Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is the first TV season of one of the biggest anime hits of recent years. It was made by the studio ufotable and directed by Haruo Sotozaki. The 26 episodes aired in Japan from April to September 2019. The show is based on a manga by Koyoharu Gotouge, which ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 2016 to 2020. The editor of that magazine later said that the manga became a giant success mostly because people talked about the anime after it aired.

The story takes place in Japan during the Taisho era, a short period in the early 1900s when old village life and new city life lived side by side. In this world, demons hunt people at night. They are strong, they heal fast, and they can only be killed in a few ways, such as by sunlight. A secret group called the Demon Slayer Corps has fought them for hundreds of years, using special swords and breathing techniques.

The hero is Tanjiro Kamado. He is a gentle and hard-working teenager who lives on a snowy mountain and carries charcoal down to town to help feed his mother and younger brothers and sisters. One day he comes home and finds that a demon has attacked his home and killed almost everyone. Only his little sister Nezuko is still alive. But she has changed. She is now a demon too. Even so, some part of her still knows and protects her brother.

A swordsman of the Corps named Giyu Tomioka finds the two of them. He could kill Nezuko, but he sees that she is different, so he lets them go. He sends Tanjiro to an old teacher named Sakonji Urokodaki, who wears a red mask. Tanjiro trains hard on a mountain for a long time. Then he must pass the Final Selection, a deadly test, before he can join the Corps. His goals are simple and clear: find a way to make Nezuko human again, and find the demon who destroyed his family. Nezuko travels with him. She sleeps in a wooden box on his back during the day, because the sun would burn her.

On his missions Tanjiro meets two other new slayers. Zenitsu Agatsuma is a nervous boy who cries and complains a lot, but he can be surprisingly strong. Inosuke Hashibira is wild and loud, wears a boar's head as a mask, and wants to fight everyone. The three are very different, and much of the fun of the show comes from how they argue and slowly become friends. Along the way, Tanjiro also meets Tamayo, a kind doctor who is a demon herself, and her helper Yushiro. In the busy Asakusa district of Tokyo, he comes face to face with Muzan Kibutsuji, the first demon and the source of all the others.

The tone mixes dark and light. There is real sadness and some blood and violence, because the demons are often people who suffered before they changed. Tanjiro feels pity even for the enemies he must stop, and this kindness is the heart of the show. At the same time, there are many funny moments with Zenitsu and Inosuke. Fans and critics often praise the fight scenes, where ufotable mixes hand-drawn art with computer effects so that the breathing techniques look like flowing water or fire. This first season is the start of a long story that later continues in the Mugen Train film and more TV arcs.