Gyokko, the vase demon, has got to be the grossest demon thus far. He’s got two mouths for eyes and then an eye IN HIS MOUTH MOUTH and an eye on his forehead. He summons these…nasty fish creatures that look like they fell out of “Gyo” and into a cartoonification ray with their big googly eyes and stupid muscle arms. Thanks Gotouge. I hate it.
Cover by Koyoharu GotougeWritten and Illustrated by Koyoharu Gotouge
Translated by John Werry
English Adaptation by Stan!
Lettered by John HuntThe strange shape-shifting demons Hatengu and Gyokko attack Tanjiro and his friends in the hidden village of swordsmiths. The Mist Hashira, Muichiro Tokito, engages the demons, but he’ll need some help from Tanjiro and another Demon Slayer, Genya. It’s bad enough that they have to fight two upper-rank demons, but can they handle a foe who can split itself into four separate bodies and regenerate almost instantly?
“Demon Slayer” has always tread the line between full body-horror, the likes of which “Jujutsu Kaisen” indulges in, and the PG-13 gross of most supernatural-adjacent Shonen Jump series. It’s something I like about the series, even when we get the likes of Gyokko, and it makes me hope that Junji Ito is never brought in to do a guest chapter. *Shudders*
Now, “Demon Slayer” is a Shonen Battle series through and through. This means that most aspects like Gyokko’s and Hatengu’s nastiness are in service of the larger battles and are meant to clue us into how they view themselves rather than to freak the audience out like, say, the horrible horrible horrible horrible fish creatures from “Gyo.” And no, I will not be grabbing panels from Ito’s freaky fish story because they make me unsettled at a spiritual level. I bring this up because much of volumes 13 and 14 is devoted to the mechanics of the battles between sides in addition to the internal motivation that shapes them.
Gyokko clearly sees himself as apart from humans, as superior, and thus his shape reflects that. He is a snobbish artist archetype, vain but with the desire His features are human enough – two arms (sometimes,) a face with a nose, an upright head atop a torso – but then he has extra arms for hair, no bottom half, and aforementioned eyes for mouth and mouth for eyes. He also has a thing for aquatic life, what with all the water and fish based attacks, which manifests as his final “perfect” form as a beefy merman.
Hatengu, on the other hand, is a being made of different competing emotions – anger, sorrow, joy, and chillness – with cowardice being the central emotion. It is also the smallest and least powerful, though it is the slipperiest. It’s interesting, too, that the non-central emotions all manifest as more conventionally attractive than Hatengu’s cowardice, which retains the glazed over eyes and huge bulging forehead. Both look traditionally “demonic,” and each emotion has its own unique design, but Hatengu’s central form, which is how he views himself, remains hunched over and a caricature of the kind of person one might assume is “cowardly.”
As for the members of the Demon Slayer Corps, there isn’t an actual, physical change to reflect the internals of the characters, with the exception of Genya who, as we find out, eats demons for power. Rather, the way their internal struggles manifest is through their fighting styles and attitudes. Genya has a major chip on his shoulder because of his older brother so he’s constantly lashing out at others and has to find ways to compensate for his lack of skills. His demeanor & fashion sense leans towards the gruff and harsh because of this as well.
Muichiro’s past was a blank, making him feel alone in all situations, and his simple and traditional garb reflects this. He put all his energy into getting better for the Corps because it was his only home, thus isolating himself more, and so he does not think to ask for help, whereas Genya does not want to ask.
Mitsuri, however, has always struggled with her appearance and physical strength, only coming to accept herself after joining the corps. Now, rather than tailor herself to what others expect of her, she acts in ways that fit her own desires and, well, strengths. She’s bubbly and open because she loves freely and wants to be loved in return. This manifests via her free flowing sword-whip, which is SO FUCKING COOL and would not work if she weren’t ludicrously strong, as well as through her wearing of these long striped socks because they were a gift from a fellow Hashira.
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I love how despite the entirety of these two volumes being a set of fights – Gyokko v. Muichiro, Genya, Nezuko, and Tanjiro v. Hatengu, Mitsuri v. Vase Fish, Mitsuri v. Hatred, etc. – we learn so much about the Demon Slayer Corps members via compelling flashbacks placed at opportune breaking points. What an economy of information and feels Gotouge packs into these two volumes. I’m also glad to see that my theory as to which demons get the empathy flashback treatment still holds. We’re teased with Hatengu’s past through Hatred’s comments of “pickling on the weak” and a brief flash of some disapproving father figure as he’s running from Genya & Tanjiro. I presume we’ll pick this up in the next volume.
As for Gyokko, he’s so reprehensible and selfish his final moments revolve not around how he became a demon but instead around being livid at being “one upped by humans.” It’s also telling that his downfall came about because he needed Haganezuka to break his concentration on sharpening Tanjiro’s new sword. It’s ridiculous on the face of it but Gotouge has crafted a story where that development feels not only completely natural but almost necessary. It would have been stranger if Gyokko hadn’t gone out of his way to do that. It is both extreme effort on Muichiro’s part and Gyokko’s hubris that takes him down.
There are so many excellent moments throughout these volumes despite it all being a set of fights. I love how desperate every moment with Tanjiro, Genya, and Nezuko feels, as befitting not only their rank but also the enemies’ power and strategy. It’s tense and worrying and thrilling all at the same time and Nezuko gets to break out the power of the fuck you kick! Hell yeah! In contrast, Gyokko and Muichiro’s fight is pretty one-sided at the start due to a difference in the regard, or disregard, of the human lives around but then flips after it seems like all is lost and becomes a different, short, one-sided fight.
I’m also very glad that Gotouge took the time to demonstrate how each demons’ blood demon art works so that I wasn’t sitting there going “but you cut off his head! Why are there more!?!!” I think I finally have a better idea of the “defeating demon rules” and their loopholes.
Lastly, seems I was right and wrong with regards to the appearance of “Demon Slayer’s” humor. There was a lot less of it but the moments that were there were perfectly placed to add a touch of levity between deadly serious fights or in the middle to offer a counter-balance to the sadness of a flashback OR as a lead-in to one. I’m specifically thinking of chapter 122, ‘A Passing Bit of Excitement,’ where the gag of Kotetsu being not a ghost but actually alive as he survived a mortal stab wound thanks to Regoku’s hilt and Tokito saying he’s fine while dying of poison precedes a one page scene of his very dead family praising him for doing well and god dammit I’m crying while writing this.
Gotouge stop making me cry so god damn effectively! GAH!
Next time, we finish up the fight in the swordsmith village with volumes 15 & 16 and hopefully I won’t be a sobbing mess again. I guess I’ll just have to listen to this on repeat again.
