Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (2018)

[鬼滅の刃]

Volume 13

Author/Artist: Koyoharu Gotouge
Publisher: Jump Comics

Synopsis:
The swordsmith village comes under attack by two Upper Kizuki.

Story/Characters:
Thanks to Tanjirou's super sniffer, we learn that Genya's shotgun was crafted from the same metal as the Nichirintou. However, his warning to Genya comes too late as Genya manages to take Sekido and Karaku's heads, causing two more splits to spawn, Aizetsu and Urogi. Tanjirou gets snapped up into the air by Urogi, but he tells Nezuko to help out Genya, who's just gotten impaled by Aizetsu. Meanwhile, Tokitou is rushing back to the scene when he sees Kotetsu being attacked by a weird fish monster spawned by Gyokko. At first, he does a cold equation calculation, dismissing Kotetsu as a low priority, but then he remembers what Tanjirou said about helping people and saves the kid. After Tokitou dispatches the monster, Kotetsu begs him to save Haganezuka, who's tirelessly working on the sword from the puppet. Tokitou's about to dismiss the request, but then he remembers his first encounter with Ubuyashiki, when he was found on the verge of death with no memories. What Ubuyashiki told him about recovering his memories seems to be the trigger that gets him to choose Kotetsu's request over the larger goal of protecting the village as a whole.

Back to Tanjirou, he cuts apart a piece of Urogi and panics at first for causing another split, but rather than a whole new fully formed oni, it's just a piece of the same one and what's more, Tanjirou realizes that these successive splits are weaker, which gives him new confidence and he goes on the offensive, hoping to at least take out this one so he can get back to Nezuko and Genya. Speaking of Nezuko, she's deadlocked with Karaku and while Aizetsu is about to finish off Genya, he gets surprised when Genya is taking the spear in his chest in stride and proceeds to blast off the oni's head now that he's nice and close. This doesn't quite get the job done, though, and Aizetsu draws out the spear with the expectation Genya will quickly bleed out. Genya starts chanting a sutra and Aizetsu thinks he's on his last legs, but when he brings his spear down on Genya's head, he almost instantaneously gets behind him and would've taken his head again if not for interference by Sekido. Seeing Genya smacked around gets Karaku's juices flowing and he sticks his foot right through Nezuko. Nezuko responds by nearly kicking his head off and then using her Blood Art to set him alight, tearing off his arm and then using his fan to send him blasting off again. She nearly does the same to Sekido, but he stabs her through the throat with his shakujou. We briefly cut to Tanjirou still struggling with Urogi before returning to Genya against Aizetsu. It's then back to Tanjirou as he drives Urogi back toward the house where Nezuko and Genya are. He rescues Nezuko, only for Sekido to turn the tables on him and he ends up being saved by Nezuko in turn, who catches the shakujou and then gives Sekido a taste of the heat. Unfortunately, Karaku makes his way back and uses his fan to knock both Tanjirou and Nezuko out of commission. Sekido, Karaku and Urogi then come together and finish them off.

While all this is going on, Tokitou and Kotetsu find Kanamori (who I thought was the villager Gyokko ate last volume and actually had to go back and amend my review), who is ready to give Tokitou his new sword and also lead them to Haganezuka, but before any of that can happen, they stumble upon Gyokko's vessel. Gyokko introduces himself and shows off some of his "art", a mishmash of bodies of swordsmiths he's killed thus far. Naturally, Kanamori and Kotetsu are particularly horrified to see what has been done to their fellow villagers, which isn't made any better by Gyokko's commentary on his craftsmanship. Tokitou has enough and makes a go at Gyokko, only to find that he can transport himself from one pot to the next. Gyokko is annoyed to be interrupted and even more annoyed when Tokitou breaks one of his pots. He releases a bunch of goldfish monsters that spit big needles (or small spikes, if you wish to think of them that way). When they go after Kanamori and Kotetsu, Tokitou shields them, tanking dozens of needles with his body. Of course these needles are poisoned and Gyokko mocks Tokitou over his impending death. This sparks some of Tokitou's memories, of summer heat and someone like Gyokko. He moves in to cut Gyokko, who responds with his Blood Art, trapping Tokitou in a big glob of water. Besides the simple effectiveness of killing someone by drowning, the main idea behind this technique is to cut off the breathing techniques that are the Slayers' primary source of strength. Things look grim, but we cut to see Kanroji rushing back to the village to join the fight.

We see the village being overrun by fish monsters when Kanroji shows up to start clearing them out. A particularly big one was putting the crush on Tecchin the chieftain, but Kanroji manages to save him in just the nick of time. Meanwhile, Nezuko managed to recover ahead of Tanjirou and has been running around with her brother slung over he shoulder trying to avoid the attacks of Sekido, Karaku and Urogi. The oni trio lose their patience with all this running around and just take out the whole building. Nezuko is pinned under the wreckage, so she takes hold of Tanjirou's sword and cuts her hands with it to imbue the blade with the fire of her Blood Art, turning it read. This triggers a genetic memory about the samurai who used Sun Breathing back in the Sengoku Period, how his blade was normally black but would turn red when he was fighting. When Tanjirou then faces off against the oni trio, they in turn have Muzan's memories of that same samurai as Tanjirou proceeds to unleash the Hinokami Kagura on them. He cuts them up nicely, but he figures he needs to take out all four to finish the job. He then sees Genya having impaled Aizetsu to a tree and taken his head, but when he turns to Tanjirou, he looks like an oni himself. The more pressing concern, however, is that beheading the four oni hasn't done the job and Tanjirou's nose is able to suss out that there's a fifth body they haven't seen yet. Before he can get to that, Genya attacks him, grabbing him by the neck and ranting about how the credit for taking down the Upper Kizuki is his and that he's the one who's going to become a Hashira. Tanjirou ends up handling him much as he does Inosuke whenever he's ego tripping, simply ceding the point and pledging his whole-hearted support. Naturally, a suspicious person like Genya wouldn't believe such a claim but those gosh-darned pure honest eyes of ol' Tanjirou gives even him pause. Somewhat dialing down his berserker mode, Genya, Tanjirou and Nezuko coordinate to find the fifth body just as the other four are starting to recover from Tanjirou's attack (which greatly impeded their natural healing). A pitched fight ensues with Tanjirou supporting Nezuko while giving directions to Genya on the location of the fifth body. Not finding the fifth body, Genya starts to think there's some sort of illusion at work until he looks down and sees a tiny version of Hantengu scurrying about on the ground. Genya tries shooting him and then goes for a cut, but his blade snaps. He then senses Sekido's presence behind him and realizes that he can't dodge in time and that the attack is almost sure to kill him. In the final split-seconds he has left, he thinks on how he wanted to become a Hashira so that his brother would acknowledge him and so he could apologize for what happened "that time".

We cut to a flashback of Genya's past. We see his parents, his tiny and gentle mother and his big good-for-nothing father. One day, when Genya was left minding the house and his many siblings while his brother went out looking for their missing mother, they're attacked by a "wolf". His brother comes to their rescue, but all the younger siblings are badly wounded. Genya runs out to get a doctor, only to find his brother in the middle of the street standing over their mother's body. Distraught, he condemns his brother as a murderer, realizing well after the fact that it was no wolf that attacked them but rather their mother after having been turned into an oni. As Genya's thoughts reflect on how horrible it must have been for his brother to be forced to kill his beloved mother, only to be condemned by the one he was trying to save, we get a scene from earlier still, when Sanemi (that being Genya's brother) tells him that they're going to have to protect their family after their father was killed. In this moment brimming with regret, Genya recalls when he was reunited with his brother in the Demon Slayer Corps, who coldly brushes him off, denouncing any familial connection and telling him to quit the Corps. Before Sekido's deathblow can land, his shakujou gets diverted by Tanjirou. Tanjirou encourages him to keep fighting, to claim his place as a Hashira. Tanjirou's efforts to shield Genya come up short, though, as he's about to take a nasty hit, but Genya takes the attack in his place, conceding that he can't take Hantengu's head and is giving the opportunity to Tanjirou. As there's no time to argue, Tanjirou chases down Hantengu and makes the cut and the moment it's about to connect... cliffhanger. ^_^

Art:
The four splits of Hantengu (five technically) make for an intense and visually diverse battle, with each of them having their own techniques. Gyokko and his fish monsters are sufficiently creepy but don't make for quite as interesting action set pieces. Nezuko gets some particularly nice moments as she takes some hard hits and hits back harder. She really has some great counters. I especially like her roasting Aizetsu after he spears her.

Other:
We get to see what Kotetsu looks like under the mask, a little bit of trivia about Himejima (the Rock Hashira) and his hobby of flute-playing, extra illustrations from Issues 33 and 36-37 of Shounen Jump (including a rendering of Arale from Dr. Slump by Gotouge), Kanamori and Kotetsu's reaction to Gyokko, an apology from Gotouge for getting the names of the nurse trio mixed up in Volume 7, a further apology for his excitement about the anime adaptation potentially being confused for excitement over the swordsmiths' village being attacked, a list of Tanjirou's penpals, some trivia about Sumiyoshi's wife Suyako (from the memory about the blade turning red), and the Kimetsu Academy entry for Gyuutarou and Ume.

Conclusion:
Last volume was the warmup and here we're in the thick of it. Hantengu's gimmick makes for a grand battle. With both Nezuko and Genya capable of taking far more damage than an ordinary human can survive, we get some really hard-hitting attacks, not that Tanjirou or Tokitou are slouches when it comes to taking hits. We get some tantalizing hints about the past as well, so that's nice, too. Pretty much, everything you're here for is in fine form and that's more than enough reason to add this to your collection.

Rating:
Own It