A new season of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba may be on the horizon.
While there’s been no official announcement of Season 4 starting, according to a prominent anime news account on Twitter, production on another season of the award-winning series has begun. Demon Slayer Season 3, which covers the Swordsmith Village” arc from Koyoharu Gotouge’s manga, premiered back in April.
The rumored development of Demon Slayer Season 4 is undoubtedly exciting; however, some fans have begun debating if the final arcs of the story would be better adapted as a series of movies. They argue the film format would help viewers keep track of story beats and elements more easily and not require people to go back and rewatch episodes.
The Story of Demon Slayer
Gotouge’s dark fantasy story appeared in Shueisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump from February 2016 to May 2020, producing 23 volumes worth of content. The narrative follows the kind-hearted Tanjiro Kamado, whose entire life changes when demons slaughter his parents and his sister is unfortunately transformed into one. The story has greatly resonated with readers as Demon Slayer currently stands alongside Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan and Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto as one of the best-selling manga of all time with 150 million copies in circulation across the world.
However, Demon Slayer’s story was almost very different. According to Tatsuhiko Katayama, an editor who worked on the series, Gotouge originally conceptualized Tanjiro to be a ruthless, merciless killer and the overarching plot to be much more savage and brutal. Fearing the characterization would not be viewed favorably by the majority of manga readers, Katayama encouraged the mangaka to rework Tanjiro into someone with a greater level of general appeal.
The Demon Slayer anime by Ufotable, the studio behind the upcoming Genshin Impact adaptation, debuted in April 2019 and went on to become a major success. Notably, it won a myriad of categories at the 9th Newtype Anime Awards, including Best Work, Best Director, Best Character Design and Best Theme Song as well as being named Anime of the Year at the 4th Crunchyroll Anime Awards. Similarly, Season 2, which depicts the events of the Entertainment District Arc, also performed well at this year’s Crunchyroll Anime Awards, winning the Best Animation, Best Action and Best Fantasy categories. Though it did lose Anime of the Year to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
Ufotable’s anime adaptation is available on Hulu, Netflix and Crunchyroll. VIZ Media distributes the Demon Slayer manga in North America.
Source: Twitter