Rengoku Returns

Season two of Kimetsu no Yaiba premiered on Sunday and I finally watched it when it premiered on Netflix yesterday. As has been widely reported, the new season is repeating the same story as the massively successful Mugen Train movie, splitting the film up into seven episodes. But of course that means there will be a lot of new material so it's basically Mugen Train: The Extended Edition. The first episode focuses entirely on Rengoku Kyojuro (Satoshi Hino) and serves to provide an explanation of all the bento lunches he's eating at the beginning of the film. It turns out he bought out the entire stock of a restaurant after rescuing the proprietor and her granddaughter from a demon.

It definitely feels like they're milking Rengoku's massive, probably unexpected, popularity. I can't overstate the reverence virtually every student, boy and girl, of every grade, holds for Rengoku. My young friends in the art club constantly draw him and he's always spoken of in solemn or sadly affectionate tones. Considering the next arc in the manga is evidently a torrid tale of a red light district that has nothing to do with Rengoku, the makers of the anime probably had to go this route.

He is a charming character--pure-hearted and self-sacrificing, his only quirk being his unblinking love for food. The new episode begins with a lovingly animated sequence of soba noodles being prepared for him.

He is almost a propaganda hero, like the men who mutinied over borscht in Battleship Potemkin. Altogether, Kimetsu no Yaiba is a marked shift in anime to a more conservative story about honorable men fighting to protect the women they love. That's not to knock it, in fact I'd say Japan is a lot healthier playing out these stories in fantasy instead of electing strong men presidents (indeed, it seems like there's another prime minister resigning every day).

I'm interested in Mugen Train: The Extended Edition but I have to admit I'm more interested in catching up to the next arc. Maybe I should get caught up on the manga.

Kimetsu no Yaiba is available on Netflix in Japan and Crunchyroll in the U.S.

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