Demon Slayer Vol. 19: Flapping Butterfly Wings
- ISBN
- 9781974718115
- Publisher
- Viz Media
- English release
- Pages
- 192
- Chapters
- 161–169
Two fights change hands in this book, and the larger one takes over the series. Chapters 161 to 169 finish the battle with Doma that began in Vol. 16 and open the battle with Kokushibo, the strongest of the Upper Ranks, which runs through Vol. 20. Neither half stands alone. The first needs Vols. 17 and 18 before it and the second has no ending here, so this is a book to buy as part of the run from 16 to 23 and not otherwise. In Japan it was the volume that showed how large the series had become. Released in February 2020, it sold an estimated 1.378 million copies in its first week, which made Demon Slayer the third manga, after One Piece and Attack on Titan, to pass a million in a week with a single volume. Viz published the English edition ten months later.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
Doma dies of Shinobu. Her death in Vol. 17 turns out to have been a plan and not only a defeat, one she had told Kanao about in advance, and Kanao and Inosuke finish what it started. Chapter 162 is 'Trio of Victory', and the third of the three is already dead; the chapter before it gives the volume its butterfly title. Then the book changes opponents. Kokushibo, Upper Rank One and once a Demon Slayer himself, is met by four of the Corps: Muichiro, the Shinazugawa brothers, Genya and Sanemi, and Gyomei Himejima, the Stone Hashira, whom an episode title in the anime's fourth season calls the strongest of the Corps. The fight is not settled here. What the book does well is scale. The Doma fight is two teenagers and a dead woman's plan. The Kokushibo fight is four of the Corps' best against one demon, and it still takes two volumes. Read as a pair with Vol. 20, this is the strongest stretch of the final battle, because it is the only one in which the villain's history, held back for the next book, is worth the wait.
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