The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2021 - Issue 29

bitefilmreview Nolan’s film Inception ), grief and calling for destiny. It also quite accurately showcases swordsmanship and Japanese martial arts. Demon Slayer is full of powerful fighters with strong abilities, but the unique traits placed on each sword colour also have fascinating meanings. Demon Slayer Corps fighters can execute super powerful magical sword techniques by mastering unique ‘breathing style’ patterns. These breathing techniques are also said to enhance the strength and endurance of their physical bod- ies. According to Historical European Martial Arts, this de- piction in the show is purely an exaggerated fantasy; how- ever, the idea that breath control is essential in sword-based martial arts does have a basis in reality. The movie is a well-thought-out spin-off of the main show, bridging season one with season two and continues where it left off at the end of season one. Set during Taishō-era Japan (1912-1926), the action is set mainly on the train (I can’t help but think of Snowpiercer by Bong Joon-ho). It fol- lows a young boy named Tanjiro Kamado in his quest to join the secret society known as the Demon Slayer Corps to find a cure for his sister Nezuko, who has been turned into a demon. The other demon slayers include pretty blonde boy Zenitsu Agatsuma and noisy half-man and half-boar Inosu- ke Hashibira, who discovers slaying master Flame Hashira Kyojuro Rengoku is an elite demon slayer and has unique fire-adjacent properties. As the ensemble is getting to know each other, they are sent into sleep comas by the lower-rank demon Enmu, who ma- nipulates and kills his victims in their slumber with the help of his bewitched child demons. Our loveable slayers quickly fall prey to Enmu until Tanjiro manages to escape the per- fect dream he's been trapped in. While dreaming, Tanjiro meets his family once again, who were killed by demons in the TV series. In the meantime, the other characters have similar reveries while not aware of being asleep. If you have not seen the previous series, it will not be diffi- cult to pick up the plot. There are lots of hints and throw- backs to the past, helping you understand the whole story, and since the main villains are demons, it is pretty easy to root for the protagonist. The good guy slayers have huge eyes, albeit ones with weird polygonal shapes and strangely coloured irises, while the evil demons often have kanji char- acters where their pupils should be, as well as shapeshifting abilities. The latter also have hard-to-define but distinctly ‘villainous’ voices. At the same time, the good guys tend to speak in a staccato, eloquent fashion, prone to awkward enunciations such as: “While this is our first time meeting, I already dislike you.” We also often hear the inner dialogues, especially from the hero, as he struggles with the moral di- lemma of good and evil. The whole insane action sequence quickly follows once the slayers wake up from their lucid-like dreaming. They take on and defeat Enmu, who has now bonded with the train itself and become one giant demon on the tracks. Howev- er, before Tanjiro can celebrate this hard-won victory, a far more powerful demon called Akaza suddenly appears and fights Kyōjuro to death since he refused the offer to become a powerful demon. With regenerative abilities, the demon can defeat the Flame Hashira before running off into the woods to avoid his own death by sunlight. It's a brutal twist, one that rams home just how precarious life is in the world of demon-slaying. But before Kyōjuro's