Kimetsu no Yaiba – Mugen Ressha-hen – 04

「侮辱」 (Bujoku)
“Insult”

Now that the 2021 Japanese general election has been settled, Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen Ressha-hen makes its return this week with an episode centered around Tanjirou’s next moves now that he’s awake. But while he’s able to pull a fast one on Enmu, he still has his work cut out for him when he reveals he’s fused himself with the train.

A MYRIAD OF DREAMS

As the hostages find themselves searching for the spiritual core of Tanjirou and his friends, it’s funny to see how difficult their mission ended up becoming once they realized his friends are messed up in the head. Inosuke’s dream self was hilarious to see considering how quickly he took to behaving like a wild boar.

It was also interesting to see that how berserk Zenitsu became in his dream the moment it felt like someone was butting into his romantic Nezuko fantasy. It might come off as a part of the joke centered around Zenitsu’s obnoxious personality, but it also shows how in-tune he is with his subconscious to lean on his scarier side.

DREAM EATER

Speaking of scary, Enmu’s proven himself to be quite a fearsome antagonist with how persistent he is as a symbiotic demon. If it wasn’t for the guilt of the civilian tasked with Tanjirou’s spiritual core, he would’ve effectively held the ability to dream over the heads of his hostages to do his bidding and kill for him.

On top of being a manipulator, he’s also has a demented desire to pull the wool over his victims’ eyes only to cruelly twist the knife for them. In this episode alone, Enmu admits that sees himself as benevolent because he could’ve used his powers to show Tanjirou a dream about his parents being dead or his dad being alive and resentful. In reality, he loves to show people nightmares after a happy dream and see how heartbroken they look.

That added cruelty is emphasized further when Tanjirou’s next dream is slated to be an illusion where his family resents him for outliving them. Outwardly weaponizing Tanjirou’s memories is already rough enough as it is, but his messed-up mindset is twisted enough to wake Tanjirou up in a fit of rage.

The scariest thing about Enmu, however, is how much control he has over any object he attaches himself to. Placing his blood on the train tickets already gave him the power to put high level demon slayers to sleep.

Getting his head cut off didn’t even matter as much because by that point, he fused himself with the train and transformed into a weird parasitic worm monster. It’s an unsettling nightmare come to life to see his weird CGI worm body writhing around like Freddy Krueger’s snake form in the third Elm Street film. Inosuke might have woken up, ready to slash up parts of Enmu’s body, but the episode closes on a note that places a timer on the other demon slayers to wake up, lest they be consumed by the symbiote train.