Demon Slayer Season 4 Episode 8 Recap & Spoilers (2024)

The Spring 2024 anime season is now coming to a close. With it ends the Season 4 of Demon Slayer, the anime's shortest season yet. For seven episodes, Tanjiro Kamado and his friends trained with the Hashira to prepare themselves for the final battle, confident that they could take on Muzan Kibutsuji on their own terms to end this war the right way. The double-length season finale proves otherwise, with Muzan making his move first.

Episode 8, "The Hashira Unite," brings the leaders of the two warring factions together for the first and last time, creating a tense exchange between them with a literally explosive ending. The final battle finally begins in Demon Slayer's anime, the showdown that Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu have been preparing for all this time as a trio of shonen heroes. Unfortunately, the battle opens on the demons' terms, not Kagaya's, but there is no going back. At least Tanjiro and the Hashira are more united and motivated than ever to take the fight to Muzan one last time.

Muzan and Kagaya Debate the Meaning of Eternity

Episode 8 begins with Muzan Kibutsuji making a show of casually striding into the Demon Slayer Corps' HQ, with no one there to stop him. Muzan keeps marching across the compound until he arrives at Kagaya Ubuyashiki's room, with the door already open. Kagaya and his wife Amane aren't the least bit concerned about the sudden appearance of their deadly nemesis, Muzan Kibutsuji the Demon King, nor do they call for any backup as the two sides come face to face. Instead, they exchange mocking pleasantries, with Muzan commenting on how frail the Demon Slayer Corps' leader is, which he finds pitiful. Kagaya takes this in stride and starts exchanging verbal barbs with his nemesis, arguing about the true merits of humanity and what eternity really is. It soon becomes clear that demons and humans have totally different ideas on what "forever" really means.

In Muzan's eyes, eternity is the blessing of immortality, the ability for a supernatural being like him to live for countless centuries and fear almost nothing that might kill him. Muzan has long since left his own humanity behind, scorning humans for being fragile, short-lived creatures that can be killed so easily by his fellow demons. In fact, this ties into what Muzan wanted all along. He does not aim to conquer Japan or exterminate humanity, setting him apart from villains like Mahito. Instead, Muzan's true endgame is to make his immortality perfect and complete by eradicating his sunlight weakness once and for all. He can't stand having this simple but serious vulnerability, forced to hide in the shadows and walk under the moon. His eternity doesn't feel legitimate yet – he must be able to walk anywhere, anytime.

By contrast, Kagaya Ubuyashiki can't even live past 30, a curse that has afflicted his family for countless generations. However, Kagaya believes that immortality is intangible and sentmental, a concept that always outlives the mortal people who bear it. As Kagaya argues, the sheer will of humanity is true immortality, a defiant, strong spirit that will always survive to fight Muzan's demons, no matter how many Hashira or other slayers die in the line of duty. The real contrast here is between Muzan's selfish, tangible immortality and the selfless, group-oriented immortality Kagaya speaks of. The human spirit, its indomitable will, isn't restricted to one person who enjoys it forever – it's a gift that's always passed on, a team effort across many generations. That's a classic shonen sentiment, a new way to look at the power of friendship not just for a team, but across the years.

Unsurprisingly, Muzan rejects this idea, having no sentimentality of his own. Kagaya finishes the conversation by warning Muzan that the angered Hashira will surely finish him off, comparing it to Muzan stepping on a tiger's tail. The seven Hashira and the Kamados are ready to destroy Muzan with or without their beloved leader around, because Kagaya's defiant will is certain to outlive his mortal life. Muzan is unperturbed and prepares to finish off Kagaya with his own claws, but Kagaya makes the first move. He has already laid a trap for Muzan, and once the conversation ends, the trap springs shut. Or rather, it erupts with white-hot fury.

Kagaya and Tamayo Take the Fight to Muzan

To everyone's shock, Kagaya's headquarters erupts in a massive fireball as countless explosives detonate. It's not clear how exactly the explosives were set off, but the results are the same. The compound is destroyed at once, and Kagaya, his wife, and their two daughters vanish in the flames, no doubt vaporized before they could even feel any pain. Interestingly, it's unconfirmed whether Amane and the kids knew this was going to happen, though given Kagaya's kind nature, it's likely that he informed his family of this plan and they bravely agreed to give their lives in this trap.

In any case, Muzan can do little but hurry and regenerate his body once he's burned nearly to death. There are even little spikes stuck all over his body. Muzan is on the defensive for now, and Kagaya's trap succeeds in buying time for the Hashira to hurry to the scene. This also signals the abrupt end of the Hashira training story arc. The Hashira cannot immediately take advantage of Muzan's momentary weakness, however, as they are already on patrol elsewhere, rather than staying by Kagaya's side. It may seem sloppy for Kagaya to not have his best warriors right there to capitalize on Muzan's vulnerability right away, but being a highly selfless and noble person, Kagaya Ubuyashiki always refused to have even one Hashira by his side as a bodyguard. Instead, he wanted his Hashira to continue on their missions to protect humanity, rather than devote the Corps' best warriors for the protection of one man.

It's an inspiring sentiment, but it comes with its risks. Before Tanjiro and the seven Hashira can arrive at the battlefield, someone else arrives to save the day: the petite, polite Tamayo. She uses a vicious blood demon art to impale Muzan on countless spikes, buying yet more time for the Hashira and threatening to kill Muzan by converting him back into a human. Along the way, this sequence reveals more about Tamayo's personal history, how she went berserk and ate her family after becoming a demon. Tamayo has a lot of innocent blood on her hands, thus her decision to become a pacifist doctor to compensate, but she can make an exception for Muzan. For the first and probably only time, Demon Slayer fans can see what the warrior Tamayo looks like.

Tanjiro and the Hashira Fall Into Muzan's Counter-Trap

The demon slayers have always been the deserpate underdogs in the centuries-long war against Muzan and demonkind. Naturally, the Demon Slayer Corps would make a huge sacrifice to capture Muzan in an explosive trap like this one. Still, the Hashira can hardly believe what they are seeing. Despite Kagaya's selfless sentiments, the Hashira are certain that they need their boss by their side. They are horrified by what's happening, and enraged like never before. This is their chance to fight like the tiger whose tail Muzan stepped on, and sure enough, Gyomei Himejima the Stone Hashira leaps into battle to engage the demon king with his weapon, a spiked ball on a long chain.

Just as Tanjiro and the Hashira have Muzan surrounded, however, Muzan springs his own trap. He has already arranged for Nakime, the new Upper Moon 4, to use her biwa's teleporting powers not on demons, but on demon slayers. Demon Slayer fans have already seen Nakime use her powers to teleport the Moons to their mission sites, but now that Nakime has located the demon slayers, she can use this technique more offensively. Nakime creates openings to Muzan's Infinity Castle under the feet of every Hashira and many other slayers, sending them right into Muzan's lair.

Episode 8 and Season 4 end with the anime's best heroes falling into Muzan's bizarre headquarters, trying to get their bearings as they keep falling through this vast space. For now, the heroes are all separated and disoriened, giving Muzan the edge, and there's no doubt that the four Upper Moons are waiting for them and will defend their king to the death. This allows Episode 8 to end on an incredible cliffhanger, getting Demon Slayer fans pumped for the three movies that will conclude this fantasy adventure at last.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

TV-MA

Animation

Action

Adventure

Release Date

January 22, 2021

Cast

Natsuki Hanae , Zach Aguilar , Abby Trott , Akari Kitō , Yosh*tsugu Matsuoka

Main Genre

Animation

Seasons

4