Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 1

Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | YA | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1

Chapters 2-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-7

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Character Analysis

Tanjiro Kamado

Tanjiro Kamado is the main protagonist of Demon Slayer. He is a teenage boy with black-and-burgundy hair and dark red eyes. Like all characters in this volume, he wears traditional Japanese clothing, including a green-and-black checked robe, a blue scarf, and leg wrappings. Tanjiro has a large pink scar on his forehead: While this volume does not explore the scar, it is significant to both his history and abilities as a demon slayer. He also wears hanafuda earrings with the image of a rising sun; hanafuda, or “flower card,” is a Japanese playing card. Like his scar, his earrings are significant to the plot, as they resemble the imperial Japanese flag used in the beginning of the 20th century. When the Demon Slayer anime was released in China, South Korea, and several other East Asian countries, Tanjiro’s hanafuda earrings were slightly changed out of respect to people affected by imperial Japan’s colonization and war crimes during World War II (Mulugeta, Mezi. “Demon Slayer: Why Tanjiro’s Earrings Were So Controversial,” ScreenRant, 17 August 2022).

Tanjiro’s main traits are his kindness and selflessness. Before his family is killed, he goes to a nearby village to sell charcoal. The residents go to Tanjiro to settle disputes and help them with repairs around their houses. Tanjiro goes above and beyond his responsibilities to help people in need. When he learns about the demon world, this kindness even translates to how he treats demons. Overall, he sees Sympathy as Strength. Tanjiro’s sympathy for his transformed sister, Nezuko, as well as The Power of Familial Bonds makes him plead for her to remember him, to fight her demonic urges. This plea helps Nezuko maintain her humanity after her transformation. Tanjiro also shows sympathy to demons he isn’t connected to by blood. He can’t muster the strength to kill the first demon he and Nezuko encounter in the wild because he doesn’t want it to suffer. Though veteran demon slayers Giyu and Urokodaki see kindness as weakness, Tanjiro’s sympathy is one of his greatest strengths—as his relationship with Nezuko proves demons are not irredeemable.

Though Tanjiro is gentle at heart, he is also skilled in combat. He has a heightened sense of smell that when honed, can detect how many people a demon has eaten as well as the “opening thread” that indicates a demon’s weak point. He is a quick learner who exhibits Perseverance Through Hardship, evidenced by his desire to save his only remaining family member from her fate as a demon drives him to develop fighting abilities. When Tanjiro enters the final selection at the end of the volume, he is physically and mentally equipped to fight the Hand Demon.

Nezuko Kamado

Nezuko Kamado is a secondary protagonist and Tanjiro’s younger sister. In the first chapter, she is turned into a demon after a brutal attack on the Kamado household. As a human, she is slightly smaller than Tanjiro, and has black hair and dark pink eyes. Once Nezuko turns into a demon (due to exposure to demon blood), her appearance slightly changes: She now has hair with fiery red tips, pale pink eyes, fangs, and claw-like nails. After she regains her senses, she wears a bamboo muzzle to prevent her from biting anyone.

As the second oldest Kamado child, Nezuko takes on the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings. Her care is more domestic than Tanjiro’s. She helps their mother maintain the household and watch the youngest Kamado children. When Tanjiro finds Nezuko’s body after the demon attack, she is curled around one of their younger siblings as if she sacrificed herself to protect him. This protective instinct translates into her behavior as a demon. When she wakes after transforming, she is starved and attacks Tanjiro. As Tanjiro pleads with Nezuko to resist becoming a demon, she is illustrated with tears (28); Tanjiro’s sympathy helps Nezuko retain her humanity.

Soon after, veteran demon slayer Giyu tries to kill Nezuko, believing her to be like every other demon. However, when she shields the injured Tanjiro, Giyu is convinced she is different. Unlike other demons, she does not eat people to maintain her strength. Nezuko has unusually strong self-control and strength of character, due to the familial bond between her and Tanjiro. This refusal to eat humans causes her to fall into a two-year slumber that leaves her absent for the last four chapters of the volume. Overall, her existence complicates what people think they know about demons—calling into question the demon slayers’ prerogative to slay all demons for the sake of humankind.

Sakonji Urokodaki

Sakonji Urokodaki is an important secondary character, an old man who lives at the bottom of the snowy Mount Sagiri. He always wears a tengu mask, a fitting choice considering tengu—legendary figures with angry, red faces and prominent noses in Shintō folkore—live in mountainous areas and were thought to have superior martial arts skills.

A veteran demon slayer and trainer, Urokodaki is reticent to take Tanjiro on as a pupil. He sees Tanjiro’s kindness as weakness and subjects him to harsh training, verging on abusive: He hits Tanjiro when he hesitates, and says he must be prepared to kill Nezuko should she kill a human and “then slit your belly and die!” (97) to take full responsibility. Urokodaki is referencing the samurai order’s ritualistic death by suicide called seppuku, or belly-cutting. This act was meant “to atone for failure in his duties” and was considered an honorable way to die per the tenets of bushido.

Tanjiro is sometimes afraid of Urokodaki, writing in his letter to Nezuko that his training traps are so dangerous “it’s like he really wants to kill me” (116), and that if he breaks one of Urokodaki’s katanas, “he’ll break my bones” (117). Urokodaki’s harsh training partially stems from him wanting to prevent Tanjiro’s final selection. Later, Tanjiro learns that the Hand Demon atop Mount Fujikasane (the site of the final selection) killed the last 14 of Urokodaki’s pupils. Urokodaki acted the way he did because he “had no wish to see another child die” (153). Unbeknownst to him, the protective fox masks he carves for his students are being used to target them, as the Hand Demon seeks revenge for being trapped on the mountain by him.

The spirits of Urokodaki’s former students still linger in the woods near his home. Two of them, Sabito and Makomo, guide and train Tanjiro. Urokodaki is shocked that Tanjiro knows “the names of those deceased children” (155), perhaps indicating that he doesn’t know their spirits linger to help new students like Tanjiro.