Demon Slayer Studio Celebrates Entertainment District Arc’s Premiere With New Art

Animation studio Ufotable has released new art from Demon Slayer's current Entertainment District arc.

After months of hype and teaser trailers, the new arc finally premiered its first episode on Dec. 5. Ufotable, the animation company that has handled the production of Demon Slayer's anime adaptation since the show's premiere, celebrated the occasion by showing off three new illustrations from the studio's artists on Twitter. The first depicts the series' main protagonist, Tanjiro Kamado, looking solemn, while the other two images highlight the Sound Hashira, Tengen Uzui, who plays a major role in the events of the new story arc. The company's official Twitter account promised to reveal more art and details about the series' production as further episodes from the Entertainment District arc are broadcast.

The Sound Hashira made his return to the anime in Episode 8 of the series' second season. The special 45-minute long episode was directed by Shinya Shimomura, who previously directed the new first episode of the Mugen Train arc, and Kei Tsunematsu, who served as an assistant unit director on the Mugen Train movie. Uzui is voiced by Fairy Tail and One Punch Man's Katsuyuki Konishi in Japanese, and Final Fantasy XV's Ray Chase in the English dub.

Episode 8 is the first entirely brand new story to be featured in the show since the Season 2's premiere; the prior six episodes were mostly created from recut footage from the 2020 Mugen Train movie, which is still the highest grossing anime movie of all time. Ufotable added 70 new scenes to the arc to encourage series fans to give the TV cut of the storyline a rewatch, but the majority of the hype and promotion material for the anime's second season has been centered on the Entertainment District arc.

Demon Slayer was created by Koyoharu Gotouge and was first published in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2016. The series tells the story of a kind young man, Tanjiro Kamado, who dedicates himself to becoming a demon slayer after most of his family is slaughtered by one of the titular monsters. The manga is the newest series to enter the rankings of the top ten best-selling manga series of all time, with over 150 million copies in circulation around the world. Gotouge's manga concluded this past May, and despite ending within the first half of the year, the series was still overall the second best-selling manga of 2021 with 29.5 million copies sold, coming in just under Jujutsu Kaisen's 30 million. The anime adaptation of the series is currently streaming on both Funimation and Crunchyroll.

Source: Twitter