We finally get to see the long-awaited Yuukaku-hen (Entertainment District arc) episodes after 7 weeks of the rebroadcasted (and slightly modified) Mugen ressha-hen film. I don’t know why ufotable did this but then again, taking the naïve cap off my head, I think I know why.
Picking up exactly when the trio meets Uzui Tengen, the ex-ninja sound hashira, (who was originally gonna pick up the three girls from the Butterfly Mansion for this mission) – the mission is to extricate Uzui’s three kunoichi wives who have gone missing in the red light district (“entertainment”) of Yoshiwara in Tōkyō (still is to this day, albeit smaller as prostitution is illegal in modern day Japan) while investigating the possibility of demon activity.
These episodes seem to have a comedic start (Tanjirō, Zenitsu and Inosuke in drag to name one) to the overall feel, although by episode 3 (ufotable seem to number them as episode 1 onwards with the start of this arc) you know things are getting serious.
The OP and ED songs are now by Aimer – 残響散歌 Zankyō sanka and 朝が来る Asa ga kuru, respectively. Kinda missing LiSA but these Aimer songs slap just as hard.
Yuukaku-hen starts effectively from volume 9 of the manga, and thus far, ufotable has not skimped on anything. There are a couple of anime-only frames but even these are derived from the one-panelled pencil drawings by Gotōge.
Episode 4 entitled 今夜 Konya / Tonight will be just after Chrimbo – looking forward to it!
