later relays those words to dear ol' dad, and when it's not the sort of bitter spite he was expecting, reality slaps him hard and for the first time, he sincerely mourns his son's death.

Tanjirou returns to find Haganezuka waiting for him and the two play tag until daybreak. (Tanjirou would have a few more holes in him if Haganezuka got ahold of him. That boy really needs to stop losing swords.) We then see the boys going through rehab again and easing back into low-level missions when one day Tanjirou returns to find the nurses in an uproar as a man is carrying off Aoi and one of the other girls. You might recall this man as one of the Hashira, Tengen Uzui. Aoi is begging Kanao to help, but she's stuck in brain-lock, unable to defy a superior. She longs for her coin to help her, but then she remembers what Tanjirou told her about making decisions for herself and so she grabs onto Tengen to stop him. Only she doesn't say anything, so all it serves to do is creep Tengen out. Not knowing what's going on, Tanjirou mistakes Tengen for a kidnapper and charges in to save the captive girls. However, his patented headbutt fails to connect. After some arguing, we learn that Tengen is recruiting for a mission. As the one nurse isn't a proper member of the Corps, he lets her go, but Aoi isn't let off the hook so easily. With Zenitsu and Inosuke joining in, Tanjirou vows to take on the mission instead. Tengen decides to take them up on the offer, but only on the condition that they follow his orders to the letter. He then lets Aoi go with a little slap on the rear, then tells his new recruits that they're going to be infiltrating the red-light district (or "entertainment district" if you want to go with the bowdlerized translation).

Art:
I can't say I'm a huge fan of Akaza's design, but we get an impressive fight between him and Rengoku. And, dagnab, that smile as Rengoku goes out... Lots of tears being shed. On the page. By the characters. Definitely not me. It's a nice bit of relief to have the antics of the "kidnapping" at the end to help us switch gears before going into the next arc.

Other:
We get illustrations of Inosuke shoulder-checking the train to get the engineer free, the specter of Rengoku's mom, Tanjirou struggling to his feet to aid Rengoku, Nezuko giving Zenitsu a lap pillow, Senjurou weeping at the news of his brother's death, Shinobu annoyed at Tanjirou for leaving his hospital bed without permission, a description of the corkscrew headbutt Tanjirou used on Rengoku Sr., some helpful information about how Haganezuka can be appeased with an offering of mitarashi dango, and a flustered Zenitsu after hearing that they're going to the red-light district (with an oblivious Tanjirou and Inosuke). There's also a pair of 4-koma that were in the 2017 Issues 21 and 22 of Shounen Jump.

Conclusion:
I got to see these events portrayed on the big screen courtesy of Ufotable's gorgeous animation work and you might think the impact is lessened in the form of static images, but as far as I'm concerned, the emotional punch is every bit as strong. There are a number of powerful moments in this series, but Rengoku's valiant last stand takes the cake for me. Prepare to get punched in the feels about as hard as Rengoku gets punched by Akaza and add this to your collection.

Rating:
Own It