The arc is way too short for a TV season.
Summary:
- The Hashira Training Arc of Demon Slayer is only 8 chapters long in the manga.
- That’s barely enough for a 5-episode season, and with the first episode being double-length, fans believe there will be some filler content.
- It’s too early to speculate, and fillers aren’t always bad.
The new Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) season was anticipated by fans for a while. The movie compiling the finale of the previous arc and the premiere of this one has come out quite a while ago, and now, the new season is finally here — but fans actually have concerns about it.
The season is supposed to adapt the Hashira Training Arc, and due to how short said arc is, it’s starting later than Spring seasonal anime normally start. However, fans still believe that even with the late start, it’s going to have some fillers.
The Arc Is Very Short — 8 Chapters Isn’t Enough for Full Season
The Hashira Training Arc is only 8 chapters long in the manga. As such, fans are speculating on how long the anime will air for, because that amount of chapters won’t be enough for a proper season.
The most common guess is that this season is going to have 5 episodes only. That’s basically a long movie, and some are wondering why the anime wasn’t released that way.
Of course, were Hashira Training Arc to be released as a movie, it would have spent around a year or even more in theaters, with how successful the franchise is.
As such, it would not have hit streaming until much later, and there wouldn’t be a possibility to release a new season unless this theoretical movie was cut into pieces to be shown on TV, like it already happened with the Mugen Train movie.
So, probably to not delay the production of further seasons, this arc is adapted as a short TV series.
There’s a Concern About the Adaptation Having Fillers
Still, according to a yet unconfirmed leak, the Hashira Training Arc anime is going to be 8 episodes long — which is way too much for an 8-chapter arc. As such, fans believe the anime will contain at least some amount of fillers, which is not something they want.
To be fair, even with 5 episodes, it’s somewhat likely there will be some anime-original content. The premiere of the season, as it usually happens with Demon Slayer, is going to be double-length, essentially making it 6 episodes already.
There is still speculation on whether the anime will add filler content or just drag the events. There’s also an option of adding some content from the next arc, which is fairly long (and is also the last one in the series).
Interestingly enough, this wouldn’t be the first time Demon Slayer adds anime-original content, and before this, it was actually well-received. The first episode of Mugen Train TV cut wasn’t in the movie, and consists entirely of new scenes made for anime specifically. So, perhaps the fillers in Hashira Training, if they happen, won’t be too bad.