The Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Mugen Train Arc TV - Episode 1 Review - Rengoku vs. Slasher
Warning: Spoilers.
Demon Slayer is back with the Mugen Train Arc! Because this is a television adaptation with weekly episodes that are a half hour long, you can bet it will play out differently from the smash hit movie!
The first episode actually precedes the events seen in the movie.
It begins by showing a conductor on a murdered by a mysterious figure.
Then we see a Demon Slayer Corps member enter a restaurant to report to Flame Hashira Kyojuro Rengoku! Rengoku is enjoying some noodles with gusto, as you might expect.
The restaurant owner mentions how a Slasher killed the conductor. And how 40 people went missing without a trace on the Mugen Train. So the Flame Hashira and the Corps member go to investigate.
At the train station, they meet a girl named Fuku and her grandmother. They sell bento boxes for train passengers. Business has been bad. The grandma says to be careful of demons, but Fuku doesn’t believe in them. She’s actually standoffish with Rengoku at first when she meets him.
Rengoku ends up buying all the bento boxes. I thought these were the bentos we saw him eat in the movie, but nope. That’s later.
So Rengoku boards a train and learns from the conductor that the Mugen Train is out of service being held in a shed. Rengoku jumps off the train while it’s still moving to investigate.
At the shed, Rengoku learns from the manager that the train will go back in service the next day. He also stumbles on Slasher! Slasher holds a young worker hostage in front of Rengoku. The demon says he hates the smell of human food and steps on one of the bento boxes that Rengoku brought with him. This pisses off Rengoku.
Slasher is incredibly fast. Moving faster than the eye can see. But even so, Rengoku is also brilliantly fast and slices off Slashers hands before he can kill the worker!
Slasher makes his escape, speeding down the track. To get back at Rengoku, he going after the bento sellers, tracking them by smell. Rengoku makes chase using concentration breathing. He moves at blazing speeds in pursuit.
Slasher finds Fuku. Just as he’s about to kill her, her grandmother whacks him with a bento box as a distraction. Fuku makes a run for it, but Slasher catches up with ease. Again, it looks like Fuku’s going to die. But Rengoku gets there just in time and slices at Slasher again!
Slasher then limps his way to the grandma, hoping to kill her at least. But Rengoku isn’t having that at all. Slasher attempts a wager to see who’s faster, but Rengoku cuts his head off immediately. The grandma remembers Rengoku’s father saving her and her child 20 years ago in the same exact way.
Fuku gives a free bento to Rengoku in gratitude. Then Rengoku buys all of the bentos again. And boards the Mugen Train to investigate the missing people. We briefly see Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu.
