Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – To the Hashira Training marks the wildly popular anime series’ third cinematic outing. Nevertheless, ufotable’s gorgeously animated interpretation of Koyoharu Gotouge’s manga deserves to be watched on the biggest screen possible, this film does not break out of a trend that was set up by its immediate predecessor: 2023’s To the Swordsmith Village. Unlike Demon Slayer first movie Mugen Train which was its own story arc, To The Hashira Training is not a self-contained story but is rather two episodes from TV series. The existence of high-octane adventures made for Tanjiro Kamado assumes viewers know all about them in detail hence this beautiful garb fits poorly into an incomplete narrative disconnected from its overall contexts
The beginning of the final season of Demon Slayer and the first episode of its fourth season is actually just one story ending and another starting. It’s a good thing in some ways–two more episodes of Demon Slayer, after all, which is good. However, to drop you into climax, unravel its big emotional payoff then spend half an hour setting up for another sequel is actually an odd cinematic experience.
We receive a very brief introduction to a couple times when Tanjiro has won against demons before but To the Hashira Training certainly isn’t for newcomers. You’ll never find out who the main characters are, why they’re here or anything about them really like what they are doing. Some anime series based movies usually go too heavy handed on this aspect and waste precious time in over-explaining their basic tenets but To the Hashira Training assumes that you have come here early to watch and it also assumes that your screen is big. That is quite true assumption especially in Japan where it was still leading at box-offices as at also Sunday night.
It is an assumption that becomes clear right away. Following its brief intro, To the Hashira Training opens during a chase scene already underway because that’s where season 3’s finale begins as well. What has lead us here or who were involved anyway? Even if it was only few months since you last watched Swordsmith Village arc, it makes sense to recap what was going on through until its end. Though you will need characters’ familiarity – let alone knowledge – for it to work.
Dozens of “yokatta!”s later exposition-heavy episode one of the Hashira Training arc arrives: though there’s also an amazing Wind-Snake fight scene not found in the manga series itself. It’s very well choreographed and successfully makes us love two characters we hardly know yet until now. This is definitely one of those moments EPISODE 1 contains others that are memorable and meaningful to the story, but none of them is as grand. It makes a strong season opener; though, it doesn’t flow quite as organically as the latter half of a movie. All of the action sequences in To the Hashira Training take place during the first 60% of the film.
Conclusion: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – To the Hashira Training
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – To the Hashira Training isn’t a good film for those who are only starting to watch anime series. However, if you’re caught up on Demon Slayer, seeing almost movie quality animation will be interesting for you at least once. The first episode of “To The Hashira Training” is a little bit better as S1 premiere than being second part of a movie.
Watch Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – To the Hashira Training on Kisscartoon
