What is Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba?

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is a manga by Koyoharu Gotouge, serialised in Weekly Shonen Jump from February 2016 to May 2020 and collected in 23 volumes. It is set in Taisho era Japan, and it follows Tanjiro Kamado, a charcoal seller whose family is slaughtered by demons while he is away. His younger sister Nezuko survives, transformed into a demon who, unusually, retains human emotion and refuses to eat people.

Tanjiro joins the Demon Slayer Corps, an unofficial, centuries old organisation of swordsmen who fight demons with breathing techniques and blades forged from a special ore. The story runs through a training arc, a sequence of mission arcs in which Tanjiro and his companions Zenitsu and Inosuke grow into fighters, the introduction of the elite Hashira, and a final campaign against the progenitor of demons, Muzan Kibutsuji.

The series is complete, which shapes everything about collecting and reading it. There is one manga, one ending, and a defined shelf of 23 volumes, followed by short epilogue and side material rather than a sequel. The anime adaptation by Ufotable began in 2019 and is concluding as a film trilogy, so the franchise's life now runs through cinemas and editions rather than new chapters.

Its commercial scale is the other essential fact. The manga became the best selling manga in Japan in 2019 and 2020, overtaking long running rivals in yearly sales, and passed 150 million copies in circulation with only 23 volumes, a per volume figure with few precedents. The separate page in this section on how it became Japan's best selling manga covers the sales story in detail.