AWTY 213 - Nick Theck (Demon Slayer)

Hello and welcome to our weeb area and exploit collaboration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, dee hollander gonzalez.

And I'm brenda mccullough, your anime baby. New Year.

Sad about this one too.

Please put a shirt on.

No, I refuse to. If I have to deal with the back hair, so do you?

No, just so we can see the diaper. And we just want that put away.

Wait, that's the problem. That's not the new thing, though. That's always here.

Yeah, but the addition of well, the subtraction of a shirt, I should say, it's just much more visible and prominent, especially with the sash.

Going on.

Do you not like the full bag zach Bell tattoo? I have. I got it for the podcast.

Brendan'S first tattoo is a full bag zach full tat belt.

We also begged you not to do it.

I believe that, though, that you would just come to us one day and be like, hey, I got my first tattoo. And it's just a portrait of zach.

On your back, buddy.

My felt the stencil go on. I didn't want to be rude.

And I was like, we're already here. I already paid $4,000.

$20? That feels like more than $20 worth of work. I'm not going to not get my value.

He paid me $20 again. And I was a test piece just as a dumb prank show for mtv.

Well, happy 2023, everybody.

Happy year.

Happy times. Happy new anime. We're going to try out this new concept where once a week we watch a new anime series. Does that sound good?

Yeah, never done that before.

Yeah, new. So what are we doing for the very first time right now?

What are we watching?

I'll tell you. We're watching demonslayer. Because I was like, this is the first episode of 2023. I feel like we should do a big one. And I've heard that this one is pretty good. So I was like, let's do that one. No risks.

No risks. This one is decently big.

Yeah, I'm familiar with characters. Do I know context of why stick and mouth? No, but I know girl. Have it and run.

Hey, I'm in about the same boat. I saw one episode, actually, when Paul was watching it, and I did not like the yellow one.

No one does.

I said, that's enough of that guy. I don't want to watch that guy anymore.

Coincidentally, I got my dad to watch the series. He had the same opinion and stop watching because of the yellow one. Well, I told him, don't worry, the whole show is good. The yellow one never gets better. Unfortunately, that is the one complaint I have.

I guess we can just hope and pray that he's not in the first episode.

Fingers crossed. Yeah. I've watched all of this up to this point movies and read all the manga even though it's fished. I fucking love the series. It's very well done.

Yeah, great. Get off and sweet.

Get off the new year on a good note.

Yeah, we're doing it right. We're getting right to it. Professional journalism from this point forward. Oh, we're watching episodes one, two, and four. We should say that as well.

Yeah.

Let's run up a mountain. Now it's time to run down a mountain. And I hope you're ready to run back up that mountain. Because then once you get to it up, you got to run back down this mountain.

Hi.

Welcome back.

Slightly different mountain this time.

If you wanted to exercise in the new year, this is all of it.

Sisyphus, you're going to love this anime.

Greg Smith approved.

Wink hooray. Okay, episode one. We open with someone breathing real hard and it's snowy and they're in a forest. And it's the main boy. He's carrying what I know to be his little sister on his back. He's crying, she's dying, but he won't let that happen. Also, how could this happen? Where did he go wrong?

It's only episode one and he already fucked up.

Yeah.

I bet you're wondering how I got here.

Record scratch that's me. And luckily, we get to see what happened. So flash back to earlier. The boy, Tongiro is at home. A lady. His mom says that his face is covered in soot and cleans him up. While she's doing that, she tells him that he doesn't have to go to the town with all the snow. And then thematically appropriate, he says that he wants them to have a good New Year's celebration. So he's going to sell as much charcoal as he can.

Look at that. We had a perfectly themed episode. It's a miracle after we did such a good job for Christmas. So glad we had this in our back pocket the entire time.

Yes. So glad. I definitely knew that New Year's was mentioned. Does it matter again? No.

I've seen the series like, twice through now. I fully forgot. It doesn't.

Hey, for a holiday shout out. I'll take it at this point.

Yeah.

So some little siblings run up. They want to go with him, but their mom won't let them. One of the little girls is like, I'll help. I swear I can. I wrote down her name. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. TANJIRO tells them both that they can't come, but he'll bring back treats and read to them later. And he tells another little brother to chop wood while he's gone. He starts walking away from the house and he runs into Nezico and the smallest child on his way out. And she says, oh, since dad died, we've all been glued to your side. So that's one dead parent so far.

Check. I mean, it's a cute little family. Nothing bad will happen to them.

No.

We're ignoring the first 5 seconds of the show, right? Yeah.

Doing really heavy handed, like so wholesome. They all love each other. This is a good situation. It's starting to feel threatening.

Checkerboard kimonos. It's a uniform. It's adorable.

I also was surprised to see Nezico's Age, because in most of the things I've seen, she's much younger. And we see why later.

Yeah.

So as he's walking down the mountain, because they live on the mountain, he laments that every time happiness is destroyed, it's followed by the scent of blood. ominous.

It's a weird thing to think about randomly.

Yeah. I thought he was going to say something optimistic, like, every time happiness is destroyed, something better comes by. No, it just gets worse.

People die. It's a bad time.

God closes the door. He pours blood in through the window.

So he makes it to town. An old lady is surprised to see that he came down on a snow day. Sure. On a day like this, with so much snow, everyone around town knows him. It seems like he helps them out a lot. They establish that he has a good sense of smell because he smells a broken plate and can tell that a cat did it and not the boy who was accused of it.

I forgot. They really just throw that out there like yeah, he's got, like, a super sense of smell. Moving on.

Truly think of it like an anime superpower. But there doesn't seem to be anything special. He just can smell good.

He just got good nose. So he is starting to head back up the mountain home, and an old man warns him that it's too dangerous and he's got to stay here with him before the demons show up. And I was like, this guy doesn't seem trustworthy. But maybe I just don't trust a man. That's something to unpack myself.

It's dangerous out there. Quick, get inside my house. Strange boy.

No.

If you are someone who's ever looked at history, it is a fair concern.

Yes. So he does stay with the man because he knows who he is. They eat dinner. TANJIRO asks, Did I say that he has to stay there because of the demons? Did I say that out loud?

Yes.

Okay. So TANJIRO asks what he meant by demons, and the old man explains that there are man eating demons after dark, so he's got to wait till the morning to go home. And he was like, Am.

My demons layer anime never shocking.

And he's like, can the demons get into your house, Mr. Old man? Which I thought was a weird and specific thing to ask, specifically watching the dub.

It is not a great dub.

Cool.

Like, just in terms of adaptation. This is a very in my head, I'm going to say what would be a cool thing to say out loud, but I'm not actually going to say it. I'm going to just say it much longer than it needs to be. Four sentences to say one thought in my head. That would be cool to say out loud, it's just like so overwritten just to fill in the space that's like, okay, we get it, move on.

Say something else that's true. So the old man says, yeah, the demons can get into your house, but don't worry, the demons slayers. Hey, I said the name, the thing they protect people from the demons. Tonduro thinks about how this guy is lonely because he lost his family and he'll have to bring his siblings by. And he also thinks, like, demons aren't real. But my grandma did used to talk about them.

Yeah, that really threw me when he was like, whatever that old guy is talking about can't be real. Even though my grandmother did corroborate the.

Story, I also just thought it was weird that it's, like, not common knowledge somehow.

Yeah, it it comes up like, one or two more times throughout the rest of the series where they run into, like, other people closer in, like, cities and stuff, but they're like, demons aren't real? What are you talking about? It's like, that is the entire premise of the show, but okay, yeah, that's.

What I thought was weird when he was like, immediately, demons aren't real.

Yeah.

So the next morning, TANJIRO is off. He says the thing about happiness and blood again. And then as he's walking up the mountain to their house, he smells blood.

He gets home, happiness nearby.

He gets home to a gruesome scene. There's blood everywhere. His whole family is dead. nezuko looks like she was positioned where she is protecting the smallest kid. And now we're back at the scene from the beginning. He's running through the forest of Naziko on his back. She's still warm, so he's hoping that the doctor will help her. And he's like, what did this? A bear? She wakes up and kind of wiggles around on his back. And we see that she has fangs and her eyes are blank. And she causes them to fall off of a cliff, but the snow breaks their fall. Now Nezico is standing and she attacks him because she's a demon. Now he's like, she doesn't smell like human Nesuko anymore. But she couldn't have killed our family. What's going on?

Real quick, just mentioning them falling off the cliff reminded me of a specific line to just really demonstrate how overwritten this is. Once he falls and lands, he's like, the snow, it was here and it cushioned my fall, but oh, no, the snow, it also made me slip off the cliff.

Yeah, that line also stuck out to me, like, what? Why is this needed?

Why is that your immediate thought? Clearly you're just killing this time.

Yes. So she's, like, pinned him down. She gets bigger somehow. And he got locked.

No, put it away. Put it away.

He feels guilty that his family was suffering while he was sleeping at the old man's house, but he's going to keep her safe. And he yells at her and tells her to keep it controlled. And he looks up, and he sees that she's crying. So she's got some humanity left in her. Then we see a guy run up. He has a sword. He moves to attack nezuko, but TANJIRO gets in the way, and the guy with the sword cuts his ponytail off. Very dramatic. The guy asks why TANJIRO is protecting her, and TANJIRO says, she's my sister. And the guy grabs her and tells TANJIRO to stay where he is. He says, I'm a demon slayer, and I got to kill every demon, so I got to decapitate her, which is almost verbatim. Yeah, sorry about it going to kill your sister. TANJIRO tries to tell this guy that it was another demon that killed his family, not her. He doesn't know how she turned into this. The guy explains that her wounds were exposed to demon blood, and that's how a human can turn into a demon. And TANJIRO says he'll turn her back into a human. Guy says, that's not possible. TANJIRO begs for him not to kill her because she's all that he has left. And he cries, and it's pretty sad. The acting is pretty good in that scene.

Yeah, TANJIRO cries a lot.

He does rivaling deku from my hero.

Academia, the era of soft shown in boys.

Yeah. So the guy yells at him, telling.

Him and dengue, he's also here. He doesn't cry ever.

Nah, he doesn't have that in him. So the guy yells at him, tells him not to grovel like that. He's weak. He says that maybe a demon would know how to turn his sister back, but they never help a human. You left yourself prone, and you're going to get yourself killed. And then he thinks in his brain about how devastated TANJIRO is and how he understands and how he feels bad that he got there too late. He could have protected tanjiro's family, but now he can't do anything about that. And then also in his brain, he's like, Feel the rage, TANJIRO. And I'm like, wow. Just like dugan said, Why aren't you saying any of this?

Like, this would be a much more interesting conversation for these characters to be having, but instead, we're doing just wrote, I'm the stoic warrior, but inside I'm deep. It's like, no, be deep out loud. That's narratively interesting.

So TANJIRO does attack. He throws rocks, and he has a hatchet, but the guy gets the better of him, or so he thinks. TANJIRO was, like, running in a circle around him, and he threw the hatchet before actually advancing on this guy. And the guy was so impressed with him. And I was like, Surely you've got to have seen something more impressive in your whole life. Like, it's not that great that he used misdirection to make you not look at the hatchet he threw.

This guy went to the Magic Kingdom, fucking blew his mind.

Magic. I just think that was my big thing. I guess watching this was like, why are people so impressed by TANJIRO? There's nothing that amazing about him, especially in this moment. I was like, this is nothing. He didn't do anything.

Yeah, he's just a strong worker kid.

Yeah. That used some basic sleight of hand magic skills.

We say it all the time in different contexts. The bars in hell.

The bar is very low even in this anime where demons are real and people have to kill them.

Listen, not a lot of people want to be demon slayers, so we are kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point anyway.

You could kind of do the wrong. So after that, Nezico reacts and gets away from the guy, and he thinks that she's going to attack TANJIRO, but she actually stands between the two of them and protects him. She runs the guy and he thinks about how demons elite anybody and how because she didn't eat anything right after she turned, she must be so weak and starving, but she has the self control to not eat her brother. And then the guy knocks her out. And Tonjiro dreams that his mother and siblings say they have to leave. And his mom asks him to take care of nezuko. And he wakes up and nezuko is asleep next to him. The guy is still there and tells him to go find an old man on a mountain, tell him you sent you, and then he leaves. They bury their family and head off. And he does take one last look over his shoulder and then they run off together. And then we get the opening at the end, which is short and you know, I appreciate that.

Yeah, I've noticed the opening and endings for these first few episodes are shorter than what they are for the rest of the season.

Okay, I didn't realize because I was thinking, I've seen and heard the opening before and I was like, I thought it was longer than this. But they really just for these episodes, they use the big impactful part of it, which is a banger. Yeah, I do like the opening.

I think for these first few episodes, they're like, we need those extra 30.

Seconds for some useless dialogue.

Well, someone's going to be thinking real hard in this.

Keep it in.

So, episode two, TANJIRO. Oh, boy. My notes app already just destroyed. TANJIRO gets an old basketball from some farmers.

Sure.

He learns how to dunk.

Yeah, no, he gets an old basket he needs to carry his sister. So he insists on paying them because he's a polite young man.

Good boy.

And he takes it back to a cave where Nesico is hiding. And, oh, she dug a little hole in the cave because she hates the sun now because she is a vampire.

It was kind of cute when he peaked in the cave and she, like, popped her head out and he was like, oh, you dug a hole.

One of my favorite things about this series is just like the little cheeby versions of the characters they do sometimes, often with mezziko for some reason. It just really guts to me.

So, yeah, he realizes, oh, you're a demon now. sunlight is not good for you. So he takes the basket and he makes a little shade to it so I can actually fully close, but she's too big. But he remembers, oh, hey, you made yourself bigger earlier. Can you make yourself smaller too? And then I was like, now I understand fan art, perspective and scale.

That's good. Can you be more baby?

Absolutely. Thank you for asking.

Narratively. Can you become more cheeky?

Can you be more marketable? We have merch.

So she does. It works. They get directions to find the old man, but people warn that people have been going missing on the path you're going down. Almost immediately. Get to the first building and you'll see some people who've been attacked because they get to a temple and look in and whoa, the smell of blood because a demon's feeding there. So they go in and the demons like, hey, this is my turf. Wait a minute, I smell a human here. Want to use a human? But one of you is a demon. What an odd couple. So naturally they fight, trying to summarize anime fights.

I mean, that's pretty much the rest of the episode.

Yeah, they fight. The end. Now they rushes in. His demon senses that TANJIRO is human and fends him off with a hatchet. But demons heal too fast. They got that special blood. So he's fighting him off with a hatchet. And Nesico, being real strong with demon strength now, just fully kicks the demon's head off.

That was pretty sick.

I love it.

But the body is still up and attacking demon laws.

You know, by law, he's required to still be alive.

The head just bites onto the blade of tanjiro's hatchet and gets thrown against a tree. So he's pinned. And then Nesico, who's fighting the body, they kick it off a cliff and kill it. hooray hooray. So they go back to the head and they're like, hey, this isn't the same demon scent that killed the rest of the family. Because, again, my nose is so good. I can distinguish specific. Demys.

Wasn't that girl in that one anime? Didn't she also have a good sense of smell in that one boring anime.

That doesn't you have to be more specific.

The one where they were solving school mysteries and all of the mysteries were literally nothing.

Oh, yeah, he's a hyoka. Did she have a super?

She did. I remember because there was the thing with she had dog ears and a tail. And I was just thinking, oh, I bet there's a scene in this at some point where tanja has dog ears and a tail.

Maybe you.

Maybe not, but it just made me think of that, so sorry. Continue.

Yeah, I will attest to it. It is a weird trope I've seen in more than one show. Why is this a common thing?

Yeah, we have to connect this somehow because it's way too specific. So they go back to the head pitted against the tree, but it's regenerating too fast. But then a stranger and a red mask comes out. He's like, hey, boy, you got to kill it. The thing you're about to do. Kill it faster now. But a knife won't work. And Tonjero is like, okay, so do I crush it with a rock? And the masman is like, you fool. How dare you ask a question of a demon slayer? You should know how to slay a demon.

He's very urgent.

Maybe these aren't the children I've been looking for. The prophecy didn't say someone who would ask a follow up question would be true.

He's very urgent about killing the demon, but he's also very coy about the answer.

I don't know. You figure it out.

But quickly. It's about to escape.

He's bleeding out. We have to save his life. How do I do that?

I don't know. Sir, you're a doctor.

Please blushes.

So this is the man that he's been sent to find. This is sakonji Rakodaki.

That's a name I wrote. Teacher.

Yes, I wrote mathman.

I've seen the show. I'm not learning the name, but, yeah.

He says, I see you sent you, but you're too compassionate to these demons. Can you possibly kill them all? You need to strengthen your resolve. Hey, what will you do when your sister eats a human? And when TANJIRO takes a second to process that thought, the teacher slaps him in the face and is like, Faster. No. Kill your sister quicker. So he's saying, yeah, you really need to strengthen your resolve. You need to know once they eat human flesh, it's done. They're corrupt. They're going to kill again. They got the taste of flesh. So he's like, all right, I'll give you tests so you can join the Demon slayer Society. So they go back to his house after just laying a demon. They get back, and he's like, oh, boy, I'm so exhausted. I can't wait to rest before you give me that test. And the teacher is like, no, now is your test. Go climb a mountain. So they go up to a mountain, just to a random foggy spot in the woods that Donjiro doesn't know. And the teacher says, all right.

Go.

Back to my house.

Rich at home.

Yeah. Just drops them in the woods, leaves them. And TANJIRO is like, my excellent smell. I can smell this old man from a mile away.

And, boy, does he smell terrible.

He's an old man that lives in the woods. I mean, he's got a stink.

He does not take that mask off ever. He does not wash under there even.

If you didn't have a good nose, you'd be able to find him just fine.

He starts escaping the woods, but surprise, it is a test. He's testing him. There's a bunch of booby traps. So he's like, oh, not only is he testing that I know my sense of direction in the woods, he's also testing that I won't die. Checks out. But yeah, he struggles for like, a second and then he makes it. And then gee. The guy from the last episode sent a note ahead to Mask Man. He was like, hey, these kids are cool. tundra has good scent. Just like you, Mask Man. Take him as your student. That's where we end episode two.

I would like to imagine that you hand delivered that note, but then just ran away. Didn't talk to him.

I have other things to do.

These kids are pretty cool. Hang out with them for a bit.

Thanks for your help. I was talking about this with Paul. I think the style of this show is very striking. Like, the thick lines and the way they draw eyes and stuff is really cool. But with that style, all of the characters just look like children to me. And I know a lot of them are, but there are other characters that people that I've seen online will be like, oh, they're so hot. And I'm like, how can you possibly think that? And I feel like this guy's one of them. Like, this guy's probably you. He's probably like 20 or something, right? Like, he seems older.

Yeah, he's an adult.

Yeah. But you look at him, I'm like, that's a 15 year old.

He has strong, moody teen energy.

Yes. My counterpoint to that is that's just anime. It's true.

But I feel like especially in this.

Show yeah, I can see your point with that. I do really like how they draw the eyes. It's more prominent with TANJIRO and Naziko, but it's like they aren't perfectly round. They're kind of like straight edges to them, and they got like a gradient in them. But they're very cool.

I love Nesico's eyes.

Yeah. We're going to skip ahead over episode three because it's effectively just a training montage. We know how those works. Effectively. Yeah. Teacher takes tantaro on as a student. Says, here are the different sword techniques that I'm going to teach you. It's called the water breathing style. And here's a gigantic boulder in the mountain. If you can cut this giant boulder in half, I'll let you go on to take the actual test for the Demons Layer core to try and be an actual Demon slayer. And it's a giant boulder, and it's insanely hard to cut with katana because why would he be able to it's.

A rock, I tell you. The pioneers used to ride these babies for miles.

And while tomcho is training, he meets two other kids wearing, like, fox mask, and they help him train a bit, and that's effectively episode three. So I figured, great, that was not interesting. We could skip over that cool. But that's the filler in. Episode four. Starts off, we got a long haired TANJIRO. Turns out his training has been going on for like, a year and a half, so it's been some time. Yeah. Wow. Which I appreciate because he didn't just master all these skills overnight.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

And we see him episode starts off with him fighting one of the other kids wearing, like, a fox mask. And the kid has a big red hair and a scar on the fox mask. And we see him they're having, like, a little duel with swords and tonduras. They want to cut the mask right in half. And as he does, the mask falls off and the kid smiles as we see his face and we see him fade away and the giant boulders behind him, it's also cut in half.

Hey, he's just a ghost.

I'll get to it. Yeah, it's like, hey, I didn't see where that kid went. Oh, I guess he just ran off. Yeah, okay, sure. That's what happened.

Don't think about it too hard.

Yeah. tundra is able to cut the giant boulder in half. He's got the strength, he mastered the skills and the techniques. He's ready for the final selection. And we see Tandra also explains, I guess, just in his own head, using his super smelling abilities, he's able to smell an opening in the enemy's attack and see, like, a thread that shows their opening. So that's how he's able to fight using his nose. Okay, it doesn't make sense, but he's the protagonist. He needs something. He needs some gimmick. So it cuts the balder in half. And the teacher comes out and sees it, and he's kind of like, oh, shit. I kind of gave you an impossible task assuming you would never be able to do it, so you wouldn't be able to do it, and you did it, so fuck me, I guess. All right. He is, but he's like, I didn't want to send you to the final selection for the themeslayer core because I didn't want to see any more kids die on my watch. But I promise you, word is my word. So I guess you're going off, but.

You broke a rock, so I guess I'll let you die.

Come on, kid.

I was like, Wait, what? Die?

Hot pod.

Give me the logistics.

Oh, hot pod. Never mind.

Yeah, so he says he's proud of him and he'll take care of Naziko while he's off at the final selection. But to celebrate, they got some hot pot. You have a big feast, and you cut Tandro's hair back to his standard look and warns him that Tandra is going to be facing a lot bigger threats and dangers as he's going forward if he continues on this path. The teacher also warns it gives us more info. About demons being like, as you eat a lot and grow in strength, demons grow in strength as they eat as well. They get stronger, they get new abilities, they get spells, they get a whole bunch of shit.

So here are the video game rules in the show.

If you eat ten apples, you'll learn spells.

Yeah. He says, at a certain point, your skills will be honed enough that you'll be able to spell out how many people a demon has aim. And it's like, that's so weird. But I guess it's explanation for later. You could just gauge their strength by anyway. And he says, to help you for the final selection, I'm giving you the little fox mask similar to the ones he saw the two kids wearing that helped them train. And the teacher says it's a warding mask that will help protect him against demons and spirits and such. He makes them for all of his students. And then we see the next morning, tandra puts on a sky kimono like his teacher has, and following in his footsteps, runs off to the selection, says goodbye to nezuko, and before he leaves, he's like, oh, yeah, by the way, teacher, tell those other two kids so and so and so and so that I said hi. bye. And runs off. And the teacher is like, but they've been dead for five years. Which again, the kid faded away into nothing. Like yeah, it was very clearly his attention. I see how Drug get to the selection grounds for the final test, and he sees a bunch of other kids there his age, some of them all beaten up, some of them not. We get a shot of the yellow kid in the opening sequence who's annoying, his shit doesn't get better. We get a shot of one character who ends up being voiced by pascas at the show, xeno Robinson shout out to zeno. And we get a few other characters. It's much like anime. It's very clear which ones are prominent and going to be coming back later and which ones are just filler.

Yeah, because literally the rest of them are just dressed in brown and have.

Black hair, potato sacks, and everyone else is like strikes of color. And then we see two creepy little twins standing there, one white hair and one with black hair, and they just appear out of nowhere and start explaining the rules for the final selection test. And they say this mountain is covered with hysteria blossoms, which are these, like, purple flower blossoms on a tree that we see.

Do you say hysteria wisteria with a wisteria. I love those. They're so beautiful in real life.

Yeah, I love hysteria. It's my favorite.

Oh, I love female hysteria.

Yes. Wisteria is, like, blooming all over this mountain. And they say that it is a natural ward against demons. So they have a bunch of growing around the mountain, and they've captured a bunch of demons, and they keep them here for this testing purposes. The test is you got to go into the mountains with all those demons and survive for a week.

Didn't expect that. I really expected them to just be like, go up there and kill a demon. Didn't expect it to be a week long thing.

I didn't bring my camping gear.

Survive off the land, order the demons. I don't know, maybe you need demons.

Hang on, I need to make some phone calls. I have an appointment tomorrow.

I can move it again. Oh, you think they would have warned us about this ahead of time.

My jury duty is starting on Thursday.

Can we really pencil it in? So Tondura plans on running throughout the night and defending himself. And then during the day, because demons die in sunlight, he'll rest. So he planned on running to the east side of the mountain to get to the sun faster. And as he's running through the mountain, he stops because he smells a demon, and then he gets attacked. Well, he said demon. He's like, oh, shit. All right, got to fight off this demon already. Another one. And gets attacked by a second demon as well.

Whoa. This mountain full of demons. Share is full of demons.

Crazy.

Who would have thought for a hot minute the demons are fighting each other, battling over a turf war, and then eventually they turn back on padreau, and he has to fight both of them off. And he calms down. He remembers his breathing styles that he learned from his teacher. He gets his breath under control and calms himself. And he's able to perform one of the water breathing forms and kills both demons in one attack. He's already got two points. He's doing great. And he remembers his teacher saying that normal weapons won't work on demons because they'll just regenerate right away. They need a special demon slaying kind of katana that's made with a special metal that is able to kill demons. And we see when he kills these two, their bodies just disintegrate. It fully destroys their bodies as well. And then we see Tadro give a little quick prayer as the demons die. And then he smells something foul. He smells something stank. And then it's his teacher.

He ran up the mountain. So it's even worse now.

Yes. He still smells them from here. No, he sees another kid running through the woods. And the kids like, oh, boy, I didn't sign up for this. I'm getting out of here. It's like, come on, man, what do you think this was? What do you mean? You quite literally signed up for this. But we see a gigantic demon just, like, roaming through the forest. Looks like five times the size of any demon we've seen before. Anyway, go back to the training grounds where tantro trained. We see the two ghost kids again talking about how they hope they helped tantro train enough. And they're wondering if he's going to be stronger than they were.

The boy says he broke this boulder, the biggest boulder ever. And I was like, surely there's a bigger boulder than that. It's just like when gee was so impressed with him in the first episode. I'm like, come on, it's not that big.

You are standing on a mountain. There are bigger rocks than that.

Arguably a mountain is a very, very large boulder.

Yeah.

I will say cutting a boulder now with a sword is more impressive than throwing in a hatchet this time.

Yes, of course. But just the way he said like, this is the biggest boulder ever. It's like it's yeah, it can't be.

No. In the training episode of episode three, we do see smaller boulders that also had ropes around it that previous students cut. And this was the biggest one that they had. But it is like there are bigger boulders out there.

Got you. Bigger boulders in the world but not bigger boulder for training.

Yeah, this is a business. Big boulder.

Come on. So we go back to the final selection grounds and we see the massive demon. It's just like made up of a bunch of arms. Like it's just a giant congealed mass of arms wrapped around forming this demon's body, which is gnarly. And we see him reach out and he's holding up one kid already. And he goes to eat. We see his head. We can see the demon's head like the top of his eyes. And when he goes to eat the kid, we see just two arms crossed over his chest open up. And that's his mouth. Like those are his lips now, which I love it. I think that's a great design.

Yeah, pretty nasty.

And we see him just munch and crunch on this kid. And then we see him get bigger in real time. It's like a chia pet. And then we see the other kid that was running away. Fuck this, I'm out of here. And we see the demons arm shoot out from him, get all stretchy and grab the kid and pulls him into eat him too. That's when Tajiro flies out, cuts the demons arm right off. It saves the kid, the hero protagonist. And the demon sees tajo up here and sees the little fox mask on tadjo's head. And he goes, oh shit, another one. Hell yeah. I love these guys. You guys are tasty. Hey fox kid, what year is it? What era are we in? Todd is like, oh, it's this year. The demon is like a little mental math. Oh fuck. Oh god, I've been here for so long. Which is me every other episode of this podcast. And he gets mad realizing how long he's been trapped on this mountain prison. And the demon starts cursing out tundra's teacher's name saying like, fuck that guy, I can't believe he did this to me. tundra is like, how do you know, my teacher demon says, like, oh, your teacher caught me 47 years ago, and I've been trapped here ever since, just munching on kids. And the one kid that time to her rescue is like, that's not possible. Every year, they capture demons to put in here for the test. And at the end of the year, they come through, killing all the demons and cleaning them out. And there's no way you could have survived that long eating kids demons. Like, yeah, because I did. I don't know what to tell you, kid, because I am 47 years old and I did eat a bunch of kids.

I am standing right here.

I am made of arms.

Please don't tell me my life history, kid.

Don't man splay me, small child, I'm going to eat you. And the demon will start counting. He's like, well, I've eaten at least 50 kids during these tests, and I've eaten at least 13 of your teachers students specifically as a form of revenge for trapping me in here. So you're going to be number 14. What up? And timer was like, shocked. He's like, that's not possible. And Dean was like, yeah, it's actually super possible because that little fox mask he gives you to protect you is actually a clear sign that you're his student. And is the way I've been hunting them all down, I don't know why.

He would keep giving them to his students if they always die. If he's like, hey, this is good luck. And it's like, well, clearly it's not, man.

None of them have come back in almost 50 years. You don't need to know that. There's one specific demonstrate just like, hey, that didn't work. But the demon does mention he's like, there were two students I specifically remember that were extra wiley that stood out. And he mentions the two kids that Tadro trained with on the mountain. And he goes, they were extra little feisty, but they were just as delicious as everyone else eating them. And that makes tanjiro mad.

Well, I'm so mad.

I'm so mad. So he gets mad and slices the demon again, cutting off some of his arms. And the demon just starts laughing because he regrobs the arms immediately. And he has a bunch he sees tanja as mad and starts, like, egging them on a little bit. And he speculates how the teacher will look when he kills another one of his students. And we get, like, cut away to the ghost kids on the mountain. I guess they can sense tanjiro because the one kid's like, tanjiro, you're getting upset. Like, calm you're breathing down. tanjo, listens. And is able to catch himself and steady his aim. And he fights the demon a little more. The demon just side cox him and just smacks him clear into a tree. It just knocks his ass out for a minute. But tanjo wakes up to the side of one of his little brothers yelling his name. And he wakes up and realizes he can't just keep cutting his arms off. He's going to keep regenerating. And the test just started, so he got plenty of time till the sun comes up, so he can't wait for that again. But he swears he's going to take down this demon. And we see conjure is able to get in close. He's able to use some of the techniques he learned and close the distance on the demon who got cocky. And I was like, yeah, even if he gets close, my neck is so thick. I got such a thick ass neck and it's wrapped in, like, a scarf of arms. There's no way he'll cut through me.

So he gets a thickass neck and a scarf of arms. That's really needed to linger in that sentence for that's.

2023 fashion, baby.

That's my mantra going into this new year.

I need more arms.

Get those, get those nick thick, baby.

I need specifically some nick thickening exercises.

Don't bell to my neck, just lift.

Nice to meet you. I'm your new lawyer, Nick thack.

So the demon gets all cocky like he's getting close, but he'll never cut through my neck. And then tanjiro takes a big sniff, sees the thread to his opening when he gets in the zone. And we see he's able to cut clean through the demon's head. We see the demons head pop off, fly through the air. And that's episode four.

Wow. Good job, tanjiro.

Good work, kid. Took it two years, but you killed a demon. So are we there yet? How weeb feeling in the new year?

Weeb were thrown off that there was a time jump that I didn't notice.

It's not super apparent and it really doesn't play off, but it's like, yeah, it's basically just to say, like, he didn't master it overnight. He did put in the effort and, like, took time to learn it, but I appreciate that. Yeah. Otherwise there's no difference. Like, nothing else has changed.

I just in my mind was like, oh, wow. That training mission took two years. He hasn't seen his sister in two years.

Oh, my God.

He does go back to the shack every night and see her. And Nazika is in a coma for that whole time. It truly doesn't even matter because literally nothing matters. There's no consequences. So, yeah, that's why it's like, it took time, but that's all that counts.

Got you.

His family is not getting any better.

Oh, my God.

Fair. But yeah, there was a lot of hype around it. I'm a little sad we didn't see hogman. Didn't see our hog. Wild boy. But yeah, this was fun. As I mentioned, I didn't love the writing of this. It is very much like internal monologue of me thinking why this strategy is so good and all that sort of stuff, rather than characters talking to each other. So you can tell this is very much focused on, like, okay, this is the visual adaptation of the manga. We are not rewriting the show. People will murder us if we try to. So let's just make it frame for frame. That seems to be, like, the ethos behind it, which it's popular. People seem to think it's well adapted, I guess. Don't yell at me.

Don't have the strength.

But yeah, this just didn't seem to be for me. Someone coming into it right now with no prior knowledge. Yeah, probably not, but I had fun with this.

Wait, don't you love big action shonen series? That's like in shonen Junk. Like, that's your bread.

But that was your favorite.

That's why I keep bringing it.

Sorry to break the brand. Sorry.

I thought this was all right. Same hype. And I was just like, I know this isn't exactly my kind of thing, so I don't need to watch it. I'll appreciate it from afar. And I've always liked the style of the anime. And I think the water animation when he does his sword stuff is really cool. And I'm sure there's more cool stuff like that with other characters, but yeah, especially knowing that I just hate the yellow one. It's like, I'm not going to bother watching it because then he's just there all the time and I don't want to see him.

He's looming in the distance. We do see him at the selection process also taking the test, but thankfully we don't hear him talk.

Yeah, but I can appreciate it for what it is and for the people who enjoy it. I'm happy for you. I just know that this isn't my kind of show.

Yeah. As I said at the beginning, I've watched it all. I've seen the movie, I've seen the second season, I've read all the manga, and it's done. That's one thing I truly love about this series is that it's done. It could have kept going on forever and milking that horse, the shonen Jump style. But the author was like, did you.

Say milking that horse?

I did, in hindsight.

Bad phrase, either beating it to milk.

Listen, it's a new year. I'm starting it off on a bad foot. I've decided that already. Let's keep going.

This is why you don't like horses. They aren't giving you the milk.

Have you been trying to milk horses?

Listen, I'm like, doesn't learn it anymore. I shouldn't be near that milk to begin with. And I keep going back to it. I never learned my lesson.

I'm sorry.

No, you're right to call me out on that. I couldn't let that be, especially with my history with horses. But yeah, so I love the series. I'm fully on board with it. But I do think the inner monologue and the kind of fluff you were pointing out, I don't disagree with you. I think you're right that it is tedious, but I think that's definitely more in the beginning. And they kind of get out of that later on in episodes and series or in chapters, which is good. But yeah, I definitely agree that it is like especially rewatching. And I'm like, yeah, they aren't just talking live, really not saying anything. Yeah, the characters, a lot of the characters are really great. One of the characters is really annoying. But I do love this ears enough to tolerate him. And yeah, Innosque, who is the feral Pig Boy, is one of my favorites because he's just real fucking idiot. He's just real so dumb. And it's very entertaining. taj Row is like the good moral core within the group. And it's fun seeing their dynamics. We get a lot of different stuff that happens throughout the characters. It's a fun time. But it is also like, this is what it is. You know what you're getting after these four or three episodes. Four episodes. So I don't think it's just going to be any crazy twist that'll suck you back in, besides maybe watching clips of some of the animation, because some of the animated scenes are truly gorgeous. It's one of the best animation I've seen in a long time. But also, yeah, you could just watch the clip of that instead of watching 15 episodes of a show you don't tear for.

Look up Wild hog Boy compilation. I'm sure that will get you what you want.

Close enough. But yeah, it's a fun series. But now you guys, it is unfortunate because I do think hype is the killer of most things, unfortunately. But now you at least have context for the hype and you at least have some understanding of it. So there you go.

Releasing yourself from hype really saves you. That's a tip from me to you and listener, if you have a tip from you to me about a series we can watch, you can send recommendations to us, our email is arwibariat@gmail.com, or you can reach out to us on Tiktokortumblr at arwibariat on both.

You can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Honeyperiod or on tumblr at honeyd. All one word. And honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E. You can.

Find me on Twitter at abts. Brendan, let me know if you got a tip for milking a horse. Actually, don't.

Never mind, never mind.

I take that one back.

Thank you to camille ruley for her artwork. And thank you to Louisong for a theme song. Thank you, Louis Song for theme song stories. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong andcamp.com thank you and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

A lot of heads got cut off in this show and I would like to retroactively say so, no head.

We're all forward.