Demon Slayer Vol. 2: It Was You
- ISBN
- 9781974700530
- Publisher
- Viz Media
- English release
- Pages
- 192
- Chapters
- 8–16
- Anime
- Season 1: Tanjiro Kamado, Unwavering Resolve Arc ep. 1–26
Two people arrive in this book who decide how the series ends, and neither of them is a swordsman. Chapters 8 to 16 take Tanjiro off Mt. Sagiri with a sword and his sister, through a first assignment in a town to the northwest, and on to Asakusa, which is where the volume earns its place in the run. The series is still small here: one swordsman, one case at a time, and almost nothing yet of the Corps he has joined. Zenitsu and Inosuke do not arrive until Vol. 3. Season 1 covers every chapter, so a viewer loses nothing by starting at Vol. 7. A reader going in order should slow down for the Asakusa chapters, because more of the last third of the run is planted there than anywhere else in the first ten books.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
Chapter 13, 'It Was You', is a short encounter with Muzan Kibutsuji in Asakusa, and it gives the volume its title. In the same district Tanjiro meets Tamayo, a demon who has escaped Muzan's control, and her assistant Yushiro. She explains the rule the series runs on, that Muzan seeds his cells in other demons and a curse takes any of them who says his name, and she makes Tanjiro an offer: she studies Nezuko's blood, he brings her blood from demons close to Muzan, and the object is a cure. That bargain is the one long plan in a story that otherwise moves from fight to fight. It pays off more than 120 chapters later. In Vol. 16 it is Tamayo's drug that goes into Muzan at the Ubuyashiki estate, and in Vol. 22 the medicine turns Nezuko human again. Before Asakusa comes the series' first proper case, a demon that splits into three bodies and preys on young girls, which Nezuko helps to kill. The book ends on a cliffhanger, with two of Muzan's assassins, Susamaru and Yahaba, attacking Tamayo's house in chapter 16, 'Playing Temari'. The fight resolves in Vol. 3. Episode 7 of the anime is titled 'Muzan Kibutsuji'.
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