Demon Slayer Episode 8

Demon Slayer Episode 8

The Smell of Enchanting Blood

Due to some of the things I plan to say in today’s review I feel that I first need to preface it by mentioning that I think Demon Slayer is a really good anime. In fact, it’s tied for the position of my highest rated anime this season. So don’t take the negative things I say about it as me hating the series.

With that out of the way I do think this series, or more specifically this episode, has a bit too much slapstick comedy. However, I think this can mostly be chalked up to the fact that this is a shounen series after all. If I wanted something completely serious, I should have watched a seinen.

Luckily, the comedy in this episode didn’t detract from any of the action, though it was interrupting the informative portions of the episode. If we’re being told about how the world works, I don’t want the explanation to be constantly interrupted by pointless arguing between characters for comedic purpose.

Anyway, the episode picks up where the previous one left off with Muzan Kibutsuji turning a random civilian into a demon in order to distract Tanjirou. While Tanjirou is holding the man, now demon, down on the ground, Muzan Kibutsuji is able to make a clean getaway.

And this seems to mark a pretty important point in Tanjirou’s development. He could have simply killed the demon and chased after Muzan Kibutsuji, but instead he attempted to restrain the demon. Previously he seems to have had no issue with killing demons, but perhaps it’s because he saw this demon as a human mere seconds earlier that he feels differently.

The Demon Doctor

I’m sure that Tanjirou will slay his fair share of demons in the future, but the fact that he didn’t this time is significant. It shows that he recognizes demons as humans who have been corrupted, not monsters who have been evil from the start.

This recognition also catches the attention of two new characters, Tamayo and Yushiro. Like Muzan Kibutsuji, these two are also demons who are hiding in plain sight. Unlike Muzan Kibutsuji, however, they aren’t actually evil, which I think is a little unfair.

I don’t really have a problem with there being other demons like Nezuko who aren’t evil, but this seems pretty early in the series to be introducing two of them. At this point we’ve met more good demons than bad demons with unique abilities.

Tamayo and Yushiro from the anime series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
Tamayo and Yushiro

And, not only are Tamayo and Yushiro good demons, but Tamayo is a good demon with a unique ability. When she cuts herself, her blood releases a powerful scent which disorients those nearby. If you’re familiar with Naruto you can think of it as a scent-based genjutsu.

Tamayo also works as a doctor (for humans) despite being a demon. She reveals that she was able to break free of Muzan Kibutsuji’s “curse” by altering her body in some way so she no longer has the desire to eat humans. Similarly, Yushiro doesn’t have the desire to eat humans, but for a different reason which I’ll get to in a bit.

So how do these two survive if they don’t eat humans? Do they eat actual food? Do they sleep all the time like Nezuko?

Nope. Instead they simply drink the blood of humans. Due to the changes Tamayo made to their bodies, they require much less sustenance than standard demons and so can get away with only blood. They also purchase blood from humans under the guise of needing it for transfusions.

Bending the Rules

Okay, so here’s the portion of the review where I really discuss some of the issues I have with the episode and series at large. If you’ve been keeping up with my reviews of this series then you’ll know I’ve complained about plot points in one episode being revised an episode or two later. Well this seems to be continuing.

We were originally told that demons are created by the blood of other demons getting into a human. Then it was revealed that this isn’t really the case, and there’s only one demon who has this ability to create other demons. Now the series is backtracking once again and saying that actually other demons can do it too, just Muzan Kibutsuji is better at it.

In fact, Tamayo is one such demon who can turn humans into demons, and Yushiro is proof of this. Yushiro was turned into a human by none other than Tamayo, though he was the first demon she created in 200 years. Tamayo claims that she only turns terminally ill patients into demons, and only if she first gets their consent.

I assumed this to mean that most patients declined being turned into demons, and not that Yushiro is the first demon she created in 200 years because she failed all the other times. However, it was also worded in such a way that it could be read that it took 200 years to complete Yushiro’s transformation into a demon.

Anyway, the point is that Muzan Kibutsuji isn’t the only demon who can create other demons after all. Also the way he creates demons places some sort of curse on them, which Tamayo has discovered how to break. So does this mean that demons are actually only evil if they’re created by Muzan Kibutsuji?

Elixir

Alright, so Tamayo supposedly knows how to break demons free from Muzan Kibutsuji’s curse, but does she know how to revert them back into their human forms? The answer is no, but she does believe that this is possible even if she doesn’t yet know how to do it.

In order to learn how to restore the humanity to demons, Tamayo first needs to learn more about demons in general. While she can perform all the experiments she wants on herself and Yushiro, the fact is that a sample size of two isn’t good enough.

And this is where Tanjirou comes in. Not only does Tamayo request that Tanjirou allow her to take samples of Nezuko’s blood, but she also requests that he gather blood samples from other, powerful demons. And luckily for him, two are about to attack.

The Temari and Arrow Demons from the anime series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
The Temari and Arrow Demons

We don’t actually know anything about these two demons yet other than what little we’ve seen of them in this episode and the OP, so I’ll skip over them for today. But the real question now is how will Tanjirou deal with them?

When he kills demons their bodies disintegrate, so theoretically any blood samples gathered from them would too. Does this mean he has to capture these powerful demons alive so that their blood can be tested? Probably not since shounen series often aren’t worried about plot holes like that, but I can still theorize.

At least Tanjirou now has an actual goal besides simply defeating Muzan Kibutsuji. It’s not a tangible goal because there’s no way to know how many samples of demon blood he’ll need to gather before an elixir is created, but it’s a goal nonetheless.

Conclusion

What did you think of this week’s episode of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba? Are you okay with the series constantly backtracking and rewriting its lore? Do you think now was a good time to introduce more good demons? And how do you think Tanjirou will go about gathering demon blood samples?

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My review of the next episode is available here.

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