After the death of his father, Tanjirou has taken up the role of the man of the home, supporting his mother and five siblings. However, after selling charcoal in town, he returns to tragedy.
All his family was brutally slaughtered, save for one of his sisters. Unfortunately, she has been attacked by a demon and mingled their blood, turning her into a demon as well.
However, she still shows signs of humanity, thrusting Tanjirou onto a quest to find a way to change his sister back and preserve what is left of his family.
Shounen anime about slaying demons is far from uncommon, but Demon Slayer not only brings a visual feast, but isn’t afraid of using darker, sadder stories to make you empathize with antagonists. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Demon Slayer, head on down below.
Anime Like Demon Slayer
For Fans of Demon Hunting
Claymore
In Claymore, the world is overcome with demons called Yoma that constantly plague humanity. After Raki’s parents were killed by Yoma, he teams up with Claire, a Claymore, an order of powerful half-human, half-Yoma women that are shunned by society but fight to rid the world of Yoma.
Together, each learns more about the each other and work towards their own goals.
Both Demon Slayer and Claymore are stories about an organization that is in charge of protecting humanity by killing demons. However, while most of humanity is not aware of the Demon Slayer Corps, in Claymore, the Claymores are actively hated by the people they protect.
While Demon Slayer and Claymore both focus on not just action, but emotion, Claymore enjoys a lot more melancholy and suffering rather than big flashy battles. The world is bleak, and the heroes live bleak, thankless lives of suffering.
Seraph of the End
After a mysterious virus killed every human over 13 years old, the vampires rose up with a promise to protect the survivors. The only thing they asked in return is donations of blood.
For Yuuichirou and Mikaela, they have grown tired of being livestock and pose a daring escape plan. It ultimately fails with only Yuuichirou left alive. However, after joining up with a mercenary company, he swears vengeance on the vampires, no matter the cost.
Both Demon Slayer and Seraph of the End are about military-like organizations that are in charge of dispatching the supernatural. However, Seraph of the End does differ in that it is only about killing vampires, and does so in a post-apocalyptic setting where vampires have already ravaged humanity.
Both Demon Slayer and Seraph of the End love those big flashy shounen battles and each focuses on swords with various abilities. Furthermore, they also add an element of a friend technically being part of the enemy as well. However, Seraph of the End isn’t quite as dark and ultimately suffers from a lack of more seasons.
D Gray Man
After three years training with one of their prestigious Generals that saved him as a kid, Allen Walker is finally ready to join the Black Order, an organization of exorcists that fight Akuma and their leader, the Millennium Earl.
With their Innocence weapons, Allen and his fellow exorcist embark on a journey to stop the Earl’s plot of ultimate destruction.
Both Demon Slayer and D Gray Man are shounen action anime about exorcists. They also follow a new member in that exorcist organization who travels around slaying various demons right up until they get tangled up in the intrigue of the main antagonists. In essence, they have a similar plot progression.
Both series enjoy darker worlds and more tragic stories. However, D Gray Man is more Victorian England in setting and the characters manifest a variety of weapons compared to the almost exclusively sword-based Demon Slayer.
Fire Force
A phenomenon has started overtaking mankind – one where people spontaneously combust and turn into destructive fire demons called Infernals.
To fight these demons, special fire forces were established full of those with dedication and powers to control fire.
This is the story of Fire Force 8 and their newest recruit – Shinra, who aims to become a hero and discover the truth behind the Infernals.
Do you like the fire breathing technique? Because Fire Force is all about the fire.
Both Demon Slayer and Fire Force are shounen action anime about an organization charged with taking out demons, featuring a main character motivated by his family being attacked by those same demons. Of course, you ultimately discover something more is going on.
Although Fire Force has people literally bursting into flames, it isn’t as emotional as Demon Slayer can be. In fact, it is very often kind of comedic. Furthermore, while Demon Slayer enjoys swords, Fire Force is almost exclusively fire-based powers.
For Fans of Demons as Allies
Jujutsu Kaisen
In order to gain more power, demons search for fragments of the legendary demon Sukuna to consume them.
One day, Yuuji Itadori, who just lost his grandfather, learns of this as he saves his school friends from being consumed by demons after they break the seal on one of the body parts of Sukuna that was at their school.
In order to stand a chance, he eats it, revealing himself as a rare vessel that can utilize and control the curse of Sukuna, meaning when he dies, Sukuna’s curse dies with him.
What Bleach and Naruto were to old school shounen, Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen have become to modern shounen anime. Of course, similar popularity doesn’t mean a series is similar, it just happens to work out that way this time.
Jujutsu Kaisen, like Demon Slayer, is about an organization of demon slayers that get a new recruit one day when he comes into contact with the world of the supernatural. However, Itadori is forced to join because he ingested a piece of a demon whereas Tanjiro volunteers.
What both of these series most have in common is they are shounen action anime that embrace the darkness of the situation. Each series has moments that would be perfectly at home in a horror anime, yet their more empathic main characters help you feel the emotions of the horrific things they are fighting as well.
Kemono Jihen
A boy nicknamed Dorotabo lives with his aunt in a rural Japanese inn after being abandoned by his parents. One day, a detective that specializes in the occult named Kohachi Inugami arrives from Tokyo.
He is there to investigate mysterious livestock deaths and takes an interest in Dorotabo. The boy ends up helping Inugami and discovers that he is only half human.
Possessing skill at dispatching beast-like entities known as Kemono, Inugami takes him back to work at his agency in Tokyo.
Interestingly enough, Demon Slayer and Kemono Jihen share an art style that makes both series look a little more innocent than the dark stories they tell within.
Both Kemono Jihen and Demon Slayer are about, well, slaying demons. In Demon Slayer, he works with his demon sister and other slayers while in Kemono Jihen, a hybrid demon works with other hybrid demons to fight demons.
Both series enjoy violence and darker tales even with their younger characters. In fact, the big differences here are really the modern versus historical setting and the fact that Demon Slayer is more sword-based while Kemono Jihen has demonic abilities.
Parasyte
One night, sixteen-year-old Shinichi Izumi was peacefully sleeping when a race of parasitic aliens descended on Earth.
One parasite infects Shinichi, trying to get to his brain to take over his body, but ends up getting stuck in his right hand. Unable to relocate to the brain, the alien, named Migi, now has no choice but to learn to coexist with Shinichi in his body in order to stay alive.
Unfortunately, the other parasitic aliens are not so friendly with humans or to parasites that failed to complete their mission.
While the parasites aren’t demon, they infect their host in a same way as the demons in Demon Slayer. They slip into the body and take it over. Yet, in some cases, traces of their human selves are still in there at times. However, unlike in Demon Slayer, there is only one cure for a parasite.
Both Demon Slayer and Parasyte are excellent action anime that follows more sensitive main characters who are full of empathy, but that doesn’t make them weak.
Aside from Parasyte being sci-fi, it also has a more linear plot that it follows as well.
Devilman Crybaby
Akira has always been a little weak and blends into the background, so when his childhood friend asks for help uncovering devils, he agrees. The pair head to Sabbath where many gather for debauchery and to be possessed by devils.
When the devils begin to wreck havoc in their new living hosts, Akira agrees to merge bodies with a devil in order to save his friend. Though he now has a voracious devil inside him, he still has the heart of a crybaby.
Both Demon Slayer and Devilman Crybaby are about fighting demons either with or as a demon. However, the biggest similarity is actually the attitude of the main character. They aren’t your standard action anime badass, but rather they are sensitive boys with big hearts and a lot of empathy. As such, that means both series are going to hurt your feelings frequently with their sad tales.
The key difference is that, while Demon Slayer is pretty dark, Devilman Crybaby is much darker. It is more graphic and sexual, really embracing the sinful nature of demons.
Blue Exorcist
Humans and demons have always been separated by two different worlds, humans in Assiah and demons in Gehenna. The only way to travel between the worlds is by possession, which is how Satan, the ruler of Gehenna, wages his war.
One day, Rin discovers that he is actually the son of Satan, born for the specific purpose of being possessed by Satan. However, while his father wants him to help conquer the human world, Rin decides to become an exorcist to fight him instead.
While it differs in its setting, Demon Slayer and Blue Exorcist are very much your standard shounen action anime that are focused on fighting demons that threaten humanity. Furthermore, both inject a sort of family dynamic into things as well.
While both series enjoy flashy battles and excel at that, Blue Exorcist often feels like a more standard shounen anime in that it doesn’t put as much focus as Demon Slayer on darker stories and emotional moments.
For Fans of Feudal Japan Action Settings
Dororo
In order to become indomitable on the battlefield, a samurai lord barters his son’s organs away to 48 demons and then abandons him.
However, his son doesn’t die. Instead, a medicine man saves him with primitive, but lethal prosthetics that allow him to hunt down the demons and regain his organs for an eventual battle with his father.
Both of these anime focus on the main character hunting demons for a very specific reason. In Dororo, it is to get his body parts back. In Demon Slayer, it is to turn his sister back into a human.
While both Dororo and Demon Slayer are battle-focused, they also maintain a rather dark and sometimes just plain bleak tone to them. What Demon Slayer and Dororo have most in common is that they are often emotion-filled tales. The battles are excellent and interesting, but you get so invested in the character stories because of the emotions injected into them.
Hell’s Paradise
Betrayed by his ninja clan and sentenced to death for the many lives he took while working for them, Gabimaru the Hollow accepts his fate. However, every attempt at execution has failed, leading them to call in Sagiri, a member of the Yamada Asaemon Clan of imperial executioners.
While Sagiri can carry out the task, she instead offers Gabimaru a chance to receive a full pardon for his crimes. He, along with other criminals sentenced to death, will be sent to the dangerous island of Shinsekyo to obtain the elixir of life for the shogun. However, with all previous expedition teams never being heard from again, this mysterious island is a death sentence in and of itself.
While they follow very different plots, both Demon Slayer and Hell’s Paradise are fantasy shounen action anime set in an older time period of Japanese history. As such, the powers often come from swords or old techniques like ninjutsu, but they are of course made more flashy and powerful.
While Demon Slayer follows arc-based plot points, Hell’s Paradise is more focused on a linear plot. However, both series do enjoy injecting a bit of body horror into the enemies and making them feel like actual sinister foes.
Orient
After their descent 150 years ago, the demons demanded reverence from humanity as gods. Standing up against these new overlords were the Bushi, who still battle to this day, but the demons preach that they are enemies.
Hinamoto, freed from Bushi rule many years ago, lives peacefully and reveres demons. The residents mine rocks for the demons to consume, but for Musashi, a miner in training, he craves freedom.
Together with his childhood friend Koujiro, a boy outcasted for being a descendants of a Bushi, they start a fight against the demons for freedom, only to be saved by an actual Bushi band.
Seeing them fight and destroy the demons, the pair decide they will form a Bushi band of their own!
While Demon Slayer is set in a demon-filled Taisho era and Orient is set in a heavily fictionalized Sengoku era, both series are historical-set shounen action anime where the powers come from blades.
Both series put emphasis on the blade sort of choosing the wielder and them having only a specific sort of power that they can use. Furthermore, as is common with shounen action anime, the main character and his blade are a bit of a special case.
While Demon Slayer enjoys darker, more emotional stories, Orient often goes more for big action and even the dark moments don’t quite feel as impactful.
For Fans of Creative Characters
Hunter X Hunter
Twelve-year-old Gon Freecss is determined to become a world-class Hunter, a skilled individual that performs all manner of dangerous tasks, just like his long-absent father.
However, Gon finds that the path to achieving his goals is more challenging than he could have ever imagined, but in order to overcome it, Gon recruits some powerful friends.
While Hunter X Hunter doesn’t always have the most creative looking characters, the similarity between Demon Slayer and Hunter X Hunter is more their shared passion for dark tones.
Demon Slayer enjoys particularly dark and heart-breaking stories for characters so Tanjiro can flex his empathy muscles. Hunter X Hunter often lacks empathetic characters, but still makes villains that are horrifically evil, but you can also sort of empathize with them yourself.
The big difference is that Demon Slayer has its dark tone immediately apparent. Hunter X Hunter looks like your typical bright and hopeful shounen anime right up until you realize that something terribly messed up is happening.
Black Clover
After being abandoned at the same church, Asta and Yuno grew up together. Together they also grew up aiming for the same title – The Wizard King, the strongest wizard in the kingdom.
However, it soon became apparent that while Yuno has skill with magic, Asta couldn’t use it at all. This all changed when they were attacked and Asta was given a strange grimoire that granted him the ability to nullify magic.
As shounen action anime, Black Clover and Demon Slayer have quite a few similarities in the way the plot builds and unfolds. However, they both share a love for creating, not just visually interesting characters, but complex characters that aren’t always defined by a single characteristic.
Of course, the difference is really in the powers of the series. While both are element-based to a degree, Black Clover is more focused on wizardry-type magic than the breathing technique-based swordplay in Demon Slayer.
Bleach
Ichigo Kurosaki is an average high school student except for his ability to see ghosts.
One night, his family is attacked by a Hollow, a corrupted spirit that devours souls. He and a Soul Reaper who appears named Rukia manage to fight it off. However, in the process, Rukia is injured, forcing her to share her powers with Ichigo in order to survive the battle.
From there, Ichigo must face down with Hollows and other Soul Reapers alike, not yet knowing what powerful enemies lurk out in the universe and what devastating powers lie within himself.
Both Demon Slayer and Bleach start off in that very shounen anime type of way. At first the characters test their new abilities on small enemies threatening humans, and by the end, they are fighting wildly powerful organizations that are plotting intrigue.
However, alongside both being shounen action anime, perhaps the biggest similarity between Bleach and Demon Slayer is a shared love for swordplay. There are a variety of powers in Bleach, but it always comes back to the swords. The big difference is the swords in Demon Slayer all look roughly the same, it is the powers that differ. In Bleach, each blade is unique and interesting in their transformations.
Do you have any more anime recommendations like Demon Slayer? Let fans know in the comments section below.
Berserk, HunterxHunter and Parasyte are on of my all time favorites.claymore had really cool art, but got a bit repetitive at some point for me.
Berserk, Hunter x Hunter and Black Clover are awesome
There’s an error in the Black Clover description. The third paragraph is just the first 2 combined
And it was showing a picture of Fairy Tail to boot!
Thanks for letting me know, I fixed it.