In Demon Slayer, young Tanjiro returns to his rural mountaintop home from an errand, to find his entire family slaughtered. When his barely surviving sister shortly turns into a demon, he goes on a quest to restore her humanity by any means. Those means include joining a clandestine demon-hunting organization to collect the blood samples of the ones he kills.
For an anime with a cheerful child as the main character, Demon Slayer is spectacularly gory. The show gets creative in contrasting Tanjiro’s hopeful optimism with its slashings, stabbings, and decapitations. The top-quality visuals showcase the violent world of these mythical Taisho-era creatures. Sparing us the long-winded exposition and dialogue, Demon Slayer wastes no time to live up to its title. Tanjiro and the demons do their dirty work in the most graphic and satisfying ways.
10 Tanjiro Vs Nezuko Vs Giyu
The first fight is in the first episode, and it’s the fight for Nezuko’s life. Tanjiro descends the mountain in icy-cold weather with his sick sister in tow, braving her heavy weight, the sub-zero temperatures, and his own exhaustion to carry her into town for medical attention. Before long, she transforms into a ravenous man-eating creature and straddles him, fangs baring. But that’s only half the fight, because a swordsman (Giyu) appears and threatens to slay them both.
There isn’t an abundance of blood and guts in this scene, but the grief and tragedy cut deeper than the steel can. The battle previews a taste of what stylish action choreography fans are in for. A melodic soundscape gives rhythm to Nezuko’s newfound powers as she leaps, swings, and dodges in an offensive martial-arts ballet. It’s not the strikes that are gruesome here, it’s those near-misses. These fights set-up the series by highlighting the danger of each swing as opposed to the gross consequences of a successful strike.
9 Tanjiro Vs Temple Demon
Tanjiro engages a toothy demon in a temple, armed with nothing more than his utility hatchet. When the demon pounces, his sister cuts the will-he-or won’t-he-bite tension by kicking his head clean OFF. It’s shocking for being unexpected and gross. As a reminder that demons are undead, the severed head starts trash-talking Tanjiro from a distance and its body mounts another attack.
This battle is gruesome but in a way that is much campier than it is gory. The scene highlights the show’s entertainment value because there’s no need to disgust or traumatize the audience too much… yet.
8 Tanjiro Vs Morphed Demon
After a grueling two years of training, Tanjiro finds himself in a survival exercise for admission into the Demon Slayer Corps. In this mountaintop challenge, we learn that demons come in all shapes and sizes; this one being about as big as a small house. It has multiple limbs that stretch to whatever and wherever it desires, and they are fast. The villain is chatty. He monologues and taunts Tanjiro for several minutes before he gets a satisfying slay. The gruesome fight here is all about stakes. It depicts the uphill battle of a potential demon slayer’s future.
7 Tanjiro Vs Swamp Demon
It’s a Tanjiro/Nezuko team up against a swamp-creature that can portal through deep-sea lagoons. The fight is vile because it’s designed to be especially creepy, from the serial-abduction subplot to the murky blue-green palette of the episode. There are metaphors to be found here about the dark depths of souls and the immense (water) pressure to triumph over what's mysterious and unknown. The challenge of this undersea fight makes for a more visceral battle later on, when Tannjiro gets an unencumbered opportunity to slice and dices the bad guys up at the surface.
6 Tanjiro Vs Susamaru & Yahaba
Gruesome doesn’t always mean buckets of blood, and the near-bloodless battles of episodes 9 and 10 support this assertion. Tanjiro takes on two demons that menace him and his present company with toy ball projectiles, assisted by manipulated air magic.
The animators spare no expense on this high-octane hand to hand combat. The fight hits hard in an eerily realistic way, essentially as a deadly dodgeball game where the balls sever heads and slice faces. The grief within these episodes devastates fans, but not without threading in themes of how endurance and strength can triumph over relentless brutality.
5 Tanjiro Vs Kyogai
Tanjiro finds himself in Kyogai’s drum house of horrors. Kyogai can manipulate space by moving the walls around his unwelcome guests in different directions, thus knocking them off-balance. The battle is a near loss for Tanjiro, and it’s much more painful to witness than it is to celebrate as something entertaining. Tanjiro has to overcome tremendous fear and desperation to survive the wall-to-wall pounding that he takes.
Most impressive is how Tanjiro clings to his honor and nobility, which he uses mid-fight to appeal to the demon in a genuinely compassionate way. The never-give-up shounen anime trope is usually wholesome and heartwarming, but it is also agonizing to endure under these circumstances.
4 Tanjiro Vs Inosuke
The Tanjiro vs Inosuke fight is especially violent, and that’s impressive for one of the most lighthearted comedic episodes of the season. To defend his friends, Tanjiro breaks Inosuke’s ribs with his fist, which sets off some excellent unarmed combat. After dancing around the 'swords-must-be-drawn' rule of illegal slayer corps infighting, Tanjiro headbutts his way to victory. Similar to the near-miss strikes of the pilot episode, the dodgy dances they both use to cheat death induce more flinching than a bloodbath can. The manic scenes also show that defensive fighting methods are just as exhilarating as the attacks.
3 Zenitsu Vs Spider Demon
There is a man-spider creature that turns people into his arachnid minions, and he battles the loud and cowardly Zenitsu. Zenitsu's time to shine as a supporting character is long overdue, but the impending death by poison is the trade-off. No one likes creepy-crawlies or the ugly, spider-like characteristics of venom and pus.
For this encounter, Zenitsu is unaware of his recurring tendency to faint from fear, then immediately sleep-fight his enemies. When this alter-ego fighter cracks off a thunderous victory, the glory of it is electrifying.
2 Tanjiro Vs Rui
Rui, the most dangerous foe yet, is so evil, so violent, and so psychotic that he sets the power-level precedent for the hyped Kizuki villains of this series. Unfortunately, Tanjiro gets a merciless beat down, and Rui tosses him around with ease. Seeing his sister’s life and safety on the line, Tanjiro then unleashes his final form. Even then, it’s nearly not enough. The blood and gore here is used to necessary effect, to show how dangerous the situation is, to illustrate the demon's evil, and to put Tanjiro out of his optimistic element.
1 Muzan Kibutsuki Vs Lower Five Kizuki
The most gruesome battle is technically not a battle, because it simply foreshadows the ones to come next season. This sequence features the demon baddie Muzan Kibutsuki in hands-down the most graphic and violent display of a crime boss torturing his underlings. He kills all but one of them to send the lone survivor a message. The dialogue complements the gore by instilling fear while asserting this character’s dominance. This battle is beyond gruesome because the one-way fight is just as chilling psychologically as it is for the characters physically.