OPINION: Demon Slayer Outshines Attack on Titan

Photo++Credit%3A+Flickr

Photo Credit: Flickr

Simone Chery, OwlFeed Lifestyle Reporter

Major Spoilers Ahead

On one end, life is faced with demons and fighting art styles, whereas, in another world, viciously powerful titans and war disrupt the ways of humanity. 

January 7, 2022, was the premiere of Attack on Titan’s season 4 comeback and the new showing of Demon Slayer’s sixth episode in the Entertainment District arc. Despite the series being two very completely different shows, the theme and action sequences of Demon Slayer’s episode outshined Attack on Titan’s first day back.

Summing up the seven new episodes as of Sunday the 16th, the storyline of the Red Light District arc has been very interesting. After the death of Kyojuro Rengoku, rank seven Hashira, Tanjiro Kamado, Zenitsu Agutsuma, and Inoskue Hashibira were back at the Demon Slayer corps to regroup and mourn the passing of their friend. 

With a new Mission, Tengen Uzui, upper rank six, needed to recruit women in the corps, but Tanjiro and his two friends took the initiative to go with Tengen disguised as women to take down the upper-rank demon in the red light district who have been murdering people in the town.

Off on their mission, the trio finds out not only are they tracking down the demon, but they’re also looking for Tengen’s missing three wives who also have the same mission. They were separated into three different brothels disguised as women; Tokito House, Kyogoku House, and the Ogimoto House.

Through the next couple of episodes, the boys and Tengen continue to search and confer on what they’ve learned about the whereabouts of the wives and the demon. With sudden dangerous interactions, the loss of friends, and frustrations from the mission, the sixth episode is where everything truly goes down.

With new information on the demon known as Daki with powerful sashes which aid in her fight and hold victims to later eat them as a blood demon art, Tanjiro seeks the demon and is cornered with Nezuko in tow. Of course, a fight breaks out and Daki soon finds out Tanjiro can put up more of a fight than she had expected. Tanjiro foresees his defeat and amidst the fight changes three different art styles.

Beginning with water and unable to do major damage, switching to flame, and lastly to sun breathing. An art style is a sword fighting style that is represented by earth elements in a way. With the guidance and influence of the previous hanafuda owner, Yoriichi Tsugikuni, Tanjiro becomes possessed by the power of sun-breathing with the remaining energy he has left, and nearly kills Daki.

Throughout the fight, it was filled with blood and gore within such an intriguing and tactical battle. Amidst the fight, a blood lust Tanjiro with a new menacing look appeared, along with speed, and agility unmatched to his fights before.

Not just this, but we got a glimpse of Muazan’s traumatic memories of his enemy Yoriichi Tsugikuni revealed in Daki. Cutting through her sashes and attacks, he is so close to beheading her before he gets hit with exhaust and pain from overwhelming himself.

This entire fight was amazing altogether and a lot happened in this episode. Diving deeper into this fight, it was awesome to see the sun-breathing art style be used by Tanjiro for a long time and successfully, and us knowing the art style is the most powerful type makes the scene just that much better.

The extensive amounts of blood and aggressiveness on both Tanjiro and the demon’s end surpassed previous fights from the first season.

Last but not least, the memories that Daki had seen just as Tanjiro was being consumed by sun-breathing were of Yoriichi Tsugikuni. Muzan fears anyone who possesses the hanafuda earring because his foe who nearly killed him once before wielded the same pair. The traumatic memories flooded Daki because Muzan’s blood ran through her and the same words coming from the man in her memories left Tanjiro’s lips before he almost killed her.

Not only was this entire fight eventful, after Tanjiro drops from exhaustion his sister Nezuko makes an appearance, and the change she goes through shocked many of the watchers.

Shifting forms into a more grown body with agile movement, a muscular build, a horn growing from her forehead, and a tattoo-like print covering her body representing her now present blood demon art. Along with this, she gained immense regeneration which she never had before due to her inability to eat humans while substituting it for sleep. 

Forbes’s article reviewing the new episode posed many questions that a multitude of Demon Slayer watchers and non-manga readers have after watching the sixth episode.

“We’ve seen that she’s able to change her size before, but is this a permanent change? Is she not going back in the box? Without the mouth guard, is she going to start speaking now? Honestly, that seems like a good change for her character, given how long she’s been cooped up at this point,” Forbes asked.

Not only has her form changed to something completely different than before, but we also got to witness a change in her fighting along with her new blood demon art.

“And what’s the extent of her new power? We’ve seen her use Blood Demon Art even before this, so what’s she capable of in this new form,” Forbes questioned.

Leaving us to question what was to come next and so much excitement for the upcoming episodes pushed Demon Slayer’s episode further up their pedestal that Attack on Titan didn’t beat.

Photo Credit: Flickr

Speaking of Attack on Titan, the show is in the middle of its season as well and as of Sunday 7th, part two of season four had premiered. Where part one left off entailed the introduction of two important characters, Falco Grice and Gabi Braun. These two are young Eldian warriors in the making who seek to inherit Reiner’s Armored Titan four years after the failed mission to possess the Founding Titan.

The plan is for Marley to invade Paradis in order to retrieve the Founding Titan and strengthen their weakening military. With betrayal, deaths, and a big cliffhanger of Eren Jeager and Zeke Jaeger trying to start the rumbling, which is a cataclysmic event caused by colossal titans who were stored in walls just for this, who march across the earth and destroy all life.

It picks up with brothers fighting their way through Eldians and Marleyans to reach one another. It begins with a severely injured Levi on the brink of death and Hange held captive by Jagerists right near the smoking skeleton of the supposedly dead Zeke. Zeke reveals himself as being alive which leads to Hange and Levi’s escape.

Quickly shifting scenes, the show jumps into the invasion of Paradis by the Marlyeans to take the founder from Eren who is pushing back on everyone. In his titan form, he soon finds himself fighting Reiner Braun, the armored titan, while his friends find an escape from the jail cells in order to stop Eren but keep him alive because he’s their best friend.

Trying to come in contact with each other because of Zeke’s royal blood and Eren having the founding titan, the rumbling is trying to be prevented by those against the mass genocide that will occur from it.

Similar to Demon Slayer, this episode had its own fights, action, blood, and gore. With an amazing intro and outro along with the storyline, the show definitely left many viewers in awe. Comparing the two, the new Attack on Titan episode was amazing but still was outdone.

In Leisure Byte’s review article, the new episode of Attack on Titan brings up a con of an overpowered character and a big pro of the new show.

“Almost every sin of the first part was forgiven as we saw Eren take on his one true rival, Reiner. Ignoring the fact that Reiner should have been dead about 5 times now since the show’s beginning, at least he was a good character to keep alive,” Leisure Byte said.

But there were also many amazing parts of the show that encaptured just how beautiful the series is by itself.

“The heavily detailed art style that insists on showing every wrinkle on the characters’ faces gives it a more horrifying and scary vibe than most horror anime around,” Leisure Byte continued.

Reiner Braun’s abilities have been said to be overpowered and that they’ve kept him alive too long, but he is a great complex character that makes up for it in a way. The shows as a whole are amazing in their own ways but the new Demon Slayer episode outdid the Attack on Titan premiere.