The third (and final?) 鬼滅の刃 spinoff novel comes to a close as my second book of the year. For the first week I read at a pretty leisurely pace as I was also reading 本好きの下剋上 at the same time, then sped up in order to finish before the end of the month — ultimately taking 13 days to read the whole thing with three days left before the end of the month.

I keep typing (and then erasing) “I enjoyed this book”, and I’m not sure why. It’s true! I just can’t help but feel like I’d be damning it with faint praise. The fact of the matter is, these stories were never going to hit the same emotional beats as the original manga series considering the framework they had to work in. I liked it quite a lot more than the disappointing 片羽の蝶, but I feel like しあわせの花 was stronger overall.

The titular first story, while it struggled with pacing a bit, got nearly half of the total page count all to itself and did a great job of connecting some dots that I totally missed from the main series. It isn’t until fairly late in the game that we learn that Sanemi and Genya both have 稀血, the rare, powerful blood that demons are constantly on the hunt for. In 風の道しるべ, we see him putting that blood to work by purposely cutting himself over and over again (to the chagrin of Shinobu and Kanae) as the scent drives demons wild and allows him to get the upper hand. Not only does this explain why Sanemi has so many scars despite being ostensibly an excellent fighter, but also lends weight to the scene where he tries to goad Nezuko into attacking him by holding his bleeding arm in front of her. This is exactly the type of development I was hoping for

There were moments that expanded nicely on certain characters, and the one chapter which focused on Inosuke was hilarious, much like The Trouble with Fortunetelling from the first book. One chapter follows Tokitou in the wake of the attack on the swordsmithing village, and while ultimately nothing of importance happens plot-wise, it’s a good opportunity to showcase his dramatic character growth. As usual, the Kimetsu Academy chapter felt like a waste of time, but you can’t win ’em all.

片羽の蝶 left me quite cold and if I hadn’t already had this one on my shelf I don’t think I would have bought it, so I’m glad it worked out this way. I doubt there will be another KNY novel coming out now that the series is over (though the same author did work on the Mugen Train novelization, so who can say), but I think I’d probably keep going if given the opportunity.