After a soft reset for Demon Slayer last episode and putting into perspective the endgame of the series, “Water Hashira Giyu Tomioka’s Pain,” the second episode of the Hashira Training Arc, has us back to what Demon Slayer does best — melodramatic backstory.
What Happened in Demon Slayer Season 4, Episode 2?
Following a quick recap of the last episode’s conclusion where Tamayo accepts Ubuyashiki’s offer to stay with the Demon Slayer Corps, we spend the bulk of this episode with Tanjiro as he attempts to help Giyu stop isolating himself from the rest of the Hashira. This directive comes from Ubuyashiki himself, but it’s not a mandate. Instead, Ubuyashiki is worried about Giyu and thinks only Tanjiro can help him overcome whatever is ailing him.
Before Tanjiro leaves to see Giyu, Aoi, one of the caretakers of Butterfly Manor, suggests that sometimes people want to be left alone for a reason and that Tanjiro shouldn’t interfere in Giyu’s business. Despite that, she still prepares Tanjiro and Giyu some rice balls to try as a sign of compassion.
Giyu has always been depicted as a frosty individual since the first episode. He typically keeps a level head and doesn’t let much bother him, so out of all of the Hashira that needed a backstory, it’s weird that we’ve waited four seasons for this moment. Before we understand what’s eating at Giyu, we see Tanjiro incessantly annoy Giyu with his perpetual optimism. I get it — Tanjiro is a person who wears his heart on his sleeve and wants what’s best for everyone, but he can’t read the room. You almost sympathize with Giyu, who has to endure Tanjiro at every waking moment, including when he’s in the bathroom. He’s annoyed to no end and decides to tell Tanjiro what’s going on only so that Tanjiro will leave him alone.
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When Giyu finally decides to share what’s going on, it’s, of course, in the form of a flashback. Unlike flashbacks for previous Hashiras like Muichiro and Mitsuri, I actually like Giyu’s flashback because it builds on a lot of elements already established.
We learn that Giyu and Sabito, the ghost boy who trained Tanjiro at the beginning of the series, were best friends and learned together under the former Water Hashira, Urokodaki. Sabito was the talented one while Giyu struggled to fight against demons. During the Final Selection, Sabito rescued Giyu, who wasn’t able to kill a single demon, with Sabito dying in the process. Because of this, Giyu has developed intense survivor’s guilt and imposter syndrome causing him to think he doesn’t deserve to be a Hashira despite his training day and night to reach Sabito’s level.
It’s an effective backstory that ties together several mysteries surrounding Giyu’s character. It explains the distance he keeps from everyone isn’t from a sense of superiority but rather from feeling like he doesn’t belong amongst the elite. Yet Tanjiro’s reaction to Giyu’s story immediately made me roll my eyes as he repeated the meaning of the story almost word for word and reiterated how sad Giyu must feel.
The longer the series goes on, the more aggravated I become with Tanjiro as a protagonist and how Demon Slayer frames his commentary. We don’t need to see Tanjiro’s internal monologue commenting on Giyu’s story, and we certainly don’t need another comparison to Rengoku, which the series loves to bring up when Tanjiro needs to emotionally connect with someone.
Tanjiro’s brief, one-off comment about how Giyu shouldn’t forget what Sabito gave him is a nice line that makes Giyu reflect on his friendship with Sabito in a way that helps him break out of his negative mindset. But what we don’t need immediately after that is a comedic request from Tanjiro to spend time with Giyu, which takes away from the mood of the moment. It’s frustrating that the one time we get a good flashback that isn’t meant to pad out time and has genuine emotional depth is almost instantly undermined by unnecessary comedy.
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A funny moment that does work is the scene immediately after Giyu shares his backstory. We then cut to Shinobu as she’s trying to keep her emotions in check, just like her sister did, and failing miserably at it. From her facial expression alone, I get a chuckle out of the moment as one can only assume she just learned that she is going to work with Tamayo and has no say in the matter.
While stewing in her frustration, Kanao, her Tsugoku, approaches her and asks her to train her. Shinobu declines but instead offers a compromise: while Shinobu can’t train Kanao before the big battle, she can at the very least teach Kanao how to kill the demon that killed her big sister, the former Flower Hashira.
On the whole, “Water Hashira Giyu Tomioka’s Pain” is an okay episode of Demon Slayer, but it should have been a good one. I’m normally against the glut of backstory the series has become infamous for, but it works here given how it builds upon previously established characters and arcs. What saps most of my positivity away from me is how the show decides to insert comic relief into places it doesn’t need to be. Yes, we are at a point in the series where the stakes aren’t so grave, but undermining meaningful character drama with a soba noodle-eating competition and stalking isn’t the way to do it.
The next episode seems set on starting the training arc in earnest, so here’s hoping that with a clearer direction, Demon Slayer can continue to prepare us for the final arc in a way that doesn’t hamper itself.
And that’s what happened in Demon Slayer Season 4 Episode 2! Come back next week for a look at the next episode of the season!
Demon Slayer is streaming now on Crunchyroll.
Published: May 19, 2024 05:19 pm