Demon Slayer Volume 2
Synopsis
After passing final selection, humble charcoal seller Tanjiro Kamado is now a full-fledged demon slayer. His first mission is to track down a potential demon collecting young girls in a small nearby town. Along the way, Tanjiro attempts to learn more about the demon that murdered his family and turned his sister Nezuko into a demon. Muzan Kibutsuji is not an easy demon to find, but with Tajiro’s exceptional sense of smell and his demon sister in tow, he may be the first to discover this demon's whereabouts.
Review and Recommendation
Demon Slayer Volume 2 continues to be just as immersive and alluring as volume one. This is my second read-through of the entire Demon Slayer series, and I still find it as rich and memorizing as the first time I read it. Volume two begins with two pages of exposition and then picks up right where volume one ended. I like the lack of an extensive and drawn-out exposition dump. The story keeps its pace by reviewing what the characters have been exposed to and returning to the main story. The book also continues with a first-person point of view, which keeps the story from going stale. The reader continues to discover more about the demon world from the perspective of Tanjiro and a few other characters. There is still so much left to discover that isn’t ruined by too much exposition. Tanjiro is also such a benevolent character that you can’t help but root for him and hope he accomplishes his goals. I especially enjoy his interactions with demon characters. He’s never boastful when he slays demons. He senses their feelings of fear and sadness and feels empathetic towards them. This volume also introduces the wickedly terrifying Muzan, perfectly contrasting with Tanjiro. I relished the conflicting dynamics of demon and human survival. The steady world-building and complex characters bring me back to this series repeatedly.
*Spoiler Alert* (A spoiler alert is being issued because there are mentions of specific plot points that relate to the rating of this review.)
Cautions
Volume two of Demon Slayer continues to have gore woven throughout the book. Again, this series is about demons, and demons eat people in this series. One panel in particular might be a bit too much gore for younger readers. This panel comes after introducing Muzan (the first demon ever to exist). While on a walk to do some business, he runs into three drunk people on their way home. One of them bumps into Muzan and fusses about how Muzan should apologize. Instead, Muzan kills all three of them. The last person he kills by injecting his demon blood into her forehead, which makes her body explode. The explosion part is not shown, but her body getting bloated and close to bursting is shown. Other than this particular panel, the rest of the gore is relatively mild. I would still recommend this series to teens and older adults.
