I’m still not over this conversation from the most recent episode. Yes, we knew that Tanjirou would be able to get through to Giyuu, due to their shared loss of family and loved ones at the hands of demons. And yes, we knew that Tanjirou still carried immense amounts of grief and sorrow when it came to these (still fairly recent) deaths.
But this is the first and only time Tanjirou has ever admitted to wishing that he had died instead of someone else. This is a huge and devastating thing for him to acknowledge about himself.
With his family, his survivor’s guilt was about not being there when Muzan attacked. Even though, realistically, he wouldn’t have stood a chance against Kibutsuji at the time, it doesn’t matter to him. This fact still constantly haunts him.
Rengoku’s death, though—this is the only time Tanjirou’s survivor’s guilt takes this shape, that his confusion and grief is so severe that he wishes that he had died instead.
Tanjirou tells himself that it’s because he believed Rengoku was capable of defeating Muzan someday. And there is some truth to this rationalization, but deep down, it’s an excuse. Rengoku didn’t survive against Akaza, a demon who—though incredibly formidable—was ultimately bound to have only a fraction of Muzan’s full strength.
Once the viewer understands this excuse for what it is, it hurts even more to understand why Rengoku’s death impacted him so heavily.
Tanjirou only knew Rengoku for a short period of time. And in that brief window, Rengoku managed to leave one of the greatest, deepest impressions on that him that few other characters were able to match.
There are many reasons why, but I think a huge part of it is because Rengoku was everything Tanjirou wanted and needed in his life at the time. He had other mentors up to this point, yes. But Rengoku was so similar to him, and his communication style was easy for Tanjirou to follow. He was affectionate, kind, morally sound, and near incontestable in a fight. Due to this, I think Tanjirou inadvertently saw Kyoujurou as the ideal demon slayer. The ideal fighter. The ideal person.
It doesn’t diminish his love for anyone else, not by a longshot. But Rengoku was, in ways Tanjirou may or may not have understood at the time, the perfect mentor for him. And that perfect person—someone he was desperate to learn from, someone he came to love so quickly and so fiercely—was snatched away from him before he could fully understand what he’d lost.
That’s why Tanjirou cried when Giyuu told him about Sabito. That’s why Tanjirou understood, without being told, that Giyuu was suffering from survival’s guilt. He heard and witnessed Giyuu’s despair firsthand, saw his loss and his struggle to live on and immediately empathized because it reminded him of how it felt to lose Rengoku.
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