Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Season 3 Episode 8 Recap & Review

The Twins

Episode 8 of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba season 3 titled ‘The Mu in Muichiro’ begins with Tokito escaping the water prison and taking off the numbing needles from his body. He sees an injured Kotetsu and several fish minions approaching him. He feels weak and is not sure if he can stop them but he suddenly sees a man cheering him and recognises him as his father. 

In a flashback, we see that his father is a lumberjack. His mother is sick and he does his best to take care of her while his father searches for herbs in the rain. They die when he is 10, the father falling off a cliff while searching for the herb while the mother succumbs to her illness. But he is not alone as he has a twin, Yuichiro.

Muichiro is compassionate and kind like his father while Yuichiro is a pessimist who doesn’t believe in helping others. The latter feels his father died a foolish death and left them orphans as no herb would have saved their mother. Muichiro is shocked at his callousness but the twin just claims that the ‘Mu’ in Muichiro means incompetence and meaningless.

Muichiro realises that despite having a brother, he has never felt more alone. One day, while getting water, he sees a beautiful woman who comes to them with an offer but Yuichiro turns her away. Muichiro later finds out that she is Amane, the wife of Master Kagaya Ubuyashiki. She approached them because they come from a long line of demon slayers who used the first breathing technique.

Muichiro wants to save people from demons and be useful but his brother is furious. He says that Muichiro is just like their parents who wanted to save others but could not even fend for themselves and it is shown that the mother fell sick after working too hard. Yuichiro is upset that he tried to stop them but they never listened to him which led to their deaths.

He says that they are kids and since they have no value, Amane must be plotting something to use them. They stop talking to each other after that but have a huge fight as Yuichiro throws water on Amane who kept visiting them. They live silently together and can barely stand each other. One night, both wake up to see a demon in their house. As he attacks, Yuichiro throws himself in front of his brother and has his arm torn off.

The demon calls them useless lumberjacks and is about to kill them when something flips in Muichiro. He sees red and when he wakes up, he sees that he has chopped the demon in pieces and staked him to the ground in the forest. The demon is not dead but suffers till the sun burns him but Muichiro does not care. He suddenly feels weak and crawls back to the house and sees a fatally injured Yuichiro praying for someone to save Muichiro.

He says his brother is kind and wants to save people. He tried to stop him but Muichiro should not be blamed for their selfish lifestyle. If anyone is to be punished, it should be him and not Muichiro. Muichiro tears up and reaches for his brother and it cuts back to the present. He suddenly remembers his brother saying that ‘Mu’ in Muichiro actually stands for ‘Mugen’ which means limitless.

Two dark marks form on Muichiro’s face and he easily kills the fish minions. Kotetsu begs him to leave him and go protect Haganezuka and the sword. Inside the hut, Gyokko is annoyed that despite severely injuring the swordsmith, Haganezuka still hasn’t stopped repairing the sword. He wonders if hurting Kanamori will break his concentration, but before he can make a move, Muichiro stops him by wounding him.

Gyokko suddenly sees that the marks on the slayer’s face are the same as Tanjiro’s forehead scar. He is also surprised that Muichiro easily got over the paralysis and releases an octopus minion. The octopus grabs him and Gyokko gloats that nothing can cut the flesh of this minion. But that doesn’t stop Muichiro who easily cuts the octopus to pieces.

He thanks Kanamori for the sword who says he just followed the instructions of his previous swordsmith, Tetsuido who is dead. Muichiro sees that the sword fits him nicely and he recalls Tetsuido worrying that no one would understand him. He understands that the swordsmith is pressured because he does not have his memories and instead, he works hard till he vomits blood.

In the present, Muichiro apologises for worrying Tetsuido and says he is now better. He destroys all of the vases thrown at him but Gyokko is relentless. As he fights, he remembers Yuichiro’s last words as he apologises for not being kinder as he thought he could not afford to be.

He felt that no one would protect them no matter how righteous they were, so he was selfish in order to protect Muichiro. He holds his brother’s hand as he is dying and says that only the chosen ones can be kind as they have limitless power and that Muichiro is the chosen one.

In the epilogue, Tanjiro and Nezuko wish Mitsuri a happy birthday and the swordsmiths throw a huge feast for her. She wonders if she can ask for refills and they are shocked at her huge appetite. Tanjiro then reveals that her favourite foods are pork cutlets, omelettes and fancy Western dishes which are all part of the birthday feast.

The Episode Review

There is some kind of irony to see that after his injury when Muichiro loses his memories, he turns into an exact replica of his twin, not just visually but also embodying his ruthless and apathetic personality. But underneath all that, as shown in the previous episodes of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba season 3, words spoken by Tanjiro that are similar to his father’s trigger him into going back to his old, kind self. 

But even then, Yuichiro is not all bad. He is only 10, trying to fend for himself and his brother while being angry at his parents for abandoning them. With the way he sees them working themselves to death for others, he must have been hurt that they did not think that staying alive for their children is also kindness.