With most of the set-up done for this season of Demon Slayer, it’s time for Tanjiro to start training for the final battle in the fittingly titled “Fully Recovered Tanjiro Joins The Hashira Training!!,” an episode that’s almost all original content.
What Happened In Demon Slayer Season 4 Episode 3?
After watching “Fully Recovered Tanjiro Joins The Hashira Training!!”, the first thing I did was glance through the manga to check the content the episode covered and was stunned to find out that this episode adapts a single page. Just one. After the season premiere, I predicted that the bulk of this season would show Tanjiro training with a new Hashira filled with anime-original content, and it seems that’s what Demon Slayer is going to do. So Tanjiro’s first stop in his training is with the former Sound Hashira, the flashy polygamist Tengen Uzui.
I’ve said before that I think the Entertainment District Arc is the show’s best, so seeing an entire episode dedicated to following up on its events was a pleasant surprise. The episode begins with Tengen training the Demon Slayers under him, and, given how he’s the first stop on the training circuit, most of the Slayers he has are pretty weak. He subjects them to strict training that exhausts all of them, but he’s elated when Tanjiro shows up, not only because of their past relationship but because Tanjiro is leagues above the other Demon Slayers.
Tengen says that this training is mostly for Tanjiro to get the rust off of him after being bedridden since the last battle, and Tanjiro blazes through all the physical exercises. He runs up mountains, does endless squats, and shows the huge gap between him and everyone else in the Corps. That’s actually one of the underlying themes of this episode as we get several asides from the other Demon Slayers that the skill level between them and people like Tanjiro and Tengen is too vast. They tell themselves that they have no hope of defeating an Upper Moon demon and find Tengen’s training to be brutal, both physically and mentally, because of it.
Catching Up With Tengen
While Tengen is loud and brash during training, his wives mention to Tanjiro, whenever they get the chance, how Tengen has been after the events in the Entertainment District. When Tanjiro reunited with him at the start of training, Tengen laughed off how the last battle cost him an eye, an arm, and his Hashira status. However, his wives tell Tanjiro that he’s not doing great. He still yearns for battle despite not being able to fight as well as he once did, and he can’t sleep at night due to this. He projects an aggressive attitude, but he’s also caring towards the people he’s training, refusing to eat until everyone has finished their training for the day. If he can’t fight anymore, then he’ll at least train the next generation.
This comes to a head during a mock battle in the woods where Tengen pretends to be a demon and attacks each of the Corps members he’s training except for Tanjiro. He tells Tanjiro to protect the other Slayers while trying to stop him. At first, the Corps members are in a panic and are ready to surrender, but Tanjiro rallies them together, leading by example, to stand their ground against Tengen. In a brief showdown between Tanjiro and Tengen, we can see the fire in Tengen’s eyes as he’s experiencing the joy of battle again. At the conclusion of the training course, the Demon Slayers admit that they’ll never be able to defeat an Upper Moon and can never reach a level where they could realistically defeat one, but at the very least, they can train to support the other Demon Slayers who have a chance.
I actually like this moral quite a bit. Despite introducing a meaningless rank structure, most of the series doesn’t focus on the average member and their fights. We only see the best of the best engage in combat, but the series often forgets that the Demon Slayers are an organization. Seeing the average member train and resolve to try their best to assist the people who can get the job done is a nice wrinkle, especially given how this episode expands on a single page of material.
Outside of Tengen’s Training
Outside of the training sequence with Tengen, we get confirmation that after the soba noodle eating competition from the last episode, Giyu decided that he’ll join the training. We also get a brief meeting between Iguro and Shinazugawa that builds on the first scene of the premiere. The two confide that the Demon Slayers they’re training are worthless and that they’ll get more worthwhile training fighting each other than people infinitely weaker than them. We also see them put the pieces together about the stronghold they were briefly transported into, speculating that the demons have a hideout of their own. And while we don’t see him directly, we do see Muzan begin to make movements of his own, with a new Upper Moon 4 beginning to spy on some of the Demon Slayers.
In isolation, “Fully Recovered Tanjiro Joins The Hashira Training!!” is a good episode. It provides some resolution to the Entertainment District Arc as we see how its aftereffects have impacted Tengen, and we see the effects of the Hashira Training on the average Corps member. I am starting to get a little tired of characters talking about how something big is on the horizon as if the series hasn’t already told us multiple times that we’re in the endgame. The real test of this arc’s quality will come next episode as we focus on the Mist Hashira Muichiro and get into the season’s expected routine.
And that’s what happened in Demon Slayer Season 4 Episode 3! Come back next week for a look at the next episode of the season!
Demon Slayer is streaming now on Crunchyroll.
