Demon Slayer: Entertainment District Arc to End With Extended Final Episode

Demon Slayer's Entertainment District arc will end with a special 45-minute long episode.

The extended run time for the arc's 11th episode was announced through the show's official Twitter account. The conclusion to the arc will air in Japan on Sunday, Feb. 13. The series is also being simulcasted internationally by Crunchyroll and Funimation. The episode will deal with the aftermath of the Demon Slayer Corps' fiery battle with the Upper Rank demons Gyutaro and Daki, which reached its action-packed conclusion with the arc's tenth episode.

The episode may also mark the end of Demon Slayer's second season. The season's possibly truncated length was first revealed through the show's listing on iQIYI, a Chinese streaming site that serves as the show's official distributor in that region. iQIYI listed the entire second season as only being 18 episodes long, the first seven of which were dedicated to the TV series' retelling of the Mugen Train arc, which was a re-edited version of the 2020 movie of the same name. The remaining eleven episodes have comprised the Entertainment District arc. While there has been rampant speculation about a possible extension to the current season, a new movie, or the announcement of a third season, the show's producers have yet to officially confirm any plans for how the popular shonen anime will continue following the conclusion of the current arc.

A "huge announcement" for the series was teased at the beginning of the year, which ended up being the reveal of a new Demon Slayer art exhibition and fan festival that will be coming to Japan later this year.

While questions remain about when the series continue, there's no doubt that it will return, as Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba remains one of the world's most popular anime and manga franchises. Since its debut in 2016, Koyoharu Gotouge's manga has managed to achieve a circulation of over 150 million copies around the globe. Despite publishing its final chapter in late 2020, the manga still managed to be Japan's second best-selling series of 2021, moving a whopping 29.5 million copies in that year alone. The franchise's first movie, Mugen Train, was released in 2020 to rave reviews and even a stronger response at the box office: the film is now the highest-grossing Japanese film and anime movie of all time, shattering a record that was previously held by Studio Ghibli's Academy Award-winning Spirited Away for almost two decades.

Source: Twitter