Demon Slayer Vol. 8: The Strength of the Hashira
- ISBN
- 9781974704422
- Publisher
- Viz Media
- English release
- Pages
- 192
- Chapters
- 62–70
- Anime
- Film: Mugen Train; Season 2: Mugen Train Arc ep. 27–33; Season 2: Entertainment District Arc ep. 34–44
Chapters 62 to 70, and the book where a viewer of the Mugen Train film starts reading, five chapters in. The fight on the train is still running when it opens. The 2020 film, and season 2's seven-episode version of it, both stop at chapter 66. Chapters 67 to 69 are the arc's aftermath, which the anime held back for episode 34, and chapter 70 opens the Entertainment District story that the rest of season 2 carries to chapter 97. So a film viewer has seen the first five chapters and none of the last four; the where-to-start form, given episode 33, answers chapter 67 and names this volume. It is an untidy place for a book to end, in the handover between two arcs, and there is no tidier way to buy it: the only English box set is the complete one. A viewer who stopped after season 1 and never saw the film starts at Vol. 7, not here.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
Rengoku dies here. Akaza arrives in chapter 63, the fight is chapters 64 and 65, and chapter 66, 'Scattering Into Dawn', is the death, with Akaza fleeing the sunrise and Tanjiro shouting after him the line this site carries under Tanjiro's name rather than Rengoku's. The film of these chapters grossed over $512 million and held the worldwide record for a Japanese film until Infinity Castle, and the television re-cut titled its last episode after Rengoku's parting words. The site's fact-check on those words found four trusted sources giving four English renderings, with Wikiquote's film page not containing 'set your heart ablaze' at all, so this volume is the one place a reader can settle what Viz's translation says. Chapters 67 to 69 are the aftermath at the Rengoku house: a brother, a father, and a rumor of an older technique that resembles the Hinokami Kagura. The anime held that aftermath back for episode 34, the opener of its next arc. Chapter 70 leaves the train for a kidnapping. Rengoku is on the page alive from the Hashira meeting in Vol. 6 to chapter 66, a span shorter than the Entertainment District arc that follows him, and the grief the franchise spends on him is the adaptation's investment, not the manga's.
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