Why did Muzan kill Tanjiro’s family?

The whole story of Demon Slayer starts on a winter night. Tanjiro Kamado goes down to the village to sell his charcoal, spends the night at a neighbour’s because of the snow, and the next day finds his family slaughtered. Only Nezuko survived, turned into a demon.

The culprit is Muzan Kibutsuji, the king of demons. Tanjiro realises it later, when he recognises his scent. But why would Muzan, who has lived hidden among humans for a thousand years, go after a family of charcoal burners lost in the mountains? This article brings together what the story shows and the leads it leaves open. Our page on Tanjiro Kamado, the hero of Demon Slayer traces his path since that night.

What we know about that night

The story does not show the attack. The reader arrives with Tanjiro on a scene that is already over: the reddened snow, the bodies of his brothers and sisters, his mother who was trying to protect the youngest. The first pages of Demon Slayer play on this absence.

Tanjiro finds Nezuko still warm and carries her on his back to look for a doctor. On the way, she transforms. Giyu Tomioka, a demon slayer, arrives at that moment, and it is he who explains to Tanjiro what a demon is.

Muzan’s name is not spoken that day. Tanjiro only keeps in his memory a foreign scent, on the threshold of his house, which he will not come across again until months later.

The Kamado family before the tragedy

The Kamados live off the charcoal they make and sell in the village. The father, Tanjuro, died of illness some time before the start of the series. Kie, the mother, raises her six children alone, with the help of Tanjiro, the eldest.

After Tanjiro and Nezuko come Takeo, Hanako, Shigeru and little Rokuta. The series shows them in only a few scenes, enough for their death to weigh on everything that follows. Our article on the Kamado family presents each of them.

Nothing outwardly sets this family apart from any other. It is poor, close-knit, and lives far from everything. That is precisely what makes the question so troubling: nothing in their daily life suggests they are of interest to the king of demons.

One detail does count, though. Every New Year, the Kamados perform the Hinokami Kagura, the Dance of the Fire God, a ritual passed down from father to son along with a pair of earrings. This ritual has an origin the family itself does not know.

First lead: a demon that could withstand the sun

Muzan has a single great goal: to no longer fear the sun. For a thousand years, he has been turning humans in the hope that one of them will become a demon able to live in broad daylight. If he got one, he could devour it and gain its immunity.

Most humans who receive his blood die or become ordinary demons. Muzan knows this and carries on anyway, as chance encounters allow. An isolated family offers him several attempts at once, with no witness. Demon Slayer shows this casualness in Asakusa: to cover his escape, Muzan scratches a random passer-by and turns him in front of his wife, without sparing him a glance.

This lead is the most solid, because what follows bears it out. Nezuko, the only one who survives his blood, ends up withstanding the sun. Muzan then discovers that he created, without knowing it, exactly the demon he was looking for. Our article on Nezuko and the sun tells of this transformation.

In this reading, the Kamados are not chosen targets. They are test subjects among others, and the children’s death is only the result of an attempt that failed for all of them, except one.

Muzan in a white suit and matching hat also exists as a pop figure, in the collection dedicated to Muzan Kibutsuji.

Second lead: the hanafuda earrings

The earrings Tanjiro wears are not just a family trinket. They belonged to Yoriichi Tsugikuni, the only swordsman who ever put Muzan in danger. He entrusted them to an ancestor of the Kamados, along with the dance that would become the Hinokami Kagura.

Muzan keeps a fear of Yoriichi that has never left him. When he crosses paths with Tanjiro in Asakusa and catches sight of the earrings, his reaction is immediate: he sends two demons, Susamaru and Yahaba, to kill him. Our article on Tanjiro’s hanafuda earrings traces their history.

Some readers conclude that Muzan was already trying to wipe out this line on the night of the massacre. The story does not confirm it. Rather, it shows Muzan discovering the earrings in Asakusa, which suggests he did not know who the Kamados were when he entered their home.

The lead remains appealing, because it ties the night of the tragedy to the common thread of the whole series. But it is more interpretation than fact.

The role of the earrings is in any case revealed only gradually in Demon Slayer. Only in the last arc does Tanjiro discover, through his ancestor’s memories, the link between his family and Yoriichi.

Third lead: the blue spider lily

The third explanation runs through the flower Muzan has been seeking for a thousand years. The blue spider lily was part of the remedy that turned him into a demon, and he believes it alone could free him from his weakness to the sun.

The series’ second fanbook offers a clue: Kie Kamado knew where this flower grew. The flower only opens a few days a year, in broad daylight, which explains why Muzan, who only goes out at night, never found it. Our article on the blue spider lily details this mystery.

Nothing suggests Muzan knew Kie held this secret. If he had, killing her would have made no sense. Most fans therefore see a cruel irony in it rather than a motive: Muzan killed, without knowing it, the woman who could have led him to what he was looking for.

This irony runs through the whole ending of Demon Slayer. Muzan misses what he desires because he never takes an interest in the humans he destroys.

Why did Nezuko survive?

Of the whole family, only Nezuko survives Muzan’s blood. She does more than survive: she becomes a demon apart, who sleeps to regain her strength instead of eating humans, and who keeps part of her consciousness.

The story gives no single explanation. Nezuko received a dose of blood that turns her without killing her. Her will, her attachment to her brother and Urokodaki’s hypnosis then help her not to attack humans. Our article on Nezuko’s transformation into a demon comes back to those first days.

Her survival changes everything. Without her, Tanjiro would never have joined the demon slayers to look for a cure. It is Muzan’s only mistake that night, and it ends up causing his downfall. The first episode of the Demon Slayer anime in fact opens on this image: Tanjiro running through the snow, his sister on his back, before the viewer even knows what has happened.

The elegant embroidered black suit Muzan wears when he passes himself off as a gentleman is found in the demon cosplay collection.

What Muzan says about it himself

Muzan never justifies his crimes. During their last confrontation, he answers Tanjiro with a speech that says more than any motive: survivors should think of him as a natural disaster, an earthquake or a storm, and be glad to still be alive instead of seeking revenge.

This sentence shows how he sees humans. For him, the Kamado family mattered no more than any other. He probably does not even remember them. Our article on the fight between Tanjiro and Muzan tells of this confrontation.

That may be the truest answer to the question. Muzan needs no reason to kill. He kills because he can, and the night of the massacre was, for him, just one night among thousands of others.

Tanjiro, for his part, never forgets it. This gap between the killer who remembers nothing and the victim who remembers everything gives Demon Slayer its deepest anger.

Tanjiro, the brother who made it

If Tanjiro had slept at home that night, he would probably have died with his family. The chance of a snowy night at a neighbour’s saved his life, and the series keeps coming back to it. Demon Slayer fans remember this neighbour, Saburo, who insists that he not take the road at night, because of the demons that prowl the mountains.

He carries survivor’s guilt, the guilt of not having been there to protect his family. It drives him to become a demon slayer, to protect Nezuko at all costs and to pursue Muzan to the very end. Our page on Nezuko Kamado, Tanjiro’s sister tells of this bond.

The massacre is also the root of his compassion. Tanjiro knows what demons destroy, but he also knows they were once human, sometimes victims of Muzan like his sister. Our page on the demons of Demon Slayer shows how many of them were turned against their will.

Carrying the Kamado legacy

Demon Slayer fans often pay tribute to the Kamado family through the hanafuda earrings, the symbol that links Tanjiro to his father, to the Hinokami Kagura and to Yoriichi.

They can be worn on their own or with Tanjiro’s green and black checked haori, for a full cosplay. You will find all his products in the collection dedicated to Tanjiro Kamado.

For Muzan fans, on the other hand, the white hat and red gaze from Asakusa are enough to evoke the king of demons, the elegant man who hides the massacre of a whole family.

These rising-sun discs are worn on the ear, among the shop’s earrings.