Demon Slayer’s fourth season, The Hashira Training Arc, didn’t have enough to work with to warrant a full-blown season of the wildly popular anime adaptation. While the term “filler” refers to original anime content not seen in the source material, this fact doesn’t always mean that it is a bad thing to add new scenes to the small screen. Franchises like Naruto, Dragon Ball, One Piece, and more might not have the best track record when it comes to many examples of filler arcs but Demon Slayer might be the exception and if season four proved anything, it’s that the Infinity Castle films would benefit from new material.
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To fill those in on the filler that worked so well in the Hashira Training Arc, it was the session that featured the now-retired Sound Hashira working with Tanjiro on his swordsmanship. In the original manga by creator Koyoharo Gotouge, the training session was a brief one, only taking place over the a series of brief panels. In the anime, in an effort to help pad out the runtime, we were able to not only learn more about the training itself, but Tengen as a character. Thanks to the debilitating injuries he took while fighting the demon Gyutaro in the second season, this was a much needed story in learning about the Sound Hashira.
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Infinity Castle Filler?
In hoping for more filler material for the upcoming Infinity Castle movies, its based on how Ufotable handled its original scenes and what the upcoming films need. Without diving too deeply into spoiler territory, there certainly is more than enough room to inject some new arcs into the proceedings. Infinity Castle’s origin debut worked well as the grand finale of the series in terms of the fight against Muzan and his Upper Moons but a giant series of fights could use some more character development in some aspects.
Creating original material is placed under a microscope amongst many anime fans and sometimes for good reason. In the case of Demon Slayer, Ufotable has found the right balance of injecting filler when needed and not going overboard to create new stories that wouldn’t feel right in the flow of the original manga. Here’s hoping that the production house is able to inject some new stories into the upcoming films that feel both fresh and necessary to help hammer home the series.
Future Filler
The Infinity Castle trilogy of films have been touted as the next major chapter of Demon Slayer’s anime but this might not be the end of the franchise. There could potentially be one final arc that would chronicle what takes place following the fight against Muzan, and adding to it might be a viable option for Ufotable. This isn’t to say that new arcs should be created to give the anime more arcs following the Infinity Castle but the filler has worked so far at adding depth to the shonen series and here’s top hoping it continues to do so before Tanjiro and the Demon Slayer Corps take a bow.
Want to see what the future holds for the Demon Slayer Corps? Follow along with Team Anime on ComicBook.com for all the latest on Tanjiro and company and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.
