Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Movie) - Mugen Train

Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba Mugen Train Title

Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke find the Flame Hashira, Rengoku aboard the Mugen train for their next assignment. Only it would appear that their next assignment has already found them!

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Movie) – Mugen Train

What happened?

They made it onto the train and began to search for Rengoku. Tanjiro remembered him from his trip to Demon Slayer headquarters, although Inosuke seemed to be more excited about the train. He even wanted to jump out and race it! Anyhow, they found Rengoku eating and were quick to get acquainted. Tanjiro took the chance to ask him about his father and the Hinokami dance.

Things were cut short when they suddenly sensed a demon in the train cart. After Rengoku quickly took care of it, they heard screams and ran to find another demon attacking the passengers. Again, Rengoku killed it with ease and was roundly adored by the young demon slayers. However, it was all a dream as the lower-one ranked demon had put them to sleep.

In their dreams, they experienced things that real life couldn’t give them. Tanjiro was home and his family was alive. He soon forgot about the train and his role as a demon slayer. However, things slipped into his memory that made no sense to him. The others all had their own dreams to keep them occupied. To make matters worse, Enmu had arranged for some children to enter into their dreams and kill their inner core, making them harmless.

Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba Mugen Train Tanjiro fighing Enmu

That should have been easy, but for Nezuko who managed to get through to Tanjiro. Now that he was aware he was in a dream, he searched for a way out, but couldn’t get anywhere. A vision of his father gave him the answer. He had to kill himself in the dream to wake up. Once awake, Tanjiro saved the others from the children and then went after Enmu.

Their fight went on and on as Enmu kept putting Tanjiro to sleep only for him to wake seconds later having killed himself in his dream. Tanjiro pushed on and appeared to land a killer blow. However, the body didn’t disappear. Enmu revealed that he had merged his body with the train and was planning on feasting on the two hundred passengers.

Inosuke and Rengoku woke up and assisted Tanjiro in locating Enmu’s real body. Tanjiro and Inosuke attacked, synchronising their breathing as they looked to land a killer blow. Amazingly, they did, but it derailed the train. There was little time to celebrate as the upper-three ranked demon, Akaza revealed himself!

Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba Mugen Train Tanjiro Attacks

What did you think?

So, obviously, this movie did exceptionally well at the box office and has a pretty huge following. It was fairly spectacular to look at, especially if you exclude the CGI tentacles. However, I think the movie suffered from the same things that held back the series. We met Rengoku as he stared blankly ahead yelling delicious as he ate his way through a pile of bento boxes. Then, we had the dream demons and Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke chanting “bro-bro” as they floated around Rengoku. These segments are infuriating to watch and made me seriously consider turning it off.

Then, we had the dream states which were kind of cool, but we met Tanjiro’s family for all of ten minutes back in episode one, and while we can appreciate he must have been delighted to see them again, it didn’t really have that much weight. Zenitsu and Inosuke’s dreams were so out of place that they pull you completely out of the story, which wasn’t that strong, to begin with.

For me, it was a fine movie with some nice action and flashy animation. When I compare it to My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, it’s not even in the same dimension from a storytelling perspective. Most of the time, the humour doesn’t work in Demon Slayer. There are times when Inosuke’s bullheadedness is entertaining, but it can just as easily miss the mark.

Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba Mugen Train Rengoku goes all out

What have you learnt?

Ironically, I think the best part of the movie was once Enmu had been killed and Akaza showed up. His fight with Rengoku was amazing. I loved how he kept begging him to become a demon so that they could spar for all eternity. Then, the way that Rengoku tried to hold onto Akaza as the sun came up was insane. This whole segment was amazing, but then they didn’t end the movie at the optimal point.

Rengoku saw a vision of his mother and asked if he had done well. She said that she was proud of him, making him smile as his life faded. He slumped forward still with a smile on his face. That should have been the end of the movie. He died saving everyone. Sure, have Tanjiro and the others have a little cry as the camera pulls back to show the carnage, but we really didn’t need another fifteen minutes as the crows spread the word of his death. It completely killed the moment for me.