Overivew
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (鬼滅の刃, Kimetsu no Yaiba, "Blade of Demon Destruction") is a manga which has been serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump since November, 2016. It's written and illustrated by Koyoharu Gotouge with 17 volumes published as of October 2019.
Two light novels entitled Shiawase no Hana by Aya Yajima, were published too.
Story
In Taishō era Japan, the Tanjiro family were slaughtered by a demon making Tanjiro Kamado to be part of the Demon Slayer Corps and became a demon slayer as revenge. His sister Nezuko Kamado survived the slaughter but transformed into a demon. Together with Nezuko and other friends, Tanjiro started his journey of crusading against the demons and protecting people from them.
Style
In terms of genre, the manga is considered as dark fantasy which combines fictional structure of typical gothic vampire hunter story with Japanese philosophy. Throughout the story, there are many bleeding and mutilated body scenes. On the other side, in contrast with the bloody scenes, the story succeeds in creating a thought provoking effect by facilitating the eternality of demons.
The opening chapters were very dark and suffocating, so the readers’ reviews were not optimistic insomuch as that many worried that this story might be cancelled by volume one. However, when looking into the whole story, it is obvious that the story not only contains seriousness but also fills with comical elements which get more and more as the story unfolds, especially after Zenitsu and Inosuke are introduced. Even those bloodcurdling scenes are full of various comical elements and infused with a kind of mildness without being too murderous and too heavy. The surreal comical elements, in particular, are the secret to this story’s popularity.
While the story is set during the Taisho era, the specific period is not clarified, but it can be speculated from the lines said by hand demon, who Tanjito met as he took the final test of Demon Slayer Corps, that the story began in the first or the second year of Taisho Era（1912・1913）and the story after the test happed in the third or the fourth year of Taisho Era（1914・1915）. In that period, Japan and Britain have signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance treaty while the European War (later known as World War I) was going on.
Its drawing style, atmosphere, sense of humor, basically every aspect of the Manga is unique. As a manga serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump, it shines brilliantly. It is praised to have 「depicted the Japanese aesthetics」by several famous Jump manga artists. Apart from having fans, this manga is also highly spoken of by an unexpected man who surpasses the boundaries of publishing houses, and gained a large number of fans. Owning to this popularity, as of 2rd December 2019, the manga has over 25 million copies printed within Japan. Thanks to the broadcasting of anime version and its own exquisite illustrations, the sales of the manga’s first edition has greatly raised by 1 million copies.
To celebrate as the accumulative sales reaches 1.5million official PV
Plot
In Taisho Era, there was a boy, Tanjiro Kamado, who supported his family-his mother and younger brother and sister by selling charcoal in the mountains. He was living a poor but quiet life.
However, one day, he returned from selling charcoal only to find the slaughtered remains of his mother and younger brother and sister. As Tanjiro made haste and tried to take his barely breathing sister Nezuko to the docter, Nezuko turned into demon and violently attacked him.
A man called Giyu Tomioka saved Tanjiro from this crisis and explained to Tanjito that it was the demon that killed his family and made Nezuko this way.
In order to turn Nezuko, who somehow retained human consciousness, back to human, and to seek revenge for his family, Tanjiro departed for a long journey ahead.
A young man heading for the Shura’s path
only for his beloved sister―――
Main characters
Besides the main characters below, please refer to 「List of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba characters」
Though the names of many characters are very peculiar, most of them are actual existing surnames , which is also a characteristic of this manga.
Main Characters
Kamado Tanjiro（KAMADO TANJIRO）
Character Voice: Natsuki Hanae
the main protagonist. A young boy who has burn scars on the forehead and wears a pair of earnings.
Tanjiro is gentle, stubborn, determined and has an extraordinary sense of smell.
Nezuko Kamado(NEZUKO KAMADO)
Character Voice: Akari Kito
another main protagonist. Tanjiro’s younger sister. Originally was a beautiful young girl who cared the most about the family, but later was turned into a demon. However, she still managed to maintain some forms of her earlier consciousness and to fight together with her brother. She doesn’t consume human flesh like other demons.
Zenitsu Agatsuma（ZENITSU AGATSUMA）
Character Voice: Hiro Shimono
Zenitsu Agatsuma joined the Demon Slayer Corps at around the same time as Tanjiro. He has downward-sloped eyes and golden hair of overlapping blunt bangs. Golden hair was quite rare in Taisho-era.
Zenitsu is very meticulous. He is in a constant state of fear and always cries and tries to run away from demons while his job is to slay demons. Zenitsu has an extraordinary sense of hearing.
Inosuke Hashibira（INOSUKE HASHIBIRA）
Character Voice: HashibiraInosuke
Inosuke Hashibira joined the Demon Slayer Corps at around the same time as Tanjiro. He wears a piece of boar’s fur around his bare upper body.
He is brash and prone to reacting violently. He likes fighting more than anything else. Due to him having been born and raised in the wild, Inosuke has also been shown to possess little general knowledge of normal human society.
Demon Slayer Corps
The Demon Slayer Corps is a non-government organization formed by demon slayers and their supports, which has existed since ancient time. Kamado Tanjiro belongs to this organization. There are hundreds of demon slayers within the organization. For specific information please refer to its exclusive articles.
Giyu Tomioka（GIYU TOMIOKA）
Character Voice: Takahiro Sakurai
He was the first demon slayer that Tanjiro came across when he was about to be killed by Nezuko. Later he introduced Tanjiro to Sakonji. He initially wanted to kill Nezuko, but put back his sword due to Tanjiro’s persistence and Nezuko’s sincerity in protecting her brother.
Sakonji Urokodaki（SAKONJI UROKODAKI）
Character Voice: Hochu Otsuka
He is the one who teaches Tanjito how to use sword. He is always seen wearing a tengu mask. He used to be the Hashira of The Demon Slayers Corps
Demon
Demons are the anti-protagonist creatures. Demons possess a murderous instinct to kill and devour humans. They can only be killed by beheading or being exposed to the sunlight. Otherwise they do not die or age. Demons have special abilities and strengths.
Actually, Demons are abnormal creatures converted from humans after exposure to the blood of Muzan Kibutsuji. They are controlled by Muzan Kibutsuji and driven by the lust of devouring humans. The more humans they eat, the stronger they can get. For specific information please refer to demon (Kimetsu No Yaiba).
Muzan Kibutsuji（MUZAN KIBUTSUJI）
Character Voice: Toshihiko Seki
Disaster. Muzan Kibutsuji is the first demon of all demons and all the other demons are created by his blood or the blood of one of his creations. Humans can be converted into flesh-eating demons after exposure to his blood.
Muzan Kibutsuji is the principal culprit of killing Tanjiro’s family and turning Nezuko into a demon.
The Twelve Kizuki is a special group of demons chosen by Muzan Kibutsuji. They serve directly under Muzan Kibutsuji.
Supporting characters
Tamayo（TAMAYO）
Character Voice: Maaya Sakamoto
Tamayo is a female character turned into demon by Muzan more than 200 years ago. Though as a demon she hates killing human. She manages to survive on a small amount of human blood without killing humans. She wants to kill Muzan and is doing the study on turning human into demon and then turning them back to human.
Yushiro（YUSHIRO）
Character Voice: Daiki Yamashita
Yushiro is a young man turned into demon by Tamayo. Like Tamayo, he can survive without eating flesh and he cares for Tamayo greatly.
Extra edition・spin-off
Junior and Senior High School !!Kimetsu Gakuen
Self-parody stories portrayed in the ending pages of Manga by the author herself.
While waving the blade with bloody hands wet with tears in the original story, humans and demons are living a comparatively bright life in the spin-off, except for Zenitsu Agatsuma.
As a matter of fact, this is the toughest school (only for Zenitsu) in Japan love comedy.
pixiv being tagged asKimetsu Gakuen.
Tomioka Giyu Gaiden
Tomioka Giyu Gaiden was published in the 18th and 19th issues of Weekly Shonen Jump in 2019 when the animation was airing.
The author was Ryoji Hirano.
As the name suggests, TomiokaGiyu is the protagonist. And the story is about a demon incident also involving Shinobu Kocho that occurred shortly after Tomioka Giyu’s encounter with Tanjiro and Nezuko.
Kimetsu no Aima!
Kimetsu no Aima!, a colored 4-koma, 26 episodes spin-off by Ryoji Hirano, was serialized on Shonen Jump+ app and website.
Released after the each anime episode being aired, and narrated stories behind that episode.
Anime
It was announced in the 27th issue of Weekly Shonen Jump on 4thJune, 2018 that this manga would be made into TV anime series.
At the same time, the office website released the anime images of Tanjiro and Nezuko as the first key visual.
Furthermore, as soon as the production of TV anime series announced, an official portal website and Twitter account were opened so that information about both manga and anime can be obtained.
For specific information, please refer to Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba(anime)
Musical Stage
On 30th, September, 2019, the official Twitter account of stage 「Kimetsu no Yaiba」was opened, announcing that Kimetsu no Yaiba gets musicalized in January, 2020.
Kenichi Suemitsu, well known for his works for theToukenRanbu musical series, will be the script writer and director. And, Wada Shunsuke, famous for theHaikyu!! musical series, will provide music.
For specific information, please refer to Kimetsu no Yaiba(stage).
External Links
Official
Official Website of Weekly Shōnen Jump
Iconography・history of demon hunting in Taisho Era
Trail reading
Jump Book Store Kagari Gari
Jump Book StoreEpisode 1 of Kimetsu no Yaiba(colored edition)
pixivision
Fan art of Kimetsu no Yaiba- This is a melancholy demon hunting story-( public released on 10th May, 2019)
