Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Swordsmith Village Arc

Episode 11

Let's go ahead and commence with the disclaimers now so that we can avoid as much hullabaloo as possible going forward: If you're looking for a review of this Demon Slayer season finale that is chock-full of unqualified praise and hype, you won't find it here. I'm sure this will do me no favors with anyone who is still under the impression that my life's purpose is to hate on this show, but "A Connected Bond: Daybreak and First Light" has some problems, and it's my job to get down to the bottom of them. It is not a wholly and irredeemably terrible episode of television, just as Demon Slayer is far from being a terrible and irredeemable anime. However, if we look at this season as a whole, I'd argue that the Swordsmith Village Arc represents most of the series' worst habits at their most concentrated and potent. It also lacks most of the redeeming factors that have made it possible to overlook those faults in the past.

In other words, this season of Demon Slayer was pretty lame, and the season finale doesn't do much to fix that. Instead, it amplifies all the issues that have already dragged this season down, making them even more glaring and obvious. To explain why that is, I'm going to break this very (and needlessly) long final episode down into its parts:

Yes, I know that the demon's name is Hantengu, but one of the biggest issues with this character's entire presence in the story is his lack of, well, presence. The Train Demon from Mugen Train was at least a novel foe for the gang to face, and the siblings from the Entertainment District Arc were, if nothing else, given plenty of personalities. Both of the villains in this arc have been major letdowns in comparison. Mouth-Eyes Guy was just annoying as all get out, but Hantengu suffers from what is arguably a worse and more fatal character flaw: he's boring.

His split-personality gimmick is boring since the individual personalities were never given the time to develop within the storyline. The literal action of this final fight against Tanjiro is tedious because it literally consists of maybe one minute of in-universe time stretched across a dozen minutes of viewing time, thanks to the incessant slow-motion and narration. It's nothing more than Hantengu running around an empty field as Tanjiro repeatedly swings his sword in a circle for the umpteenth time. Demon Slayer even seems to be growing weary of its formula of the requisite mid-battle flashback, as Hantengu's is the most forgettable example of this cliché that the series has ever presented.

The whole thing is just a textbook example of anticlimax. The show seems to be aware of this issue, too, since it tries to inject a bunch of last-minute tension and pathos into the fight with…

This is where I'm most torn because, in a certain sense, this is Demon Slayer giving me exactly what I've been asking for since the first episode of Season 1. After so many frustrating years of Nezuko being nothing more than Tanjiro's little Murder-Tamagotchi, we finally get to see her make a choice of her own that doesn't simply involve killing a bunch of bad guys before getting stuffed back into her box. Sure, that moment of agency involves Nezuko willingly taking a lethal dose of Vitamin D from the sun's rays so that she can throw her brother out to kill some bad guys in her stead, but still! It's her choice, and it is the most humanity and characterization she's been given since she got turned into a damned demon in the first place. It's also the closest that this season has come to giving Tanjiro a tangible conflict to confront, which is, like, the key to developing as a character. What's more, Nezuko can talk again, and she doesn't have to wear that freaking muzzle anymore!

I should be over the moon, and while I'm looking forward to the future storytelling possibilities that Demon Slayer might even bother taking advantage of, all I can do is ask, “Why?” Why did this game-changing event happen right now, in the middle of this lame story that has given neither of the Kamado siblings any meaningful development or interactions with each other? It's not like this is the culmination of a season-long throughline for either Tanjiro or Nezuko, nor is it the consequence of some major, character-defining turning point that the story has provided. The sun just… happened to come out at an inconvenient time. Was that the only thing Nezuko needed? A tanning session?

Before anyone starts jumping into the comments with some sort of lore-based explanation that is bound to arrive in future episodes or whatever, let me be clear: I don't care why Nezuko suddenly "decided" to regain some of her maturity while also enhancing her SPF powers on a world-building level. I want to know why the authors of this manga and its adaptation thought it would be a satisfying and well-earned payoff on a narrative level. Because it's none of those things.

Since the whole "Maybe Nezuko is Dead! Actually, Never mind, She's Better Now!" rings so false when you hold it up to even a little bit of scrutiny, the only explanation to fall back on is the simplest one, and the most damning. It ends up feeling like Demon Slayer knew that these final boss fights for the Swordsmith Village Arc sucked, so it took the most emotionally manipulative path possible to try and get its audience to overlook such a major failing. It didn't work.

Being zero for two at such a late stage is never a good sign, but there's still hope, right? After all, there's still one major thread left hanging that needs to be wrapped up, and considering how many weeks the show has spent building up these characters, not to mention ufotable's trademark pedigree in action and spectacle, there's no way we won't be disappointed in...

Haha, psych! This part is a giant waste of time! Hatred vanishes like an afterthought, and Mitsuri spends the entire finale wandering around and providing comic relief. We could have cut both characters out of this arc entirely, and we wouldn't have lost anything of value. Next section.

I don't know, it's fine, I guess? We learn more about Muzan's whole deal, and while his flashback didn't resonate with me, I chuckled at the dark comedy of the one maid not even knowing how to react when her friend's head randomly explodes in Little Muzan's presence. I also had a few laughs when Haganezuka assumed that Tanjiro broke his sword again. Um... it was kind of cute when Kotetsu got his head patted by Nezuko?

Why was this finale nearly an hour long, again?

This was a disappointing finale to a very disappointing season of Demon Slayer. I've been increasingly frustrated with the show's reliance on repetitive formulas and weak characterization since the first season ended, but at least the last two seasons have played better when you get to binge them whole and appreciate the sum of their parts. I was lukewarm on Mugen Train, and I found watching the Entertainment District arc week-to-week to be a very uneven experience. But I've found more to like in each of those stories after the fact.

This, though? I can't ever imagine sitting down to watch even a single episode of this season again, and the thought of scarfing it all down in just one or two sittings is enough to give me a headache. It's the first time that Demon Slayer has managed to amount to less than the sum of its parts, and it's quite a bit less, I'm sorry to say. Worst of all, it made me almost miss having Zenitsu around. That is an unpardonable sin. I can only hope that whatever comes next is better than this.

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Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Swordsmith Village Arc is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.