If you’re deeply into manga and anime, you’ll probably already know that there are thousands upon thousands of different stories, characters, and lores out there. But, have you ever tried reading or watching Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba?
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba is a hugely popular series of graphic novels and animated episodes and films that started in 2016 – written and created by Koyoharu Gotouge, an award-winning artist who was the first manga creator to have been featured in Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.
This dark fantasy series revolves around ancient wars between humans and demons – with demons possessing incredible abilities (and a handful of weaknesses – such as exposure to sunlight!).
Whether you are completely new to the series or are looking for some behind the scenes information on what’s made it such a smash hit around the world, I’ve lined up some fantastic facts about Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba that might just surprise you.
1. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train is the biggest-selling Japanese movie of all time.
Yes – despite the fairly long name, the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba movie Mugen Train remains Japan’s biggest film export, having made a stunning worldwide gross of more than £407,000,000 at the time of writing.
Released in 2020, after the end of the original run of the manga, the movie has made almost £100 million more than the Japanese movie at second place in the box office rankings – which is Your Name, released back in 2016. Demon Slayer fans are serious about their favourite anime!
2. The series’ creator typically uses a pen name.
Koyoharu Gotouge, born in Japan’s Fukuoka Prefecture in 1989, doesn’t always go by his real name when creating work. In fact, you might also know him as ‘Phenoms’, which is how he was listed in Time Magazine.
Despite this relative anonymity, Phenoms has racked up several big awards recognising the amazing success of Demon Slayer – such as the Japan Cartoonists Association Award in 2021, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize the same year, and the Noma Prize in 2020.
3. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba first debuted in Shonen Jump.
Shonen Jump magazine will be well-known to many manga fans, and maybe even for those who are just getting into the art form – for one thing, it’s where colossal series such as One Piece first got their start. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba, too, got a launching pad in the magazine, debuting back in February 2016, and running until May 2020.
Readers don’t have to look for back issues, however – as the series is available to read in 23 different book or tankōbon volumes, with a complete story from beginning to end.
4. An anime adaptation soon followed up.
As with any popular manga series, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba soon made its debut on the small screen with a short-running TV series. The initial Ufotable production would only run for 26 episodes total, but would soon trigger the release of Mugen Train (as mentioned above)
The massive success of the Mugen Train movie then led to the release of a second season of Demon Slayer, with 18 more episodes released between 2021 and 2022, a third season following up in the spring of 2023. Season four then followed up in 2024, with – at the time of writing – another trilogy of movies due for release in 2025.
5. It’s been on the big screen many times.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba has proven such a draw for manga and anime fans that, naturally, the series has made a few visits to the big screen. As mentioned, Mugen Train is the most successful anime movie in history thus far – but there have also been two more Demon Slayer movies released since the pandemic.
The second movie in the pantheon, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To The Swordsmith Village, released in 2023, with Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To the Hashira Training following up in 2024. It’s fairly common for anime properties to release several different movies in a short period of time – you only have to look at the incredible number of Pokemon movies released to understand that!
6. It’s all about warring humans and demons.
As the name of the series suggests, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba is all about slaying demons – specifically, as a result of a brutal war that’s been raging on for hundreds of years. Demons are, believe it or not, actually humans in this series – however, they have enhanced abilities.
Therefore, those humans designated as demon slayers must try and match said demons at their own game – by using ‘breathing styles’ to enhance their own powers and abilities when engaging demons in combat. The very best slayers are the Hashira – those who, in some cases, have slayed 50 high-level demons.
The main story follows the tale of Tanjiro Kamado, a young boy who learns breathing styles on his journey to becoming a demon slayer after the murder of his family. Of course, as with many manga and anime series, this is just one plot strand – with lots of characters and twists along the way!
7. It’s not easy to kill a demon, but they have a few weaknesses.
As mentioned, the demons in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba are pretty formidable – but, they do also have a few weak spots that members of the Demon Slayer Corps do well to exploit. For example, again, as mentioned briefly – demons are weak to real sunlight, much in the same way as some vampires are, according to lore!
Many slayers use weapons that are made from a specific elemental alloy, which is called Nichirin. Beyond this, you can also poison a demon – but you’ll need access to an extract of wisteria flowers.
As you can imagine, demons are well aware of their weaknesses – which makes many of them all the more formidable to fight thanks to their incredible defences!
8. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba wasn’t Gotouge’s first work.
Yes – believe it or not, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba was actually a follow-up work to an initial project that didn’t go down perfectly with audiences in 2015. Gotouge had previously launched a manga, Haeniwa no Zigzag, in Shonen Jump the year before Demon Slayer came to prominence.
The shift to a whole new franchise, stories, and characters came as the creator was encouraged to create a series that was a little easier to understand. This led to his development of Kisatsy no Nagare, which dabbled in demons and swordplay – but this, again, was suggested against by his editor in favour of something a little more lighthearted.
So, yes – believe it or not, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba is a toned-down product, at least compared to some of Gotouge’s previous works! And yet – his editor really seemed to know his stuff, because look at those sales and box office figures!
9. The manga has sold hundreds of millions of copies.
Taking into account digital purchases and distribution, it’s estimated that Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide, highly ranking it in the all-time list of best-selling mangas.
In fact, it’s also thought that the series was a best-seller between 2019 and 2020 – a massive success given that it had only launched back in 2016!
10. On a global scale, Demon Slayer is one of the most profitable franchises of all time.
No, really. Even though Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba only came to prominence in the mid-late 10s, the series has fast become one of the highest-grossing media franchises on a global scale, and even from an all-time perspective.
At the time of writing, it’s the 41st most profitable franchise of all time, at a valuation of more than £7 billion! That makes it a more profitable franchise than Super Mario, The Lord of The Rings, Fortnite, X-Men, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Muppets, Shrek, and My Little Pony. Incredible!
And yet, Demon Slayer still has a way to go to challenge the most profitable franchises of all time. By far the winner at the time of writing is Pokemon, which is worth an eye-watering £78 billion – ten times the value of Demon Slayer right now!
11. The manga was soon licensed for Western markets.
Given the fact that anime and manga have exploded in popularity over the past few decades, it was only a matter of time before Demon Slayer made its way overseas. By January 2019, the manga started getting published via Manga Plus, with Viz Media having already licensed the graphic novels for the Western market the year before.
12. You can stream the series and the movies on several services in the UK.
At the time of writing, several Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba seasons and movies are available for you to watch in the UK across Netflix and Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll is the premier anime streaming service, which also has the rights to several other world-famous Japanese animations.
13. The series has seen plenty of spin-offs released.
What would a successful series be without a few spin-offs? Despite Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba only being less than a decade old at the time of writing, there have been multiple ‘alternative’ takes on the characters and stories, with a few new series even focusing purely on side characters.
For example, Kimetsu no Aima! is a chibi-style spin-off from the main Demon Slayer series set up like a gag comic strip. Kyojuro Rengoku Gaiden, too, followed suit – released in 2020 and focusing on the adventures of Kyojuro, the series of stories would eventually be collected in the volume Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Stories of Water and Flame by 2022.
That’s all without mentioning Giyu Tomioka Gaiden, a miniature spin-off launched in 2019 with its own side-story. Phew – that’s a lot for fans to keep track of, hope you’re keeping up!
14. The series has even made its way to the stage!
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is one of very few manga and anime to get a stage play adaptation, too. In fact, the play was first announced back in 2019, and took place at two venues in Tokyo, Japan, at the start of 2020 (ahead of COVID-19 lockdowns).
This wouldn’t be the only adaptation, either. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the 2nd: Bonds followed the first successful play in 2021, with another based on Mugen Train launched in 2022, and a fourth in 2023 – based on characters’ adventures in the Entertainment District.
As of now, a fifth stage play – believe it or not – is set to hit the boards by April 2025, entitled Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba The Stage Part 5: Assault on the Swordsmith Village. Given the name of the play, it’s easy to assume this will follow story beats from the second movie.
15. Most of the Japanese public is aware of the franchise.
While Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba might still seem like a bit of a niche property to some readers and viewers in the West (and honestly, where have you been if that’s the case?!), the series has reached incredible levels of saturation and success in its homeland.
According to surveying, nine out of ten people are familiar with Demon Slayer, with around four of those claiming they are ‘very’ familiar with it. It’s also been noted that the series has helped to boost tourism to various locations and areas that inspired those you’ll see across the series.
16. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba wasn’t a massive hit right away.
For all that Demon Slayer has had an amazing rocket to success over the past few years, official sources claim that the manga only really became a colossal success towards the end of 2019, largely as a result of the anime having opened up the world to more people.
It’s thought that many people bought into the manga having binge-watched the entire anime, a relatively new phenomenon given that anime episodes would traditionally release weekly, leaving long gaps between adventures.
Interestingly, it’s even suggested that the series helped to inspire more people to buy into Shonen jump itself!
17. There’s only one demon that can transform humans with their blood.
According to the series lore, Muzan Kibutsuji is the only demon to be able to transform humans into demons through their blood. This infamous foe has the power to mind-read other demons and find their locations, and to disguise himself as a human being.
Muzan, as the ‘Original Demon’, can also control all demons and curse them should they dare speak his name. He’s also the demon that slaughtered Tanjiro’s family – not a good dude, all things considered!
18. However, two demons are free from his influence.
Thankfully, not all demons are so easily intercepted by Muzan. At the time of writing, only Tamayo, an ex-Muzan henchman, and Nezuko, who is half-human, are able to block out Muzan’s influence.
It’s thought that Nezuko is able to do this largely because she can bring human emotions to the fore, blocking out Muzan’s ability to track and read her.
19. Most demons work alone.
One notable trait of most demons in the series is that they prefer to work alone – they are extremely territorial. This, as you’ll see when you read through the manga or watch the anime, is largely because they are individually distrusting – with the Spider Demon Family being the sole exception to the rule.
20. There are 12 ‘most powerful demons’ that the story revolves around.
Across the course of the story, you’ll find that there are 12 Kizuki, or high-level demons that are thought to be based on the twelve months of the calendar cycle. They’re also split into Jogen and Kagen, or upper and lower ranks respectively, which also refers to the first and last quarters of the moon cycle.
Upper demons have kanji in one eye and numbers in another, while lower demons have numbers and ranking in one eye in particular. As you might expect, while it’s still difficult to slay demons, lower ranked ones are much less powerful than those at the higher level!
FAQs About Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
Will there be a fifth season of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba?
No – right now, there are no plans to bring a fifth series of TV episodes of the franchise to viewers, though there will be a series of three films that follow on from season four.
What order should I watch Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba in?
Ideally, you should try and watch season one of the anime, then the Mugen Train movie or the Mugen Train arc in season two, then the Entertainment District stories in season two. After that, move either to season three’s Swordsmith Village arc or the Swordsmith Village movie, then season four.
Does Tanjiro become a demon?
Spoilers ahead – yes, Tanjiro does become a demon, though he can turn back into a human. I’m not spoiling any more – you’ll have to read and watch to catch back up!
Further reading
https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GY5P48XEY/demon-slayer-kimetsu-no-yaiba
https://kimetsu-no-yaiba.fandom.com/wiki/Kimetsu_no_Yaiba_Wiki
Do you know any fun facts about Demon Slayer? Share them in the comments below!