| 1 | %%Several terms here, like Hashira, Demon Slayer, Nichirin Sword, Twelve Kizuki, Upper/Lower Rank(s), Infinity Castle, Breathing techniques, name order, etc. are official translations from VIZ and should not be changed back, regardless of opinions on whether or not the fan translations sound better. |
| 2 | |
| 3 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kimetsu_no_yaiba_anime.png]] |
| 4 | [[caption-width-right:350:The hunt is on.]] |
| 5 | |
| 6 | ->''“No matter how many people you may lose, you have no choice but to go on living—no matter how devastating the blows may be.”'' |
| 7 | -->-- '''Tanjiro Kamado''' |
| 8 | |
| 9 | ''Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba''[[note]]''Blade of Demon Destruction'' or ''Demon Destroyer Blade''[[/note]], often abridged to ''Demon Slayer'', is a manga series by Koyoharu Gotōge. It was serialized in [[Magazine/ShonenJump Weekly Shonen Jump]] from February 15, 2016 to May 18, 2020, with 205 chapters in 23 volumes, amassing many accolades in its original run. [[labelnote:those being:]]In 2020, Volume 19’s release put the series as a sales juggernaut by number of volumes sold before the 21st volume benchmark, it had sold more than ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', ''Manga/OnePiece'', and ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' ever did before they reached their 21st volume; ''Demon Slayer'' matched the ridiculously nineties phenomenon ''Manga/SlamDunk'' in the same period. In August, 2020 still, the official sale numbers, in just the running fiscal year, was more than 50 million copies, easily becoming the series with the most copies sold in a single year ''in manga history'', the fiscal year ended with the sales totaling 82 million copies sold, raising that record to potentially unbreakable territory; for the sake of comparisons, not even the most prolific single year for One Piece, Naruto and Bleach ''put together'' can even get close to 82 million. In 2021, the manga entered the 100 million copies sold club, it is the eighth Weekly Shounen Jump series to do so in history, the catch being it is ''the only one ever'' to do so with only 4 years of publication history (2016-2020), with only 23 volumes in length; settling at 150 million copies sold at the end of the fiscal year, entering the Top Ten best selling manga in the world bracket.[[/labelnote]] |
| 10 | |
| 11 | Taking place during the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taisho Taisho Era]], the series tells the story of Tanjiro Kamado, who lives with his mother and five siblings in a small hut in the mountains. One day, he goes to sell charcoal in the nearby village. On his way back, a villager warns him of rumored [[{{Oni}} demon]] sightings and offers to shelter him for the night, so he can make his way back safely during the day. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | When Tanjiro returns, he finds his entire family slaughtered, and his younger sister Nezuko turned into a demon. A demon slayer named Giyu Tomioka arrives and is about to finish her off, but to his surprise, Nezuko retains enough of her humanity to protect Tanjiro. Seeing this oddity and Tanjiro's promising fighting skills, Giyu decides to send them to his old mentor for training. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | So begins Tanjiro's life as a demon slayer, on a quest to cure his sister and find Muzan Kibutsuji, the one who murdered their family. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | An anime adaptation, produced by {{Creator/ufotable}} began airing April 6, 2019 and can be viewed on Website/{{Crunchyroll}} ''[[https://www.crunchyroll.com/demon-slayer-kimetsu-no-yaiba here]]''. An English dub began airing on Creator/{{Toonami}} on October 12, 2019. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | A movie adaptation of the Mugen Train arc, which continues from where season 1 left off, ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrZ0O8Qp18s Kimetsu no Yaiba: The Movie - Mugen Train]]''[[note]]''Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen Ressha Hen''[[/note]] was released on October 16th, 2020 in Japan, and in US theaters on April 23, 2021. It went on to become the highest-grossing anime and Japanese film ever, records held by ''Anime/SpiritedAway'' for two decades. It was also the highest-grossing movie worldwide for 2020, the first time a non-Hollywood movie had achieved that.[[note]]Admittedly, this had a lot to do with the impact of Covid-19 on moviegoing.[[/note]] |
| 20 | |
| 21 | During a special official Aniplex/ufotable stream on February 14, 2021 the much-anticipated second season was announced, following from where the movie left off, continuing it with the Red-Light District arc. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | On September 25, 2021, Aniplex announced that the ''Mugen Train'' movie would be reworked into a TV edition, composed of 7 episodes, but not as a mere direct splicing of the movie into short episodes, new scenes were added to complete the arc, coupled with a new OP and ED theme, and the first episode was completely new; the new cut started to air on October 10th, 2021 in Japan. The ''Red-Light District'' arc premiered on December 5, 2021, running for 11 episodes, concluding in February 13, 2022. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | On February 13, 2022, Aniplex and ufotable formally announced that the animated adaptation for the Swordsmith Village arc is in production. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | On December 10, 2022 in anticipation for Jump Festa, Aniplex set the release window for the Swordsmith Village arc: April, 2023. Before that, they will release a theatrical cut of the last two episodes for the Red-Light District arc, with the premiere of Swordsmith Village arc’s first episode, in select theaters all over the world at several dates starting from late February to March 2023. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | The animated adaptation of the Swordsmith Village arc had a proper premiere on April 9, 2023; running for 11 episodes, concluding in June 18, 2023. |
| 30 | |
| 31 | Following a pattern, on June 18, 2023, Aniplex and ufotable formally announced that the animated adaptation for the Hashira Training arc is in production. |
| 32 | |
| 33 | On December 10, 2023 in anticipation for Jump Festa, Aniplex set the release window for the Hashira Training arc: Spring, 2024. Before that, they will release a theatrical cut of the last two episodes for the Swordsmith Village arc, with the premiere of Hashira Training arc’s first episode, in select theaters all over the world at several dates starting from February to March 2024, afterwards Aniplex unveiled the exact date for the Hashira Training Arc premiere: May 12, 2024. |
| 34 | |
| 35 | !!Related works within the series include: |
| 36 | * '''Manga''' |
| 37 | ** ''Tomioka Giyū: Gaiden''[[note]]''Giyu Tomioka: Gaiden''[[/note]] - (April 1-8, 2019, Japan) |
| 38 | ** ''Rengoku Kyojuro: Gaiden''[[note]]''Kyojuro Rengoku: Gaiden''[[/note]] - (October 12-19, 2020, Japan) |
| 39 | ** ''Kimetsu Gakuen!'' - (August 4, 2021 - March 4, 2024, Japan) (6 Volumes) |
| 40 | |
| 41 | * '''Light Novels''' |
| 42 | ** ''Kimetsu no Yaiba: Shiawase no Hana''[[note]]''Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Flower of Happiness''[[/note]] - (February 4, 2019, Japan). |
| 43 | ** ''Kimetsu no Yaiba: Katahane no Cho''[[note]]''Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - One-Winged Butterfly''[[/note]] - (October 4, 2019, Japan). |
| 44 | ** ''Kimetsu no Yaiba: Kaze no Michishirube''[[note]]''Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Signs from the Wind''[[/note]] - (July 3, 2020, Japan). |
| 45 | ** ''Kimetsu no Yaiba ~ Novelized'' [[note]]''Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba - Novelization''[[/note]] - (July 26, 2020 - July 14, 2023, Japan) (10 Volumes) |
| 46 | |
| 47 | * '''Video Games''' |
| 48 | ** ''VideoGame/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaibaTheHinokamiChronicles'' ([[Platform/PlayStation4 PS4]], [[Platform/PlayStation5 PS5]], Platform/XboxOne, Platform/XboxSeriesXAndS, PC, Platform/NintendoSwitch) - October 14-16, 2021 / June 10, 2022 (Switch) - Creator/CyberConnect2 |
| 49 | ** ''Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Keppuu Kengeki Royale'' ([[UsefulNotes/IOSGames iOS]], [[UsefulNotes/AndroidGames Android]]) - TBA - Quatro A/Soleil |
| 50 | ** ''Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board!'' (Nintendo Switch) - April 25, 2024 - Aniplex |
| 51 | |
| 52 | ---- |
| 53 | !!''Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba'' provides examples of: |
| 54 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 55 | |
| 56 | [[folder:#-C]] |
| 57 | * AbortedArc: The ranks within the Demon Slayer Corps quickly fade out of any real importance after the Red-Light District arc despite the main trio of Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke being pointed as rising 3 ranks ever since they started their career – from 10th at the base as Mizunoto, to 7th as Kanoe[[note]]The second Databook reveals all three of them actually rose up to Hinoe rank by the Infnity Castle Arc, that's just three steps down the Hashira[[/note]] – that’s 10 ranks within the field Slayers and the one above all of them, the Hashira rank; Gotoge, in a narrative sense, basically streamlined the Demon Slayer Corps as "those who are Hashira, and those who aren't", thus all the main boys are measured with is with how close, or how far, they are from being as strong as the Hashira, without anything in-between. [[spoiler:The series ends without Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke becoming Hashira but progressing in their strength instead: Tanjiro is outright stated to be a Hashira level slayer by Giyu later, Zenitsu presents feats only the Hashira have (creating a new form, killing a Twelve Kizuki demon), Inosuke is part of the effort in killing the Upper-Rank 2, and during said fight Kanao is said to be superior to Shinobu in overall fighting ability. However, there's no promotion to be had when the whole reason the Demon Slayer Corps existed was to kill all demons, and Muzan dying accomplished that]]. |
| 58 | * AdaptationalBadass: The Breathing Styles’ elemental effects are packed with greater visual flair in the anime, and even some Demon Blood Arts as well, making both the Demon Slayers and the Demons look a tad more impressive and stronger than they looked in the manga. The effects of Zenitsu’s Thunder Breathing and Tanjiro’s Hinokami Kagura attacks stick out in particular (the difference between Hinokami Kagura’s ''Clear Blue Sky'' in the anime and manga is like night and day). All that visual treat in the anime ironically works against the fact that the audience shouldn’t perceive all the elements for the Breathing Styles as happening literally. |
| 59 | * AdaptationDistillation: This comes off as an oddity since the animated adaptation expands on several events from the manga, but there are some minor things the anime cut for unspecified reasons: |
| 60 | ** The scene where Zenitsu first presents Nezuko with flowers. The anime completely cuts Nezuko from the shot, by showing Zenitsu presenting his flowers to someone out of frame. While in the manga, Nezuko is shown right next to him. |
| 61 | ** The Hashira Meeting has an event where all Hashira become agitated and surprised at the fact Tanjiro has actually seen Muzan face to face. Mitsuri is accidentally pushed down by Uzui during the uproar, but the anime does not adapt the small little detail in the manga panel showing Giyu helping her get back up. |
| 62 | ** The anime doesn't show Zenitsu trying to talk with Nezuko through her box in the Butterfly Estate’s intermission, with him updating her how the training is going well for everyone then inviting her to watch a flower garden bloom. |
| 63 | ** When the Red-Light District was originally adapted as the 2nd Season the manga had already finished publication in Japan, and two Fanbooks (Databooks) were published as well, those publications contained expanded background and provided full context to certain events previously shown in the aforementioned arc, such as what Tengen Uzui’s complete past as a shinobi was like and the finer details of the Upper Rank 6 duo’s past lives; yet the anime chose to remain limited, to a fault, to only what the manga had originally shown despite the anime itself not being shy on adding completely original and expanded scenes of their own. The Swordsmith Village arc’s adaptation, the 3rd Season, followed through with remaining faithful to only the manga, while adding original scenes of its own, settling the fact that Fanbook material might as well be completely off-limits despite being authored by Gotouge themselves. |
| 64 | * ActorAllusion: |
| 65 | ** In the Latin American Spanish dub, Ivan Bastidas (Tanjiro) already had experience voicing a protagonist whose family is killed and having to fight against evil as a result, except replace Taisho-era Japan with [[Series/{{Gotham}} Gotham City in the U.S.]] |
| 66 | ** Likewise, and from the same dubbed version, it's not the first time we hear Melissa Gedeon (Mitsuri Kanroji) voicing a [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic pink-haired girl]]. |
| 67 | * AdaptationDyeJob: The series is filled with cases of artistic styling on how hair colors are presented. The majority of the cast is canonically black-haired but the series’ creator, Koyoharu Gotouge, gives most of the cast different colored hair tips, often with a gradient effect. The major example being one of the main characters, Inosuke Hashibira, having black hair but with blue hair strand tips. With certain characters with less spotlight, however, Gotouge isn’t consistent with giving them this color gradient effect, namely Kanao Tsuyuri with her pink hair tips and Genya Shinazugawa with his yellow hair tips. |
| 68 | * AdaptationExpansion: The anime expands many events from the manga. Information sometimes presented in one narrator text box or just a single manga panel get expanded into full scenes in the anime; some of these are: |
| 69 | ** Tanjiro's tragedy from losing his family is given more breathing room to show how peaceful his life was before they all, except his sister, died; the following scuffle with his demon-turned sister and the slayer that came to kill her is expanded as well. |
| 70 | ** Zenitsu's reminiscing of his master Jigoro: the anime didn't just expand the master's devotion to training Zenitsu, it actually made original scenes for them as well. |
| 71 | ** Zenitsu's message sparrow Chuntaro is given much more focus than it originally had in the manga; mere single extra volume illustrations were made into full scenes in the anime. |
| 72 | ** Rui's make-believe family system was only given a single manga panel detailing how larger it used to be in the past; the anime made a whole flashback scene to it. |
| 73 | ** The anime added an original scene in which Kagaya discusses the current situation regarding Muzan and the future of the slayers with the Hashira after the situation with Tanjiro and Nezuko’s judgment is settled. |
| 74 | ** The anime changes a bit of how the Mugen Train Arc started. For one thing, in the manga, it wasn't a mission given to Tanjiro and co. but instead Tanjiro wanted to find Rengoku to ask him about Fire Breathing and made Zenitsu and Inosuke come with him because they were all healed and shouldn't be taking up room at the hospital. |
| 75 | ** The Academy specials are greatly expanded in the anime, even as short little segments it took all of the extra info given through just text and little 4-koma in the manga, to then produce more cohesive and lively scenarios. |
| 76 | * AdaptationExplanationExtrication: The anime doesn’t make use of the LemonyNarrator present in the manga, which isn't a huge loss as the anime can just [[ShowDontTell show instead of telling something]], or have a character explain important information instead of the narrator. However, there are a few gags in the manga that relied upon on the narration to work; for example, explaining how honest Tanjiro is by introducing himself to a demon before attacking them, despite how he could easily have gone for a sneak attack instead. The anime skipped the explanation for why Tanjiro does that. As the anime adaptation went, however, not all pieces of information originally given by the narrator were properly changed to a character thinking or saying that instead; examples include: |
| 77 | ** Red-Light District Arc: [[spoiler:Gyutaro actually having full control over Daki's body like she is his marionette isn't outright said, only implicitly by keeping Daki's dialogue that she works better whenever her brother is active by her side, and her final exasperated complaining to Gyutaro that he didn't use her well enough]]. |
| 78 | ** Swordsmith Village Arc: [[spoiler:Yoriichi Type Zero being easily defeated by Muichiro at first had its explanation completely omitted in the anime, the manga stated that Muichiro didn't know the doll has a difficulty level of sorts that could be adjusted to his strength, he ended up breaking it and not having a training session that could have truly benefited him]]. [[spoiler:Hantengu's true level of power embodied by Zohakuten isn't something that could have been used right away, Hantengu's core, Fear, really needed to feel absolutely cornered in order for all his strength to manifest itself, that is literally the narrated explanation given to his powers]]. |
| 79 | * AfterlifeAngst: {{Inverted}}. During the final battle, [[spoiler:Sanemi is gravely wounded and finds himself in the afterlife. Seeing his mother in hell, separated from their family, he tries to follow her so she won't be alone - only for his father to stop him as it isn't Sanemi's time to die. The Hashira then can only scream helplessly as he is thrown back into the world of the living]]. |
| 80 | * AfterlifeWelcome: Many characters are greeted by loved ones as their souls head to the afterlife. This is mostly true for demon slayers going to heaven but also for some demons going to hell (the Buddhist versions where neither paradise nor damnation are eternal). Those included are: |
| 81 | ** Rui - the Lower-6 Kizuki demon, even after living as a murderous demon, he was just a sickly human who mistook why his parents tried to kill him, and now in death with his parents Rui finally remembers they were trying to kill him and themselves in repentance for what their demon child turned out to be, and for trying to kill their own son. |
| 82 | ** [[spoiler:Kyojuro Rengoku - he dies holding off against Akaza, the Upper-3 Kizuki; his late mother, Ruka, promptly greets her son who followed the ideals she imparted on him throughout childhood]]. |
| 83 | ** [[spoiler:Shinobu Kocho - she falls against Doma, the Upper-2 Kizuki, but she lingers on limbo for a while, confident that Doma will be killed by her companions since she believed that Douma would eat her poisoned body if she died; after Doma falls and she gets the chance to mock him, Shinobu goes to heaven where she is greeted by her older sister Kanae and their parents]]. |
| 84 | ** [[spoiler:Akaza - the Upper-3 Kizuki; throughout his battle against Tanjiro and Giyu, his memories as his human self, Hakuji, slowly resurface and allow the efforts of his long dead fiancée, Koyuki, to get through to him as she now can intervene through Akaza's mind; Koyuki's prodding allows Akaza to reclaim his former identity as Hakuji once more, which in turn lets Akaza accept his defeat against Tanjiro and leads the Upper-3 Kizuki to finish his own regenerating body off for good; he reunites with Koyuki, his father-in-law Keizo, and his own father, who all willingly choose to accompany Hakuji to hell]]. |
| 85 | ** [[spoiler:Muichiro Tokito - he falls against Kokushibo the Upper-1 Kizuki by literally using his entire body to assist in defeating the demon; in the afterlife, he is greeted by his late older twin Yuichiro Tokito, who tearfully doesn't want to accept his young brother died merely 3 years after him, thinking the younger twin's life was wasted; Muichiro happily corrects Yuichiro, saying he enjoyed the time he had by being friends with great people in the Demon Slayer Corps]]. |
| 86 | ** [[spoiler:Gyomei Himejima - after Muzan's death, he lays down to rest and ultimately succumbs to the strain of his injuries and Demon Slayer Mark; shortly before dying, Gyomei is greeted by all the children that died under his care as a monk (the night a demon breached through their wisteria incense, through a traitor, and killed many of the children). They tearfully say they love him and have been waiting for him since their deaths; Gyomei's last act in the world of the living is to smile happily as he accompanies them into the afterlife]]. |
| 87 | * AgeInsecurity: In an early episode, Tamayo implies that she's been around for over 2 centuries. When Tanjiro asks her age out of shock, Yushiro angrily calls him out on his rudeness. |
| 88 | * AlasPoorVillain: Demons who aren't heartless monsters tend to be [[TragicVillain Tragic Villains]] with sad origins. |
| 89 | * AlcoholicParent: Rengoku's father started to drink constantly after his wife's death [[spoiler: and finding out about the Sun Breathing style]], losing his passion for swordsmanship and (it's implied) abandoning his duties as the Flame Hashira. He's still chugging away [[spoiler:while badmouthing his own dead son after his funeral]], but later he starts to get better. |
| 90 | * AllForNothing: [[spoiler:Muzan's entire journey to find the Blue Spider Lily was destined for failure, as his miracle flower, thanks to research seen in the modern day, only blooms for a few days and only in broad daylight; otherwise, it is indistinguishable from a common weed. He and his minions would have never been able to get it.]] |
| 91 | * AllLovingHero: Tanjiro is just a nice kid through and through. He's fully committed to his duty of slaying demons that threaten society, but that doesn't mean he hates all of them and comforts those who regain some of their humanity in their final moments. |
| 92 | * AllThereInTheManual: While not too extreme, the series does have certain events and plot-relevant information given outside of the manga pages / anime scenes proper. Most of them come in the form of extras within the compiled manga volumes, with the rest in databooks. Deeper details on key events, character trivia, and more background are guaranteed to be reserved for those expansions. Two specific examples are Mitsuri's training under Kyojuro, which is only mentioned in the Kimetsu No Yaiba Databook, and the fact [[spoiler:the Kamado Family has lived in the same humble house for 400 years, and that happened to be the very same house Yoriichi and Uta once lived in, which Yoriichi gave it to Sumiyoshi is only mentioned as a mere trivia at the Sengoku Rumors section in the 22nd Volume]]. |
| 93 | * AlwaysIdenticalTwins: The five children of the leader of the Demon Slayer Corps, Kagaya Ubuyashiki, and his wife Amane are confirmed to be quintuplets in the series' 2nd Databook. Although one could assume the sibling relationship since they all look identical to each other, with the boy only differing in hair color from his four sisters, there are other extremely similar looking characters in the series that aren't even related to begin with, such as the three little girls in the Butterfly Estate. |
| 94 | * AmbiguousSituation: The true nature of the Marks and the eventual fate of those who achieve it. [[spoiler:Kokushibo states that every Slayer who achieves the elevated power of the Mark is guaranteed to die once they reach 25 years of age, as the tremendous power it brings comes at a price: rapidly draining a person's vitality until they shrivel and die. This statement is rebutted by Gyomei, who knows of at least one person who overcame that predicament – however, Yoriichi being the known example is a very exceptional case since he was a singularity himself, thus being quite difficult to point to as a basis for other potential exceptions. The series ends with 3 Marked ones who survive the final battle: Tanjiro, Giyu, and Sanemi, and the series doesn't dwell on how many years they live after that, - not even in the second Fanbook. Tanjiro's family tree in the 21st century having one full generation over Zenitsu's and Inosuke's could be a saddening hint but ultimately nothing is confirmed, and it likely never will be with Gotouge preferring to leave the ending as it is]]. |
| 95 | * AmputativeSentencing: [[spoiler:Even before becoming a demon, Hantengu was a SerialKiller who always tried to dodge the blame for his actions and [[PlayingTheVictimCard play the victim card]], even going so far as to say his hands moved on their own. When he’s brought before a magistrate and tried for his crimes, the magistrate threatens to have Hantengu’s “sinful hands” cut off before he is executed.]] |
| 96 | * AngryCheekPuff: When Tanjiro and the Butterfly girls try to stop Tengen Uzui from kidnapping Aoi and Naho for a mission, Tengen demands respect because he's a Hashira, which leads Tanjiro to declare that he won't acknowledge him as a Hashira as he angrily puffs up his cheeks. |
| 97 | * AnimationBump: |
| 98 | ** Inverted with the Taisho Secret segments at the end of each episode, which generally have very limited animation, to distinguish them from the plot of the show. |
| 99 | ** The flashback in Episode 19 showing Tanjiro's father doing the Hinokami Kagura is {{rotoscop|ing}}ed, making his movements much more fluid. |
| 100 | * AntiRegeneration: Nichirin Blades, the weapon all demon slayers are required to have in order to pose a threat to demonkind at all. They are usually katana (with just a few exceptions) forged from a special ore said to mimic special sunlight properties that are the bane of all demons; these unique blades are the only thing that can behead demons for good, as it directly halts their regeneration in this specific method - decapitating them with anything other than a Nichirin Blade will not kill the demon in question. Later in the series a new tier of power is introduced to make the Nichirin Blades even deadlier: [[spoiler:the Crimson Blade state, where the most powerful demons slayers can heat their swords at will to disrupt demonic regeneration even more, to the point that the strongest demons in the series are greatly incapacitated by it]]. |
| 101 | * ArcVillain: Except for the [[GrandFinale ''Sunrise Countdown'' arc]] (that [[spoiler: shows the defining battle against [[BigBad Muzan]] and his subordinates]]) and the ''Rehabilitation Training'' arc, each arc has a major antagonist that Tanjiro and his friends struggle against, with Muzan as the overarching main villain of the series. |
| 102 | ** ''Final Selection'' arc: [[BodyHorror Teoni]], a huge and monsterous demon obsessed with killing the students of Urokodaki who participate in the final election in revenge for defeating and trapping him on the Fujikasane mountain. Prior to that, Tanjiro gets a recently demonified Nezuko to her senses as early as the first chapter and holds off the [[StarterVillain Demon in the Temple]]. |
| 103 | ** ''First Mission'' arc: [[StrawMisogynist The Demon in the Bog]], a demon divided into three personalities who kidnaps and devours teenage girls. He ends becoming the first enemy that Tanjiro confronts as an official demon slayer. |
| 104 | ** ''Asakusa'' arc: [[BigBad Muzan Kibutsuji]] debuts, but he ends leaving the task to kill Tanjiro to [[BrainsandBrawn Yahaba and Susamaru]], two faithful demons that aspire to join the Twelve Kizuki and end up targeting Tamayo too. |
| 105 | ** ''Drum House'' arc: [[DrumsOfWar Kyogai]], a former member of the Twelve Kizuki who lost his ability to become stronger by eating humans and wants to regain his former glory by eating Kiyoshi, a human with rare blood. |
| 106 | ** ''Natagumo Mountain'' arc: [[CreepyChild The Lower Rank Five Kuzuki Rui]], a tyrannical and cruel demon who forces his followers to act out familial roles. |
| 107 | ** ''Mugen Train'' arc: [[NightmareFetishist Enmu]], the Lower Rank One Kuzuki and the SoleSurvivor of Muzan's slaughter of the Lower Ranks, who is tasked by his master to kill Tanjiro and Flame Hashira Rengoku by infiltrating a train and planning to kill their wills with his dream-controlling abilities. [[spoiler: After his death, [[BareFistedMonk Upper Rank Three Akaza]] takes the role as the main villain, wanting Rengoku to join Muzan due to his impressive abilities and ultimately killing him.]] |
| 108 | ** ''Red Light District''/''Entertainment'' District arc: The [[BeautyIsBad Upper Rank Six Kuzuki Daki]], a childish and vicious demon posing as a prostitute in the red light district, who caused the mysterious deaths of some people and the disappearance of Uzui's wives. [[spoiler:[[BigBadDuumvirate Daki shares her status with her]] [[GreenEyedMonster stronger older brother Gyutaro]], who emerges from Daki's body after she is decapitated]]. |
| 109 | ** ''Swordsmith Village'' arc: The Upper Rank Four [[BigBadDuumvirate and]] Upper Rank Five Kuzuki [[DirtyCoward Hantengu]] and [[MadArtist Gyokko]], who travel to the Swordsmith Village to cripple the Demon Slayers by killing the people tasked with forging their swords. |
| 110 | ** ''Hashira Training'' arc: [[TheSpymaster Nakime, the Biwa Demon]] (and the new Upper Rank 4), spies on the Demon Slayer Headquarters, which leads to Muzan ambushing them. |
| 111 | ** ''Infinity Castle'' arc: [[spoiler:A BossBonanza where all the remaining Hashira and the main cast have to take on all of the remaining Upper Ranks of [[TheDragon Kokushibo]], [[StrawNihilist Douma]], [[BareFistedMonk Akaza]] as well as the new Uppers Ranks, [[MusicalAssassin Nakime]] and [[PsychoElectro Kaigaku]], as the toughest and most personal battles in the series by far. Which will all lead towards the finale of taking down Muzan once and for all.]] |
| 112 | ** ''Sunrise Countdown'' arc: [[spoiler:The heroes are finally pitted against [[BigBad Muzan]] in an epic FinalBattle after luring him out of the Infinity Castle. However, as a last-ditch effort to maintain his grip on the world, his cells take control over Tanjiro Kamado's dying body, [[BrainwashedAndCrazy turning him]] into the [[MainCharacterFinalBoss new Demon King]] even [[SuperiorSuccessor stronger than Muzan himself]] (as Tanjiro is able to resist sunlight)]]. |
| 113 | * ArtEvolution: Gotouge comes from a background of drawing single chapter horror stories, and their style of drawing facial structures was more in the line of drawing smaller, piercing eyes that occupied less space on a character's face. That method was present early on in ''Demon Slayer'', which is their first long serial; but as the series progressed Gotouge began to draw characters with bigger eyes and more comically expressive faces. The anime adaptation lines itself with Gotouge's later art style from the get-go. |
| 114 | * ArtisticLicenseBiology: Breathing is the center of all techniques performed by human demon slayers in the series, with a whole system of swordfighting arts developed around it. While learning how to breathe effectively is a real thing among athletes and martial artists, in this series it is taken to a whole new level. Proper breathing can make the characters have unprecedented control over their bodies, freely control their blood flow to make their muscles have super strength, push their bodies to move faster than bullets, and even outright stop hemorrhages by focusing hard enough. Even so, the series pushes the Breathings as something that isn't supernatural at all, compared to demons who have actual supernatural powers. |
| 115 | * ArtShift: During comedic moments, characters are drawn in a simple, chibi-like style. |
| 116 | * AssholeVictim: |
| 117 | ** Some of the people that the demons killed in their backstories were rather loathsome, and a few of them directly caused the demons' StartOfDarkness. |
| 118 | ** In the Mount Natagumo arc, one Demon Slayer who tries to fight Rui is rather unconcerned about the deaths of his comrades, and hopes to kill a demon so that [[OnlyInItForTheMoney he can get a pay raise]]. Unfortunately for him, Rui is one of the Twelve Kizuki, and [[CurbStompBattle kills him in one hit]]. |
| 119 | ** [[spoiler:Obanai Iguro]]'s family was a group of people who sacrificed their offspring to a snake demon and lived off the wealth of the people the demon killed. They planned on sacrificing the young [[spoiler:Obanai]] to the demon once he became old enough, but he escaped, resulting in the demon killing everyone except one young girl in retaliation. That said, while [[spoiler:Obanai]] knows full well that they were terrible people, the SoleSurvivor blaming him for their deaths helps further his self-loathing. |
| 120 | * AssimilationBackfire: [[spoiler:Doma's tendency to devour women is used against him by Shinobu, who spent around a year consuming wisteria poison in order for [[PoisonousPerson her own body to become poisonous enough]] to damage him should he consume her, allowing Kanao to deliver the finishing blow.]] |
| 121 | * AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The Hashira and the Twelve Kizuki. The Upper Ranks of the Twelve Kizuki even more so, and Kibutsuji as the head of the demons. Kagaya, leader of the demon slayers, subverts this slightly - he's a masterful tactician but is in incredibly poor health. |
| 122 | * AwesomenessByAnalysis: Tanjiro is a very observant fighter, able to come up with tactics on the fly. Using his head (both figuratively and [[UseYourHead literally]]) is his greatest asset. |
| 123 | * BabiesEverAfter: [[spoiler:The modern day epilogue features some of the casts' descendants as well as a few reincarnations. For explicit pairings, we have Tanjiro and Kanao fostering a line with two great-great grandchildren, and see the same has happened to Zenitsu and Nezuko with their great grandchildren; adding the extended epilogue and final volume extras which confirmed Inosuke and Aoi did hook up as well.]] |
| 124 | * BadBoss: After Rui is killed, Kibutsuji Muzan decides to disband the Lower Ranks. He does this by massacring them brutally. After he accuses one of being more frightened of the demon slayers than of himself, the demon frantically protests it's not true, only for Muzan to execute her on the spot anyway for having contradicted him. Another one asks for Muzan to give him more blood (which would make the demon more powerful, but has a risk of killing him), but Muzan accuses the demon of giving him orders, and kills him, too. |
| 125 | * BaitAndSwitch: How the meeting with the Lower Ranks goes genre-wise. Typically in a shonen series, this would be the part where the audience is introduced to the antagonists of the next coming arcs...only for Muzan to decide, based on past failures involving the Lower Ranks and on Rui's defeat, that they're pitifully weak and aren't worth having around; he then decides to kill all of them except for Enmu. |
| 126 | * BarefootPoverty: A few cases are seen in the series through the cast's tragic backstories, the most emotionally charged being Kanao's past as she lived in extreme misery with abhorrent parents who physically abused all of their children, many of them to death. Other than Kanao, there was Zenitsu who lived as a wandering orphan when he was little, the orphan children Gyomei raised when he was just a monk, and so on. |
| 127 | * BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: The sleep demon Enmu's power is to step inside your MentalWorld through dreams. If your spiritual core in the subconscious part of that world is destroyed, it leaves you mentally crippled and a shell of your former self. The mental world is a reflection of your personality: |
| 128 | ** Rengoku's is a wide burning plain of tiled stone floors. |
| 129 | ** Inosuke's world is a maze of winding underground tunnels. |
| 130 | ** Zenitsu's world is completely pitch black. |
| 131 | ** Tanjiro's world is [[spoiler: an infinite calm sea with bright blue sky. It's so comforting the person sent to cripple him couldn't bring himself to do it.]] |
| 132 | * BeautyEqualsGoodness: Played with. Most demons are villains and vary in appearance from monstrous to humanoid. However, the few good demons -- Nezuko, Tamayo, and Yushiro -- look perfectly humanoid, and the former two are described as beautiful. |
| 133 | * BeenThereShapedHistory: An adaptational example in the climax of the Red-Light District arc. The anime adds a fire hazard to the Yoshiwara red light district, transforming the arc’s climactic fight into a BattleAmongstTheFlames that implicitly links the series to the real fires that took place in that very same district in 1913. |
| 134 | * BerserkButton: |
| 135 | ** Rengoku's father immediately moves to strike Tanjiro upon seeing his hanafuda earrings [[spoiler: because they mark him as a user of the Sun Breathing]]. |
| 136 | ** One of the few things that can tick [[NiceGuy Tanjiro]] off is when people harm Nezuko, or harm their own families. Even something as slight as Yushiro calling Nezuko ugly is enough to make Tanjiro go on an angry rant. |
| 137 | * BigBad: The ultimate villain is Muzan Kibutsuji, first and most powerful of the demons. |
| 138 | * BigBrotherInstinct: Tanjiro is very protective of Nezuko, and doesn't take it kindly if you speak badly of her. |
| 139 | * BittersweetEnding: |
| 140 | ** The Mugen Train arc. [[spoiler: While many people are hurt, none of the passengers die thanks to the efforts of the five Demon Slayers. Enmu is defeated and killed, but Akaza shows up and manages to mortally wound Kyojuro before being forced to flee by the sunrise. Kyojuro dies satisfied that he protected everyone, and his comrades mourn his death.]] |
| 141 | ** The series as a whole. [[spoiler: Muzan is dead along with every other demon created by him, Tanjiro and Nezuko are both human again, and their family has been avenged. But many good people died to make it happen, with Giyu and Sanemi as the only surviving Hashira. Some of the survivors - Tanjiro among them - are irreversibly crippled or disabled; and now that the Demon Slayer Corps is no longer needed, the organization is disbanded. Decades later, [[DistantFinale in modern day Tokyo]], most of the core cast has long since passed away, but are heavily implied to either have descendants or been reincarnated. Tanjiro and Kanao married, and so did Nezuko and Zenitsu, as well as Aoi and Inosuke. Kiriya is still alive as the oldest man in Japan thanks to Muzan's curse on his family being broken; and Yushiro, as the LastOfHisKind, has become a reclusive painter famous for his portraits of Tamayo. Tanjiro's descendants have also preserved his Nichirin blade and hanafuda earrings as heirlooms, along with a picture of the cast members who survived the final battle.]] |
| 142 | * BlackBlood: Despite the series in general keeping the blood as crimson as it can, as it originally aired lated at night on several channels in Japan; The theatric release for the ''Mugen Train'' movie has a few key scenes where particularly big splashes of blood are colored black, such as Tanjiro's desperate maneuver to escape Enmu's dream world; then the home release on Blu-Ray and DVD corrected that, making it red. |
| 143 | * BlackSwordsAreBetter: Subverted - Tanjiro's Nichirin blade is colored black (the color changes depending on the owner), but this is actually considered a bad sign because no swordsman with a black sword has ever become a Hashira. 'Black blades' is also used as a nickname for rookie demon slayers. [[spoiler: It is also revealed that a black sword is used as a base for the red sword, which is used by Sun Breathing users when fighting and Tanjiro when combined with Nezuko's blood.]] |
| 144 | * BlindIdiotTranslation: People who have acquired the official English Creator/VIZMedia licensed print have noticed some pretty bizarre translation mistakes here and there across the volumes. Misspelt names and syntax errors are the most common, but sometimes there are cases where a sentence is somehow translated into the exact opposite of itself. |
| 145 | ** One example is (in the original) the orphan and lone warrior Inosuke assuming Tanjiro (who's also an orphan) has parents and siblings to go back to, contrasting with himself who has lived alone his entire life in the mountains. The Viz translation, however, has Inosuke bragging that ''he has'' parents and siblings, unlike Tanjiro. |
| 146 | ** During the meeting of the Upper Ranks, Hantengu remarks that Gyokko "became uncountable" in the Viz translation. The correct translation would be that Gyokko forgot how to count, since he erroneously said that it had been 90 years since the last meeting, rather than 113. |
| 147 | ** In the final event of the series, [[spoiler:the desperate fight against Demon King Tanjiro, Kanao takes upon herself to inject him with special vials of the concoction Shinobu and Tamayo crated to counter Muzan, now to be used in hopes of saving Tanjiro; at that moment Kanao remembers Shinobu’s words during a short flashback. After that, Kanao specifically thanked her "Nee-chan" in the original Japanese dialogue; but Viz somehow translated big-sis as Kanae, dropping her name out of nowhere despite Kanae not being part of the memories whatsoever, and despite the fact that "big-sis" in that context obviously referred to ''Shinobu'']]. |
| 148 | ** This also extends to the Anime broadcast version of the official English subtitles, as they are made within minutes after the episode aired in Japan. A few errors can be found in specific episodes; once mistaking the Thunder Breathing forms as having a total of 3 forms rather 6 shows that the simultaneous broadcast translator is working solely by what they hear, without a script, since Mitsu (three) and Mutsu (six) can be mistaken by each other if you are just hearing the word rather than reading it. |
| 149 | ** The Upper-6 backstory has [[spoiler:Gyutaro narrate that it was when he turned 13 that Ume defended herself from the Samurai who attempted to take her without consent, that sentence in Japanese is Gyutaro saying that it was when Ume turned 13 that said event occurred; the second Databook corroborates with 13 being Ume’s age as Gyutaro’s human age is listed as unknown]]. |
| 150 | * BloodKnight: Inosuke just wants to fight, regardless if you're a demon or not. Same goes for Akaza, the Upper Rank 3. |
| 151 | * BookEnds: The Mugen Train movie begins with Kagaya in a graveyard, reminiscing about all the Demon Slayers who died under his command even as his wife warns him about his deteriorating health. At the end, Kagaya [[spoiler:hears about Kyojuro's death and says that one day, he will join Kyojuro and the others]]. |
| 152 | * BossBonanza: The final Infinity Castle Arc can be applied to this. [[spoiler: All the Hashira and the main cast have to face on all of the remaining Upper Ranks before taking on Muzan himself. Which can be listed as:]] |
| 153 | ** [[spoiler:Kokushibo vs Himejima, Sanemi, Tokitou and Genya]] |
| 154 | ** [[spoiler:Douma vs Shinobu, Kanao and Inosuke]] |
| 155 | ** [[spoiler:Akaza vs Tanjiro and Giyuu]] |
| 156 | ** [[spoiler:Nakime vs Obonai and Mitsuri]] |
| 157 | ** [[spoiler:Zenitsu vs Kaigaku.]] |
| 158 | * BreakTheCutie: Everyone applies because everyone is cute and everyone suffers. A lot. |
| 159 | * BreakTheHaughty: [[spoiler: Upon hearing that Kyojuro's last words to him were "please take care of your body", his father finally sets down the alcohol and cries, mourning for his son.]] |
| 160 | * BrilliantButLazy: Inosuke and Zenitsu actually acquired Total Concentration Breathing: Constant faster than Tanjiro (it took only nine days, whereas Tanjiro needed more than 10), but couldn't be bothered to do it until Tanjiro got it and with some clever manipulation by Shinobu. |
| 161 | * BrotherSisterTeam: Tanjiro and Nezuko. [[spoiler: Upper-6, Daki, actually shares the position with her brother Gyutaro as well.]] |
| 162 | * UsefulNotes/{{Buddhism}}: The series runs in portraying Buddhism practices and beliefs, specifically the concept of death and afterlife takes the Buddhist interpretation as the factual truth in the setting; the most religious character in the series is in fact a former Buddhist monk, Gyomei Himejima, who became a Demon Slayer later in his young adult life by a chance meeting that changed his life after a demon attacked his house in the mountains. The series doesn't preach the religion though, it manages to implement it seamlessly without intruding into the overhaul narrative. In 2021, during the series' absolute popularity peak in Japan, a local monk actually wrote a book detailing and explaining Buddhism in light of what was portrayed in the series. |
| 163 | * BunnyEarsLawyer: The Hashira have all sorts of weird personalities, from the stoic to the incredibly unhinged. However, they're the only fighters the demon slayers have that can reliably kill Lower Ranks. |
| 164 | * CallingYourAttacks: Demon Slayers with their Breathing Styles and Demons with Blood Demon Arts use this when initiating their techniques. |
| 165 | * CantCatchUp: In the Infinite Castle arc, during the later moments of the final fight against [[spoiler:Muzan, when Zenitsu, Inosuke and Kanao finally take part in the fight, Inosuke is briefly dissatisfied for his attacks and blade aren't strong enough to inflict serious damage on Muzan; Kanao warns him that only those who have attained the most powerful abilities a slayer can achieve (Mark, Crimson Blade and Transparent World) can be a real threat against Muzan by then. Zenitsu and Inosuke start to successfully hurt Muzan only after the latter has been weakened even further]]. |
| 166 | * CarFu: To portray how much of a desperate final hour the final fight against [[spoiler:Muzan]] was, the last remainder of the fight had every single living member of Demon Slayer Corps present trying to hit [[spoiler:Muzan]] in any way to prevent him from [[spoiler:escaping the Sun burning him to ashes, the Kakushi brigade were ramming cars against the giant mutated baby Muzan to hold him down, what makes this event so unique is that's the second time cars ever appear in the entire series, a novelty of the early 1900's where the story is set]]. |
| 167 | * CastFromLifespan: According to Upper-1 [[spoiler:Kokushibo, any swordsman who manifests a demonic mark on their body has never lived beyond the age of 25, and predicts that the 27-year-old Himejima is going to die at the end of the night regardless of whether or not he survives his encounter with him and kills Muzan. Although Himejima raises the counter argument that there was one individual who did not succumb to the temptation of demonization; the one whom turns out to be Kokushibo's twin brother [[WorldsStrongestMan Yoriichi Tsugikuni]], who was ''born'' with the mark and lived up to the age of 80 before dying of old age]]. |
| 168 | * CastOfSnowflakes: Every single character in the series is notoriously unique, most noteworthy examples being the Slayers within the Corps themselves, with unique facial features and varied hairstyles, also despite all wearing the standard issued paramilitary uniform, many of them add unique touches to how they wear it or which additional clothing they add on top of it. The demons don't lag behind either, from the most powerful ones to lowly fodder, they are all quite different from each other, since their body mutations are exclusive to one another. |
| 169 | * CentralTheme: |
| 170 | ** Sacrifice. A big deal is made of how sacrificing yourself through body, mind and soul can give others a chance at happiness. Examples include Tanjiro sacrificing his chance at a normal life to protect Nezuko, Zenitsu sacrificing his simple life for the ability to honor his masters' wishes, and [[spoiler: Shinobu ingesting massive amounts of poison so she can trick a powerful demon into eating her corpse, thereby weakening him enough for her comrades to finish off.]] |
| 171 | ** Unfairness, most strongly apparent in the contrast between the immortal, superhumanly powerful demons and the relatively frail BadassNormal Slayers. Tanjiro's TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to Akaza [[spoiler: after he kills [[IdealHero Rengoku]]]] in the Mugen Train arc summarises the idea, calling him and all of demonkind cowards for using their own misfortunes to justify preying on humanity with their unearned power, while the Demon Slayers were compelled by their own tragedies to undergo brutal training to gain strength enough to defend others from the same plight even knowing it could mean death. |
| 172 | * CharacterFocus: It happens by the very last two arcs of the series, before that the assembly focus was entirely on the main characters: Tanjiro, Nezuko, Zenitsu and Inosuke, with one or more side-characters accompanying them; when the Infinity Castle and Sunrise Cool Down arcs happen, however, the cast constantly shifts focus since by then a gauntlet of fights happen simultaneously, with many characters getting their time to shine separately, unveiling their last depths and character closures, to the point even Tanjiro, the protagonist himself, is entirely absent for several of these character focused last bouts before he rejoins the limelight. |
| 173 | * CharlesAtlasSuperpower: |
| 174 | ** Tanjiro's training as a demon-slayer involves running himself ragged through stamina training in order to increase his lung capacity, which is the the root of the "Total Concentration: Water Breathing" style he is taught. This enables him to do amazing feats, like slice through giant boulders. |
| 175 | ** As the series progresses, more "non-supernatural" means of demon slayers becoming extremely physically capable are introduced, to the point where regular humans can actually have strength not far beneath even the strongest demons - although they come with extreme drawbacks, taking its toll on their bodies once a battle ends and sapping their stamina very quickly when in use (meanwhile, demons boast much greater stamina reserves and healing powers). |
| 176 | * ChekhovsGunman: Early on, Muzan turns a passing man in Akakusa into a demon to evade Tanjiro, resulting him being put in the care of Tamayo. Tamayo later writes to Tanjiro that the blood samples he's sent to her have allowed her to develop medicine to help the man to regain his consciousness. [[spoiler: His Blood Art Flesh Seed is borrowed by Tamayo along with her new medicine to trap Muzan for the Demon Slayers to kill him once and for all]]. |
| 177 | * ChekhovsSkill: The Kamado family has a special dance called Hinokami Kagura, passed down into their family for generations. [[spoiler:The dance is actually the original Sun Breathing, which the Kamado ancestors learned directly from Yoriichi thanks to Sumiyoshi's photographic memorization of all the times Yoriichi humored Suyako's request to perform his "pretty moves" for the family to see, with the slayer later passing down his hanafuda earrings that the Kamado family wore and preserved to honor their savior's memory]]. |
| 178 | * ClarkKentOutfit: The Demon Slayer Corps uniform is not very form fitting and many members of importance, like the Hashira and the main characters, also wear a Haori over their uniforms, which mostly hides the physique of all male slayers who don't have their bulging muscles in apparent view. It is only during training sessions when the guys are usually shirtless that it is shown that well defined muscles is pretty much the standard physique for all males worth their salt in the Corps, after growing in strength Tanjiro and Zenitsu become just as muscular as Inosuke, but as soon as they dress themselves fully in uniform, none of that muscle is apparent at first glance. |
| 179 | * ClothingCombat: Daki uses kimono sashes to fight and trap her victims. |
| 180 | * {{Colorization}}: In late 2018, as the series had entered its final stretch with the Infinity Castle arc, Shueisha hired a professional digital colorist to begin working from Chapter 140 onwards, it followed all the way to the series’ end in Chapter 205; the effort was done in order to promote the digital print of Weekly Shounen Jump at the time. |
| 181 | * ColourCodedForYourConvenience: In the manga, with Gotouge's coloring, all the imperial japanese military inspired uniforms the slayers wear are all standard black; the anime, however, decided to add some unique touches to said uniforms by differentiating them through colorful shadings formed around the black fabric, examples being Tanjiro's uniform with brown shading, Zenitsu's with bege shading, Inosuke's pants with dark blue shading, Muichiro's with teal shading and so on among the slayers as portrayed in the anime. |
| 182 | * CombatPragmatist: The titular Demon Slayers don't really give much thought to things like honor and fairness during their battles against demons. Often relying on tools like poison and sneak attacks to secure a victory. There is a very good reason for this: Demons do not fight fair, and as amazing as Breath techniques are the slayers are humans locked in battle with immortal and magical monsters. |
| 183 | * CoolMask: Urokodaki gives each child he sends to the Final Selection a fox mask he made himself as a protective talisman. [[spoiler:The demon he sealed away on the same mountain 47 years ago uses it as a marker to slaughter all of his apprentices.]] |
| 184 | * CosmicMotifs: The demons seem to have moon motifs. Muzan's first introduced human alias, Tsukihiko, begins with the Japanese word for the moon. His subordinates are called the Twelve Kizuki, which translates to Demon Moons. |
| 185 | * CowardiceCallout: Tanjiro performs one of these against Akaza, for [[spoiler:running away to avoid exposure to sunlight, instead of fight to the death like Rengoku]]. He then extends this to demons as a whole, pointing out that they are cowards for using their supernatural powers, healing factor, and immortality against the very-much-mortal demon slayers, but they will run for their lives as soon as the sun is about to rise, yet brave slayers who have no such advantage will fight at night, when demons have all the stakes on their favor. |
| 186 | * CreatorProvincialism: The setting is strictly limited to Japan, despite the leader and progenitor of all demons, Muzan Kibutsuji, having lived for nearly a 1000 years with plenty of room to spread his demonic blood all over the world when Japan began to open its borders to foreigners under American instigation; accordingly the Demon Slayer Corps never had the chance to spread internationally. The author keeps the conflict fairly small by introducing a long lasting paranoia that made Muzan not willing to make too many demons, and his own demon army often disliking each other as it is; that keeps the plot and its characters tightly focused in Japan, rooted heavily in its beliefs and culture, making it easier for Gotouge Koyoharu to write just about what they know. |
| 187 | * CrossOver: Had one in the form of a collaborative event with VideoGame/GranblueFantasy. |
| 188 | * CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Zenitsu is, for the most part, weak and cowardly. But if things get tough and running away isn't an option, he passes out and unlocks his powerful Thunder Breathing style. |
| 189 | * CustomUniform: The main characters and the Hashira wear unique and distinct apparel on top of their Demon Slayer uniforms. |
| 190 | * CuteBruiser: Nezuko is perfectly capable of defending herself, with her superhuman demonic strength [[spoiler: and [[PlayingWithFire fire-based]] Blood Demon Arts.]] |
| 191 | [[/folder]] |
| 192 | |
| 193 | [[folder:D-N]] |
| 194 | * DangerWithADeadline: Demons are incredibly difficult for humans to kill thanks to having far greater strength, toughness, and speed, nearly limitless stamina, and a HealingFactor unless their heads are cut off. However, all demons are vulnerable to sunlight and will crumble into dust if caught outside at the crack of dawn. |
| 195 | * DeagedInDeath: Daki, the Upper Moon 6, is a demon more than a hundred years old, with the appearance of an adult woman. After being killed, she appears in the afterlife as a 13-year-old girl, which is the age at which she became a demon. |
| 196 | * DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler: Sabito and Makomo turn out to be past pupils of Urokodaki, who were killed by a demon he sealed on the Final Selection mountain. Their spirits show up to help Tanjiro master the sword and avenge them.]] |
| 197 | * DeadlyDistantFinale: [[spoiler:The epilogue takes place in the Reiwa era, when nearly all of the main cast have passed on, and the few that did survive are either over a century old (Kiriya Ubuyashiki) or functionally immortal (Yushiro).]] |
| 198 | * DeathByMaterialism: The unnamed low-ranked demon slayer who interrupts Tanjiro and Rui by thinking the latter is an easy kill so he can get a promotion and earn more money, gets killed in seconds by [[RazorFloss Rui's web]]. |
| 199 | * DeathEqualsRedemption: Downplayed. In the anime, Tanjiro's words and actions towards Rui, Mother Spider, Kyogai, and a lesser extent Susamaru give them succor and peace from the psychological wounds that Muzan had exploited when he made them demons. Most of the other Demons did not receive such sympathy, particularly Bog Demon, Yahaba, Sister Spider, or the Tongue Demon. |
| 200 | * DeliberatelyBadExample: The unnamed slayer seen in the Natagumo Mountain arc, who specifically abandoned his colleagues to leave them as meat shields, to potentially tire Rui, the leader of the Spider Demon Family, out; that dishonorable slayer claims he wanted to be the one who killed Rui for the sole purpose of rising through the slayer ranks and get a better salary, the guy is then quickly killed by Rui with no effort as he finishes speaking his motifs. Other than turning into a joke, that unnamed slayer's sole narrative purpose is to be a bad example of how a Demon Slayer is supposed to be, he has no name, no backstory and no one is there to mourn his death, all other honorable slayers are dedicated men and women who are out to kill demons and save lives without ever prioritizing their personal gain, like prestige and money or even their own lives. |
| 201 | * DecapitationRequired: The most common way to kill the demons with Nichirin Blades, other than wisteria poison and exposure to the sun. Suverted with Upper Moon Demons and Muzan that are either so powerful they can fight on without their heads and fix it back or found different contingencies to avoid death by beheading. |
| 202 | * DefiantToTheEnd: The magistrate who sentenced Hantengu to death showed no fear when Hantengu, now a demon, returned to kill him. Instead, he promised that someday, karma would catch up to Hantengu. |
| 203 | * DemonOfHumanOrigin: The demons in the series are made from Muzan and his more powerful minions giving their blood to humans. Muzan himself is the first of them all, [[spoiler: being turned into one by a doctor who tried to cure him of his disease with Blue Spider Lily.]] |
| 204 | * DemonSlaying: The premise, as made very clear in the English title. The "demons" in question are actually referred to as {{oni}} in the Japanese script, although the term is used as a more generic "demon" in certain contexts. |
| 205 | * DependingOnTheArtist: |
| 206 | ** Zenitsu’s nichirin blade is unique in that it doesn’t have a distinct color. It has, however, a yellow lightning strike pattern which is more detailed in the manga but simpler in the anime. |
| 207 | ** Inosuke's swords are extremely worn out blades chipped to look like saws. This is more obvious in the manga, where they are twisted and scuffed unevenly. |
| 208 | ** The slight art shift used for comedic moments is less exaggerated in the anime. |
| 209 | * DespairEventHorizon: Rengoku's father crossed it with his wife's death [[spoiler: on top of learning about the Sun Breathing, which led him to believe all sword styles including his own are merely cheap imitations of the "original".]] He ended up abandoning his duties as the Flame Hashira and his sword altogether, tearing up the generational record of Flame Hashira, [[DrowningHisSorrows drinking constantly]] and either ignoring or berating his sons. |
| 210 | * {{Determinator}}: This is a basic requirement to become a demon slayer. Even Zenitsu will step up (after passing out) when push comes to shove. |
| 211 | ** [[spoiler:In the final battle, the foot soldiers willingly turn into human shields, dying to protect those who can take on Muzan. And when even Hashiras and slayers (Tanjiro, Kanao, Zenitsu and Inosuke) are suffering fatal injuries and lost limbs, they still ''stand'' unwavering against Muzan. Even the Kakushi (non-combatant team) will try their damn hardest to stop Muzan by crashing cars and ''shoving a whole gondola'' on him, all to stop Muzan from hiding from the sun. Needless to say, it's no exaggeration to say the almost the whole Demon Slayer Corps are ''absolute goddamn determinators''. ]] |
| 212 | --> [[spoiler: '''Muzan''': They're standing up again. Those damn pests! I crush you again and again, but you won't die. You surge and surge. You stand up again and again until dawn, until the moment I draw my last breath.]] |
| 213 | * DieHardOnAnX: The Mugen Train arc both in the manga and anime/movie, the titular train is taken hostage by a demon, who has killed people through many of its courses, however, the ride Tanjiro, Zenitsu, Inosuke, Nezuko and their superior slayer Kyojuro Rengoku take is the one where they will neutralize the demonic threat, to ensure the safety of all passengers aboard. |
| 214 | * DifficultButAwesome: [[KatanasAreJustBetter Katanas]] are described as thus. The same forging process that makes a katana an AbsurdlySharpBlade also makes it quite brittle. If the blade doesn't line up precisely with the direction of a swing, the user risks breaking their sword. |
| 215 | * DirtyCoward: |
| 216 | ** Inverted. Zenitsu spends a lot of time early in the story in a panic and screaming about not wanting to die, so much so that children and even ''Tanjiro'' look at him in disgust. When push comes to shove, however, he will do the right thing (even if he happens to faint from fright). Played straight with his former superior Kaigaku, who is implied to have been the one who sold out the inhabitants of Himejima's temple to a demon to save himself [[spoiler:and who ultimately became a demon to avoid dying.]] |
| 217 | ** The examinee Tanjiro saves from the Hand Demon combines this with UngratefulBastard. When it seems as though Tanjiro will die against the demon, the other examinee decides to flee while the demon's occupied with Tanjiro, leaving him to his fate. As a result, the other examinee ends up being KilledOffscreen and is not among the five survivors of the exam(Tanjiro, Zenitsu, Kanao, Genya and Inosuke). |
| 218 | * DistantFinale: [[spoiler:While the exact amount of time isn't given, the finale chapter takes place at least 100 years into the future. It shows the descendants and reincarnations of most of the cast living happily in modern-day Japan, which is free of demons, sans Yushiro and Chachamaru who were on the heroes' side. Kiriya is the only human still alive and, having fulfilled his family obligation, lived to be the oldest man in Japan.]] |
| 219 | * DistinguishingMark: Tanjiro has a distinctive scar on his forehead (he got it first when he was younger, protecting one of his brothers from a hot brazier; it becomes larger thanks to the Final Selection) and his father is shown to have had a birthmark in a similar spot. [[spoiler: The man who appears in Muzan's memories had flame-like marks covering the left side of his face as well. A red birthmark on the forehead is apparently the sign of those "chosen" by the Sun Breathing style.]] |
| 220 | * DownerBeginning: The series begins with a demon killing Tanjiro's entire family and turning his sister Nezuko into a demon. |
| 221 | * DramaticDislocation: On top of being really flexible, Inosuke can dislodge every joint in his body, allowing him to squeeze into any space as long as he can fit his head in. Once out, he just pops everything back into place. |
| 222 | * DramaPreservingHandicap: The Demon Slayer Mark is the visual cue for a slayer who has tapped into a state where their already superhuman might is amplified further, more strength, more speed, more power to fight better against the Upper Rank demons; that power takes a heavy toll on the slayers however, in the end they are still human and that comes with a time limit, as soon as it passes the Mark fade away. With more experience the slayers actually start to leave their Marks permanently etched on their bodies, but [[spoiler:that is also an omen, as revealed later on that growing stronger with the Mark is the sign that a slayer is approaching death, possibly even before the observed 25-years-old deadline]]. |
| 223 | * DramaticIrony: While the tankobon version of the final chapter is mostly happy, one moment does stand out from the rest: [[spoiler:a joyous declaration that nothing as unexpected and dangerous as the demon attacks ever hitting Japan again, considering [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII something to that effect]] is on the horizon in a few decades.]] |
| 224 | * DrumBathing: Shown in one scene at the very end of the series, as part of a montage of their humble and happy lives back at their home in the mountainside; [[spoiler:Tanjiro and Nezuko are back home, with Zenitsu and Inosuke now living with them as one happy FamilyOfChoice]]. |
| 225 | * DudeLooksLikeALady: Inosuke (which makes it really weird when Tanjiro and Zenitsu see it for the first time, as he's pretty buff), Rui, Tokito, Kagaya and Muzan Kibutsuji (whom the Lower Ranks couldn't even recognize when he appeared before them fully dressed and made up as a woman). |
| 226 | * DueToTheDead: The series has at least two key events for these rites. |
| 227 | ** [[spoiler:After Kyojuro dies, several scattered scenes of characters reacting to his death is shown, his lord Kagaya in particular is offering his prayers to the already fallen slayers before Kyojuro, commending on Kyojuro's bravery until the end, earnestly expecting to join him and everyone else in the afterlife when their mission to eradicate demonkind is finally done]]. |
| 228 | ** [[spoiler:In the end, after Muzan is dead, the Corps are disbanded, Tanjiro and Nezuko go back home, taking Zenitsu and Inosuke with them; Zenitsu carries the ashes of his beloved master Jigoro with him, Tanjiro and Nezuko allow him to bury the ashes in the same place the Kamado family was buried, where they all send their prayers and move on]]. |
| 229 | * DyingAsYourself: Demons who reclaim their discarded humanity and regret their actions as demons will return to their human forms prior from becoming demons: [[spoiler: Teoni, Rui, Daki/Ume, Gyutaro, and Akaza/Hakuji are examples of this.]] |
| 230 | * DyingToWakeUp: Enmu, Lower-Rank 1 of the Twelve Kizuki and the ArcVillain of the "Mugen Train" arc, possesses the power to put his targets to sleep and put them in a dream of his choice. Tanjiro discovers that dying in the dream world wakes him up, so he deliberately [[SlashedThroat slashes his throat]] whenever Emnu puts him to sleep. Emnu almost kills Tanjiro when he decides to change tactics by tricking Tanjiro into thinking he's put him to sleep so he can slit his throat in the real world, but Inosuke fortunately puts a stop to it. |
| 231 | * EarlyBirdCameo: Early on the manga the Twelve Kizuki system is explained by vague nondescript silhouettes of demons belonging to that group, the anime teases defined silhouettes of what the Twelve Kizuki actually look like as early as the first opening theme and by expanding Kyogai’s flashback of him being expelled from the Lower Ranks. |
| 232 | * EarnYourHappyEnding: |
| 233 | ** Even though the series was not without its many casualties, it ultimately ends on happy note. Muzan Kibutsuji is defeated and condemned to the lowest part of Hell, while Tanjiro is revived and reverted back into a human after being briefly transformed into the new Demon King. Following the death of Muzan and the death of all demons (with exception of Yushiro and Chachamaru) achieved, the Demon Slayer Corps is disbanded, allowing the surviving Ubuyashiki children and remaining Demon Slayers the freedom to live out normal lives. Tanjiro, Nezuko, Zenitsu, and Inosuke ultimately end up living together at the old Kamado household. |
| 234 | ** The epilogue takes this trope a step further with the major characters, either through their descendants and/or their reincarnations. |
| 235 | *** It is ultimately revealed that Tanjiro and Kanao married and started a family, followed by Zenitsu and Nezuko, as well as Inosuke and Aoi. They lived long enough to have descendants into the Reiwa era. Tanjiro's Nichirin blade and Hanafuda earrings are mounted on the wall in the Tokyo home of his descendants, alongside a framed picture of the survivors. Meanwhile, a mostly fictional memoir and story written by Zenitsu is kept by his descendants. |
| 236 | *** Tengen Uzui, one of the surviving Hashira, gets to live a happy life with his three wives. He lives long enough to have a descendant (Tenma Uzui). |
| 237 | *** Sanemi Shinazugawa, another surviving Hashira, also gets to live a happy life prior to his death. He lives long enough to have a descendant (Sanehiro Shinazugawa) who is shown to work alongside the reincarnation of Genya as a police officer. |
| 238 | *** Giyu Tomioka, one more surviving Hashira, also gets to live a happy life prior to his death. He lives long enough to have a descendant (Gichii Tomioka) who is close friends with the reincarnations of Sabito and Makomo. |
| 239 | *** The rest of the Hashiras are also reincarnated into the Reiwa Era where Demons no longer exist. The reincarnations of the Kocho sisters are students of the Sekirei Women's Academy, Muichiro is reincarnated as a baby alongside his twin Yuichiro, Gyomei Himejima's reincarnation gets a second chance in raising kids as a kindergarten teacher, the reincarnations of Mitsuri Kanroji and Obanai Iguro are a married couple running a restaurant, the reincarnations of Sakonji and Jigoro are living peaceful live as shogi buddies, and it is implied that Tojuro Rengoku, the descendant of Senjuro, is Kyojuro's reincarnation. |
| 240 | *** The only three characters from the Taisho era still alive are Yushiro (who became a renowned painter of Lady Tamayo), Chachamaru (who remains as Yushiro's companion), and Kiriya Ubuyashiki, who eventually becomes the longest-lived person in Japan after the curse of his family is lifted. |
| 241 | *** The reincarnations of Yorichii Tsukugini and Uta are a married couple with children. |
| 242 | * ElementalMotifs: The demon slayers' swordsmanship styles invoke the elements, but they don't actually use the elements themselves. Instead, they take on the elements' physical qualities. Water Breathing is adaptable and flexible, while Thunder Breathing focuses on lightning-fast movements. In addition, while Flame, Water, Stone, Wind, and Thunder are the basic styles, it's not uncommon for demon slayers to mix-and-match and eventually develop their own styles, such as Mitsuri's Love Breathing or Tokito's Mist Breathing. While the manga and anime show various elemental effects when the characters perform their sword techniques, they're more for visual appeal than anything. |
| 243 | * EldritchLocation: The Infinity Castle. The headquarters for Muzan and his demons. If you think the drum house is confusing with the ever-changing layout then imagine that times infinity. An extra-dimensional space taking the form of a castle stretching on for eternity with infinite rooms. It’s all controlled by Muzan’s minion Nakime through her blood demon art and can change the layout at the drop of a hat. Good luck even knowing which way is up in this place. |
| 244 | * EnlightenmentSuperpowers: The Transparent World is introduced as such when Tanjiro first seeks it, recalling how his father Tanjuro had attained such a perfectly balanced attitude between being peaceful and being ready to fend of any threat against his family at a moment's notice; the first visual cue of the ability is portrayed as a literal universal transparent void of space, where Tanjiro can see through everything he sees, now being perceived as being all in slow motion as well. [[spoiler:Akaza sees it as achieving the pinnacle of martial arts, admitting not even he attained that level]]. |
| 245 | * ExpositoryThemeTune: The insert song on Episode 19, Season 1, ''Kamado Tanjiro no Uta'', is an innocent and tragic theme about Tanjiro’s whole ordeal, love for his lost family and only surviving member, his sister turned demon Nezuko; several variations of the song’s notes are remixed into instrumentals to fit whatever dramatic scene specifically stringing his lost family Tanjiro may be facing at the time. |
| 246 | * EverybodyCries: [[spoiler: Rengoku's death leaves all three boys in a sobbing mess as the clean-up crew arrives.]] |
| 247 | * EvolvingCredits: The shadows of the Hashira in the opening get removed as they get introduced. |
| 248 | * ExcaliburInTheRust: The sword Tanjiro and Kotetsu find in a training doll is of high-quality steel, albeit extremely rusted due to age and neglect. Later, Haganezuka restores the blade albeit with some permanent damages when Tanjiro uses the incomplete sword to slay Hantengu. |
| 249 | * ExoticEyeDesigns: All of the demons have unique eye designs that not only differentiate them from the humans but from each other too: |
| 250 | ** Nezuko's pupils are dark pink with a light pink iris and white sclera (coincidentally making her look closer to a human than most demons) while Tamayo's eyes are a grey-hued gradient and pupil-less. |
| 251 | ** The Twelve Kizuki go a step further and have their respective ranks tattooed ''on'' their eyes. |
| 252 | * EyeScream: Kyogai has his right eye slashed when Muzan expels him from the Twelve Kizuki, leaving an X-shaped scar over his former rank of Lower Sixth. |
| 253 | * FaceDeathWithDignity: The motto of every honorable Demon Slayer, as it is pretty much spelled out being a mere human warrior fighting against supernatural horrors who are naturally stronger is to walk the line between life and death in every match, as strongly summarized by Gyomei Himejima later in the series; those who hold on to this standard go on have their own dignified deaths, with zero regrets, notable examples being [[spoiler:Kyojuro Rengoku]] early on, and several in the Infinity Castle arc; deliberate bad examples who have disgraced the Corps like the unnamed slayer who was just in for the money in the Natagumo Mountain arc, and notorious traitors like [[spoiler:Kokushibo/Michikatsu and Kaigaku]], have very undignified deaths. |
| 254 | * FactionMotto: The titular Corps has two prominent ones regarding their grudge against demons, ''“Metsu”'' (Destroy) and ''“Akkimessatsu”'' (Destroyer of Demons). The former is seen engraved on the back of the member’s unforms, and the latter is seen engraved on the blades of the 9 elite and most powerful members, the Hashira. |
| 255 | * FamilyBusiness: Rengoku's father was also a Flame Hashira. Combined with the fact that they own the generational record book of Flame Hashira, [[spoiler:their family name is the same as the Ninth Form of the Flame Breathing (the final technique he used against Akaza), and how Senjuro laments that he had been unable to become his brother's successor]], it's implied that being Hashira or at least the Flame Breathing sword style is passed down in the family. |
| 256 | * FantasticFightingStyle: The Breathing Styles, which are swordfighting styles that are utilized through controlled breathing and are all based on different elements (though it's worth noting that they don't actually use ElementalPowers, and any elemental effects shown are only for stylistic effect). The styles include: |
| 257 | ** Water Breathing, which grants users the flexibility and fluid movements of water. Taught by Urokodaki and used by Giyu and Tanjiro. |
| 258 | ** Thunder Breathing, which grants the blinding speed and power of lightning. Used by Zenitsu. |
| 259 | ** Beast Breathing, which grants the keen senses and raw power of wild animals. Used by Inosuke. |
| 260 | ** Flower Breathing, which grants graceful and beautiful movements associated with plants and fruits. Used by Kanao. |
| 261 | ** Flame Breathing, which grants the destructive power of fire. Used by Kyojuro. |
| 262 | ** Love Breathing, an offshoot of Flame Breathing that grants unparalleled flexibility and dexterity. Used by Mitsuri. |
| 263 | ** Sound Breathing, which focuses on using powerfully loud sound to disorient opponents and striking with sonic speed. Used by Tengen. |
| 264 | ** Wind Breathing, which utilizes powerful gusts of air to create RazorWind. Used by Sanemi. |
| 265 | ** Insect Breathing, which foregoes attempting to behead demons in exchange for precision strikes using a blade laced with poison, not unlike a venomous insect. Used by Shinobu. |
| 266 | ** Serpent Breathing, which replicates the flexibility and fast strikes of a snake. Used by Obanai. |
| 267 | ** Stone Breathing, which grants the strength and durability of stone. Used by Gyomei. |
| 268 | ** Mist Breathing, which can be used to blindside enemies as though striking from an impenetreble fog. Used by Muichiro. |
| 269 | ** [[spoiler: Sun Breathing, the first breathing style developed and the one from which all others derive, which grants the overwhelming power of the sun, the weakness of all demons. Hinokami Kagura, a special fighting style passed down through Tanjiro's family, uses Sun Breathing.]] |
| 270 | ** [[spoiler: Moon Breathing, a direct offshoot of Sun Breathing that draw upon the moon's crescent shape. Used by the demon Kokushibo.]] |
| 271 | * FauxAffablyEvil: Kibutsuji can be polite when he wants, but underneath that facade is a merciless sociopath who treats his minions as disposable tools. |
| 272 | * Fiction500: The Ubuyashiki family, the founders of the Demon Slayer Corps, have said corps as a private army in the ever difficult secret war against demonkind. The first databook states the Ubuyashiki family is extremely rich without ever going into specifics, and they can personally pay for a personal army of hundreds and give each slayer a very generous fee. The lowest ranked members are paid 20,000 yen (a very good amount during the early 20th century), and the Hashira (the highest ranked members) are said to be "paid as much as they want", which shows that the Ubuyashiki are absurdly rich as the series never shows money is of any issue to them. [[spoiler:After the end of the series, a special oneshot chapter contained within the second databook even goes an extra step to show Kiriya Ubuyashiki casually gave enough money to Tanjiro and Nezuko, as a token of eternal gratitude, for them not to ever work a single day in their lives again.]] |
| 273 | * FictionalDocument: At the end of the series, it is revealed that over the course of his life Zenitsu wrote a book of his memoirs as a demon slayer, called Zenitsu-den (Legend of Zenitsu), being left as a family possession that his great-grandson personally enjoyed reading; in post-epilogue material it is shown bit by bit that Zenitsu was quite biased towards making himself looking very heroic, the greater than life type, dramatizing the whole affair at the expense of making every other slayer look less impressive than Zenitsu, in his own mind. Afterwards even more details for Zenitsu-den was given, to the point of defictionalization in the art gallery Koyoharu Gotouge Exhibition in late 2021, Japan, where a partial rendition of Zenitsu-den was produced for attendees to see; [[spoiler: really showing much personal bias Zenitsu really wrote, but also showing that at the very last chapter of his book, written in his elder years, Zenitsu wisely admitted the previous 24 chapters were all fictional, with the last one being a historically accurate account of all the events that transpired over the course of the series]]. |
| 274 | * {{Filler}}: The TV edition of the Mugen Train arc brings a whole new episode serving as a prelude to Kyojuro eventually boarding the titular train, unlike previous additions to the anime which were expansions of what the manga had hinted at, the episode is fully original content where no real meaningful advancements to the plot took place; the episode starts with Kyojuro being informed about the Mugen Train so he could end a potential demonic activity, but the episode introduces another demon killer also assaulting another train, Kyojuro makes quick work of the demon and then proceeds to ride the Mugen Train as planned. |
| 275 | * FirstNameBasis: The majority of the cast are quick to start calling each other by their first names, albeit most with added honorifics as a form of respect, as they are all part of the same demon slaying corps with a sense of camaraderie; the few characters who prefer to go by last names are the extremely polite characters like Kyojuro Rengoku, or those with a level of disdain towards someone, like Iguro Obanai only calling Giyu Tomioka by his last name. The shining example of course is the main cast itself: Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke start calling each other by their first names without any honorifics, forming a real bond quite fast, although Inosuke always get their names wrong, until the Infinity Castle Arc that is, where he finally learns how to call their names right. Over time, the cast goes from calling BigBad Muzan Kibutsuji by his family name of Kibutsuji to his first name of Muzan. |
| 276 | * FlowerMotif: |
| 277 | ** The demon slayers and their allies use the wisteria as their symbol, as it is toxic to demons. |
| 278 | ** The Anime's ending theme features Red Spider Lilies prominently. They are flowers that represent death and reincarnation according to Japanese culture. [[spoiler: They also appear when Zenitsu has a NearDeathExperience after fighting Kaigaku, and the flowers hold him back from approaching his old master, signifying that Zenitsu isn't dead yet]]. There is also a mention of [[spoiler: the Blue Spider Lily. A flower that doesn't exist in real life, but it's something that Kibutsuji is also looking for as it's one of the components of the medicine that turn him into a demon]]. |
| 279 | * TheForceIsStrongWithThisOne: Used only sparingly throughout the entire series, certain characters could feel how strong their opponents were, perceiving peculiar auras around their targets; Akaza, Kyojuro Rengoku and Kokushibo are the ones who make clear remarks about people they found to be very promising, Akaza in particular specifically praises this aura indicating the pinnacle of martial arts as "Supreme Territory/State of Anatta". |
| 280 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: At the end of Final Selection, Tanjiro sees three survivors besides himself- Zenitsu, Genya and Kanao- but in Kagaya's first scene, he says that ''five'' people survived the exam. This is an early hint that Inosuke also took the Final Selection and survived, but wasn't patient enough to wait around at the end. |
| 281 | ** During the Swordsmith Village arc, [[spoiler: Genya is revealed to have a demon transformation, thanks to consuming demons. Near the end, after feeling forced to leave Nezuko's fate to the sun in order to finish off one of the upper rank demons, Tanjiro finds that his sister was able to survive and regain a part of her humanity. It's revealed later that it was due to not consuming any human flesh or blood.]] |
| 282 | ** [[spoiler: Akaza]] mentions to Rengoku that he can train as long as he wants [[spoiler: if he decides to become a demon, for more than even 200 years. It's later revealed that a Slayer chose specifically to be a demon only to get as strong as he can, [[TheDragon the Upper-1 himself]], Kokushibo, who has been Upper-1, atleast for more than 400 years]]. |
| 283 | ** [[spoiler: When Muzan finally bursts out of his flesh cocoon after having seemingly eliminated Tamayo’s drug to turn him human, he reveals a new combat oriented form that has several distinct features to it, such as crimson red skin, a multitude of gaping mouths adorning his shoulders all the way down to his legs, and his hair growing in length as well as becoming white in color. While many readers may gloss over the white hair as just an arbitrary add on for the transformation’s look, it turns out to be much more than that, as is revealed with the revelation that the drug Tamayo had given Muzan actually had more effects than its initially advertised one to turn him human; one of the multiple effects of the drug is to age Muzan at an incredibly rapid rate, which results in him having aged as much as 9000 years since having taken the drug only a mere 3 hours ago, the white hair and its length being an effect + more importantly an early hint of his rapid aging ever since being given the drug. ]] |
| 284 | |
| 285 | * FourTemperamentEnsemble: |
| 286 | ** Sanguine: Tanjiro Kamado |
| 287 | ** Choleric: Inosuke Hashibira |
| 288 | ** Melancholic: Zenitsu Agatsuma |
| 289 | ** Phlegmatic: Nezuko Kamado |
| 290 | * FreezeFrameBonus: |
| 291 | ** If you pause the anime's first opening at around the one minute and fifteen second mark, you can see Rui on a tree branch in the background, the Mother demon in the background behind and to the right of Inosuke, and the Sister demon behind Zenitsu. |
| 292 | ** During Tanjiro’s fight against Yahaba, there’s two different angle shots of the same stance where Tanjiro works his way out of Yahaba’s vector powers, one shot has Tanjiro’s Water Breathing attacks embedded with the usual water effects, but the other quick shot has Tanjiro perform his attacks without any water around his sword despite it being the exact same scene; in any other series this would be an animation error, but in here the animators did a quick nod to the fact none of the elemental visuals accompanying the Breathing Styles are real, they are just visual flair to make their attacks look cooler. |
| 293 | * FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: For the less monstrously evil demons at any rate. Every demon in the series was a human at some point in time and often had completely normal, and in some cases very tragic lives, before they became the monsters they are today. None of their actions as demons are portrayed as excusable, yet Tanjiro is often able to get a sense of their pain and suffering as they lay dying, and even offers them a last moment of respect and sympathy for their situation, with several demons expressing genuine regret for the things that they've done while they're at death's door. |
| 294 | * GagSub: One fan translation of Chapter 185 translated the story with gaming references, memes(Nezuko doing a LeeroyJenkins), and even [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure Jojo's]] references. |
| 295 | * {{Geas}}: Muzan puts one on all of the demons who serve him. [[spoiler:If they speak his name out loud, they will be killed messily. Susamaru, for example, grows extra arms out of her mouth and abdomen that crush her body but leave her alive so she can be killed by the sun's light.]] |
| 296 | * GenderVocabularySlip: Disguised as a girl, Zenitsu was knocked out by Daki while infiltrating the Red Light District. The two grateful little girls he protected from her wrath were confused by his reflexive use of the masculine-prefix of ''ore'' to refer to himself when he murmured "What just happened to me" as he awakened from said concussion. He ''barely'' prevents his cover from being blown by the excuse of "I had a strange dream that I was a man" with the feminine-prefix of ''watashi...'' Only to blow said cover wide open again when he when he reacts to their adorable blushing gratitude with a flirtingly delivered ''"It's a man's duty to protect little girls."'' |
| 297 | * GeneticMemory: Kibutsuji shares a lot of his blood with the Twelve Kizuki, who can also experience flashes of his memories, especially regarding a swordsman wearing hanafuda earrings. |
| 298 | * GoodScarsEvilScars: Several characters in the series have scars, and only the good ones at that, since their enemies are demonic beings who can all regenerate. Sanemi in particular has a collection of them from tirelessly fighting demons, which makes him look evil at first. The most positive example is Tanjiro himself, who gets some scars along the way in places where his beauty is not compromised, preserving his sweet nature and appearance. [[spoiler:Muzan is later shown to have several scars he got in a legendary battle that he was unable to heal, which is the first example of evil scars in the series.]]. |
| 299 | * {{Gorn}}: One of Shonen Jump's goriest. |
| 300 | * TheGreatestStyle: [[spoiler:The Sun Breathing, later called the Hinokami Kagura. It's the first and strongest swordsmanship style created by the strongest Demon Slayer in history who nearly slew Muzan 400 years ago, Yoriichi. All other Breath styles are inferior derivatives that Yoriichi taught to the other Demon Slayers to suit their specific talents when Sun Breathing proved too difficult for them to master. When Tanjiro switched from Water to Sun Breathing and reversed the CurbStompBattle against Rui, he collapsed from the sheer strain in mere seconds since it was his first time using it. Yoriichi accidentally taught it to Tanjiro's ancestors when he humored their request to watch him practice once, and the Kamados have passed it down along with Yoriichi's hanafuda earrings ever since out of gratitude for saving their lives. By the present day, its connection to Yoriichi has been forgotten and it's now called the Hinokami Kagura.]] |
| 301 | * TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: Two examples amounts by the end of the series: |
| 302 | ** The strongest demon slayer to ever exist, [[spoiler:Yoriichi Tsugikuni, lived a rather tragic life of constant loss, culminating in him failing to kill Muzan out of a technicality despite being stronger than demon king himself, and soon after his older twin betrayer the Corps to become a demon, both factors completely disgraced Yoriichi as he was expelled from the demon slayer corps; after entertaining the Kamado ancestors with his visit one last time, Yoriichi vanished, 60 full years of his life remained a dark spot in history, albeit highly implied Yoriichi just kept killing demons thereafter until his final fight is seen, against Kokushibo, his twin, dying in that battle even though he had the upper hand, his old body just perished out of natural causes mid-fight. Yoriichi's life was not chronicled by any official documents as the centuries went by as the demon slayers wanted to distance themselves from him as much as possible, but Yoriichi's importance towards creating the Breathing Arts was too important so at least his contributions to the five main elements was kept, but not his own Sun Breathing as it was too difficult to replicate]]. |
| 303 | ** Beyond the silly and biased personal chronicle written by [[spoiler:Zenitsu, kept only by his family down the line as a memento they don't even believe in (save one who's a fan), the world at large never gets to know the tremendous struggle the demon slayers passed through over centuries to fight against Muzan Kibutsuji and his horde of demons, much to do with the fact the existence of demons and the demon slayers themselves were mostly a secret from the general public, save very few individuals who supported the corps in secret in Wisteria Houses and victims who survived demonic assaults]]. |
| 304 | * GrinOfRage: Shinobu is always in a constant state of anger and hates demons, but still smiles through it all because her deceased older sister would have wanted her to do so. Even when she's killing demons through wisteria poison or making passive-aggressive remarks towards Giyu, Shinobu still wears a smile that barely masks her anger. She rarely drops her smile, except in certain occasions outside of combat and during the fight with Doma. |
| 305 | * GroupPictureEnding: [[spoiler:The last panel of the manga shows the picture of Tanjiro and co. who's still alive after the final battle in modern Kamado family's house.]] |
| 306 | * HappinessInMinimumWage: Several characters in the series came from humble working lives before becoming Demon Slayers and they loved every aspect of it, no matter how poor they were since they had such loving families before tragedy came knocking. Tanjiro in particular reflects upon himself that living as a coal seller wasn't bad at all, supporting his big family just to see the smiles of his younger siblings and mother was all that he needed to honor his late father, who was the family's coal seller prior his death one year before the story began; the tragedy of losing almost his entire family in a demon attack steered Tanjiro towards becoming a demon slayer, said job is actually revealed to be extremely well paying even amongst the lowest ranked slayers, with the salary only increasing the more promotions are to be had, but Tanjiro not once comments on how much more money he makes now, it just isn't better than working for pennies while still having a living family around. |
| 307 | * HealingFactor: One of the reasons why the demons are so hard to kill since the sun, poison from wisteria flower, and decapitation by Nichirin Blades are the only things that are really able to kill them. |
| 308 | * {{Hell}}: We see several demons go there when killed, the Buddhist version anyway, called Diyu. It's actually a lot like the Christian version of Hell, but temporary. It's a place where souls go to remove their bad karma, usually through torture, so they can reincarnate. In other words, it is equivalent to the Roman Catholic concept of [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purgatory purgatory]]. |
| 309 | * AHellOfATime: The setting embraces Buddhist beliefs of the afterlife, with hell being a place of extreme damnation where those who end up there will be tortured for as long as it takes until their souls are cleansed to be reincarnated, as the series progresses we see several demons getting their ticket to hell, however, after the series’ end Gotouge made an oneshot chapter contained in the second Databook that is [[spoiler:curiously humorous in tone, yes it shows many of the key demons faced in the story stuck in hell but instead of being tortured they are just having a group meeting, talking to each other about how they died, to which Breathing techniques they were killed with, only Muzan seems really annoyed while everyone else just accepts their situation]]. [[spoiler:Then the chapter ends, revealing it is just a dream by Goto after Muzan's defeat, erasing the image of a funny hell]]. |
| 310 | * HereditaryHairstyle: Kyojuro Rengoku and his brother both share their father's blonde hair with red tips (said tips differ only slightly between them), all of them tying it up in a ponytail. Tanjiro's hairstyle also heavily resembles that of his father. |
| 311 | * HeroicWillpower: Nezuko manages to resist succumbing to her demonic hunger even when a Hashira cuts himself to tempt her with his blood. For a hungry demon, the amount of discipline and self-control this takes is almost unthinkable [[spoiler: Said Hashira, Sanemi Shinazugawa, is later revealed to be a Marechi, a person whose blood intoxicates demons and was even able to affect Kokushibo making Nezuko's willpower as strong as Upper-1]] |
| 312 | * HighSchoolAU: The creator likes to include reimaginings of characters in a high school setting in the volume releases. |
| 313 | * HistoricalFantasy: The story takes place in Japan at some point during the Taisho Era (1912-1926), where things seem mostly unchanged aside from there being demons who secretly prey on humans and have supernatural powers. |
| 314 | * HoldingInLaughter: When Tanjirou is put on trial by the Hashira for harboring his demon sister Nezuko, Sanemi repeatedly stabs her and tries to tempt her into tasting his blood to prove that she should be killed. A very angry Tanjirou headbutts Sanemi for this even with his arms tied behind his back. This looks so comical that Mitsuri tries to stifle her laughter even as the other Hashira give her strange looks. |
| 315 | -->'''Mitsuri''': ''(thinking)'' You mustn't laugh! You mustn't, you mustn't, you mustn't! |
| 316 | * HorrorHunger: Demons experience this towards humans, making it incredibly difficult for those that don't want to hurt people. [[spoiler: Tamayo, in particular, ended up eating her own family not knowing being turned would cause this, and afterward kept eating humans for a time while in the depths of despair.]] |
| 317 | * ItsPersonal: The Infinity Castle Arc is chock full of these, setting itself back from even long before the start of this series. This includes:- |
| 318 | ** [[spoiler: Zenitsu vs Kaigaku. When Kaigaku, Zenitsu's senior and student of the same Thunder Breathing Master, Jigoro, ''deliberately'' becomes a demon, Jigoro commits seppuku to atone -- but without a second, he ends up dying a slow and agonizing death. When the news reaches Zenitsu, he drops all signs of his cowardice and lack of self-esteem, filled with the sole purpose of killing his traitorous senior. It definitely doesn't help that Kaigaku keeps insulting Jigoro's death as a senile old fart, thus pissing Zenitsu off.]] |
| 319 | ** [[spoiler: Tanjiro vs Akaza. For Akaza, its because of getting humiliated by Tanjiro when the latter threw his nichirin blade as Akaza fled from the rising as Tanjiro yelled on that this was Rengoku's victory, angering him. Not to mention that this was highlighted by Muzan himself for leaving the other demon slayers alive, speaking on how the performance of Upper Rank 3 has declined. And for Tanjiro, it is for killing off a respectable man like Rengoku.]] |
| 320 | ** [[spoiler: Douma vs Shinobu, Kanao and Inosuke. Oh boy, this one is a doozy. To start, Shinobu's older sister was killed by Douma long ago, thus with Shinobu completely dropping her calm demeanor into pure anger upon learning that he was the one that killed Kanae. For Kanao, as she arrived to help her master, she arrived just in time to see Upper Rank 2 kill her. Kanao had mentioned that for the first time in her life, she felt so angry that her body might tear itself apart and hated Douma so much it makes her sick. Finally for Inosuke, Douma had killed his mother a long time ago when Inosuke was but an infant. The Upper Rank had then proceeded to mock the demon slayer's mother for being such a stupid woman with a pitiful existence, despite how much she loved her son. Inosuke had claimed that it was indeed a miracle to meet the killer of his mother and his friend and declared that he would give Douma true utter Hell.]] |
| 321 | ** [[spoiler: Kokushibo vs Muichiro, Genya, Sanemi, and Himejima. Unlike the other examples, this battle didn't start out with personal stakes. Kokushibo's opponents arrived one after another, simply doing their job to take him down as Upper Rank 1, the second most powerful demon. Near the conclusion of the battle, he executes an attack that slices Genya's upper body in half vertically. His older brother Sanemi witnesses this, his last living relative bleeding out on the ground with a fatal injury. Shedding BerserkerTears, Sanemi becomes even ''more'' motivated to kill Kokushibo for harming his younger brother, who he always wanted to keep safe.]] |
| 322 | ** [[spoiler: And finally, Muzan. The demon slayers all have some extreme beef with Muzan as he is the progenitor of all of their misery and their friends and families killed by the demons he created. Tanjiro, who have always seen most of the demons he fought to be pitiful and sad, looks at Muzan with absolute hatred for personally killing his family. Tamayo also vowed to kill him for turning her into a demon and from there, her killing her husband and children and many others, with a grudge lasting 400 years ago. Yushiro as well, after Muzan killed Tamayo, has sworn to end Muzan.]] |
| 323 | * JacobAndEsau: The Kamado siblings. [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/kimetsu-no-yaiba/images/3/36/Tanjiro_and_Nezuko_as_babies.png/revision/latest?cb=20190509184627 Tanjiro inherited their father's coloring, and Nezuko their mother's]]. |
| 324 | * {{Jerkass}}: In his first appearance in a flashback/dream, Rengoku's father is shown to dismiss his son's promotion to the Flame Hashira. When he appears in the story proper, [[spoiler: it's to badmouth Kyojuro for "having no talent" so of course, he was going to die, and to yell at his remaining son for still grieving.]] He then proceeds to pick a fight with Tanjiro [[spoiler: because he thinks he's a user of the Sun Breathing]]. |
| 325 | * KickChick: Nezuko loves kicking demons in the head, or kicking their heads off. |
| 326 | * LargeHam: Inosuke, oh so much. |
| 327 | --> "GUAHAHAHA! PIG ASSAULT!! NOBODY CAN STOP ME!!" |
| 328 | * LegendFadesToMyth: By time the epilogue takes place, few characters know about demons and Demon Slayers, and those who have been told don't always believe in the stories. [[spoiler:Touko, Nezuko and Zenitsu's great-granddaughter, thinks it's nothing but nonsense.]] |
| 329 | --> [[spoiler:"You're reading great-grandpa's book of lies again!?"]] |
| 330 | * LemonyNarrator: The manga has an ongoing narration that shows signs of this, occasionally acting like an ordinary (if somewhat [[DeadpanSnarker snarky]]) character who's a part of the plot rather than an omniscient observer. When Mitsuri tells Tanjiro her [[AllAmazonsWantHercules reason]] for joining the Demon Slayers, the narrator responds to his shock with "Don't worry Tanjiro, everyone she tells this to feels the same way." Later on when Tanjiro and Giyu plan to get on Sanemi's good side by giving him his favorite snack, the narrator says "Somebody please stop them, they're just going to start a fight." Sadly, the narrator didn't make the transition into the anime. |
| 331 | * LightNovels: Additional publications authored by Aya Yajima with Goutouge’s supervision and exclusive artworks, the novels usually delve deeper in events not shown in the manga, like events before Zenitsu, Tanjiro and other characters became slayers, and events that happened between the main arcs set in the manga, such as the Hashira interacting more amongst themselves and the main cast; they contain more extras regarding the Demon Slayer Academy as well. |
| 332 | * MagicalSpeciesTransformation: Demons in this universe are humans who have been permanently turned into flesh-eating monsters that prey on other humans at night. The series is kickstarted by one of the Kamado siblings, Nezuko, being bitten by and transformed into a demon, with her brother [[Characters/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaibaTanjiroKamado Tanjiro]] now seeking a way to turn her back into a human. Other demons meanwhile are forever locked into their cursed forms, with only death being a definite release from their suffering. |
| 333 | * MagicByAnyOtherName: The magical abilities of demons are called Blood Demon Arts. Subverted with Slayers' Breathing Styles, despite clearly being [[ElementalPowers elemental]] they are said to be just physical abilities StylizedForTheViewer. |
| 334 | * MainCharacterFinalBoss: [[spoiler:[[TheHero Tanjiro]] and [[BigBad Muzan]] both die during the climax, though Muzan manages to resurrect Tanjiro [[CameBackWrong as a demon]] before sending him after the Demon Slayer Corps. They end up having to fend him off until Kanao applies a serum that reverts Tanjiro back to normal.]] |
| 335 | * MarketBasedTitle: The original Japanese title is simply ''Kimetsu no Yaiba'' (roughly translating as "Blade of Demon Destruction"), but the English title adds ''Demon Slayer'' before that, likely to make the premise more clear. In France the manga was initially known as ''Les Rôdeurs de la nuit'' ("The Night Prowlers") before being discontinued and restarted under the English title. |
| 336 | * {{Masquerade}}: The existence of the titular demons and slayers are completely unknown to the general population of Japan, the setting being the Taishō Era, early 20th century, has made Japan a little less inclined to take their folklore too literally, and with non-government officials being outlawed from freely carrying swords centuries ago, the slayers have to carefully patrol more urban locations where officials would question and likely apprehend them for carrying weapons around. |
| 337 | * MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: By claiming all elemental effects for the Breathing Styles are merely visual flair, the setting is trying to make the human Slayers be all about "realistic" self-improvement, getting super human strength without losing your humanity, unlike the Demons who lost theirs, getting magical abilities while at it. However, the endgame abilities the Slayers can achieve clearly push the envelope, [[spoiler:the Marks, the Transparent World and Crimson Blades are pretty much supernatural, and as much as the setting tried to explain them through biological terms, their true nature is never fully explained, remaining mysteriously magical]]. |
| 338 | ** Further pushing for the Breathing Styles being supernatural is breath being associated with KiManipulation and often practitioners work on breathing exercises. |
| 339 | * MassiveNumberedSiblings: Tanjiro is introduced as the eldest of six siblings, though he and Nezuko are now the only ones left alive after the rest of their family was killed by a demon. |
| 340 | * MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: Toward the end of the Tsuzumi Mansion arc, as Zenitsu watches Tanjiro and Inosuke fighting, the siblings the group met have their emotional reunion in the background. |
| 341 | * MercyKill: The fifth technique of Water Breathing cuts painlessly, but only works on demons who give no resistance and offer their own necks. |
| 342 | * MesACrowd: |
| 343 | ** The Swamp Demon, the first one Tanjiro fights after being initiated into the Corp, has three bodies, each with a different number of horns on its head. While he wasn't show to be able to split whenever he wanted, it was implied that he would be able to eventually replace his lost bodies if Tanjiro didn't finish off all three. |
| 344 | ** Upper-4, Hantengu, fights by splitting up into four bodies that represent different emotions. |
| 345 | * MilitariesAreUseless: The Demon Slayer Corps' strength definitely does not find itself in their numbers, which are in the hundreds. Rather, only in the 9 elite superior members called the Hashira, the additional 4 main characters, and 2 reliable side-characters are able get things done in killing demons stronger than {{Mook}}s. Anyone else in the front lines is part of the RedShirtArmy. Two of the more brutally honest Hashira, Sanemi and Obanai, outright state the Corps are full of useless slayers; they are only rebutted by the Hashira who vouch for the main characters, who just happened to show promising results after mere months in the force. The official supporting positions like Kakushi (the clean-up and transport brigade) and the physicians are useful at helping the main combatants, however. |
| 346 | * MistakenForBadass: Shouichi, one of the siblings encountered in the Drum House arc, is an ordinary boy with no combat training. Despite that, after Zenitsu kills the Tongue Demon while in a trance, he comes to and believes that Shoichi was the one who killed the demon. |
| 347 | * MistakenForDyed: Zenitsu's blonde hair is often mistaken for dyed after he was miraculously LockedIntoStrangeness by a bolt of lightning. In the HighSchoolAU gag strips, Giyu reprimands him for this and ''tells'' him to dye his blonde hair black. |
| 348 | * MistakenForRomance: The first time Zenitsu meets Nezuko he becomes incredibly pissed because he thinks she is Tanjiro's girlfriend, and that while he was working alone, terrified of dying, Tanjiro was living it up as a BattleCouple. |
| 349 | * TheMobBossIsScarier: Muzan is so terrifying that most demons would rather die than speak of him. The Demon in the Bog has a mental breakdown just from being asked about him [[spoiler:due to all demons having a {{Geas}} that will kill them should they speak his name.]] |
| 350 | * MonsterProgenitor: Kibutsuji Muzan is the first demon, who creates all the others with injections of his blood. |
| 351 | * MoodWhiplash: |
| 352 | ** Runs heavy on it, the series is about the horrors of human devouring demons, how said monsters have ruined several lives, and the demon slayers hell-bent on killing them; with that said, the series is quite humorous even with so much drama, especially with so many eccentric characters who can change the tone of a scene forth and back at the drop of a hat. |
| 353 | ** In the Mugen Train arc, Tanjiro's dream has him see his dead family again and he's overwhelmed with emotion. Then comes Zenitsu's dream, which has him spending time with a human Nezuko and Inosuke's dream, in which he fights the train alongside his underlings Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Nezuko. The mood shifts back to serious with Rengoku's dream, in which his father is unimpressed with his having become a Hashira. |
| 354 | ** The humor themed Taisho Era Secrets that follow most episodes of the anime. Of particular note is the end of the battle with [[spoiler: Gyutaro in the Entertainment District Arc, which ended with Tengen suffering a CareerEndingInjury, the surrounding area completely devastated and Tanjiro on the verge of death from Gyutaro's poison]]... Cue cheery music and an anecdote about Tanjiro's mother defeating a boar with a headbutt. |
| 355 | * MultipleDemographicAppeal: Officially the series is targeted at young teen males, an action {{shonen}} with plenty of battles to keep guys hooked, then plenty of women in Japan jumped onto the series for all the handsome men it has, but that's a very limited reach still; everything changed when the anime became an absolute phenomenon in Japan, the series grew to spark interest in all sorts of varied demographics, to the point of Japanese mainstream media trying to understand why and how men young and old, women young and old, from people who have never really cared much about anime and manga to begin with to seasoned otaku giving the series their attention. Many tried to explain, with diverging opinions, but the most intersecting factors boil down to how simple and yet effective it carries its themes of family bond, hard work, folklore through a very familiar japanese background carried in an easy to digest manner, the story can be understood even by a little child. |
| 356 | * MusclesAreMeaningful: Physical prowess is taken very seriously among the demon slayers in the setting, and individuals with bigger musculature and body mass are seen as the strongest. The one exception is Mitsuri, who has a rare body condition that allows her to be strong despite her slender build. The main male protagonists Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke get visibly more well defined and bigger muscles as the series progresses, seen through the several training regimes they go under. |
| 357 | * Mystical108: The [[TrainingDummy Yoriichi Type Zero training doll]] is said to know 108 swordsmanship moves. |
| 358 | * NeverHadToys: Gyutaro was born in extreme poverty to an abusive mother who worked as a prostitute. His only toy was a rusty sickle that one of his mother's customers had left behind. |
| 359 | * NoNameGiven: Certain characters in the series' epilogue have no officially-given names, the final 23th volume’s extras and even the 2nd databook refer to them under descriptions instead of names; [[spoiler:the narrative keeps the air of mystery on all characters who aren’t specifically said to be descendants of everyone who survived post Muzan’s death; since the series heavily embraces Buddhist beliefs, the audience is lead to believe everyone who looks familiar are reincarnations, a notion that Yoshiteru Agatsuma, Zenitsu and Nezuko’s great-grandson, believes as well]]. |
| 360 | * {{Novelization}}: After the manga series originally ended in May, 2020, Japan, a novelized adaptation began in June of that same year; it follows the manga religiously, following a Story Arc structure per book, where one Volume adapts about two to four manga volumes depending on the arc. |
| 361 | [[/folder]] |
| 362 | |
| 363 | [[folder:O-Z]] |
| 364 | * OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: [[spoiler: Mitsuri and Obanai's fight with Nakime. First they are struggling to lay a blow on her, then Muzan sees through Nakime's eyes that she killed both, until they join Giyu and Tanjiro on their fight against him, revealing that they had subdued her with Yushiro's help and the visions of their deaths he saw were illusions created by Yushiro.]] |
| 365 | * OffWithHisHead: Besides exposing them to sunlight, the main method of dispatching demons is by beheading them with a blade made of exceptional steel. |
| 366 | * OminousHairLoss: While in Mount Natagumo, Zenitsu is bitten by a spider and encounters several grotesque, spider creatures. He is greeted by the Older Brother spider demon who informs him that he will be gradually turned into one of the spider creatures and describes the process. As they fight, Zenitsu finds his hair is falling out and yells that he was never told about that aspect of the transformation. |
| 367 | * OnTheNext: In the anime, starting from Episode 2, each main character (usually Tanjiro) will either introduce a Taisho secret or Tales of a Demon Slayer Academy in every episode preview. The only exceptions to the main character rule are episodes 20 (Kocho), 21 (Tomioka), 22 (Kocho again) and 23 (Rengoku). Several secrets in the Entertainment District Arc are presented by Uzui. |
| 368 | * OneSteveLimit: Downplayed. One of Ubuyashiki Kagaya's daughters shares the name "Kanata" with [[spoiler:Tanjiro and Kanao's grandson]]. |
| 369 | * {{Oni}}: The titular "demons" of the series are in fact referred to as "Oni" in Japanese. Though they have some differences from their mythological counterparts (from viewing early episodes, one might think they have more in common with vampires), they also share similarities such as having claws, fangs and horns, being very strong, having magic powers, and most importantly, while they are "infected" via blood, it's giving in to their darkest desires that turn them into oni. Their vampiric traits are likely an allusion to how the Japanese term for "vampire" is ''kyūketsuki'', which literally means "blood-sucking oni". |
| 370 | * OnlySaneMan: Tanjiro and Zenitsu take turns during the manga's more comedic moments. |
| 371 | * TheOrder: The Demon Slayer Corps (Kisatsutai), is a secret military organization created by the Ubuyashiki family with the sole purpose of eradicating demon kind, at first they were just a group of normal swordsmen risking their lives to kill demons, whom the very weakest of could be a serious problem, but as the time went on they were blessed with the knowledge of Breathing arts, which made them, mere humans, acquire physical abilities that made the slayers far more successful in killing demons. |
| 372 | * OrphansOrdeal: The champion motivator and common trait among all ranks in the Demon Slayer Corps, the slayers who are not orphaned in some manner are the exception in the series's narrative; their collective loss at the hands of demons is what makes the slayers so fervently determined to kill all of them, even if they are very likely to die in doing so, as long as they go out by taking a demon with them that's one duty fulfilled. Among the series's main characters their common orphaned status impact their characters in different ways: Tanjiro works solemnly to eradicate the suffering demons cause so no one else may lose their families like he did; Zenitsu has a traumatic and desperate sense of belonging since he was orphan since birth, wanting to make a family as soon as possible and have others look up to him as a hero; Inosuke was raised by wild boars in the mountains, with almost zero human contact save one exception, that made Inosuke socially unsympathetic at first, having no care for the fellow person. |
| 373 | * OurDemonsAreDifferent: To be precise, the demons of ''Kimetsu no Yaiba'' aren't western demons at all. They are {{Oni}}, a type of Japanese monster or {{Youkai}}; the word "oni" is translated here into English as "demon", which has also been done in other works, even though demons and oni have little in common. |
| 374 | * OurVampiresAreDifferent: Although the Japanese script actually calls the demons {{oni}}, they also have a lot of traits in common with vampires, likely because the Japanese term for "vampire" is ''kyūketsuki'', which literally means "blood-sucking oni". Aside from demons eating human flesh instead of just sucking blood, they fit most criteria for being vampires; monstrous strength and speed, HealingFactor, weakness to sunlight and two out of three of the only sure ways to kill them (aside from their weakness to wisteria flowers) are via exposure to sunlight or decapitation. They also procreate by sharing their blood or in most cases the blood of Muzan with normal humans. |
| 375 | * ParentalSubstitute: Zenitsu's mentor was one to him to where Zenitsu called him grandpa, and it was his mentor's faith in him despite him being a difficult student made a difference to him. [[spoiler: Hearing about his suicide because of Kaigaku's betrayal is enough motivation for Zenitsu to become serious about taking the Thunder Hashira position.]] |
| 376 | * PerpetualMotionMonster: Demons have infinite stamina, and will endlessly keep regenerating unless they die. This makes a prolonged battle against them to be disadvantageous for the human Demon Slayers, since it's only a matter of time before they get tired and the demon has a VictoryByEndurance. |
| 377 | * {{Pilot}}: In 2013, three years before this officially debuted, Gotouge sent an one shot story to Shueisha for their usual contests, that short was called '''Kagarigari''', and it is the true foundation of what went on to become ''Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba'' years later, the story presents concepts of Vampires (not Demons/Oni yet) being hunted by outcast slayers in the dark of night, the one seen is a severely scarred boy who looks like a mixture of Giyu and Tanjiro; the plot is driven by three characters which are dead ringers to Muzan, Tamayo and Yushiro, with their designs being almost the exact the same as their final selves in Demon Slayer. After Demon Slayer exploded in popularity, Shueisha decided to publish a collected volume of four one shots Gotouge had made before, Kagarigari being one of them, called ''Gotouge Koyoharu Tanpenshuu'' in 2019. |
| 378 | * PlayingWithFire: |
| 379 | ** Even though Tanjiro is trained in Urokodaki's Water Breathing style, his family is actually fire-themed, as shown by his father's dance rituals and [[spoiler: his sister's blood demon art.]] He ends up getting advice and training from the Flame Hashira as well. |
| 380 | ** [[spoiler:The sun pattern on his hanafuda earrings reveal that Tanjiro's family has some connection to the Sun Breathing style, the one from which all others originate from or are "copies" of.]] |
| 381 | * PlotTriggeringDeath: The murders of Tanjiro and Nezuko's mother and four other siblings are what kick off the plot; since Nezuko survives but becomes a demon as a result, this sets off Tanjiro's quest to both restore her humanity and make sure no demon can slaughter another family again. |
| 382 | * PowerAtAPrice: The Mark, sometimes called Mark of the Sun or Demon Slayer Mark, are mysterious body marks that grow on demon slayers who have achieved their peak strength, and become visible when the user's body heat becomes very high, like when under greeat stress. The power of the Mark makes a slayer grow in strength, agility and perception to much greater superhuman heights, with said power now actually placing them on relatively equal grounds with Upper Rank demons. All of this, however, drains the Mark user of all their stamina incredibly quick, making the ability a dangerous choice against demons who simply have limitless regeneration. Further in the story, the claim is made that [[spoiler:Mark users don't gain all that power for free: it is actually draining from their lifespan itself. The demon Kokushibo affirms that, without question, all Marked slayers will die before or when they grow to be 25 years old]]. |
| 383 | * ThePowerOfFamily: Tanjiro is able to gain an advantage against Rui thanks to remembering the Hinokami Kagura from his deceased father. Furthermore, Nezuko is able to awaken her Blood Demon Art thanks to her dead mother to help Tanjiro against Rui. |
| 384 | * PragmaticAdaptation: The anime changed how a few events unfolded in the story, compared to how it originally went in the manga: |
| 385 | ** The Total Concentration Breathing training. In the manga, Tanjiro actually completed the whole training first by himself in 10 days. Zenitsu and Inosuke were worried about being surpassed by Tanjiro's progress, so Shinobu took it upon herself to properly explain how Total Concentration Breathing is achieved to them. The anime made it so Tanjiro only progressed halfway through the training first, to then have Shinobu motivate Zenitsu and Inosuke to catch up. The final step of the training is completed by Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke at the same time. The anime staff likely wanted the main trio to feel relatively close in their progress. |
| 386 | ** The segue into the Mugen Train arc. In the manga, after the boys had fully healed in the Butterfly Estate and completed their Total Concentration Breathing training, Tanjiro excused Zenitsu, Inosuke and himself out of the the Butterfly Estate because they were all ready for duty. It’s only by coincidence that they get the mission to board the Mugen Train right away. The anime has Tanjiro be directly guided towards the Mugen Train mission, properly scheduled to start after his recovery in the Butterfly Estate. The anime staff likely wanted Tanjiro to be better placed into the Mugen Train build up. |
| 387 | * PrettyBoy: Inosuke is actually really pretty, so much so that he can pass as a beautiful girl so long as he's stuffed in a kimono and doesn't talk. His expressions show his true character, though. |
| 388 | * ProtagonistPowerUpPrivileges: For a great amount the series does keep Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke on relative equal levels. Even with the Hinokami Kagura unveiled, Tanjiro can’t use it for continuous periods early on, having to resort to mixing Water Breathing in between; meanwhile Zenitsu and Inosuke groom their own Breathing forms to greater heights. However, when the Infinity Castle arc gets heated, Tanjiro’s growth starts to soar: he can use Hinokami Kagura without problems, and never resorts to other Breathing styles again. But the exact point where Tanjiro becomes undeniably above his two buddies is [[spoiler:when the Marks, Crimson Blades and Transparent World are estabilished to be the most powerful abilities a Slayer can have. Only the Hashira and Tanjiro ever attain them. After Tanjiro masters Hinokami Kagura into its actual Sun Breathing form, he arguably becomes more powerful than some of the Hashira as well]]. |
| 389 | * RankUp: The series has warrior and military ranks on both heroes' and the villains' side: |
| 390 | ** The Demon Slayers have 10 ranks within the field slayers. After that, there is a separate rank of the top slayers called Hashira, which only has 9 seats. To become eligible for this elite group, one must kill 50 demons or kill a Lower Rank of the Twelve Kizuki. Accomplishing one of these feats make the slayer eligible to be promoted to Hashira. [[spoiler: The main trio rise through the field ranks throughout the series, going up a few ranks as of the Red Light District arc, later aiming to become Hashira]]. |
| 391 | ** The demons have the Twelve Kizuki system, which is a brutal race where demons struggle to eat as many humans as possible to become a part of that group. The 12 demons are divided into two groups of 6: the Lower Ranks are the six moderately powerful demons, and the Upper Ranks are the six most powerful demons. The power gap between the Lower Ranks and Upper Ranks is quite large; their leader Muzan urges them always to strive to upstage one another through a Blood Succession Battle, where a lower rank can challenge an Upper Rank for their spot in a battle to the death. [[spoiler: Doma, the Upper-2, and Kokushibo, the Upper-1, are among the few demons who are given a proper background on their progression of their ranks. Doma was once the Upper-6 before he ate enough humans to rise all the way up to the 2nd rank. Kokushibo was assigned the 1st rank since the inception of the group, and successfully defended his position from a few challengers over the 400 years he was a demon]]. |
| 392 | * ReasonableAuthorityFigure: |
| 393 | ** Kagaya, leader of the Demon Slayer Corps, [[AFatherToHisMen treats his subordinates like his children]]. He is willing to allow Nezuko, a demon, to travel with Tanjiro after his subordinates vouch for her character, and is acquainted with Tamayo. He doesn't even mind when Sanemi accuses him of not caring for the sacrifices Demon Slayers have made, humbly saying that as a leader who can't even fight, he is entirely expendable. |
| 394 | ** One of Kagaya's ancestors was similar to him in that regard. [[spoiler:While some of Yoriichi's colleagues banished him from the Demon Slayer Corps and wanted him to commit {{Seppuku}} for failing to defeat Muzan, letting Tamayo escape and his brother becoming a demon, the master refused to allow Yoriichi to kill himself. This led to Yoriichi meeting Tanjiro's ancestor and passing down the secrets of Sun Breathing.]] |
| 395 | ** The magistrate who sentenced Hantengu to execution was one, saying outright he has no sympathy for a person like Hantengu who steals and kills, then lies and denies his responsibility. Even before becoming one of Hantengu's first victims as a demon, he tells him that he will [[DefiantToTheEnd never escape the responsibility of his actions and will eventually pay for it with his life]]. |
| 396 | * RecycledAnimation: The spin-off ''Junior High and High School!! Kimetsu Academy Story'' often reuses animation styles from the original episodes. |
| 397 | * RedLightDistrict: The Entertainment District Arc (which is referred to outright as the Red Light District Arc in Japanese) takes place in the historic Yoshiwara district of Tokyo, where the heroes must battle with a powerful demon who controls the area as an [[HighClassCallGirl oiran]]. |
| 398 | * RedShirt: The lower ranked Slayers are easily disposable and they die frequently. The setting doesn’t even bother stating an exact count of how many active Demon Slayers exist within the Corps - only nine Hashira at most are accounted for when the roster is complete. |
| 399 | * {{Reincarnation}}: [[spoiler:The final chapter follows the descendants and implied reincarnations of all the major characters. Mitsuri and Obanai are a married couple that owns a restaurant, Genya is a cop paired with Sanemi’s descendant Sanehiro, Himejima is a kindergarten school teacher, the Kocho girls are attending an all-girls school, Sabito and Makomo are young school kids who are close friends with Giyu’s descendant Giichi, Sakonji and Jigoro are already elders again playing shogi, and Muichiro and Yuichiro have just been born as twin babies once more.]] |
| 400 | * ReincarnationRomance: In the aftermath of the final fight, [[spoiler:Mitsuri and Obanai die in each other's arms, and she makes him promise that if they're born again, they are to marry. The final chapter focuses on the modern-day reincarnations of multiple characters, including Obanai and Mitsuri, who are indeed married and own a restaurant together. The final manga volume informs us that they had 5 children.]] |
| 401 | ** [[spoiler:As a little extra on Volume 23, another couple is given a second chance: Yoriichi and Uta reincarnated 400 years later with two kids]]. |
| 402 | * RidiculouslyLonglivedFamilyName: Tanjiro’s Kamado family have consistently been poor coal sellers living in the same countryside mountain village for 400 years, but despite these ignoble origins their name has been preserved as well as storied Samurai lineages such as the Rengoku family. In the end [[spoiler:both the Kamado and Rengoku families were still going strong 100 years later, in the modern 2010's/2020's]]. |
| 403 | * RotatingArcs: Until the Red-Light District arc the participating character ensemble was strictly the main characters: Tanjiro, Nezuko, Zenitsu and Inosuke, with one or more side-characters accompanying them. When the Swordsmith Village arc happens, Zenitsu and Inosuke are benched for the first time ever, opening up their place for Genya Shinazugawa to have some focus and have Muichiro and Mitsuri spearhead the arc. The following two arcs shift the structure even further, becoming the final war against Muzan and thus dragging practically the entire cast into the spotlight. |
| 404 | * RuleOfCool: The titular demon slayers are trained under varied swordsmanship styles, classified by ElementalMotifs with heavy visual embellishments matching those motifs. These embellishments are purely StylizedForTheViewer, with the author directly confirming that the elements are there just because the attacks look cooler that way. |
| 405 | * RuleOfSymbolism: The cover for chapter 200 is a double spread, with characters on the right side looking sad while the characters on the left page looking peaceful and happy. [[spoiler:This foreshadows the chapter having all these characters on the left dying.]] |
| 406 | * {{Scanlation}}: Two years before the anime debuted and the Manga was barely known in the west, the series was fan translated by a community effort on Website/FourChan. After the Manga was officially picked by Viz Media, the fan translations still worked till the last chapter. While the fan translations has questionable choices concerning any mildly rude japanese speech being translated as full swearing, the actual script is objectively more accurate than the official Viz Media version, lacking any of the many odd mistakes Viz has committed such as sentences somehow being the complete opposite of what it originally meant in Japanese (egregious examples being Inosuke's introduced orphan status and the Upper-6's human age). Other than 4chan’s effort there’s less ideal english scanlantions out in the wild. After the anime debuted, groups such as ''Mangapillar'' and ''Kimetsu Scans'' entered the fray, and they are on the level of machine translations, with often inaccurate dialogue. |
| 407 | * TheScottishTrope: With a few exceptions, any demon who speaks Muzan's name suffers a CruelAndUnusualDeath. |
| 408 | * SecretLegacy: Hinokami Kagura is a ceremonial dance passed down the Kamado family for four hundred years, used by the patriarch of each generation to ward off evil, keeping our protagonist Tanjiro’s family safe in the mountains for centuries. Despite it being preserved as a religious ceremony, Hinokami Kagura functions like a martial art and shares the same foundation as [[FantasticFightingStyle Breathing Styles]], the main discipline that empowers the Demon Slayer Corps. Eventually the similarities are revealed to be not coincidental after all; [[spoiler:Hinokami Kagura is actually Sun Breathing, the foundation of all Breathing Styles, created by the legendary slayer Yoriichi Tsugikuni and passed down to the Kamado family by coincidence, as their ancestor Sumiyoshi made friends with Yoriichi and learned Sun Breathing through simple observation. As the years went by, Muzan Kibutsuji and Kokushibo went on a paranoid manhunt to exterminate all Sun Breathing users, but the Kamado lineage were informal inheritors of the technique rather than formal students and so survived the hunt for centuries by living as recluses. That is, until Muzan kills Tanjiro's family on a whim and [[NiceJobFixingItVillain sets the last Sun Breathing user on a warpath against him]]]]. |
| 409 | * SelfReferentialHumor: Gotouge has a pretty humorous way of self-referenting certain events: |
| 410 | ** The Swordsmith Village arc is unique in that it is the only one in the series where Tanjiro is without his closest companions Zenitsu and Inosuke fighting alongside him; the volume extra illustrations has Zenitsu and Inosuke themselves breaking the fourth wall, asking why they aren't in this arc. |
| 411 | ** The first Databook erroneously stated that Muichiro and Inosuke actually hail from the same mountainside, where they grew up; Gotouge apologized for that mistake by drawing a spoof situation showing Muichiro and Inosuke being super chummy with each other, stating that if they actually grew up in the same mountain they would be best friends before even joining the Demon Slayer Corps, but that isn't the case at all and they grew up on different mountainsides. |
| 412 | * {{Seppuku}}: |
| 413 | ** If Nezuko ever harms a human, Tanjiro vows to kill her and then slit his own stomach. [[spoiler: It turns out Giyu and Urokodaki made the same vow.]] |
| 414 | ** [[spoiler: Zenitsu's mentor, a former Thunder Hashira, did this when Kaigaku became a demon.]] |
| 415 | ** [[spoiler:Some of Yoriichi's colleagues wanted him to do this over failing to defeat Muzan, letting Tamayo escape and his brother becoming a demon, but the master of the Ubuyashiki family at the time refused to allow it.]] |
| 416 | * SerendipitousSurvival: Tanjiro stayed overnight at a friendly local's house before returning home from errands in town, only to discover his entire family had been randomly attacked and murdered by a demon so recently one of his siblings was still hanging onto life by a thread. |
| 417 | * SeriesContinuityError: A small one. The anime attempted to give a little more detail to Muzan's flashback of the day he was almost defeated by a legendary slayer. The setting of the fight seems to be near a manor in the anime, while that point in the manga gave no clear background on their battleground. When the manga eventually shows how and where the battle went, [[spoiler:it is revealed Yoriichi and Muzan fought in a bamboo forest, no manor in sight, resulting in the anime teasing a location that would not exist in the manga]]. |
| 418 | * SharedFamilyQuirks: Tanjiro and Nezuko are noted by their younger brother to both be very kind people, but also are ''scary'' when mad. |
| 419 | * SharedSignatureMove: Tanjiro's signature "Water Breathing Style", a style of sword-fighting that mimics the flow and adaptability of rushing water, is actually one he shares with several other demon slayers who learned it from the same master. Giyu Tomioka, one of the nine [[BadassCrew Hashira]], also learned the style and is even more experienced than Tanjiro with it. |
| 420 | * ShipSinking: While heavily favored by the fandom and the anime staff, Gotouge didn't hesitate in killing [[spoiler:Shinobu]] during her fight against the Upper-2 [[spoiler:Doma]] without ever having her have a close heart to heart conversation with [[spoiler:Giyu]] on or off-panel; the most Gotouge ever did was stating in the 2nd Fanbook with Gyomei's observation that Giyu and Shinobu did enjoy speaking with each other, having Giyu specifically state Shinobu talks to him with him noticing her pale appearance in a manner hinting he's worried about it, and Shinobu saying she wants Giyu to talk more. [[spoiler:In the Academy/Gakuen universe, where both are alive and well, Shinobu is a 3rd year highschool senior and Giyu as a young P.E teacher]]. [[spoiler:In the series' epilogue, Shinobu's reincarnation is a middle or high school age student at a women's academy, while Giyu's descendant/reincarnation is an elementary school student who is, at the most, no older than an 6th grade student]]. [[spoiler:Meanwhile, Obanai and Mitsuri's reincarnations, along with Uta and Yoriichi's, were specifically born again to fulfill their romance without barriers]]. |
| 421 | * ShirtlessScene: |
| 422 | ** As the series progresses some training events have the main trio: Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke partake in those sessions completely shirtless, showing how they became quite muscular over the series. |
| 423 | ** One of the series' strongest demons, [[spoiler: Kokushibo, is styled like a samurai, once the heroes manage to land an attack on Kokushibo all it does is rip his haori off (coat) leaving him bare-chested, showing he is quite muscle-bound; it's where TheCoatsAreOff and Kokushibo gets overwhelmingly serious in their fight]]. |
| 424 | * ShoutOut: |
| 425 | ** The author has admitted the primary stylistic instpirations for this series are ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' and ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventurePhantomBlood'', in particular the breathing-based Super-powered Martial Arts from the latter. |
| 426 | ** The multi-tentacled and often insectoid BodyHorror that that exceptionally powerful demons transform into when they invoke their LovecraftianSuperpower have clear allusions to the titular horrors of ''Film/TheThing1982'' Directed by Creator/JohnCarpenter. |
| 427 | ** Tanjiro bearing the arm guard of [[spoiler: Rengoku]] in honor of his fallen friend's memory and will is strikingly similar to how Aragorn honored Boromir's memory in ''Film/TheFellowshipOfTheRing''. |
| 428 | * ShownTheirWork: |
| 429 | ** The throw Yushiro uses on Tanjiro in episode 8 is a beautifully-animated ''shiho-nage'', an actual throw in Aikido. Also, Tanjiro uses real techniques to soften his landings when getting thrown around by an opponent. |
| 430 | ** The Season 1 finale involving the main trio boarding the Mugen Train had them being chased around by the police for wearing swords. This was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitorei_Edict a real policy]] inaugurated during the UsefulNotes/MeijiRestoration, the period prior--specifically to wipe out traces of the old {{Samurai}} class. |
| 431 | * SignatureInstrument: |
| 432 | ** The ''tsuzumi'' drums on Kyogai's body are directly related to his powers, hence his nickname "The Drum Demon". |
| 433 | ** Nakime is always seen playing the biwa to control the Infinity Castle, hence her nickname "The Biwa Demon". |
| 434 | * SnowMeansDeath: Tanjiro and Nezuko's family are all slain on a snowy mountain. Nezuko survives, but is turned into a demon. |
| 435 | * SoLastSeason: Early on the series one single Lower Rank demon is a serious threat to Tanjiro and his friends, not so much to the higher ranking Hashira slayers, but still. Later comes the Infinity Castle arc where [[spoiler:the nameless fodder demons are said to be enhanced into being as powerful as any Lower Rank was, said fodder were being effortless stomped on, in droves, by every main character at that point]]. |
| 436 | * SolarAndLunar: [[spoiler:The Tsugikuni brothers, with Yoriichi who use Sun Breathing as Solar and Michikatsu/Kokushibo who use Moon Breathing as Lunar.]] |
| 437 | * SpiritAdvisor: |
| 438 | ** Tanjiro and Nezuko's family appear surprisingly often, warning Tanjiro and trying to help Nezuko keep her humanity. |
| 439 | ** This is TheReveal about [[spoiler: Sabito and Makomo, who help train Tanjiro for the Final Selection. They were also Urokodaki's students, but died at the hands of a demon with a grudge against him.]] |
| 440 | ** Koyuki, [[spoiler: Akaza/Hakuji's fiancee, also appears to stop her husband from going on a rampage and thus reminding him who he was.]] |
| 441 | * StepfordSmiler: Shinobu's trying to continue her late sister's policy of being compassionate with demons, but deep down she harbors a lot of resentment towards them (although she does live with the policy, such as not being judgmental towards Nezuko unlike most of her fellow Hashira [[spoiler:and even enlisted Tamayo's help to enact her ThanatosGambit against Doma)]]. She is shown to have been more of a serious PerpetualFrowner in the past. Kanao is much the same. |
| 442 | * TheStoic: Tomioka rarely shows any strong emotion, and comes off as rather cold, but has a HiddenHeartOfGold. |
| 443 | * StormingTheCastle: Invoked. [[spoiler:After the Demon Slayers were about to attack the immobilized Muzan, the gate to his hideout, the Infinity Castle opened and they are forced to go to it while Muzan gloating about slaughtering them, starting the Infinity Castle arc.]] |
| 444 | * StylizedForTheViewer: The various Breathing styles of swordfighting used to fight demons are [[ElementalMotifs named and themed after various elements]], and their techniques are visually depicted as though the characters are manipulating those elements (i.e., Water Breathing techniques are often shown with [[MakingASplash water swirling around the sword's blade]]). However, it's been confirmed that none of the demon slayers actually have any ElementalPowers, and the elemental effects are purely for visual flair. |
| 445 | * SuperDeformed: Near the end of the manga Gotouge developed a new chibi artstyle, quite different from the deformed stubs used in the humorous moments before, the characters remain somewhat detailed but their proportions have been extremely shortened; the new chibi versions were never used in the story proper, it seems exclusive for promotional material and assorted galleries. |
| 446 | * SuperMode: Even with Breathing Styles granting the demon slayers super human abilities to battle demons, the narrative reminds the audience those super human slayers are fighting an uphill battle against the most powerful demons found amongst the Twelve Kizuki, specifically the Upper Ranks who have an extensive body count of countless Hashira they have killed over the centuries. Records from the Corps suggest that no less than 3 Hashira were needed to kill a single Upper Rank during the rare occasions one was defeated. However, during a time referred to as the Golden Era of the Demon Slayer Corps, slayers had special crests, similar to birthmarks, on their bodies that were visual representations of their bodies growing beyond the abilities already granted by Breathing Styles. During the the Golden Era, marked slayers were strong enough to credibly threaten Upper Rank demons. The resurgence of the Demon Slayer Mark in the present, [[spoiler:through Tanjiro]], makes the current generation of Hashira the first one in a long time to pose a real threat against the Upper Ranks, who had not been seriously challenged or killed for 113 years prior. The records claim that the Demon Slayer Mark boosts the abilities of a slayer a hundredfold and while this number might be an exaggeration, the boost is definitely notable, as exemplified by [[spoiler:Tanjiro being strong enough to slice Gyutaro’s neck and the Mist Hashira, Muichiro Tokito, going from being heavily outmatched by Gyokko, the Upper Rank 5, to easily countering the Upper Rank's attacks once the Mark awakened]]. |
| 447 | * SuperSenses: Each of the main characters have a sense that's unusually sharp. Tanjiro has an incredible sense of smell, Zenitsu possesses exceptional hearing, and Inosuke has a highly developed sense of touch. Kanao also has heightened eyesight, and Genya has the ability to consume demon flesh for added power, counting for taste. |
| 448 | ** Many of the high-level Demon Slayers exhibit some form of this, ranging from relatively mundane to fantastical. [[spoiler:Gyomei's blindness has honed his hearing to sonar levels, Obanai compensates for a lack of right eye through linking senses with his pet snake, Muichiro can sense things outside of perception, and Tengen has super hearing that, combined with his Breathing, allows him supernatural pattern recognition.]] |
| 449 | * SupernaturalMartialArts: Breathing Styles, it is physical conditioning to the traditional Japanese swordsmanship within the setting, it takes the realistic concept of training breathing control found in general sports to push into grand fantasy levels, where developing such art pushes the common warrior to super human territory, gaining strength, speed, durability to stand a chance against the far more unnatural demons. Breathing Styles are categorized by elemental motifs, they don't grant outright elemental powers, what is seen during battles is just visual flair, however, later down the story more overt supernatural abilities are unveiled as the pinnacle of Breathing discipline: [[spoiler:Demon Slayer Mark, a crest marked into a slayer to show their super human abilities has been amplified; Transparent World, the slayer develops hyper perception, seeing the world in slow motion and through opponents organs; and finally Crimson Blades, heating up swords through grip strength alone, mimicking sunlight properties which is the main threat to demons]]. |
| 450 | * SupernaturalRepellent: Wisteria flowers are this for the demons. Made into incense, it can prevent them from entering a dwelling or ward them away from a person carrying it in a satchel; mixing it into poisons makes the poison more effective and notably slows the demons' HealingFactor. Of course, more powerful demons, like the Twelve Kizuki, appear capable of resisting it to a degree. |
| 451 | * SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: The Demon Slayer Corps may be dedicated to protecting civilians from demons, but it isn't an officially recognized organization, so Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke end up having to flee from the police lest they be arrested for illegally carrying swords around. Since the main characters spend so much time wielding swords, it's easy to forget that during the time period the story is set, swords had actually been illegal in Japan for several decades thanks to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haito_Edict Haito Edict]]. |
| 452 | * SwappedRoles: [[spoiler:After Tanjiro is turned into a demon, Nezuko tries to reach out to him, just like how he did in the beginning.]] |
| 453 | * TheTake: Whenever the characters do comedic takes, their eyes shift from normal to BlackBeadEyes. |
| 454 | * TalkingAnimal: The setting has the Kasugaigarasu, the messenger crows, which serves as the mainline of communication among the demon slayers; the crows have been taught how to talk through unspecified methods, at first some crows are shown to only be able to speak to a certain level, as in they seem slightly speech impaired, but later more experienced crows are shown talking fully coherent like a human being. |
| 455 | * TalkingIsAFreeAction: The anime gives one egregious moment in the climax of the Red-Light District arc, in which the manga version didn't quite give the same vibe. During the final maneuver to kill [[spoiler:Daki and Gyutaro for good, while Tanjiro tries to behead Gyutaro, Zenitsu is doing his part by giving it all to behead Daki with his ''Thunderclap and Flash: God Speed'' attack; after ripping across half of the whole district, Zentisu remarks that he is losing speed and strength before Daki is beheaded. That's where the previously thought to be dead Inosuke intercepted Zenitsu and Daki, to say he can shift his organs around, so Gyutaro failed to pierce his heart. The anime has Inosuke be suspended in mid-air - effortlessly following Zenitsu's trajectory - while saying that, to only then help Zenitsu behead Daki. Inosuke following Zenitsu like a magnet to say his line comes off a little odd in the anime: in the manga it was clear Zentisu was already crawling to a halt before Inosuke just jumped to help, without actually following him. Some anime viewers actually thought Inosuke just simply caught up to Zenitsu's top speed]]. |
| 456 | * TastesLikeDisdain: During the Swordsmith Village Arc, one of the ways Tanjiro tries to make friends with Genya is by offering him a ''senbei'' (rice cracker), but Genya slaps it out of his hand and crushes it. |
| 457 | * TemptingFate: While dying in the Mugen Train Arc, [[spoiler: Enmu notes that the Lower Ranked demons are dying like flies while the Upper Rank demons still rule unchallenged for hundreds of years. After this arc, the Upper Ranks begin to get culled one-by-one.]] |
| 458 | ** During Kagaya and [[spoiler:Muzan's final conversation]], Kagaya warns [[spoiler:Muzan to repent even for a slight moment due to him having so many deaths on him, to which Muzan states that as he has lived for a thousand years, he hasn't found any evidence of an afterlife, and tells him he will live forever. Not only Muzan dies ''the very next day'', he is condemned to be tortured in Hell for all eternity.]] |
| 459 | * TechnicolorBlade: Nichirin blades, one of the main weaknesses of demons, take on a color when first drawn by a user of sufficient skill. The color is associated with a certain Breathing technique, like blue for Water Breathing, pink for Love Breathing, and yellow for Thunder Breathing. |
| 460 | * ThemeNaming: A lot of the demon slayers' sword styles are based on the elements. |
| 461 | ** The Water Breathing style is focused on flow and is highly adaptable to any situation. |
| 462 | ** The Thunder Breathing style uses [[FlashStep lightning-fast charges]] and strikes too fast for the eye to see. |
| 463 | ** The Beast Breathing style, which Inosuke apparently came up with himself, replaces "forms" used by the other styles with "fangs". |
| 464 | ** [[spoiler: The Sun Breathing style is the original from which all other styles originated, which is fitting as sunlight is the only thing guaranteed to kill even the strongest demons.]] |
| 465 | * ThanatosGambit: [[spoiler: Shinobu has wisteria flower poison in her veins, which severely weakens Doma for Kanao to finish him off.]] |
| 466 | * ThreadsOfFate: Thread symbolism is used to represent Kamado Tanjiro's ability to [[TheNoseKnows sniff out]] enemy missteps, him cutting that thread at the right time serving as definitive proof his FinishingMove connects. |
| 467 | * ToBeAMaster: A subtle and striking subversion. The highest ranking within the Demon Slayer Corps is the Hashira rank, the elite nine amongst the hundreds of slayers; Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke start from the bottom within the 10 field ranks before Hashira, from midway through the series and beyond the boys express the desire of one day becoming Hashira: [[spoiler:Tanjiro during the first visit at the Rengoku house, telling Senjuro he will succeed Kyojuro as a splendid Hashira; Zenitsu when meets his master Jigoro one last time in the afterlife; Inosuke playfully saying that killing Doma will grant him the Hashira promotion. However, they never become Hashira in the end, because their true objective was ending all the suffering demons caused, and they succeed at that by killing Muzan thus the Demon Slayer Corps disband right after. Becoming Hashira was just a title of strength. That's what Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke really wanted; they all became strong enough to succeed Kyojuro, impress Jigoro, and protect others. Tanjiro is outright said to be at Hashira level by the end, Zenitsu performed feats of strength only the Hashira have, and Inosuke was key in defeating the Upper Rank 2]]. |
| 468 | * TragicMonster: Most of the demons in the series have rather tragic stories. Whether it's regret over eating a family member, some form of tragedy that made them accept the offer to become demons, or even treatment they've received from other stronger demons they are shown that even as cannibalistic monsters they can still think and feel as humans do. It makes the few that 'lack' any such motivations seem all the more monsterous. |
| 469 | ** Daki and her elder brother Gyutaro became demons at a painfully young age, with Daki having been burned alive after she stabbed out an attempted rapist's eye. Gyutaro lived for nothing but protecting her and then met Doma, who recruited them into the demons. As monstrous as they are in present, Daki is at heart a young girl who doesn't truly seem to grasp the evil of what she does, and after they die, she refuses a chance to go to heaven just never to be apart from Gyutaro as he descends into Hell, realizing his fall was all for her sake. |
| 470 | ** Rui became a demon at a young age due to his constant illness. When his parents discovered this, they tried to kill him, resulting in him killing them. Only then did he realize they were doing so with the intention of following him so he wouldn't be alone, and to share responsibility for his hurting a human. He ends up trying to make a false family, in order to try to and get back the actual family bonds he severed until he's finally killed and able to join his parents in death. |
| 471 | ** [[spoiler: Akaza]] as a human stole for his sickly father, whom later hung himself out of guilt causing his son to be a criminal for his sake and requested for him to live a virtuous life. He eventually encountered his beloved master and his daughter, who became his fiancee that helped him move forward. But when [[spoiler: Akaza]] left town to visit his father's grave, presumably to inform his father's spirit of the engagement, they were poisoned by a rival dojo seeking his master's land. In his rage and grief, he massacred everyone in the rival dojo, save for the live-in maid. [[spoiler: Akaza]] was then found by Muzan afterward covered in blood, and well past the DespairEventHorizon, not caring about anything anymore. |
| 472 | * TrainingDummy: Yoriichi Type Zero is an automated training wooden doll modelled after one of the strongest demon slayers to ever live, [[spoiler:Yoriichi Tsugikuni]], said slayer was seemly so ridiculously strong that the doll was given 6 arms with a katana in each hand so it could at least simulate how powerful that warrior was with just 2 arms and one katana. |
| 473 | * TrainingFromHell: Tanjiro and his Slayers peers go through one at the beginning of each arc, which can be as dangerous and exhausing as fighting the actual demons. |
| 474 | * TranslationStyleChoices: The series has quite many types of translation choices spread among official licensed prints and fan translation efforts; the official English print by Viz has chosen to keep certain terms within the series in Japanese, the most notable one being those for the elite warriors: the Hashira, at the same time Viz has translated other terms into English, like the Demon Slayers. The official Spanish print has chosen to translate as many terms as possible, unlike Viz who still keeps certain Japanese terms; at the fan efforts side of things, several of them, including the English fan translation, also chooses to translate as many terms as possible. |
| 475 | * UnconsciousObjector: Zenitsu has defeated several demons while unconscious. |
| 476 | * UseYourHead: Tanjiro's head is one of the hardest things in the universe, capable of staggering demons (including his own demon-turned sister), Inosuke, and even a Hashira. |
| 477 | * VagueAge: Many cases throughout the series regarding demons; while the human characters, and some of the previous human lives the demons have lived, have exact ages given either in the manga/anime or databooks, how old exactly the demons are in the present is never stated, rough estimates can be made through some details such as how many Japanese Emperors/Eras the demons have lived through, and what was the last time the Upper Ranks in the Twelve Kizuki had a meeting, as such all current Upper Rank demons are older than 113 years. The other demons with different estimates on their current age are Muzan, who has lived for a little over a thousand years, and Kokushibo who has lived for more than 450 years. |
| 478 | * VanHelsingHateCrimes: Brought into question when the Demon Slayer Corps determines whether Nezuko (and potentially other demons who don't harm humans) should be allowed to live. |
| 479 | * VictoryByEndurance: Outside of some very specific items, or the sun, there really isn't much that can kill a demon. Just cutting off the head won't do it, it has to be with a Nichirin Blade, and with very powerful demon's even that is not a guarantee. So when two demons fight they don't actually have the ability to kill one another, their only option is to tire each other out and then the loser is left to burn in the sun before they can heal. Muzan turns one demon into a literal stain on the ground and even then she didn't die until the sun rose. When he kills [[spoiler: all the lower 12 sans Enmu]] he does so by eating and asorbing their bodies as otherwise they would just regenerate. |
| 480 | * ViewersAreGeniuses: Despite the series being a fairly simple and straightforward tale, the real nature of all elemental visuals accompanying the Breathing Styles’ swordsmanship - as in, they aren’t real - is presented in little key nods spread throughout the anime and manga, such as absolutely no character commenting, friend or foe, in the potential elemental damage that should be dealt by any of the demon slayers, whereas demons who actually have supernatural powers have had their elemental effects commented upon and warned against several times. However, these nods didn’t seem enough for some people, so Gotoge had to outright confirm in the manga, volume 17, extras that indeed none of Breathing Styles manifest real elements out of thin air. |
| 481 | * TheVirus: One that must be willingly given as only the blood of powerful demons can turn others into demons, and only Muzan has a 100% success rate. Once turned, a newly formed demon is a mindless killing machine, Nezuko is a rare exception in that while she turned into one, her mind is still mostly human. Though she initially attacks Tanjiro, he manages to pull an IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight moment, so she retains most of her human emotions and instead protects him and other humans from other demons instead. |
| 482 | * WalkingShirtlessScene: Inosuke ''really'' hates wearing shirts or full-length clothes like kimonos, thinking that his movements will automatically get duller the longer he wears them. |
| 483 | * WeAreAsMayflies: In their fight, Akaze offers Rengoku a chance to become a demon in order to give Rengoku the longevity to get stronger for the rest of eternity, lamenting that humans' mortality prevents them from ever becoming truly strong. Rengoku counters that the shortness and inevitable death of humans is part of what makes living as a human worthwhile. |
| 484 | * WhamLine: |
| 485 | ** Early on in the series, after Tanjiro completes his training under Urokodaki, he asks him to send his regards to Sabito and Makomo, two of Urokodaki's wards who'd helped him. This remark shocks Urokodaki. |
| 486 | -->'''Urokodaki''': Tanjiro... how did you know the names of [[spoiler:those dead children]]? |
| 487 | ** When Zenitsu sees Kaigaku again after the latter [[spoiler:becomes the new Upper-6]], he has this shocking revelation about his own backstory. |
| 488 | -->'''Zenitsu''': [[spoiler:Grandpa killed himself because you became a demon]]! |
| 489 | * WhamShot: |
| 490 | ** In Chapter 126, Tanjiro is distraught over [[spoiler:having to leave Nezuko to burn in the sunlight so he can defeat Hantengu]], but then he turns around and sees [[spoiler:Nezuko standing in the sunlight, perfectly fine.]] |
| 491 | ** The final panel of Chapter 204, which shows the aftermath of [[spoiler:Muzan's defeat and the disbanding of the Demon Slayer Corps, is a skyline of modern Japan.]] |
| 492 | * WhoYouGonnaCall: Good thing there's a Demon Slayer Corps that will (hopefully) deal with any trouble you may have with demons. |
| 493 | * WildChild: Inosuke was raised in a mountainside forest by wild boars; however, as a toddler, he would wander to a nearby family's house, where an old man would play with and read to him. The old man's foulmouthed grandson would chase Inosuke away, thinking he was a wild animal, until one day the toddler kicks the shit out of him while swearing up a storm. And that's the story of how Inosuke learned to talk. |
| 494 | * WorldLimitedToThePlot: The entire conflict between humans and demons is limited entirely to Japan, and mostly a complete secret to the general public to boot. Despite the progenitor of all demons being over a thousand years old, Muzan never really looked out to expand his demon servants beyond his immediate reach, nor do the Demon Slayers have any international reach. Unsurprisingly, once [[spoiler:Muzan dies, all demons have died by that point, without humanity ever truly finding demons ever existed, with Zenitsu’s memoirs been seen as a book of lies by his own descendants, save one who is a big fan]]. |
| 495 | * WorldOfTechnicolorHair: While most civilians have black hair, the more important characters tend to have hair in more unusual colors, from Inosuke having black hair with blue highlights to Rengoku and his family's blonde hair with fiery red streaks. The only characters whose hair colors are explicity considered unusual are Zenitsu (whose blonde-orange hair is MistakenForDyed even though it was miraculously caused by [[LockedIntoStrangeness a bolt of lightning]]) and Mitsuri (whose pink and green hair was the result of [[BigEater eating 170 sakura mochi a day for eight months]], and a potential suitor even rejected her because of her outlandish hair colors). |
| 496 | * YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: A rare heroic version happens when the Stone Hashira, Himejima, compliments Tanjiro on his actions during the attack on the Sword Smith village. [[spoiler: Specifically on sacrificing Nezuko to save the villagers. Tanjiro, though, is quick to correct the Hashira and tells him it was Nezuko who made that decision not him, feeling that she deserves the credit, as he was overcome with indecision untill Nezuko literally kicked him into gear.]] |
| 497 | * YouAreWorthHell: Despite how Demons harmed and killed people, one way to remind the viewers/readers is that some of them were once humans as well who were unable to deal with pain and loss and thus decided to act on their misguided anger by harming innocents. But with enough soul-searching and hearing a few kind words, they will repent and regain remnants of their humanity and learn that [[YouAreNotAlone they are not alone in the form of their loved ones who are waiting for them to walk into Hell together, rejecting Heaven and immediate reincarnation in the process.]] |
| 498 | ** After dying remorsefully and learning how he horribly misunderstood his parents' intentions, [[spoiler: Rui is reunited with his parents, as they accompany him into hell and flames engulf them.]] |
| 499 | ** [[spoiler: Upper Rank 6 Daki and Gyutaro get theirs too. Originally, only Gyutaro would go to hell, since Daki never chose to become a demon of her own will and all her evil acts that she committed could be accounted to her older brother's poor guidance to raise her. Daki doesn't care though, and follows him there.]] |
| 500 | ** [[spoiler: Upper Rank 3 Akaza and his loved ones. His master and father at first outright tell him that they cannot bring him to heaven, while his fiancee Koyuki holds him as hellfire consumes both of them. But in a FreezeFrameBonus moment, you can actually see the silhouette of the master and father standing with the couple, too, signifying that all four will go to hell. It's heavily implied that Koyuki was waiting for Akaza/Hakuji all along to realize the error of his ways until he finally did.]] |
| 501 | ** [[spoiler: After the final battle, Sanemi dies of his wounds and sees his siblings in heaven, and his mother alone in hell for turning into a demon. He chooses to go into hell with her, but is forced out by his father, reviving him.]] |
| 502 | * YouKilledMyFather: A ''major'' theme in the manga, as most of the Demon Slayers became so to take vengeance against the demons who ruined their lives and killed their family, friends and other loved ones. [[spoiler: Muzan during the final battle]] even {{Lampshade|Hanging}}s it. |
| 503 | -->-- '''[[spoiler: Muzan]]''': "Persistent. You're all seriously persistent. And it bores me. It sickens me from the bottom of my heart. Whenever you open your mouth, you only remember that one dumb notion about avenging your parents, kids, or siblings." |
| 504 | * YouLeaveHimAlone: While infiltrating the Red Light District as a Courtesan, Zenitsu catches Daki of the Upper 6th Moon, abusing a junior courtesan for not cleaning her room perfectly. Knowing full well that the demonic courtesan is effectively the seventh mightiest monster in the world as he knows it, he '''fearlessly''' grabs onto her hand and ''[[TranquilFury demands with cold fury that she stops beating the poor little girl.]]'' |
| 505 | [[/folder]] |
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FollowingContext Manga / DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba
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