Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba slashed its way onto television in 2019. Telling the story of Tanjiro, a boy searching for a way to turn his sister Nezuko back into a human after their entire family is butchered by demons and she is transformed into one, the series quickly gained legions of fans with its incredible fight sequences and top-notch animation. At Anime Expo 2019 in Los Angeles, Aniplex of America had a special treat in store for those eagerly awaiting more. Not only did they premiere the newest episode, 15, titled Mount Montagumo (correction: Natagumo), they also had a special guest appearance by Aniplex producer Yuma Takahashi. We were in the audience, and what we witnessed had us ready to take on demons by ourselves by the end.
Inn to the Mountain
In the episode’s cold open, Zenitsu explodes at Tanjiro, brandishing his sword and saying that guys like him have to be purged from the Demon Corps. Tanjiro, with Nezuko beside him, is naturally confused at this outburst as Zenitsu attacks. Cue the opening credits.
In a room in the Wisteria Inn, the box that Tanjiro carries Nezuko around in opens, and she crawls out, albeit in her smaller form. After standing up in her regular form, she notices Zenitsu after he calls out to her. Completely smitten by her, as shown by his entire body wriggling, he quickly moves in super close. Nezuko, of course, is taken aback and starts running away. Tanjiro appears and tells him to stop. Zenitsu doesn’t care and then starts chasing Nezuko AND Tanjiro in a circle around the room.
In the meantime, Inosuke sits on the porch outside of the room (keeping watch probably), and a short old woman, who is likely the proprietor of the inn, kindly offers him bath clothes and suggestions for food. He doesn’t answer her in any way, not because he’s being rude but because he’s asleep. He suddenly wakes up, enters the room where the others are, and starts chasing everyone. However, the silliness is interrupted by the appearance of the black messenger crow who lands in front of Tanjiro, Nezuko, and Inosuke and tells them to go to the mountain.
The old lady sends them off, wishing them well. Afterward, Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu are seen running on a forest road on their way toward their destination, discussing the old priopertess’s send-off after Inosuke questions why she would bother caring about strangers.
After the sun has set, the trio arrives at the mountain and its foreboding nature causes Zenitsu to cower excessively in fear (as usual). He sits down in the middle of the path (knees up with his arms around his legs) and refuses to go any further. Then, Tanjiro smells something troubling. He runs toward the source of the smell and Inosuke follows him. The smell leads them to an injured youth, fallen on his stomach on the road and in a small pool of blood—they recognize him as a fellow demon slayer. When they go to make sure the boy is okay, the boy is lifted up by invisible strings, pulled into the air, and into the mountain forest.
What awaits them in the forest? Nothing good. As viewers, we’re shown a series of short sequences: small white spiders crawling in unison across rocks, a girl sitting in a tree, four bodies hanging from trees and tangled/cocooned in spider webbing, a beastly figure of a humanoid in shadow standing on a rocky outcropping, and finally a person with extremely long white hair sitting on a rock in a clearing with his or her back toward the camera.
As Inosuke and Tanjiro journey through the mountain forest searching for the youth, Inosuke gets his hands stuck in spider webbing. He shakes it off, but they see that it’s everywhere. Then they see a person in the distance—another demon slayer. When they catch up to him, the slayer says that sending backup won’t help. He was originally a part of a group of ten or so slayers who entered the mountain forest, but they were wiped out after they suddenly started attacking one another (like they were puppets being controlled). He’s now the lone survivor.
Elsewhere, a guy with a scar on his face and a classy-looking girl (both seen in the opening credits), named Giyu and Shinobu, are dispatched to provide help. At the same time, back on the path to the mountain, Zenitsu is still sitting in the path, lamenting that Tanjiro and Inosuke left him. A sparrow appears and seemingly tries to cheer him up, which doesn’t work all that well. In fact, it ends up biting him in anger/frustration! Only after realizing that his beloved Nezuko is with Tanjiro does he find the motivation to get up and go toward the mountain as fast as he can.
Back in the mountain forest, Tanjiro, Inosuke, and the slayer hear a weird noise, the same noise the survivor heard before his original group was attacked. Then they see a number of blank-eyed demon slayers shuffling toward them and then attacking. Inosuke wants to kill them all, but Tanjiro stops him, saying that some are still alive. Tanjiro realizes the slayers are being controlled by threads and cuts the lines. However, it doesn’t last long as he then notices that small spiders are spinning new ones. Inosuke tries to kill the spiders individually, but there are far too many to kill.
A demon male with short white hair appears, seemingly floating amid the treeline, but no, he’s just balanced on more webbing. Inosuke tries to attack him, but the new demon is out of reach and then disappears. They have to find the demon controlling the spiders, so Tanjiro asks if Inosuke has any techniques that will help. Fortunately, he does: some sort of black-and-white echolocation sense, which works.
The episode ends with the demon male saying, “The five of us will live together, and no one will break our bond.”
Spidey Sense
Watching an anime premiere in a packed auditorium is a totally different experience from watching it alone or even watching it with a group of friends. There is just so much energy, especially for a series as loved as Demon Slayer. The funny moments are more humorous, and the serious moments are that much more intense. Whether it was us laughing as Zenitsu playfully chased after Nezuko, got into a fight with the sparrow, or did the Taisho Secret at the end with said sparrow, we loved every second of it.
As for the episode itself, it was a fantastic mix of lighthearted comedy and deep foreboding. Zenitsu, naturally, provides most of said laughs as a result of his crush on Nezuko or by literally being a bird-brain. He’s not alone, though. Newcomer and boar head enthusiast Inosuke has his moments as well, joining in the Nezuko and Tanjiro chase for seemingly no other reason than the fact that it’s happening. These moments are most welcome because the latter two-thirds of the episode are just ominous.
First of all, the sun is already setting as they make their way toward the mountain. The fading light casts everything in deep shadows, making things seem bad before anything has even happened. Plus, between the mysterious acrid odor that Tanjiro smells and Zenitsu’s cowering before they even arrive, you just know it’s not going to be good. Their discovery of the slayer collapsed on the road, followed by his equally sudden exit ratchets the tension up even more. Once they actually enter the forest itself, there are, of course, the spiders. The cut to a close-up of a large white spider was certainly not pleasant for this arachnophobe, nor was the thought of being cocooned in webbing. Heck, just seeing Insosuke shake webs off his hand was off-putting because we’ve all walked into webbing before. The idea of doing so in a dark forest proves that I wouldn’t make it past this mission if I were in the Demon Slayer Corps.
Thankfully, they use the cowardly Zenitsu again to ease up on the tension, and even tease backup from two more experienced demon slayers. Still, Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu will no doubt have many difficulties to face before that happens, including their own shaky partnership. I, along with everyone else there, am excited to see how they do.
They Slayed Us
As mentioned before, the airing of the latest episode wasn’t the only surprise at the event. Just for attending, each person received a postcard-sized Demon Slayer Anime Expo magnet. But after the episode ended and the cheering stopped, the moderator introduced the series producer Yuma Takahashi as a special guest.
He brought a pre-recorded video that stated that the audience at Anime Expo 2019 was the first in the world to see episode 15, which was cool to hear. It also featured messages from the four main Japanese voice actors: Natsuki Hanae (Tanjiro), Akari Kitou (Nezuko), Hiro Shimono (Zenitsu), and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Inosuke). After the video ended, Mr. Takahashi was asked about his favorite character in the show. He surprisingly picked one of the new characters, Shinobu Kochu. He liked that she was beautiful as well as strong. In talking more about his preferences, he said that he wanted people to notice the detail in the backgrounds. A lot of care was taken.
From there, he moved onto more videos, detailing the animation process undertaken by studio ufotable. They used the short scene from episode 12 of Zenitsu using his Thunder Breathing form to kill the house demon as an example. First, they showed the final video that aired. Then they broke it down, beginning with the tracking shot that starts with a view of his sword sheath and ends with a side view of his head. Such a scene could have been handled by creating a still image and then “animating” it through nothing but camera work. However, the animators at ufotable opted not to go through that route because it was too easy. Instead, they took the harder route, drawing the entire shot by hand. Yet another video focused on the thunder strike itself, starting with the black and white line drawing, moving to the CG model, then adding the lightning effect in, before again showing the finished clip. It’s really impressive stuff.
They also talked about that incredible water-breathing effect when Tanjiro fights—you know the ones, the distinct Japanese waves that appear. Well, it turns out that those are all hand drawn as well. Yes, you read that correctly. Computer graphics are not used at all to add those beautiful blue waves. Mind blown. That’s the mark of a truly skilled and dedicated animation studio.
To wrap up the event, four scripts signed by the Japanese voice actors were raffled off. Sadly, I did not win, but really, that would have just been the second layer of icing on the cake. Aniplex of America promised a special event, and they fulfilled that in every sense of the word. Now, the only demon left to slay is the time between now and the airing of episode 16. Wish me luck!