Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero” seems like it has one of the strangest titles of all the episodes of the anime. It sounds more like a title of an episode from a sci-fi anime. There’s a good reason for that. Especially what with the highly anachronistic autonomous clockwork-powered training dummy right out of a steampunk work in this episode. That’s not even going into who the dummy is modeled after.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero”: Details

'Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc' NA key visual.
I wonder if the training dummy is going to be helpful against the demons somehow?

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero” is the second episode (you can read a review for Ep. 1 here) of this dark fantasy adventure martial arts anime series. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the manga of the same name by Koyoharu Gotouge. Ufotable (Tales of Symphonia: The Animation, Fate/zero, Tales of Zestiria the X) remains the animation studio behind this anime, and is also writing the story instead of any individual writer.

As for production staff for this episode: Akihiko Uda is the director, with Ken Tsunematsu doing the storyboard. If you’re talking about the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba anime in general though: Haruo Sotozaki is still the director, with Akifumi Fujio, Masanori Miyake, and Yūma Takahashi producing. Yuki Kajiura and Go Shiina still compose the music.

Speaking of music: Man with a Mission and Milet sing the opening theme music “Kizuna no Kiseki” (“Bonds of a Miracle”) and ending theme music “Koi Kogare” (“Yearning”) for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero” stars the voices of Natsuki Hanae (Zach Aguilar in English dub) as Tanjiro Kamado and Akari Kitō (Abby Trott in English dub) as Nezuko Kamado. Other notable voice roles in this episode include Kengo Kawanishi (Griffin Burns) as Muichirō Tokitō and Ayumu Murase (Jeannie Tirado in English dub) as Kotetsu.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero” premiered on April 16, 2023. You can watch this episode only on Crunchyroll for now.

Warning: spoilers for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero” below. If you want to watch the technological anachronism for yourself, then stop here and come back once you’ve endured hellish training at the hands of someone who has no idea how to train a swordsman. You know, like what Tanjiro went through? It makes sense in context.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero”: Plot Summary

'Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc' Ep. 2 "Yoriichi Type Zero" screenshot depicting the titular training dummy in the middle of a fighting maneuver.
Does this thing look like it belongs in Taishō era Japan to you?!

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero” picks up directly from where we last left off in the previous episode. Muichirō Tokitō (the Mist Hashira) was in the middle of demanding some sort of key from a local masked village kid. This key is apparently needed to operate some sort of clockwork training dummy called “Yoriichi Type Zero”. A training dummy who looks awful Anyways, the Mist Hashira then does the dick move and starts to actually beat the kid, and threatened to torture the key out of him. With no emotion whatsoever. Needless to say, Tanjiro loses it and tries to stop him. Unfortunately, the Mist Hashira is far too powerful and knocks Tanjiro out.

Tanjiro comes to just fine later, but the kid had to hand over the key. Thus, the Mist Hashira gets to train very roughly with the impossibly advanced training dummy. So roughly that he actually chops off one of the dummy’s six arms. This is bad for multiple reasons: one of which is that no one knows how to repair the dummy anymore. I guess the Mist Hashira just doesn’t care if no one else can train with the dummy. It gets even worse when the kid, whose name is Kotetsu, mentions that it’s the last thing he has of his dad. Tanjiro gives the poor kid the full cinnamon bun treatment and boosts his determination back up. Kotetsu’s response? Give him training from hell.

Hellish Training from a Total Amateur?

'Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc' Ep. 2 "Yoriichi Type Zero" screenshot depicting Kotetsu trying to keep his dummy's key from the Mist Hashira.
Who knew such a sweet face, er, mask could hide such an innocently sadistic soul?

See, Kotetsu wants to repay Tanjiro for his kindness by training him to beat the Mist Hashira. Unfortunately, he has absolutely no idea how to make a proper training regimen or even knows what the limits of the human body are. The end result is that Kotetsu gives Tanjiro the most Spartan-esque training course ever devised. Complete with no food or water for bad performance. The kid means well, but Tanjiro nearly dies because of that training. Fortunately, the near-death experience does manage to unlock an upgrade for Tanjiro’s nose. Now, he can somehow use his nose to sniff out openings in his enemy’s attacks. How? Don’t know. We’ll just call it a magic nose and be done with it.

Tanjiro uses his newfound magic nose to finally get past the dummy’s attacks, and land a strike on it. Unfortunately, that strike is powerful enough to knock off the dummy’s head. No repairing it now, I guess. On the plus side, Tanjiro’s destruction of the dummy revealed that there was a sword in it. A sword that has apparently been in there for 300+ years, and no one noticed until now. What’s with the mystery sword? Well, hopefully, we’ll find that out in the next episode of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero”: The Good

'Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc' Ep. 2 "Yoriichi Type Zero" screenshot depicting Kotetsu and Tanjiro staring in shock at the broken dummy with a sword sticking out of it.
Now the real question here is: does the bad outweigh the good here?

As you might expect from a direct adaptation of Koyoharu Gotouge’s manga, the story is great. Especially Tanjiro. He goes full pure cinnamon bun in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero”. Once he goes full cinnamon bun, only the vilest and dastardly villains would still continue to hate him. Fortunately, Kotetsu is no such villain and is a sweet kid to boot. Now if only he knew how to properly train swordsmen.

Speaking of villains, the Mist Hashira’s behavior in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero” is quite…bizarre. He performs cruel and callous acts, but he seems to do it completely without malice. Even weirder, the ending sequence animation shows a younger Muichirō Tokitō laughing and playing like a normal kid. So what caused him to turn into a Terminator in the present day? Guess we’ll find out later. Going by past experience with this anime, it’s probably going to bring about the return of the onion ninjas.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc Ep. 2 “Yoriichi Type Zero”: The Bad

'Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Swordsmith Village Arc' Ep. 2 "Yoriichi Type Zero" screenshot depicting Muichirō Tokitō's blank, lifeless gaze.
Can’t tell if he’s genuinely cruel, or if he has no sense of what’s normal.

As a fan of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba since Ep. 1, I cheerfully admit to being very much biased toward this anime. Even so, though, the second episode of Swordsmith Village Arc is proving to be just as good as season 1, if not better. This is why I’m giving this episode 100/100. If you don’t get why, then check out season 1 for yourself and find out.

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