Demon Slayer season 4: the Hashira Training

After three seasons of fights against the Upper Moons, season 4 surprises. For seven episodes, almost no demons. Instead, slayers running, stretching, sweating, complaining and eating together. Some fans found the pace slow; many others see it as the most endearing season, the one where you finally understand who the Hashira are when they are not fighting.

This guide tells what happens in it, station by station, without spoiling the ending, and explains why this pause matters so much for what follows. Its place in the series is detailed on our page Demon Slayer in what order, seasons and films.

What does Demon Slayer season 4 tell?

At the end of season 3, something changed for Nezuko, and Muzan understood it. He is no longer only looking for the blue spider lily: he wants Nezuko. Kagaya Ubuyashiki, the slayers’ leader, knows that the final confrontation is approaching, and that his soldiers are not ready.

The Hashira then make an unprecedented decision: to train all the slayers themselves, whatever their rank. Each opens a training station and teaches what they master best. The slayers move from one to the next, and can only move on after passing the previous stage.

Tanjiro, barely out of two months of convalescence, joins the programme late. His friends have already been through the first stations, and he discovers over the episodes what they have endured, often through their complaints at dinner. He will meet all the Hashira, one by one, and discover that behind their titles lie very different personalities, sometimes touching, sometimes unbearable. Our article on the Hashira Training, station by station details each trial.

The training stations

Each Hashira teaches in their own way, and each station has its colour. The season parades the masters in the order Tanjiro meets them.

Two Hashira are missing at the start. Shinobu Kocho is devoting herself to a secret project, and Giyu Tomioka refuses to take part: he does not consider himself a real Hashira. Persuading him to join the others becomes one of the most touching plot lines of the season. Our portrait of Giyu Tomioka, the Water Hashira explains what he has carried since the Final Selection.

Tanjiro sets about it with his usual patience. He follows Giyu everywhere, talks to him, annoys him, then finally finds the words that change his mind. The two slayers then train in a duel, and the series slips in one of its funniest scenes along the way, when Tanjiro suggests Giyu make up with Sanemi by bringing him ohagi, his favourite rice cakes, and Giyu, delighted, takes the idea very seriously. Giyu’s smile in this scene has become one of fans’ favourite images. Our article on Tanjiro and Giyu, from merciful executioner to brother in arms tells this relationship since season 1.

These stations are also a chance to see the Hashira in their daily lives: Mitsuri cooking, Tengen joking, Muichiro laughing, Gyomei weeping as he prays. For those who only knew the Hashira mid-fight, it is a revelation. Our page on the nine Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps presents them all.

Mitsuri and Obanai, two opposite masters

Mitsuri’s station is the lightest of the season. The Love Hashira welcomes the slayers in dance clothes, serves them pancakes and tea, then bends them every which way to the sound of a gramophone. Her pupils’ cries of pain are among the funniest moments in the series.

Obanai’s changes the atmosphere. The Serpent Hashira, cold and curt, ties slayers to posts and forces the recruits to strike between them. He makes no secret of his hostility towards Tanjiro, and the reason, linked to Mitsuri, greatly amuses fans. Our portrait of Obanai Iguro, the Serpent Hashira tells his past.

If you want to wear his black and white striped haori, the Obanai cosplay comes from 110 to XXL in the Hashira cosplays collection, with the rest of the complete Obanai Iguro collection.

Sanemi and Genya, two brothers face to face

Sanemi’s station is the most brutal. The Wind Hashira chains assaults without letting anyone catch their breath, and the tension rises when his younger brother, Genya, crosses his path. Their relationship, made of silences and blows, becomes one of the strongest threads of the end of the series. Our articles on Sanemi Shinazugawa, the Wind Hashira and on Genya, the slayer without breathing tell of these two brothers.

His green blade, with an openwork star guard, exists as a 104 cm replica in the complete Sanemi Shinazugawa collection, among the katana replicas.

Gyomei Himejima, the strongest of the Hashira

The last station is Gyomei’s, the Stone Hashira, and it is the most dreaded. The slayers meditate under an icy waterfall, carry logs on their shoulders and must move a boulder bigger than themselves. Most give up.

Gyomei is blind, huge, and weeps at almost every sentence. He stands over two metres tall and prays while counting his prayer beads, even in the middle of the exercises. He is also the strongest of all the slayers, and the season takes the time to tell his past: a temple, children taken in, a night that made him the man he is. The face-off between Tanjiro and him, in front of the boulder, is one of the finest moments of the season. Our portrait of Gyomei Himejima, the Stone Hashira tells this past, and our ranking of the Hashira by strength explains why he comes out on top.

It is also at this station that Zenitsu receives a letter that devastates him, linked to his master and his former fellow pupil. Without giving anything away, this moment changes how he sees the coming war. Our article on Jigoro Kuwajima, Zenitsu’s master gives the context.

Gyomei, his axe and flail linked by a chain, exists as a 30 cm figure in the complete Gyomei Himejima collection and among the demon slayer figures.

The last episode, the entry into war

The eighth episode changes everything. Muzan finally finds the mansion of Kagaya Ubuyashiki, the slayers’ leader, which he has been seeking for centuries. Kagaya, ravaged by illness, awaits him with a smile, as if he had planned every minute of this visit.

What follows is one of the strongest moments in the anime, and one of the hardest. The Hashira rush in, Muzan reveals himself as never before, and all the characters are hurled into the Infinity Castle. The screen goes black on this fall, and what follows plays out at the cinema. Our portrait of Kagaya Ubuyashiki, the slayers’ leader tells of this man, and the one on Muzan Kibutsuji, the first demon of his enemy.

If you are watching with a child, be aware that this episode contains a deliberate explosion in which several characters die. Our article on the recommended age for Demon Slayer lists passages of this kind, season by season.

Why does this calm season matter so much?

Season 4 has sometimes been judged slow, and yet it is what gives the Infinity Castle fights their weight. What you learn there about the Hashira, their wounds, their regrets, their friendships, comes back in every duel of the final battle. After watching it, every wound a Hashira takes in the Castle touches you more, because you saw them laughing and training a few episodes earlier.

It also sets up the big questions of what follows: what the Demon Slayer Mark costs, what Shinobu is preparing, and the cure Tamayo is seeking, now an ally of the Corps. Our articles on the Hashira’s mark and its price and on Tamayo, the demon doctor explain these two issues.

The trio, for their part, each experience the training in their own way. Inosuke sees it as a permanent challenge and wants to beat all the Hashira, Zenitsu begs to be allowed to leave before being transformed by his letter, and Tanjiro, always one stage behind, catches up with the others through sheer stubbornness. Our article on the story of the Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke trio follows their friendship from one season to the next.

And it makes you laugh. Between Mitsuri’s pancakes, Inosuke’s complaints and Zenitsu’s tears, season 4 reminds you that Demon Slayer is also a story about a gang of friends, and that is often what fans miss most during the Infinity Castle.

The theme songs, finally, made their mark. My First Story and Hyde, two big names in Japanese rock, sign the opening, Mugen, and the ending, Tokoshie. Our article on the Demon Slayer theme songs places them among the others.

After season 4

The rest of the story is no longer a season but a film trilogy. The first, Infinity Castle, part 1, was released in Japan on 18 July 2025 and in France on 17 September 2025. Our article on what the first Infinity Castle film tells presents it, and the one on what you need to have seen before the Castle helps you revise.

If you do not want to wait for the next films, the manga picks up at chapter 140, at the start of volume 16. Our article on the chapter to pick up from after the anime guides you step by step, and our page tracing all the Demon Slayer arcs puts the whole in order.

A compilation film, released in February 2024, brought the end of the Swordsmith Village and the first episode of season 4 to cinemas. No need to look for it if you are following the series, as our article on the Demon Slayer compilation films explains.