Demon Slayer Was Almost Pitch-Black — An Editor Pushed Gotouge to Create Tanjiro as the Light

Here is a little behind-the-scenes twist on Demon Slayer I love: Tanjiro, the relentlessly kind kid who tries to see the good even in demons, almost wasn’t Tanjiro. The version we know is basically a rebuild done to keep the story from collapsing under its own bleakness.

The editor who changed everything

Tatsuhiko Katayama, the first editor in charge of Demon Slayer and a supporter of the series from day one, says the earliest draft that landed on his desk was too dark to make it into Weekly Shonen Jump. The initial storyboard leaned heavily on Koyoharu Gotouge’s earlier one-shot, Kagarigari. It was grim, dead serious, and didn’t have much (any) comic relief. In Jump terms: that’s a no-go for serialization.

'I thought it wouldn’t get through unless we switched out the main character... so I asked Gotouge-sensei if there was a brighter, more normal character in the world he had created.'

- Editor Tatsuhiko Katayama

Gotouge took that note and retooled the core of the series. The result is the Tanjiro we know: not naive exactly, but stubbornly optimistic, compassionate to a fault, and someone who believes redemption is possible even for monsters.

From Kagarigari to Kimetsu: what actually changed

Kagarigari’s protagonist was a straight-up tragic case: after his family is slaughtered, he becomes a demon and spirals into revenge and despair. That DNA was in the early Demon Slayer boards too. Katayama pushed for a lead who could offset the tone, not add to the gloom.

• Old blueprint: a villain-leaning lead who turns into a demon after his family’s murder and sinks into vengeance.
• New blueprint: a more empathetic hero, Tanjiro, whose mission shifts from pure revenge to breaking the cycle of tragedy and saving his sister.
• What stayed: the violence, the body horror, the gut-punch deaths, and the grotesque demon designs.
• What changed the vibe: Tanjiro’s refusal to let horror warp him. That moral center keeps the story from feeling nihilistic.
• The ripple effect: the door opened for lighter beats and character comedy — think Zenitsu’s shameless cowardice, Inosuke’s loud, feral bravado, and a whole bunch of unexpectedly cute moments — without erasing the brutality that defines the world.
• Bottom line: this is one of the rare times heavy editorial intervention didn’t sand off the author’s voice. It got the series greenlit for serialization while letting Gotouge keep the gnarlier stuff intact.

Why it matters

Demon Slayer works because it keeps its horror intact but gives you a protagonist who won’t sink with it. That balance wasn’t an accident; it was a conscious pivot driven by editorial notes. You could argue Katayama’s call is the reason Demon Slayer became a megahit instead of a cool, un-serialized footnote.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is currently streaming on Crunchyroll in the US.