Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (2019)

[鬼滅の刃]

Volume 18

Author/Artist: Koyoharu Gotouge
Publisher: Jump Comics

Synopsis:
Tanjirou and Tomioka's battle with Akaza reaches its conclusion.

Story/Characters:
As Tanjirou hones his sensitivity to the "transparent world", he's given not just a supernatural awareness of his own body but also the bodies of others, represented to the reader as a sort of X-ray vision. Tomioka is finding himself overwhelmed and nearly has Akaza's fist go straight through his gut if not for Tanjirou rushing in for the save in a move that neither Tomioka nor Akaza were able to sense. Both can sense the change that's come over Tanjirou and Akaza unleashes one of his most powerful attacks to end things. Tomioka is barely able to avoid getting killed then and there, but he's critically wounded. Akaza begins to make Tomioka the same offer he did for Rengoku, seemingly unaware that Tanjirou is right behind him. Tanjirou, being Tanjirou, has to declare his attack first, but even with this forewarning, Akaza is unable to counter like he normally does because he can't sense any fighting spirit from Tanjirou at all. (His attacks are mostly based on detecting an opponent's fighting spirit and responding to it, you see, a process that's been likened to the interaction of magnetic forces.) Tanjirou manages to cut through his neck, but that alone isn't enough to stop him. However, because he's at a loss at how to respond. As he tries to fix his head in place, Tomioka throws his sword to knock Akaza's head out of his grip. As his head disintegrates, Tanjirou's body starts seizing up from the exertion, but the fight isn't over yet as Akaza's body is still standing. His body starts to attack Tanjirou, who's no longer in any condition to keep fighting. Even so, Tanjirou is trying to figure out what the condition is for defeating him, only to lose consciousness before he can come to an answer. Tomioka comes in for the rescue, but Akaza is more interested in finishing off Tanjirou. Tomioka tries to provoke him into changing targets and Akaza's memories start to come back to him, of the man from before giving his philosophy on martial arts, and then a girl takes hold of his hand and begs him to stop.

Tomioka is making an assessment of his rather dire physical condition but nevertheless gearing himself to go beyond his limits to protect Tanjirou. Meanwhile, Akaza is held in place by the memory of the girl. He tries to get her to let go, but she refuses, repeating her plea for him to stop, asking him why he's doing what he's doing. He needs to get stronger, and the old reasons start to come back to him. He needs to get stronger to get medicine for his father, to steal the money he needs, to fight back when he gets caught, to endure the punishment when he gets handed over to the authorities... We see Akaza at the tender age of eleven being brought before the magistrate after a thorough beating, warned that he'll lose his hand after his next offense. Young Akaza, or Hakuji as he was known back then, is defiant, declaring that if he loses his hands, he'll just use his feet. After being released, however, he learns that his father has hanged himself rather than continue to drive his son to a life of crime for his sake. Young Hakuji becomes even more violent after that, randomly picking fights and such until one day a friendly martial artist appears, originally with the intention of saving this child about to be beaten up by several grown men, only to find the lad has already taken care of matters himself. The martial artist offers to take him on as a student, but Hakuji lashes out, getting thoroughly trashed in the process. The martial artist, named Keizou, brings Hakuji home with him, where he lives with his sickly daughter, Koyuki. Hakuji starts to live there, helping out with the care of Koyuki (whose illness appears to be similar if not the same as his father) and training under Keizou, who goes around using his skills for random acts of do-goodery. However, the dojo doesn't gain any other students because of interference from a neighboring kendo dojo. Still, life seems to go pretty well for them and by the time Koyuki turns sixteen, she's gotten well enough to lead a mostly normal life. Keizou wants Hakuji to take over the dojo for him, and with that comes marriage to Koyuki. Although Hakuji worries that a marked criminal can't offer Koyuki much of a life, he nevertheless pledges to protect her. Unfortunately for him, a life of married bliss wasn't in the cards for him. That rival dojo poisoned their well while Hakuji was away and both Keizou and Koyuki died by the poison. He recalls his pledge to become stronger than anyone else to protect Koyuki as they talked about their future together (something that by no means seemed promised to her when she was younger, to the point where her own mother committed suicide rather than see her child die). If you think this boded ill for the rival dojo, you'd be right. So after a whole lot of kendo practitioners are turned to hamburger, Hakuji encounters Muzan. In the process of becoming an oni, he forgot about his past and only his desire to become stronger remained.

Akaza's head is starting to regenerate as he lumbers toward Tomioka. Tanjirou comes to and tries to intervene, but he loses his grip on his sword and so has to resort to a punch. Normally, this would be wildly ineffective, but it triggers Akaza's memories of Keizou beating him the first time and encouraging him to start a new life. He thinks about how he misused what Keizou taught him and ignored his father's will for him. He prepares to unleash an attack and Tanjirou dives to get Tomioka out of the way, only the power of the attack wasn't directed outward but inward, against the one Akaza hates the most. He curses his body for still regenerating itself and has a vision of both his father and Keizou. Just as it seems like he might be approaching some kind of peace with himself, Muzan appears and goads him on his quest for greater strength. However, the appearance of Koyuki proves to be stronger. Akaza fades and becomes Hakuji once more, while in our world, the mortal shell of the Upper Three crumbles away. With the battle won, Tanjirou means to go to Tamayo's aid, but he's out for the count, as is Tomioka.

We see Kokushibou annoyed at Akaza's failure and Douma confused by what's happened. Douma is facing off with Kanao and he tells he how Akaza refused to eat women, wouldn't even kill them, despite Douma's repeated recommendations. He then weeps for his lost friend and Kanao tells him to drop the act. She can tell that none of his emotions are real, as the telltale signs of a person's mood shifting isn't so different between humans and oni. She sees that he was smart enough to mimic emotion to fit in despite feeling nothing. She then taunts him, asking why he was even born. This does seem to get a genuine reaction out of Douma, as he comments that he's never encountered a girl as mean-spirited as her before. Kanao continues to pile on abuse and nearly gets her head lopped off for it, but she's a hair faster and cuts open his gut. She then dodges his next attack and Douma realizes that she didn't breathe in any of the ice particles when he dodged. (With Slayers relying so heavily on their breathing, Douma's ice attacks are intended to damage the lungs even if the opponent dodges.) Kanao knows the match-up isn't in her favor and her rage is as much a source of strength as it is a liability. In her attacks that follow, Douma is able to suss out that her eyesight is especially keen, so taking out her eyes becomes his focus. First he goes for a direct physical attack, then a frozen mist that could have caused her eyeballs to freeze over if she hadn't gotten away in time. Next, he makes two statues of women to blow icy air (which is a dangerous combination with all the water in the room) to add another hazard in addition to his other attacks. He then does something of a flash-step to snatch Kanao's sword from her, challenging her to get it back from him. As she tries to navigate a path through the impending ice storm that will cause the least damage, Inosuke comes busting through the ceiling to join the fight thanks to the crow's guidance.

Inosuke, being in his own little world as usual, exults at the chance to take out an Upper Kizuki and become a Hashira, waffling between whether he wants to be the Beast Hashira or the Boar Hashira. When he sees how beat-up Kanao is, he scolds her, saying Shinobu is going to be angry with her. Her silence tells him that Shinobu is dead, but Douma asserts that Shinobu, like all the women he's eaten, live on forever within him. Inosuke recalls a previous encounter with Shinobu, when she made him pinky-promise not to pull out the sutures after she sewed him up. That's enough to make him pledge to kill Douma himself. He charges right it, fascinating Douma with his odd technique and incredible flexibility. He's got more surprises up his sleeve (if he ever wore sleeves) as he manages to cut Douma at a distance by dislocating his arm and then effortlessly popping it back into place. Douma is amused and says he's never encountered anyone like him. Inosuke boasts that it's because there is no one like him, but as he's saying this, his boar head suddenly vanishes. Douma unmasks him much as he disarmed Kanao earlier and seeing Inosuke's face, he realizes there's something familiar about it. He has to do a little digging around in his brain (literally), but then he remembers a woman with the same face who came to his cult, badly beaten by an abusive husband. She was a rare example of a woman Douma had no intention of eating because he found her presence comforting. He loved to hear her sing to her baby, especially the pinky promise song. She wasn't a very bright woman, but she had sharp instincts, and when Douma's habit of eating his cultists was exposed, she ran away in a vain attempt to save her baby. In a desperate move, she threw her baby off a cliff rather than let him fall into Douma's hands, a move he saw as entirely pointless. Little would he imagine that the baby would survive and grow into the Slayer standing before him. For Inosuke's part, little fragments of memories come to him as this story is being told. The reason he thought he had some connection with Shinobu was because her making him pinky promise stirred the latent memories of his mother's lullaby. As he puts the pieces together, he thanks Douma for bringing his mother's killer and the killer of his comrade together in one place, and pledges to not just cut off his head but give him a taste of Hell.

Art:
While the latter part of the Akaza fight shows off less technical prowess than what we got last volume, we still get plenty of striking panels. Akaza's backstory gives us a nice visual change of pace and then we go back to getting some nice technical combat in Kanao vs. Douma. As a side note, Kotoha (Ino-Mama) clearly shows where her son got his looks from and it's rather sad seeing one shot of her so happy around Douma considering how it all ends up.

Other:
We get an illustration of Tanjirou directing Inosuke to join the rest of them for the cover of Chapter 152, Yushirou distributing his "eyes" about the place, Murata and Zenitsu falling through the floor while they wait on Yushirou, then Yushirou scolding one of the remaining Slayers for not having any words for their comrades' deaths (they're not dead, by the way). We get an explanation of how Akaza's design and his attacks all evoke his lost memories and two full pages of further explanation on Akaza's backstory (that Gotouge apologizes for not fitting into the main narrative). We also get illustration of Inosuke tormenting the crow that guided him to Kanao and Douma and Kimetsu Academy profiles for the Shinazugawa Brothers.

Conclusion:
There may be some readers who say that the tragic backstories of a lot of the oni don't work for them. If that's your opinion, Akaza's backstory probably won't change that, but if you are drawn to oni as tragic figures, this is the most elaborate treatment we get yet (with at least a good chapter's worth of material that was relegated to end-chapter notes) and honestly could have worked as a feature-length production. It's also interesting seeing Kanao's interactions with Douma and, even more than that, Inosuke's missing backstory. Lots of tragedy bound up in a single volume and we've still got four more to go. This is particularly well-executed in a series that rarely misses a beat, so it should come as no surprise when I recommend this for your collection.

Rating:
Own It