Demon Slayer Vol. 7: Trading Blows at Close Quarters
- ISBN
- 9781974704415
- Publisher
- Viz Media
- English release
- Pages
- 208
- Chapters
- 53–61
- Anime
- Film: Mugen Train; Season 1: Tanjiro Kamado, Unwavering Resolve Arc ep. 1–26; Season 2: Mugen Train Arc ep. 27–33
Chapters 53 to 61, and the volume where arriving from the anime gets confusing. Season 1 stops at chapter 54, the second chapter in this book rather than at its spine. The Mugen Train film then covers chapters 54 to 66, and season 2's first seven episodes cover the same stretch a second time. A reader who has seen either has seen everything here and starts at Vol. 8, five chapters in. A reader who stopped after season 1 starts here. Viz lists it in print at $11.99, and the only English box set is the complete 23-volume one, so there is no cheaper way to buy this stretch alone.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
Enmu, the one Lower Kizuki Muzan spared in Vol. 6, puts the whole train to sleep through a conductor desperate for a dream of his own, and sends sleep-starved passengers into the swordsmen's dreams to destroy them from inside. Tanjiro's dream is the cruel one: his family alive and Nezuko never turned. Nezuko's attempts to wake him let him see it for a dream, and he gets out by killing himself inside it. The Enmu he then beheads is a construct. The real one has merged with the train and means to eat everyone aboard, and the volume ends with Tanjiro and Inosuke wounding it fatally and the fight apparently over. It is not, and Vol. 8 is why. Rengoku, whom Tanjiro came to ask about the Hinokami Kagura, knows nothing about it and offers him an apprenticeship instead. The back pages carry a bonus story: Kanae and Shinobu Kocho buy a girl out of slavery, name her Kanao, and give her a coin to decide by. In Japan this volume, Vol. 1 and Vol. 8 were the first manga volumes in Oricon's records to pass five million copies each, in January 2021: the first book, and the two the film draws on.
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