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demonslayedher · 2 years

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Do you think the Demon Slayer Corps' final selection process is a terrible and inefficient induction method?

I've seen this point made here or there, with good reasons about how it unnecessarily decreases the talent pool by killing or traumatizing its participants, or dropping them into fighting demons instead of acclimating them. As opposed to agreeing or disagreeing with a point already well-made, I'd like to take the harder route of playing alligator's advocate in defense of the Final Selection as an inseparable element from Kimetsu no Yaiba as a whole. This is based primarily on sketches of a scrapped precursor to KnY, and commentary from KnY’s first editor (both included in the first fanbook).

If we step back to 2014, Gotouge had won a prize for a very rough stand-alone story in a Meiji/Taisho-esque setting, with a strong one-armed swordsman blinded with scars across his face, and monsters who were like vampires in Japanese clothing. Oh, and Tamayo and Yushiro were in it too. This story was “Kagarigari” and it granted the 25-ish-year-old alligator with thick glasses the chance to become a profession mangaka with guidance from the Shounen Jump editorial staff. However, Gotouge’s attempts thereafter to create a serialized manga (“Rokkotsu-san”, “Haeniwa no Jiguzagu”, “Dontsukazaguruma”, published in a compilation at a later date) all failed to be green-lit for serialization and were limited to one-shot stories. If Gotouge wasn’t going to get a serialization green-lit in 2015, the alligator’s mangaka career would be over. There was some desperation to create something with impact, and alligator and editor together went back to the prize-winner rough piece “Kagarigari” for inspiration.

This was how "Kisatsu no Nagare" (Demon Killer Nagare) has born.

Sketches of the first three chapters were included in the first KnY fanbook, and ties to early elements of KnY were obvious; most of the worldbuilding was already there and even panels of an encounter with the Swamp Demon were practically reused later. However, it was a dark story which stressed how even if the Meiji government wanted to deny belief in old things like “demons” there were still those who hunted them, a secret society of swordsmen. Even if Meiji reforms wanted to leave it all behind, the common people who still were forced to acknowledge the existence of demons likewise had to face other darknesses of the world, like how the main character, Nagare, was abandoned because he was a powerless child in a large family and they needed to decrease the number of mouths to feed.

His future cultivator, Banda Sakonji, an old man with a wrinkled face in clear view, likewise does not sugarcoat that Nagare was abandoned, and he pushes this child left for three days in the snow to make a decision. Will he stay there and turn to bones? Will he go somewhere where orphans are cared for? Or will he join the old man, who will put him through hell but make him into the strongest of people?

Nagare makes the choice to go become strong, though he was warned of the suffering ahead. This theme of “cruelty” is still so deeply worked into the early worldbuilding of KnY that “Cruelty” is the name of its first volume, and the bleak desperation of fighting demons is a heavy element of KnN. It is only swordsmen who can be stoic enough to endure this hell who become strong enough to fight demons.

After years of training very similar to what Tanjiro underwent in KnY, Banda sends Nagare to the Final Selection, where he must survive seven days in order to be chosen as a member of the Demon Slayer Corp. He fights demons for the first time and sees the fruits of his training, but on the morning of the final full day, with one night to go, he comes across a boy who is dying. This boy isn’t afraid to die—he came into this knowing full well what he was in for—but he hates demons because they killed his family and cannot stand the idea of being eaten by them, thereby becoming a part of them and strengthening them. He begs desperately not to be left on the mountain for that to happen. Nagare agrees, but then a girl with a steely composition and subtle smile advises Nagare to leave him. After all, that dying boy is a Marechi, and his blood will summon a mob of starving demons to him for the extra strength he can give them. When Nagare says her how she can stand to not help him, she replies, “There’s no meaning in ‘selection’ if you had to be rescued, right?”

This is the level of cruelty which a harsh reality brewed in its own demon slayers, as it was probably thought that no one soft could survive and do any proper good against demons otherwise. Their abilities were so advanced that they not only had high expectations of themselves, but of each other, and the nuances of the rest of the side characters’ interactions are that they’re all numb to how much they see people of less than the highest talent drop like flies. It’s like they don’t even bother to acknowledge anyone who doesn’t have the basic skill to survive those seven days. As Banda waits anxiously outside the wisteria boundary to see if his pupil Nagare survives, the others in the organization—presumably cultivators, many covered with scars from their own demon slaying careers—make fun of him for being so anxious, as they all know to expect that hardly anyone ever makes it out. They’re callous because they’ve been through hell.

This story is set in the Meiji Era, and while it’s not KnY canon, it’s easy to imagine that the Demon Slayer Corp did have this mentality in the decades prior to Tanjiro joining. They were exceedingly talented swordsman who acknowledged unusual cruelty and suffering beyond what humans were capable of causing, and that required them to be more than any normal human warrior would ever be capable of, and that meant proving over and over that they can fight on a demon’s level.

At the end of Nagare’s Final Selection, he drags himself out with the crying, apologizing, dying Marechi boy on his back, but Nagare has lost the lower halves of both his legs (he’ll later use two black peg legs), the lower half of one arm (he later fights one-handed), and his eyes have been blinded by deep scratches across his face. Banda rushes to apply first aid while everyone tells him to give it up; that boy is a goner, and if demon blood got in the wounds, he’ll turn into a demon anyway (this still seems to have been the plan in Chapter 1 of KnY but was later retconned). Banda, too soft at his core and too caring for the orphan he raised, insists he’ll be fine and that Nagare is strong. Nagare, incensed at how they are making fun of Banda, screams back how Banda is amazing and that Nagare will prove that by becoming the strongest, a Pillar.

The whole episode illustrates how yes, being a demon slayer means going through hell.

We retained a lot of KnN; like I said, a lot of the world building was already there. Mt. Fujikasane, Kasugai-garasu, Marechi, "Akki Messatsu" carved into the blade, even the characters seem like proto designs for Urokodaki, Kanao, and Giyuu/Sabito. But the issue was that Gotouge was also facing a Final Selection of sorts; without surviving the first bumpy years of breaking into the manga industry, there would be no manga career. KnN was lacking something. Gotouge’s style and world building creativity was there, and had gotten the alligator further than many mangaka hopefuls ever get. However, as much as Gotouge wanted to show how strong someone with a core drive like Nagare could be, even though he was even more disabled now than in his first appearance in “Kagarigari,” he was lacking in the impact Gotouge needed to keep people following a story. This was why, on one phone call, the editor suggested changing to a different protagonist, asking if there were any other characters in the world who were more normal and relatable. The editor recalls the alligator saying, “well, there’s this one character, but I don’t know if he’s interesting,” and when asked to describe him, “he’s a boy who sells charcoal, and his sister got turned into a demon, so he joins the Demon Slayer Corp to try to heal her” and the editor’s immediate impression was like, ‘hello, that is THE protagonist, we had this protagonist all along!?’ and said, “Let’s go with that!! Normal is good!!”

Next thing you know, Kimetsu no Yaiba began serialization in February of 2016. The alligator survived the long Final Selection, but as a member of the Shounen Jump Corp with additional feedback from other editors and readers, as well as gobs more practice developing a story and characters, the alligator found a switch in Breath, it seems.

Tanjiro, for his innate positivity, not only changed the story and made it lighter, but changed the core of Gotouge’s style. I’ve seen it happen with other serialized manga too, where it might start with heavy themes and a “cool” style, but as readers and mangaka alike start falling in love with the characters, the sense of endearment overflows, and suddenly the “cool” has turned into “cute and indulgent and sometimes cool.” In this case, we can add “sometimes cruel,” as Tanjiro added such a sense of levity to the manga that something as cruel as the Final Selection, as well as other questionable Ubuyashiki decisions, feel out of place when juxtaposed against the sense of love and affection for one another which seems to permeate the Corp by the end of the manga.

However, we mustn’t forget that the Pillars have always been willing to put themselves through personal hell if it means being strong enough to fight on par with strong demons; that the Ubuyashiki clan has always been willing to do any drastic thing to achieve their nearby impossible goal of defeating Kibutsuji Muzan and eliminate all evil demons, and that the average Corp members have (almost) always accepted that they might die anytime but are willing to undergo anything to be able to eliminate demons.

You simply do not join the Corp without displaying a level of commitment, and that you can hold out on your own in extreme situations. While there may be some element of weeding people out without needing to give them the full tangible benefits of a Corp member, I think it is a matter of selecting swordsmen from among the many, many people who wish to devote their lives to the elimination of demons. It’s just reality that not many of them are going to have talent as swordsmen, and hopefully the high stakes of the Final Selection are a way of sending those not cut out for it down the path of being Kakushi or supporters in other ways. Kakushi, after all, may not be as directly helpful as swordmen, but they are just as necessary and just as committed. I’d like to think that many Kakushi started by trying to be swordsmen, but their cultivators stopped dissuaded them early on, never giving them permission to enter the Final Selection. It’s “Final” for a reason, the cultivators may be expected to stop those people without the necessary talent earlier on. They get paid stipends to care for their pupils and raise them well, so the Final Selection is just as much as test for them as well, and the stakes of the Final Selection hold them accountable for raising swordsmen who can endure hell. As much as they may wish to coddle them and relate to them for what they’ve already been through with how many of them are orphaned by demons, there is no room for softness. The cultivators need to be harsh enough to brace their pupils for the life they think they want, and want enough to be willing to lose it right away. They also need to be harsh enough to say “no” to children who clearly don’t have what it takes.

But this is a Corp of hotheads who passionately hate demons and want nothing more than to kill them with their own blades. If they insist on having a go at this career, then it may be safer to have them fail in a controlled environment rather than out among demons roaming free, who will get stronger for having eaten swordsmen powered by Breath. Considering the number of them who failed, that’s like damage control.

It’s not a perfect system, but it’s not a perfect Corp, and it’s not a perfect manga. Still, in order for the manga to survive to a point where it could improve, the stakes of the Final Selection had to be high enough to keep readers invested in Tanjiro’s abilities as a main character. It could had been very easy for the manga to be canceled in its infancy, and with the Hand Demon being the first Boss for Tanjiro to face off against, it had to carry emotional weight. By putting that cruelty of the Corp’s reality on full display, giving it names and faces, we get to enjoy a success that feels well-earned within the first eight chapters. The manga could had easily ended with Tanjiro entering the Corp and therefore having the hope of curing his sister, had it not had enough of an impact on the readers.

What’s important is that we got to see the strength of Tanjiro’s character when placed in a setting this cruel, and that was the impact that allowed the series to grow to what we know it today. It’s easy to look back and feel like Sabito and Makoto were so long ago, and that their deaths were unfairly orchestrated by a man who has no business running a organization of people willing to risk their lives on the regular, with nothing to show for it. That’s why Sanemi was rightfully angry at him, and Ubuyashiki agreed. I may be conveniently forgetting, but I can't recall Ubuyashiki defending the cruel realities of the Corp or making excuses for cruel realities, even if he feels sorry about it. Even Zenitsu has deep respect for what it means to be a Corp member, despite how much it terrifies him to have to be one. While there are the swordsmen only out to prove their strength and get recognition for it, and they’ve been there ever since Michikatsu’s time and probably before him as well, committing one’s life to the Corp requires the same level of commitment as surviving among demons for one week to prove one’s core abilities. With demons of that (usually) low level, a properly capable swordsman should be able to prove the worth of their extensive training, like Nagare and Tanjiro initially did. And, no matter how stoic they might all strive to be, undergoing it together does have a way of creating bonds, which is why Corp members are so mindful of having been “in the same batch.” As a universally recognized, shared experience, it gives everyone a base level of acknowledgement for one another’s skills, and a shared level of commitment to the same cause.

As a thematic element of the KnY story it falls into the background once Tanjiro finds his stride as a swordsman and the alligator finds a stride as a mangaka, but the Final Selection remains something to have overcome.

#kny fandom theories and meta #while it didn't fit into the final version of this post I found its all-or-nothing stakes comparable to the Gaokao in mainland China #it's supposed to be an egalitarian measure of students across the country taking the same test to get into college but how one does on it #may indeed have lifelong ramifications #and its not only the students' future but also their parents' future resting on how good a university they get into #not quite life or death but still a high stakes events real life kids are put through on mass #I was also reminded of how grueling training/initiations have a way of bonding people as well #like how I was in an interdisciplinary humanities program with an intensive freshman program #and everyone in the same batch could always talk about their shared experiences of the freshman program and what they went through #but not me #I was a transfer student #and even though I attained Pillarhood in the program by taking extra lecture course credits I always felt I was a sham #I was different and didn't deserve to be there because I didn't got through the freshman program #a 30 page thesis on idealization of samurai meant nothing without having studied Aristotle first or so it felt #chopping the head of Lower Moon 5 is likewise just as worthless

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