Set Your Heart Ablaze With Everything You Need To Know About Demon Slayer

Set Your Heart Ablaze With Everything You Need To Know About Demon Slayer
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Even if you don’t pay much attention to anime or manga, you’ve definitely seen or heard something about Koyoharu Gotouge’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. It’s kind of hard to miss. Since its release back in 2016, Demon Slayer has become one of the best-selling manga series of all time, while also inspiring an even more popular anime adaptation. There are even Demon Slayer Crocs!

If you’ve yet to dive into the series and are looking to hop about the Mugen hype train, or you’re a fan of the anime who wants to read the manga (or vice versa), here’s everything you need to know about Demon Slayer.

This article has been updated since its original publication.

What’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba about?

demon slayer anime watch
Image: Ufotable

Demon Slayer focuses on Tanjiro Kamado, who, after venturing down from his mountainside home to sell charcoal, returns to discover his entire family has been slaughtered – except for his sister Nezuko, who has been transformed into a demon.

Despite this curse, Nezuko still retains some of her humanity. So instead of killing her, Tanjiro begins a quest to turn her human again. To do this, he joins the Demon Slayer Corps, a secret group of trained warriors who have been battling against demons for centuries.

During their journies, Tanjiro and Nezuko team up with other Corps members and the elite Hashira, while facing off against various demons, including the demon lord Muzan and his most powerful minions, the Twelve Kizuki. It’s a shōnen manga, through and through.

Where can you read the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba manga?

demon slayer
Image: Viz Media

Compared to other popular Shonen Jump series – I’m looking at you, One Piece Demon Slayer is a fairly short one. Gotouge finished Demon Slayer back in May 2020 and, all up, the manga consists of 205 chapters split over 23 paperback tankōbon. For comparison, the Dragon Ball Z portion of the original Dragon Ball manga is 26 volumes long.

So where can you read it? Finding a copy for most of the series isn’t too hard, although the availability of the first volume and the volumes adapted by the anime seem to fluctuate.

If you’re someone who prefers physical copies of your manga, here’s where you can grab volume one of the series:

demon slayer manga box set
Image: Viz Media

A complete series box set for Demon Slayer was also released to the tune of $370 (although it’s not hard to find it on sale). Considering an individual volume costs around $18, this complete set is a cheaper option if you’re starting your collection from scratch.

If you prefer to consume your manga digitally, there are a few places you can read it. Digital copies of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba are available to read through Amazon and Manga Plus.

Viz Media also has its Shonen Jump subscription service where, for only US$1.99/month, you’ll have access to the entire manga series. It’s a convenient way to read Demon Slayer, with the added bonus of not needing to find shelf space for 23 manga volumes. This service will also give you access to a large portion of the Shonen Jump catalogue, including classic series like Dragon Ball Z, One Piece and Naruto, and newer ones like Jujutsu Kaisen, Spy x Family and Chainsaw Man.

Where can you watch the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba anime?

Image: Ufotable

The first season of the Demon Slayer anime aired in 2019 and ran for 26 episodes. This was followed by the sequel Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train, which premiered in Japan in late 2020. The anime’s second started airing in late 2021 with a seven-episode arc that adapted the Mugen Train film, before covering the “Entertainment District” arc. Demon Slayer‘s third season, the “Swordsmith Village” arc, aired in 2023.

The manga’s next arc, “Hashira Training” will be adapted into the upcoming movie To the Hashira Training, which is being released in Australia on February 22. Much like the release of previous seasons, To the Hashira Training will make up the first part of Demon Slayer’s fourth season.

If you want to watch Demon Slayer, including the Mugen Train movie, you can catch it on Crunchyroll and Funimation. The first season has also been released as a two-volume Blu-Ray and DVD collection, as has the Mugen Train film.

What manga arcs does the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba anime cover?

Image: Ufotable

If you’ve enjoyed the anime and want to dive into the manga, here’s where everything stops and starts. The anime is a pretty faithful adaptation, so going from it to the manga is a pretty clean jump (you should still read the whole manga though).

Here’s how all the Demon Slayer arcs and anime seasons break down:

  • Unwavering Resolve: Chapters 1 to 53 (volumes 1 to 7)
  • Mugen Train: Chapters 54 to 66 (volumes 7 to 8)
  • Entertainment District: Chapters 67 to 97 (volumes 8 to 11)
  • Swordsmith Village: Chapters 98 to 127 (volumes 12 to 15)
  • Hashira Training: Chapters 128 to 136 (volumes 15 to 16)
  • Final arc: Chapters 137 to 205 (volumes 16 to 24)
demon slayer manga box set
Image: Ufotable

It really, really is. According to Japan’s Oricon sales charts, there were 82.3 million copies of the Demon Slayer manga sold during the period dating from December 2, 2019, to November 30, 2020. Eighty-two million! For comparison, One Piece, which is consistently one of the highest-selling manga series year-over-year, sold 7.7 million copies during the same period.

According to Circana BookScan, the first volume of Demon Slayer was the third highest-selling manga volume of 2022, after the first volumes of Chainsaw Man and Spy x Family. In 2023, it was the highest-selling manga volume and adult graphic novel overall.

Meanwhile, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train currently holds the title of being the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time. It even managed to sell over a million Blu-Rays and DVDs in three days, which is no easy feat in our streaming-obsessed world.

Is there a Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba video game?

gaming deals
Image: Sega

It wouldn’t be a shonen series without a tie-in fighting game. The Hinokami Chronicles is a fighting video game based on the first season of the Demon Slayer anime and the Mugen Train movie. It was developed by CyberConnect2, the team behind the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series, and will let you play through the various key moments of the anime series.

If you want to pick up a copy of The Hinokami Chronicles, you can grab it here:

It was announced last year that we’d be getting a board game-themed, Mario Party-esque game for the Switch called Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Sweep the Board sometime in 2024.

Image: Ufotable


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At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

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