My take on Demon Slayer, “Society could turn anyone ‘oni’”

Japanese manga and TV animation series, “Kimetsu no Yaiba” or “Demon Slayer” has been a huge hit during the pandemic, and a film based on the manga has broken box office records in Japan, grossing over 72 million USD in just 24 days.

Demons are not absolute evils

Demon Slayer is originally a manga series by Koyoharu Gotouge. It is about the main character, Tanjirō Kamado, engaging in fierce battles with human-eating demons to avenge his family who was slaughtered by them. The story closely follows the plot the famous Japanese folktale of a demon buster called Oni Taiji in Japanese. What differentiates Demon Slayer from the folktales, however, is that the demons are not always absolute evil. Moreover, they were not born as demons but were once human beings turned into demons. This fact makes me contemplate the question, “what are demons anyway?”

Oni as a subject of fear

Oni or demons have been a subject of fear for a long time, and their origin goes back to the Heian era (794-1185) after the concept of Buddhism came in from China. Since then the Japanese are often frightened of and yet sometimes revere oni as supernatural beings like gods that exist beyond human understanding in various faith traditions, including indigenous Japanese practices. In folktales, oni have always been something to avoid and kept away from because all traditionally oni do are commit thefts and bloodshed.

Painful past turns spirits into demons

However, unlike oni from folktales, most demons from the anime have painful and sad pasts that are to be revealed when they are get killed by Tanjirō; many of them have experienced being looked down on by society and abandoned by their loved ones once when they were human beings. By empathizing with the demon’s past, the audience discovers that anyone could be a demon. As many people once believed oni to be reborn of the evil spirit of a person who dies with great resentment, our powerful and negative emotions may have the power to turn us into evils.

Accepting and understanding others is key to society without oni

Although humans are inherently programmed to fear social rejection on an evolutionary level, we are all unique and different. In order to improve society for everyone, we must strive to accept and understand others, much like Tanjirō does with demons. Otherwise, any one of us may feel isolated, humiliated and develop feelings of hatred. This could eventually turn humans into oni. Unlike its title, “Demon Slayer” may be teaching us that slaying is not always the answer when encountering evils.