The Endless Cycle of Pain: Reflections on Kimetsu no Yaiba’s Ending
DISCLAIMER: This article contains massive spoilers for the manga and future season/s of the anime series, “Kimetsu no Yaiba.” Please proceed with caution.
Usually in most stories we read, when the good finally conquers the evil, the heroes come out seemingly victorious and the sunlight finally streams into the despair-ridden world. All is seemingly good as the heroes finally move onto their own lives, the evil forgotten as they fall into obscurity and the heroes reap the fruits of their own efforts — a world where they can finally have their own happy endings.
Questions, however, beg to be answered.
Is it truly that way in the real world? Do happy endings really exist? Do we truly forget the painful parts and just move on with our lives as if they never happened in the first place?
In the last few chapters, the dust finally settles in the anticlimactic fight against the newly demon-turned Tanjiro and the other demon slayers, wherein Muzan’s last-ditch plan was thwarted. The last few loose plot ends were finally addressed — Nezuko and Sanemi’s relationship finally being mended, the Demon Slayer Corps disbanding after Muzan’s defeat, and Tanjiro, Inosuke, Zenitsu, and Nezuko deciding to settle together, among other things. Everything seems all happy and hopeful; after all, we finally see them moving onto their own lives despite of a mountain of burdens they’re carrying on their backs.
There’s something so sweet with a slight tinge of bitterness in the atmosphere of the chapter. The readers are burdened with the fact that a lot of their comrades were dead, and this happiness might only be something short-lived and surface level.
So, the last chapter — basically, the epilogue — might chronicle their lives years after they have defeated Muzan, right?
Then comes the most bamboozling part — chapter 205, where suddenly, a timeskip into the future, of all things, was shown. No adult Tanjiro, Zenitsu, Inosuke, and Nezuko. No confirmation of what happened with Giyuu and Sanemi. Yes, nothing at all. Technically, it was already hinted that there will be a jump in the setting in the last panel of chapter 204, but to see it unfold before the eyes of the readers is still quite shocking.
This led to a lot of the manga readers being disappointed with the ending, and honestly, their disappointments are well-founded. We are basically seeing a new set of characters in whom we don’t even have any emotional connection with and for some twisted reason, the mangaka (Koyoharu Gotouge) just decided to throw in some happy ending for them and not for the main cast. It seems like the perfect recipe for a disastrous ending, which made the ending quite controversial among the community. Around the time the manga ended, rumors circulated that Gotouge-sensei had to go home and rush the ending due to family problems. This was not confirmed at all by any official sources, so it’s something to be taken with a grain of salt.
Whatever the reason may be, the fact still stands — the community is divisive in regards to the ending of the story.
The Greatest Mystery of All: What Happened Between Chapter 204 and 205
Chapter 204 ended with Tanjiro, Zenitsu, Inosuke, and Nezuko living together back in the mountains where the Kamados once lived in. Then suddenly, it cuts to the distant future time skip in the last panel. Nothing about what happened in between were explicitly revealed in the last chapter, save for some hints of what transpired, like which couples were confirmed.
Tanjiro and Kanao have married and had descendants in the personas of Sumihiko Kamado and Kanata Kamado. Meanwhile, Zenitsu and Nezuko also had descendants in the personas of Yoshiteru Agatsuma and Touko Agatsuma. Inosuke also married someone (speculated as Aoi Kanzaki) and also had a descendant himself in the persona of Aoba Hashibira. All of them looked like carbon copies of their ancestors in more ways than one.
However, even with the ships confirmed, how their relationships prospered throughout the years weren’t revealed. Their adult lives weren’t delved on deeper. Everything that transpired between those two panels of them living together and the future timeskip are all up for speculation of the readers. Though, it could be hinted that their lives together were spent in happiness, with the house almost exploding at how happy they were.
But is it just happiness that they experienced after the grueling war against the demons ended? A lot of evidence points to otherwise. In fact, this is why it is implied think that the distant future timeskip was necessary to end the manga on a bittersweet note rather than a downer ending. The characters never achieved true happy endings in their lifetimes. Yes, no happy endings like what you will expect from the typical hero vs. villain stories, nor the happily ever afters that come after the main cast overcomes all obstacles. Delving into their lives as adults where there’s still pain and suffering does not constitute for a great ending for the demographic the manga was written for. Adding to that, there’s a lot to uncover within their adult lives that one epilogue chapter isn’t enough to show them all.
The ending proves something pervasive within Kimetsu no Yaiba — the endless cycle of pain in life.
Furthermore, there were various hints that were sprinkled within the story that will allow the readers to correctly speculate what may have transpired in their adulthood, namely the curse of the mark, the trauma they will carry for the rest of their lives, and the time period the story was set in.
The Curse of the Mark
The demon slayer mark is a tattoo-like marking that appears on the body of a demon slayer who manages to overcome the life threatening conditions of having a heart rate over 200 bpm, and a body temperature of 39° Celsius. A demon slayer who manages to unlock it will have enhanced physical capabilities, the ability to see through human bodies (i.e. entering the “See-Through World”), and the ability to dye their blades crimson red. The pattern of the tattoo that appears on the body of the demon slayer who unlocks it will coincide with the breathing style used by the said person (i.e. in Tanjiro’s case, the flame-like scar on the left side of his forehead, coinciding with his breath style which is Sun Breathing.)
However, unlocking the demon slayer mark comes with a cost — the user will not be able to live past 25 years old. In exchange of the great power it gives is a reduced lifespan.
Among the finalists of the Final Selection, in his batch, Tanjiro Kamado alone unlocked his demon slayer mark.
This implies that Tanjiro only has 9–10 years left before he kicks the bucket, seeing that he’s more or less 16 years old by Chapter 204. This means that if Tanjiro only had a few years left, he would have married Kanao earlier, with the earliest possible age being 18. Though, however early he may have married Kanao, if he died at the age of 25 and they already had children a year after they got married, he will leave his children when they’re only 6–7 years old. Assuming that what Upper Moon 1 said was true, the hope we can get here is he would have ended up like his father once was — bedridden and frail for the rest of his life past 25 years of age.
Despite of this possibility, there might still be hope that Tanjiro may not have died at the young age of 25. There’s someone who was able to circumvent the curse of the mark and live past 25 years — Yoriichi Tsugikuni.
Yoriichi Tsugikuni was among the demon slayers that existed in the so-called “Golden Era” when the demon slayers were inches away from defeating Muzan due to their power increasing from the awakening of the demon slayer marks. When the Golden Era was about to end, the demon slayers who have awakened their marks dropped dead one by one, exactly after reaching the age of 25.
But not Yoriichi. Yoriichi lived until he was at least 80 years old and even faced Upper Moon 1 in his old age.
Yoriichi is literally the exception among exceptions, a god among men. Unlocking the demon slayer mark already requires a certain amount of strength, but for him to overcome its side-effect proves that he’s literally on another level, far above humans.
Yoriichi and Tanjiro used the same breathing style, which is the “Sun Breathing” (disguised as Hinokami Kagura by the Kamado family). Because they use the same breath style, there’s a possibility that Tanjiro also overcame the curse and live until he was old like what Yoriichi once did.
But the thing is, just as what was mentioned earlier, Yoriichi is the exception among exceptions.
Tanjiro never reached the same level Yoriichi was on despite of the fact that they used the same breathing style. Yoriichi was simply just on another level, something proven by the fact that he almost killed Muzan in one slice when in the final battle, it took the effort of the entire Demon Slayer Corps, from the Ubuyashiki family, hashira, regular demon slayers, to the kakushi themselves to take him down.
This lessens the possibility of Tanjiro being able to overcome the curse of the mark, as he wasn’t completely able to be on par with Yoriichi.
However, there was also another way of overcoming the curse of the mark — by becoming a demon. Upper Moon 1, formerly Michikatsu Tsugikuni, overcame the curse of the mark by becoming a demon under Muzan.
Muzan turned Tanjiro into a demon by passing all of his memories and blood onto him, effectively making him the new demon king. This implies another possibility: the curse of the mark may have been circumvented in the short time he became a demon. That’s to say after he returned back to being a human, the curse of the mark may have been gone already along with his demonification.
Whether he survived the curse of the mark or not will always be up for speculation. But we can be sure of one thing: the possibility of him dying anytime soon is something that they must face with dread as time goes by. Death has always been following the shadows of the demon slayers from the moment they joined the Corps, and despite of the fact that they have vanquished the demons, it seems like it still followed them in their every footstep.
Trauma
Surviving a war against the demon progenitor himself, along with the fact that they lost a whole lot of comrades in the most brutal of ways in front of their eyes, will result in unprecedented amounts of stress and trauma, even if it was not explicitly said that they will suffer from them. Chapter 204 may have showed the happier side of things as they tried to get accustomed again to living after a long time of being at the verge of pain and death, but who’s to say that it was all rainbows and roses after everything they have experienced and lost along the way?
With nothing to distract themselves anymore, there’s more time to parse their thoughts.
Not to mention, the mangaka has always been intricate and careful in showing the impact of traumatic experiences to the characters. They gave importance to these events and did not treat them as mere theatrics to make the characters more sympathetic to the readers — they treated these events as events that truly impacted how these characters act even in the subtlest of ways and not something that could be fixed with only a emotionally moving speech from the protagonist.
If you look closely into the various actions of the characters in the series, a lot of them suffered from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. For now, we will look at how trauma was exhibited in two of the main characters: Tanjiro Kamado and Giyuu Tomioka.
In the case of Tanjiro, his symptoms weren’t given much spotlight and they were much subtle. Tanjiro didn’t particularly close off to others, nor was he aggressive, which are a few of the symptoms of PTSD. It didn’t even seem like he was affected at all by what happened to his family, given how he’s still the same kind person he was ever since the beginning. Contributing to this, scenes where he could have been given the chance to introspect were not seen.
However, all of these symptoms were suddenly brought to the upfront in the Infinity Train arc.
His dream (under the influence of Lower Moon 1’s blood demon art) consisted of him coming back home to see his family still alive, contrary to what really happened in the first chapter where he came home to see his family dead and the only surviving member a demon. The first thing he did after seeing them was hug them tightly, and apologize profusely. This hints on the overwhelming guilt weighing on him, which is also a hint of his survivor’s guilt.
After that, as Tanjiro rejects the chance of staying in the dream, Rokuta calls out to him, and he says:
I’m sorry, Rokuta. I can’t stay with you any longer. But your big brother is always thinking of you. I’m always thinking of everyone.
This shows that despite of the fact that his thoughts aren’t always explicitly shown, everything that happened in the past also weighed heavily on Tanjiro. He didn’t forget them. He’s just good at hiding his suffering due to how he was raised as a person. Because of the heavy responsibilities and expectations put on the shoulders of the elder siblings in this series (which is apparent across many characters), Tanjiro has steeled himself to be someone who can’t break down even if he was suffering. This explains why he’s so mature for someone of his age.
That, and he probably drilled to his head what Giyuu said to him in the first chapter — to not despair and only move forward.
It’s mindblowing how strong Tanjiro is both mentally and emotionally to handle the trauma of what he has experienced along with the responsibilities put on him while staying the kind person he is without even breaking down. But this doesn’t remove the fact that Tanjiro is still a child no matter how mature he seems for his age.
Such is the world they lived in — there was no time to mourn properly for his loved ones.
Another case is Giyuu Tomioka. In the first parts of the anime, Giyuu has always been heralded in the fandom as the stock edgy, stoic character who’s badass in battle. This makes for a character a lot of people will look up to, because being able to effortlessly destroy your opponents with a stoic face while throwing out some cool one-liners in between is sure to sway a lot of people’s hearts.
But Giyuu is more than some badass stoic character. His true colors were revealed in the Natagumo Mountain arc during his conversation with Shinobu Kocho.
Giyuu was told by Shinobu that he was hated by everyone in the Corps, something that shook Giyuu, as if he wasn’t aware that people hate him. He even asks her why she told him he was hated. He even likes to stand far away from the other pillars whenever they hold together a meeting, showing how he distances himself from others which led to him being detached from others. This caused the other pillars to greatly misunderstand his actions, thinking that he thinks so highly of himself that he has to distance himself from them.
This, of course, leads to Giyuu being incapable of maintaining close relationships with anyone else, another symptom of his trauma.
Giyuu doesn’t think highly of himself. In fact, the enormous amount of guilt and shame he always felt were seamlessly weaved into his very character, from his actions to his dialogue. This is because of his survivor’s guilt from the past Final Selection where he was saved by Sabito and was bailed out for the rest of the seven days after being injured. Sabito died, while he survived.
He felt utterly useless and powerless.
This is why he insisted that the Water Hashira seat was vacant even though it was him who was holding said seat. He felt unworthy of the position. After all, how could a man who couldn’t even kill a single demon hold one of the highest positions in the whole Corps when the one truly worthy of it died protecting him? It was as if fate was insulting him.
This is why he always stood away from the pillars and didn’t form any close relationships with them. It’s not like he felt like he was of a higher plane than them. It was completely the opposite. But because of him being withdrawn and not able to completely relay his thoughts effectively to others, they completely misunderstood him and thought otherwise.
Adding to that, Giyuu became emotionally numb. He might still show emotions from time to time, but for most of it, he was always stoic.
Furthermore, Giyuu’s backstory completely recontextualized and explained the intention behind what he said to Tanjiro in the first chapter.
Giyuu probably saw himself in Tanjiro when he bowed down to ask Giyuu to spare his little sister. It wasn’t like he was insensitive to Tanjiro’s despair at that moment. It was because he had been there. The past him could only cry and despair at the memories of those he lost because he was so weak to protect his loved ones.
It was like he was seeing his pathetic past self in Tanjiro.
He didn’t want Tanjiro to end up like that, all tangled in blankets, crying at his lost loved ones as time passed by, not finding the resolve to move forward. He wanted Tanjiro to move forward despite of what he has experienced, something that he probably wished someone told him before. This was proven by his thoughts that followed after.
When Tanjiro was seemingly dead after a very long fight against Muzan, Giyuu’s trauma resurfaced again.
Giyuu’s feelings of uselessness resurfaced when he thought that Tanjiro died. Despite of the fact that he did so much during the whole battle — battling the Upper Moon 3 and protecting Tanjiro even at the cost of his life, joining the battle against the demon progenitor, fighting even after losing his right arm and at the verge of losing his consciousness from the various injuries he sustained throughout the whole fight — he still felt the same powerlessness and uselessness he felt from when Sabito saved him and the others in their Final Selection.
Just like with Tanjiro, Giyuu suffered from an immense survivor’s guilt and trauma, which impacted his present behavior — how he wasn’t able to form close relationships, his inability to articulate his feelings in a manner that others won’t misunderstood, his seemingly emotional numbness, and his feelings of uselessness and powerlessness.
Trauma never goes away. It stays with people years, decades, and even a lifetime after they experience it. Even Tanjiro’s kind words to him never vanquished the great impact Giyuu’s trauma had on him, because that’s how reality works. Tanjiro’s kindness may have helped Giyuu in some way, but it never completely made the years of trauma and survivor’s guilt vanish away just like that.
With how well-handled and how carefully explored trauma is in the characters, it is of no doubt that the characters will never move on from the final fight against Muzan. Their trauma is something real, not something superficial that could just be ignored. Adding to the trauma are the scars and lifelong injuries they will have to carry with them for the rest of their lives — and again, just like how the reality of death is clinging onto them even into a world where demons don’t exist, these kids dealing with trauma and lifelong injuries after a grueling war against the supernatural is all sorts of messed up. Just like what have been mentioned before, this doesn’t make for a happy ending, and one epilogue chapter will not justify all of these.
The Setting of Kimetsu no Yaiba and Important Historical Events Post-Canon
As we all know, Kimetsu no Yaiba was set in the Taisho period. A lot of subtle elements in the story all add to the reality of the setting the story takes place in. This was already revealed in the Final Selection arc, when the hand demon asked what period they were in.
Even though it wasn’t revealed in the story when exactly in the Taisho period the story took place in, it could be deduced from what the hand demon said that they are in the early years of the said period. The hand demon mentioned that he was imprisoned in the mountain by Urokodaki during the Keio era and has been there for 47 years. Keio era took place from 1865–1868. Assuming that he was imprisoned in 1868, adding 47 years will yield 1914, which means that the story took place at least 2 years into the Taisho period.
Now that we know that the story took place in the early years of the Taisho period, it should be given attention that during this period, two major events happened: the First World War and the Great Kanto earthquake.
During the first World War, Japan played an important role. The first World War happened from 1914–1918, which fits into the time period of when Taisho period happened. During this time, Japan was with the Triple Entente which was composed of the countries Russia, Britain, and France. Japan was able to come out of the first World War relatively unscathed, and joined the top ranks. It was regarded along with Great Britain, US, France, and Italy as the Big Five, and convened together in the Paris Peace Conference to sign the Treaty of Versailles.
However, Japan still felt the impact of the war in their country despite of coming out relatively undamaged compared to other countries. It experienced wartime inflation and low wages, which led to widespread protests all over the country due to the increasing prices of rice, which is a staple part of the Japanese diet.
In 1923, this growth, along with the social and political unrest experienced by Japan, were halted when a great earthquake shook Japan. The earthquake measured 7.8 magnitude in the Richter scale. This is called the Great Kanto earthquake. It was an earthquake so great that it caused Japan to fall into an economic depression 2 years before the Great Depression even happened. The earthquake also devastated Tokyo and caused large fires to break out in the various cities, and caused over 100,000–150,000 deaths, with at least 600,000 left homeless. Mob violence began to be a big problem during this time.
All of these events show that even years after they defeated Muzan and his cronies, more strife still followed them afterwards.
To make it worse, if they survived these events and made it through their adulthood with the reality of death still clinging onto their shadows and the burden of trauma on their backs, they will face another suffering — the World War 2. While this happened in the following Showa period, it’s still well in their lifetime.
Some of the major happenings in Japan during the second World War include the various air raids that peppered various cities in the country and the infamous bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
One of the air raids performed on Japan was called Tōkyōdaikūshū (or simply, “Bombing of Tokyo”). This series of firebombing air raids lasted from November 17, 1944 until August 15, 1945, which was the day Japan surrendered. During this series of firebombing air raids, codename Operation Meetinghouse, also known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid, was conducted, which was the deadliest recorded air strike in history, as it brought casualties of more than 90,000 to 100,000 people, although it was said that is impossible to completely confirm the total number of casualties. Not to mention was its effect on the infrastructures. It was recorded that over 15.8 square miles of Tokyo was burned down in the aftermath.
On the other hand, the atomic bombs were also dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, the atomic bomb named “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima, and three days later, “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki. For the next few months, at least 90,000 to 146,000 people were killed in the aftermath of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, and 39,000 to 80,000 were killed in Nagasaki. More people died in the months that followed after due to the side-effects of the atomic bombing.
What makes everything more tragic is the fact that Tanjiro and his companions were basically only children, at least 15 to 17 years old, when they experienced all of this. Children are supposed to mature slowly and enjoy things in their life at their own pace, but Tanjiro and co. were forced to mature early, and to face things that children — people weren’t supposed to experience. No child has to be burdened with death and trauma and at an age where growth is at its most sensitive for them. What’s more, they weren’t able to live peacefully due to future events that not even them have any control over.
It was as if life continued to screw over them.
Just as what Nezuko have asked, a question looms behind everything that happens in life.
Why are all the kind people working hard to survive always the one being trampled on?
Conclusion
We can say that Kimetsu no Yaiba reflects a painful reality in life: there are no happy endings; there’s only an endless cycle of pain.
Tanjiro and his companions may have freed the world from the threat of demons. Their efforts paid off and resulted in a world without demons in chapter 205, effectively allowing others to break free from the pain they experienced from losing a lot of things to the demons. Even so, they weren’t able to achieve their own happy endings. Throughout the years following their fight against Muzan, they still have to endure a lot of suffering dished out to them by the world. From the fear of their impending deaths, lifelong injuries, an unprecedented amount of trauma, to the world wars that followed thereafter, they themselves weren’t able to break free from the cycle of pain.
Living is painful. Death is the only sweet release from the pain life inflicts upon us, as painful as it is to admit.
Even so, despite of the pain life brings us, despite of the endless cycle of pain that we’re all bound to suffer from, there’s still beauty in every passing moment. As long as there’s still a future in the horizon, something to look forward to, we must continue living.
Tanjiro himself even said so.
The world is now without evil demons. But in exchange, we lost so many things. Even so, we have to stay alive. As long as tomorrow comes for us.
