Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima”: Past And Present Colliding [Review]

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima” is a bit of a misleading title. Yes, this episode is definitely starring that particular Hashira. However, there’s so much more than that going on here due to the past and present colliding. You only need to look at the extended length of this episode to confirm that.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima”: Details

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima” is the seventh episode (you can read reviews of Ep. 1, Ep. 2, Ep. 3, Ep. 4, Ep. 5, and Ep. 6 here) of the fourth season of this dark fantasy adventure and martial arts anime series. Said season comes on the heels of the previous season, which was the Swordsmith Village Arc. Meanwhile, said anime series as a whole is the anime adaptation of the manga of the same name by Koyoharu Gotouge. Ufotable (Fate/Zero, God Eater, Tales of Zestiria the X) is the animation studio behind this anime. Crunchyroll is the company licensing this anime for its NA debut.

Akihiko Uda is the director behind Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima”, with Takashi Suhara doing the storyboard. As for the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba anime as a whole, Haruo Sotozaki is still the director. Ufotable collectively claims credit for the writing. Akifumi Fujio, Masanori Miyake, and Yūma Takahashi are all producing. Yuki Kajiura and Go Shiina composed the music you hear in the anime.

Speaking of music: the opening theme song for this season is “Mugen” (夢幻, lit. ’Dream’) by MY FIRST STORY and HYDE. The same band also performs “Tokoshie” (トコシエ, lit. ’Eternity’) as the ending theme music.

Voice Cast

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima” features the voices of Natsuki Hanae (Zach Aguilar in English dub) as Tanjiro Kamado, Hiro Shimono (Aleks Le in English dub) as Zenitsu Agatsuma, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Bryce Papenbrook in English dub) as Inosuke Hashibira, and Nobuhiko Okamoto (Zeno Robinson in English dub) as Genya Shinazugawa.

On the Hashira side, we have Tomokazu Sugita (Crispin Freeman in English dub) as Gyomei Himejima, Tomokazu Seki (Kaiji Tang in English dub) as Sanemi Shinazugawa, and Takahiro Sakurai (Johnny Yong Bosch in English dub) as Giyu Tomioka. THe other notable voice on the Demon Slayers’ side is Toshiyuki Morikawa (Matthew Mercer in English dub) as Kagaya Ubuyashiki.

On the demons’ side, we have Toshihiko Seki (Greg Chun in English dub) as Muzan Kibutsuji.

When and Where to Watch

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on June 23, 2024. You can watch this episode only on Crunchyroll at the moment. As for the previous seasons of the anime (including the anime film), you can watch it on Crunchyroll, Hulu, or Netflix.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima”: Synopsis

Alas, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is an ongoing anime series. In fact, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima” only made its debut three days ago as of this writing. Thus, you will all get the official synopsis from Crunchyroll…is what I would like to say, but alas, there’s a problem. This episode has nothing but a blank space where the synopsis should be, just like the episode before this one. Thus, you will all get the official synopsis of the anime as a whole instead, also from Crunchyroll. You can check out that synopsis below:

It is the Taisho Period in Japan. Tanjiro, a kindhearted boy who sells charcoal for a living, finds his family slaughtered by a demon. To make matters worse, his younger sister Nezuko, the sole survivor, has been transformed into a demon herself.

Though devastated by this grim reality, Tanjiro resolves to become a “demon slayer” so that he can turn his sister back into a human, and kill the demon that massacred his family.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima”: The Good

There’s no question about it. It’s the story of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima” that has me and likely pretty much every fan of this anime hooked. All because Koyoharu Gotouge is a master storyteller. They’re excellent at giving characters compelling backstories, and making you feel so many emotions at a character they literally introduced in detail just a short time ago. Gyomei Himejima is the character in the spotlight this time, and wow, he’s got a pretty tragic backstory. It takes you only a few minutes to sympathize with the big guy, which is the mark of a very good writer for the source material.

Not only that, but this episode is even slightly longer than the usual episodes. To be precise, it’s longer by about eight minutes. That marks a 25% increase over the usual episode length, and that allows this episode to fit in more of that wonderful story. It’s likely not something they will be regularly doing, but it’s a nice touch here.

Complementing that wonderful story is the animation. Ufotable once more show their commitment to maintaining a very high level of animation quality in this episode. Seriously, when Tanjiro is walking along a road through a forest, the trees are so realistically detailed that I thought it was live-action for a moment. That’s feature-length anime film levels of animation quality, and it adds to that wonderful story like chocolate drizzle on a cake.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima”: The Bad

Alas, even the action in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc Ep. 7 “Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima” may not be enough to satisfy those action junkies out there. Mostly because while the action that shows up is very stylish and high-intensity, it makes up only a tiny fraction of this episode. If you want even more action than in this episode, then you might want to check out Solo Leveling or Kaiju No. 8.

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