Demon Slayer: Entertainment District Arc
Season Overview
Demon Slayer: Entertainment District Arc (Kimetsu no Yaiba: Yuukaku-hen / 鬼滅の刃 遊郭編) is the second season of the Demon Slayer anime and canonically follows the Mugen Train Arc, which falls between the two seasons.
As the title of the season implies, this season only covers a single arc: the Entertainment District Arc. And because of this, the season is only 11 episodes long. Though, as I’ll get into later on in this review, even that was a bit too long for the arc.
The very beginning of the arc pics up right after the Mugen Train Arc. Tanjirou visits the Rengoku house to deliver Kyoujurou’s final words to his father and brother. And right away, we’re given some new information about breathing techniques.
Once we get all that out of the way, the arc actually begins and Tanjirou, Inosuke, and Zenitsu go with the Sound Hashira, Tengen Uzui, to the red-light district. Yes, the English subtitle for the arc is Entertainment District, but it’s a red-light district.
As you might have guessed, Tengen isn’t taking them there to have a good time. In fact, he already has three wives. So, he basically has his own personal red-light district already.
Jokes aside, rumor has it that one of the Upper Six Demon Moons has made the red-light district their hunting ground. Consorts have been disappearing from the various brothels in the district, and other people have been dying mysteriously.
However, what doesn’t really make sense to me is that it should be well-known that an Upper Six demon is located here. After all, this demon has already killed multiple Hashira over the past century. Clearly, a strong demon is here.
Arc Hashira and Demon(s)
As mentioned, the Hashira of this arc is Tengen Uzui, the Sound Hashira. Overall, I have to say he’s not my favorite Hashira we’ve met so far. Rengoku is definitely better. And I think I’d even say that Shinobu is better. But, that doesn’t mean Tengen is a bad character.
My problem with Tengen is primarily that he feels a bit too similar to Rengoku in some ways. I mentioned this in one of my episode reviews, but it sometimes feels like Tengen acts like Rengoku on purpose in front of his allies and opponents.
For example, during one of the big fights at the end of the season, Tengen was clearly injured. But when the demon pointed that out, Tengen just gave a big smile and said that he was feeling great. That’s something Rengoku would do, but he’d genuinely mean it.
What’s unique about Tengen is that he’s a former ninja who cast away that lifestyle and now lives as the flashiest Hashira. As you can see by his appearance, he’s not exactly trying to blend in and hide. I’d like him more if his past as a ninja had a bigger effect on his personality.
I guess I’m just going to spoil that there are actually two demons who hold the title of Upper Six. The reason for this is that they’re siblings who are connected so that they can share a body (or not). This also means that to kill them, they both need to be decapitated.
Daki (the younger sister) can control a bunch of cloth belts to attack her enemies. She can also turn her neck into cloth so it’s harder to cut. Gyuutarou (the older brother) uses poisoned sickles made of his blood and can control his blood outside of his body.
Not a Great Arc
There’s one big issue with the Entertainment District Arc. That issue is that there’s only one really good episode, and maybe one other episode I would just consider good. Overall, the arc is pretty boring and I think it’s extremely overrated.
Daki isn’t a very good villain. She’s kind of a joke until the end. And even when she starts to be more of a threat, her ability just isn’t interesting. Gyuutarou is a good villain. But he’s only at the end of the arc and it’s really only a single episode that makes him a good villain.
We also get the backstory of Daki and Gyuutarou after they’ve been killed. And by that point, I no longer care about their backstory. The final episode of the arc was bad for a lot of reasons, but that’s one of them.
Even before the ending, however, the arc had its issues. For example, the first half of the arc didn’t really have anything happening. Our protagonists were investigating various brothels and not much came of that. Daki was the demon in all three brothels so it’s not like there was much of a mystery.
Also, while investigating the brothels in search of demons, our protagonists were also supposed to locate Tengen’s wives who had gone missing. I hoped that his wives would become relevant characters after they were rescued. However, that didn’t really pan out.
One of his wives, Hinatsuru, played a small role in the final battle. But her assistance didn’t amount to much in the end. I wanted them to be actual characters. Instead, they were primarily plot devices.
I get that people think they love this season because it had one episode that was amazingly animated. But the season as a whole is nothing special and I don’t get the hype.
Conclusion
In the end, I gave Demon Slayer: Entertainment District Arc a 6/10, which is almost 3 points lower than its current average score. I enjoyed it. But not much happened and it definitely didn’t need to be 11 episodes. It could have been 6 like the Mugen Train Arc.
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My review of the Swordsmith Village Arc is available now.
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