Demon Slayer Season 4 Episode 4

The ‘Hashira Training Arc’ motors on with another episode this week, and if you read my review of last week’s entry, you know that I awaited this instalment of Demon Slayer with bated breath. I will say, this week wasn’t the most exciting episode of the show I’ve ever seen, but I’m feeling a lot more confident about this season’s ability to keep me engaged in its slower moments, because this episode went by so fast, I was genuinely caught off guard when the credits rolled.

Like last week was all about training with Tengen Uzui, this week was all about training with Muichiro Tokito, the famed Mist Hashira who quickly built a fanbase following the Swordsmith Village Arc of the anime. Much like last week, most of the episode was centred around Muichiro’s training, with some additional short scenes to explain what’s happening in the wider world while the corps rally their forces.

If rumours are to be believed, we’re potentially halfway through the season, and are moving towards the final season (or maybe movies), of Demon Slayer – and that’s certainly an exciting thought. But for now, let’s dive into this week’s episode, ‘To Bring a Smile To One’s Face’!

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The Review

Image by Ufotable

As our episode begins with Tanjiro entering Muichiro’s training area, we’re instantly reminded of the heartwarming dynamic that exists between the two. Muichiro’s grin, alongside his complete shift in demeanour upon seeing our protagonist is about as uplifting as it gets in Demon Slayer. Far from uplifting, however, is the sharp cut to Muichiro’s Kasugai Crow, who maintains the trend in this show of the Demon Slayer’s animal assistants being ruthless and antagonising towards the corps members – though Muichiro’s crow seems to admire him, so I guess there’s that. 

The Swordsmith Village Arc may not be as revered by fans as its predecessors, but we can’t really give it enough credit for how well it solidified Muichiro as a fan favourite character. Speaking of fan favourite characters, the next scene, where Muichiro shows off the sword workshop provided to him by Master Ubuyashiki, is really starting to make me appreciate Ubuyashiki a lot more than I did in prior seasons. It’s somewhat of a shame that we’re only getting to see the layers to his character in this season, when he’s lying on his deathbed – it will, though, add another layer of satisfaction to when we finally see Muzan Kibutsuji defeated all the same.

We see more training, where again, the Hashira just seems to kind of…smack the corps members (I mean, I guess they are swordsmen, their ability to smack things needs to be developed) – and then the episode cuts to a very interesting scene. We see that the spying eyes of Upper Four that we saw last week actually belong to the Biwa Demon who we’ve seen orchestrate the meetings in the Infinity Castle. Her power does make sense given the context of her summoning the Twelve Kizuki from across Japan in previous seasons – but what’s more interesting here is that, assumably, she’s actually been promoted to Upper Four, a title which previously belonged to Hantengu. There’s a lot of potential to this development – did Muzan just decide to replace Hantengu by promoting ‘Biwa Demon’…or has he rebuilt his Upper Moon ranks? If it’s the latter, I really worry about how our heroes are going to move ahead with their plan…

Image by Ufotable

My worries don’t last for too long, however, as we’re soon right back to the Hashira Training programme – though this time, we’re seeing the Hashira themselves work on their side of the deal. We see Muichiro come across Sanemi and Obanai fighting each other in their own, makeshift training session – and the Mist Hashira then invites himself to join. Before we discuss this scene, I do want to say – I haven’t decided yet how I feel about the ‘clique’ formed by Sanemi and Obanai. Maybe it’s still that moment in Infinity Castle weighing on my mind, but I can’t help but see them as two, sort of immature teenagers keeping secrets and hanging out in the mountains away from the rest of the Hashira. Maybe once we see their training sessions, my opinion will change, but for now? Not a fan.

Sanemi and Obanai agree to let Muichiro join in the combat – but they opt to take him on two on one (not helping with that ‘clique’ accusation). I can’t decide if I love or hate this decision. On the one hand, yes, we know Muichiro is one of the strongest Hashira, so this makes sense. On the other hand, does this scene really make Muichiro look strong, or does it just make Sanemi and Obanai look weak? Or weak, at least in comparison to Muichiro? Maybe I’m overthinking it and we should just appreciate how gloriously animated and enjoyable this great, albeit brief, fight scene was – but watching Muichiro sidestep the duo with ease? Kind of embarrassing for them.

And then, as the scene is just about to close, and I’m about to love the whole thing, Sanemi goes and says something that makes my blood boil. He, absolutely ridiculously, implies that just because Tanjiro is strong and defeated, clears throat, TWO Upper Moons, he isn’t near Hashira level…Now, maybe I’m completely wrong in saying this – but is he really not Hashira level by now? He’s fought alongside Hashira across all the seasons of the show, and has come out on top in most of those scenarios. I don’t know who this anime is trying to fool, but Sanemi’s statement is, in my opinion, just outright wrong. This scene also reminds me of a general issue I have with this season – why is Tanjiro even in this training programme? We’ve already hashed that issue out, so I won’t repeat it here, but this logic is, for lack of better word, laughable. 

Image by Ufotable

Speaking of Tanjiro, we then return to his training with Muichiro, the latter of which implies that to see more urgency, the corps are going to train with him using real swords. We then see a very worrying scene where a corps member cannot bring himself to face Muichiro with a real sword. I do wish these Demon Slayers had a little more bravery or conviction to them – we have Zenitsu, Inosuke, and Kanao, but aside from these three, it seems like the next generation of Demon Slayers are completely hopeless, and leagues behind Tanjiro and friends – speaking of which, I never thought I’d say this, but I’m anxious to see where Zenitsu and Inosuke are at in their training. Hopefully we catch up with them in a near future episode!

Tanjiro, Muichiro, and the trainees then have a paper airplane contest, which is very wholesome and marks a nice conclusion to the Muichiro training session. Before the credits rolled, however, we got yet another nice callback to the first season of Demon Slayer, when Tanjiro reveals that Nezuko is being watched over by none other than Urokodaki! We’d know that red mask anywhere! It’s nice to see Urokodaki make a return to the show, especially considering his importance in recent episodes centred around Giyu. Him looking after Nezuko is also a nice callback to how he did the same in the first season of Demon Slayer, back when Tanjiro first took on training to become a corps member. Everything seems to be coming together in preparation for the final clash – and I couldn’t be more excited.

And then the credits rolled – and I was caught off-guard. That episode felt shorter than the others, right? Well, that’s because we get treated to a post-credits scene! It seems like next week is going to be focused on Mitsuri Kanroji’s training – as a huge fan of the character, and considering her training seems to be focused on different elements of combat than just, getting hit, I think we’ll be in for a fun episode next week! Also, a side note, hearing her theme play in the background of this scene was enough to give me chills – again, the Swordsmith Village Arc may not have been the absolute best of Demon Slayer, but it did an amazing job of producing some very likeable Hashira.

And that was the episode! Definitely an improvement over last week for me, but maybe that’s just because I like Muichiro and Mitsuri a lot more than Tengen – sorry Sound Hashira, but they’re just on a different level of loveability. The season is still moving slowly, but all of the moving parts are gradually coming together – and I have no doubt the payoff will be worth the wait. As a final note, I do really wish Ufotable would let us know how many episodes to expect this season – the mystery is killing me! Next week’s episode is titled ‘I Even Ate Demons…’ – which implies there may be more to this instalment than just Mitsuri’s flexibility training – we’ll have to wait until then to find out! See you back here for that review, and thank you for reading!

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Where to Watch Demon Slayer Season 4?

Image by Ufotable

The Hashira Training Arc streams exclusively on Crunchyroll every Sunday. You can also find all of the anime’s prior seasons on Crunchyroll. There’s no exact episode count set in stone yet, but rumours are saying we’ve got eight episodes to look forward to this season. If that’s true, we’re already halfway there!

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