References for KnY Writers: Taisho Period

Below are links to my entries about the Taisho Period and how it might affect the KnY characters (at least according to canon resources, my research, and my interpretations). Please see here for the full masterlist of References for KnY Fic Writers.

Background info: The Taisho Period (1912-1926) a bit of an in-between period in a lot of ways, with Westernization already several decades underway, but with many new policies not yet uniformly enforced in the countryside. In some ways, rural life went on like it did in the late Edo period. The majority of Kimetsu no Yaiba most likely would have taken place in 1915. This means that it's still a little early for the full-on "Taisho Roman" fashions, but the groundwork was there.

-Notes on Corp salary, simple conversions into Taisho currency, as well as other monetary details -Taisho Period overview of the Yoshiwara Pleasure District -Photos and details of preserved Taisho Period brothel -How a Taisho Period birthday may be celebrated -How a Taisho Period New Years may be celebrated (in the case of the Kamados) -Photography and education in the Taisho Period -More on Taisho education and literacy rates -Marriage and being a girl in the Taisho Period -Polygamy and the Meiji Civil Code -Dating and wedding night protocol -Being queer in the Taisho Period (and beyond) -A few real life folk songs featured in KnY -Taisho Period undergarments -Taisho Period beverages and drinking age (separate masterlist of KnY-related food here)

-Flush toilets were a thing (and there are toilets in the Infinity Fortress)

Pink and Green Hair (trendy in the taisho era)

We all know that Mitsuri ate a crazy amount of it to get her signature pink-green hair, but just how many would she have theoretically eaten?

To start, we have to look at the numbers. She ate 170 mochis per day for 8 months straight.

It's already crazy enough of a number, but imagine just how much that the Kanroji family would've spent on that mochi even before Mitsuri was a part of the Corps with her own salary, not to mention the fact that hashira can choose how much money they recieve. We can prove this fact by Mitsuri having her hair at a pre-pubescent age, when she beat that sumo wrestler at arm-wrestling.

First, since all months but one (mumbleaugustusmumble) have 30 days, we multiply it by eight for the eight months she spent eating the mochi. Then, I estimate by adding 4 for half of the months having 31 days. Since this is a bare estimate, these numbers can't be perfect.

244 days. This is, according to Mitsuri/Gotuge, how long it took until the Kanroji family started to notice Mitsuri's hair turning pink OR when her full transformation ended.

Now. We can multiply those days by how many sakura mochi she would eat in one of those days.

41,480.

If you wanted anime hair from eating a sweet, that's an estimated amount of how many sakura mochi you would have to eat.

Since this is unreliable information because there's not enough data given about this, and Mitsuri herself wasn't keeping track of this specifically, there's not much of a way to tell how many sakura mochi to actually eat, and this is also really unhealthy because duh it's a dessert that any normal person who isn't a girlboss like Mitsuri should eat more than three.

We also have to think about the actual sakura mochi. This sweet is made with pickled sakura leafs, which are edible, along with anko (red bean paste) and glutinous rice coloured pink, the same as sakura blossoms. Sakura are already notorious for only blooming for a week or two before fading for the rest of the year. This is why this wagashi (sakura mochi) is only designated as a spring treat.

Of course, it can still be eaten year-round. It's simply customary to eat in springtime, late March. You would just have to have loads of ingredients all the time in order to make it. Since, as I talked about Japanese tradition of only eating this in spring, it's probably that the Kanroji family would pickle their own sakura leaves, in the same way that they also make their own honey. Yet another way of telling us how well-off they are.

Other than that, anko (the filling) and glutinous rice (along with the pink colouring) is relatively easy to find because other types of wagashi are served year-round, and I believe that many of them have those two core ingredients (such as ohagi or manjuu). The main thing that makes sakura mochi special is the pickled leaf that can only be harvested in springtime, hence why it's only really served in the time that there are blossoms.

And finally, it also happens to be that I'm currently in Japan in middle-late March. I got to visit a (romantic) love temple nearby, prayed that I would find a Mitsuri gachapon before I leave Japan (because that's what you do when you go to a love temple, pray to see the love hashira), then it so happened that three doors down, there was a wagashi store!!

They also happened to serve ohagi (despite that being an autumn wagashi, in spring ohagi would usually be called botamochi), mitarashi dango (which will totally calm Haganezuka-san down), and of course, the reason for this post, sakura mochi!! Three character's favourite foods, so we obviously got some!!!

Taste test.

Mitarashi dango, as per usual, is amazing. I love warm mochi and the sauce is always great, especially when it's served fresh or you can watch the storeperson dunk the mochi into the sauce. I also got to have a huge version whilst exploring Odawara-jou, and before that too.

Ohagi, I was very excited to try some, but surprisingly, out of these three, it was my least favourite. That's not to say it wasn't good, but I don't think I really liked the anko being on the outside. Thinking back, it's probably unhealthy for Giyuu to hold it out to Sanemi with his bare hand.

Finally, sakura mochi. The leaves are edible, and they don't give any sort of taste or reliable texture, they seem to more be there as an ornamental piece, it was just the stem that could be a little pokey. The glutinous rice is light pink and on the outside, wrapped in the leaf. It's sweet! A bit sticky too, which is probably the reason for the leaf-holder. The anko on the inside is also very sweet, and this sweet was my favourite out of the three types of wagashi that we got. They are relatively small, maybe 10cm from a rough estimate, but they have a lot of density from being packed tight. While I really enjoyed this, I don't think I could ever eat 170 in a single day, much less for eight months.

I also forgot to mention, but there's two types of sakura mochi. First is the type with glutinous rice, the type Mitsuri is shown to be eating in the manga and anime, and the one I just tried. Second type is made with a pink pancake wrapping the anko, which is also wrapped in the sakura leaf. I think maybe two or three days after the first type's taste test, I got my hands on the pancake ones, but I was so tired that it got stuck in the fridge overnight. Let me tell you. Those pancakes were solid. If anyone has a taste of the pancake sakura mochi, feel free to give your actual impression!

Since, as I've already said, sakura mochi is the main type of wagashi served in spring, in the sakura season, there's loads of shops selling it nearby. I even got to try this taiyaki with sakura mochi filling instead of anko, which was... interesting, I suppose, but not terrible.

So try some sakura mochi if you're ever in Japan for the March season! I'm pretty sure that people sell this wagashi for the entire month, for more sales. (unfortunately, the sakura will only bloom in the week after i leave japan) (talk about a letdown, i always have to leave japan the week before they bloom for school)

Unfortunately no photos, but I did get to go on a train called the RomanceCar!! I immediately thought of Mitsuri with this, and I did get photos of that! Then, I searched up why it's called that, and the only reason is that there's two seats side-by-side with no armrest between, which gives room for couples to cuddle. Imagine modern Mitsuri with Iguro or Shinobu on one of these!!

Shit post? Personal post? I don’t know, but it's gonna be KnY related, so here it goes.

I have been a fan of martial arts for longer than I've been practicing them. It's the nerd-drive. I'm not especially good at any of them, but I've done something or other relatively consistently for the last fifteen-ish years, depending on what has been available to me wherever I was living. That means moving far away every few years or so has made a good excuse to quit the ones I did with any consistency, but it's much harder to quit for other reasons. It's easy to feel guilted into sticking around, especially after you've been there a while.

I did Bujinkan a year or so, and it made me feel very cool for all the different skills it covered and all the nerdery that came with it and I was proud of the badass bruises I got, but I also felt like the porcelain doll in a dojo of giant gym bros and I knew I was both keeping them from practicing at their level and that I was bound to get a serious injury sooner or later. Quitting that one was difficult because the gym bros were sad and the sensei was finding every workaround he could for my polite excuses.

And I felt exactly like Zenitsu trying to run away from Gramps, and I was like, "whoa, life imitates art."

Fast-forward to now, I just feel it's time to move on from--or at least take a long, formal break from--naginata, the martial art I started almost twelve years ago and have progressed the most in. I hadn't been going to practice much since starting a new job anyway, and I was already kind of wanting to quit before then, but I kept going because I felt pressure to, whether real or imagined. Today I finally signed the paperwork to exit for a while, and now I am officially not practicing any martial arts.

And it fell on a day I happen to be writing Senjuro fic.

What.

Just thinking about how Chachamaru is a male calico, at least according the Taisho Secret right before chapter 195 that calls him manly. It really doesn't surprise me that he's male, because so many references to calicos I've seen in manga, mascots, and temple architecture specify that the featured calico is male.

This is because they are rare, and therefore considered lucky.

The figure that gets thrown around the internet is that supposedly only 1 in every 3000 calicos is male. (I'll bet the people who did the often quoted study at U. of Minn. College of Vet Med would love to tell you how it's more complicated than that.) This has long made male calicos popular not only in Japan, but in other countries as well. The thing is, though, the male calico might not always be so lucky.

To be very brief about why calicos (and some other multicolored cats) are almost always female, this is because, put very simply, one X chromosome gives us the black splotches, and one X chromosome gives us the orange splotches. That might leave you wondering where the white patches come from, and this is the part where I say that genetics is never simple and you should have fun reading about it. The important takeaway here is that in order to show this color pattern, a cat needs two X chromosomes, one from its mother and one from its father.

Typically, a male cat has an X chromosome (from its female mother, who only has two X chromosomes) and a Y chromosome (from its father, who had both an X and a Y), but because the calico coating can only occur with two X chromosomes, this male cat somehow got an X, a Y, and... hmm, another X somewhere.

So not a typical XY male, not a typical XX calico... this sterile XXY male calico has an extra chromosome, and mutations often are not ideal for the health of the animal with the extra chromosome. This particular condition is Klinefelter’s Syndrome, which can lead to a male calico having cognitive and behavior issues, weaker bones, increased risk of diabetes due to higher body fat, and perhaps a shorter lifespan.

Now, none of the fictitious lucky cats I've seen have ever been portrayed as anything less than smart and pleasant, though a lot of the maneki-neko are pretty round. For everything Chachamaru is tasked with, I have to assume he's above-average when it comes to intelligence, reasonably healthy enough to handle long-distance travel, and for a cat, he's extremely, extremely cooperative. For the record, the same Taisho Secret (as well as Yushiro's statement in Chapter 194) makes it clear that for most of canon Chachamaru was a regular cat, for he was not made into a demon until right before the final showdown with Muzan. Even with her hands full making the medicine for Muzan, she still put a lot of effort into changing Chachamaru so that Yushiro wouldn't be lonely. It's ironic that Chachamaru winds up immortal, rather than doomed to a potentially shorter lifespan due to his mark...ings. In the first place, was Tamayo perhaps moved with pity for a sickly kitten and nursed him to the health he's in now?

Or did she always keep her eye out for a male calico, wanting to put some faith in them being good luck?

Also, what sticks out to me in this Taisho Secret is that Chachamaru, not having a language in which he could communicate with Tamayo, had no choice in becoming a demon. Tamayo felt sorry about that. The word bubble over manly little Chachamaru says, with bravado, "Fine by me, if that's what the woman I'm smitten with wishes." If Chachamaru truly is that smitten with her, that perhaps accounts for what an unusually cooperative cat he is. But it also reminds me of a fan theory that I saw once (and found worthy of weight) which said that perhaps Tamayo's blood technique has an effect like makes others smitten with her, and Yushiro might had been under its influence, however strongly or subtly. If such a thing were the case, it might or might not had been something Tamayo was conscious of. If she was conscious of having some effect like that, she probably felt awful about it but found it a necessary precaution to keep any demon she made under control. If she wasn't conscious of such a thing, that means she might had subconsciously developed it out of loneliness, and had been trying to keep company at her side.

Nerdy cultural details about the Hashira

Some details can be hard to pick up without context or in translation. Here's a handful for fun:

Breath names:

The "Mushi" (蟲) of "Mushibashira" (蟲柱) does not necessarily mean "insect." It's also not the more commonly used "mushi" kanji (虫). Kanji is often formed with many components compounding together to make new meanings, and 蟲 is a crowd of three 虫. While it might be tempting to simply say that this is a whole bunch of 虫, I've also heard this described as 蟲 being the more abstract idea of the concrete 虫, or that 蟲 went through a resurgence in popularity shortly before the Taisho Period. 虫 is preferred nowadays for its simplicity.

In either case, it's not necessarily "insects." Rather than being limited to six-legged creatures, "mushi" is a catch-all term for many kinds of creepy-crawlies that simply do not fit in other categories of animals, so spiders and centipedes and worms are all part of it. Actually, the term was originally used for snakes!

Next, what are picturing when you hear "Stone Hashira"? Something in your hands that you can throw? A big stone to lay on for warmth after training in a waterfall?

You could think even bigger than that, because the "stone" kanji used is "iwa" 岩. This is usually something at least as big as the boulders Himejima pushes around to train with, but it could just as well be a whole cliff.

So then how about that issue raised about how you can never refer to "Flame Breath" as "Fire Breath"? This might be a review since it gets brought up a lot, but it's worth restating because it makes a lot of sense in context.

First, we have two kanji to work with: 炎 for flames, and 火 for fire. To make a long linguistic history short, Japan adopted written pictographic characters from China, smashed and smooshed them around to fit the spoken Japanese language, and eventually many kanji wound up with multiple pronunciations. Case in point, 炎 is "hono'o" in the context of Flame Breathing (Hono'o no Kokyuu), and "en" in the context of "Flame Hashira" (En-bashira).

火 likewise has multiple pronunciations, but a common one is "hi." Another simple kanji that can be read "hi" is 日, the sun.

Therefore, even if they are written differently, "Sun Breathing" and "Fire Breathing" would sound the same, as "Hi no Kokyuu." This also makes it easy for "Hinokami" to be construed as "Fire God" instead of "Sun God." But why stop there, really? If you want to get into older Japanese, sometimes phonetic "hi" was used in simple reference to the power of gods.

Symbolism:

This is still somewhat linguistic rather than symbolic, but you know how Sound Breath is derived from Thunder Breath?

It's worth pointing out that "Kaminari" (雷) in "Kaminari no Kokyuu" is in reference to the sound, as opposed to something like "Ikazuchi no Kokyuu" for "Lightning Breath" in reference to the sight. We can get really, really nerdy about Japanese words for thunder and lightning and how they relate to Kimetsu no Yaiba, so I already did that here.

What's more interesting to me in regard to Sound Breath is that it takes the "sound" concept of thunder and pushes it--this time with a bit of a firework motif, again in a way that would stress the sound instead of the dazzling light. Both Uzui and Zenitsu have exceptional hearing and are exceptional users of their Breath techniques, so this is either curious that a discerning sense of hearing might help, or ironic that they use such loud styles with their sensitive ears.

Moving on to snakes! There's really no shortage of serpent symbolism, so we'll just focus on a handful of examples. I have already written extensively about the positive associations snakes have with riches, especially white snakes. This is ironic, given Iguro's distasteful paste driven by riches.

Some of the other positive associations with snakes are that they are a water element animal on the geomancy system borrowed from China. Makes sense that this Breath would be derived from Water Breathing! There are many shrines dedicated to snakes and their gifts of rain and clean water, however, water can also be dangerous. A common interpretation of a major legend about an eight-headed giant serpent, the Yamata-no-Orochi, is that it symbolizes the destructive power of a flooded river. But hey, at least snakes are often equated to dragons for having the same water association, so that's pretty cool.

Setting aside the water association, the serpent itself can likewise be considered in negative lights. In the centuries leading up to the Taisho Period, it became commonplace in Buddhist teachings and entertainment to compare jealous women to snakes. This association with woman also adds another layer of cruel irony to Iguro's past.

On a happier note, let's move on to cherry blossoms!

Well, not always happy, seeing as they are known to scatter tragically soon (I am shaking my fist at you, Gotouge). Cherry blossoms are also heavy with all the directions you can go in with symbolism, and I don't have any particular take on why they are part of the overall motif of the Love Hashira (see here for a little commentary on why it is "Koi" 恋 and not "Ai" 愛).

However! I do want to point out something very clever Gotouge did!

You know how Mitsuri's hand guard looks like four hearts that all meet at their pointy ends? This is actually a traditional cherry blossom motif!! Not a very common one, which is why I find it so sly.

Personal Names:

Bear with me, this section will get slightly more speculative, as names are always up to interpretation. I should know, I've done a lot of that for this series.

Remember how kanji can be read in multiple ways? Here's something simple you'd see right away in Japanese but that gets lost in translation to most other languages. Both Sanemi and Genya have 弥 as the second character in their personal name (as "mi" or "ya"). This was not the case for all their siblings, but it's cute that the two of them share it anyway.

So what does it mean? In modern kanji dictionaries, it's pretty bland: "increasingly." However, this kanji has more interesting use and associations that that. It was originally 彌, which carries more of an image of a stretched bow, or how something might go wide and disperse. As a child's name, this might include some hope that they might grow big and tall and go to great places. It is also commonly used in expressing the names of Buddhist deities in Japanese, but it is used only for the "mi" sound instead of the meaning in these cases. (Still, 弥 is one of the "Namu Amida Butsu" characters all over Himejima's haori, which also adds a little cuteness to his associations with Genya.)

So how about someone else with a name that closely matches his brother's? We get a pretty good explanation of Yuichiro (有一郎) and Muichiro (無一郎), with 有 and 無 being opposites (to exist/to not exist). While 有 might be more straightforward in wishing for Yuichiro to have all his needs met, the "mu" in "muichiro" is for "limitless/infinity/etc, etc."

But also!!

It bares distinct resemblance to a common Zen phrase, "Honraimuichimotsu" (本来無一物), with "muichimotsu" meaning "nothing exists" (and therefore, you have nothing to worry about, just be happy).

Speaking of resemblances, "Tomioka Giyuu" has two kanji in common with the name of the mangaka of Hunter x Hunter and I sometimes wonder if he was named in homage. But that is neither here nor there, and I'll just finish today by focusing on "Giyuu" (義勇).

This is pretty basic and straightforward: "loyalty/justice" and "bravery/courage." Pretty lofty. Put them back together and it's basically a set term for "heroism."

However, put it together with other terms for squads or armies, and this is the now the word for "volunteer soldier" or "volunteer army." Historically, it would continue to be used a few decades after Kimetsu no Yaiba takes place, but the decades prior, there were "Giyuutai" organized volunteer troops as well. Perhaps Giyuu had ancestors who fought as volunteer soldiers? Who knows.

Nerdy cultural details about the word "Hashira"

Some details can be hard to pick up without context or in translation. I recently went over a few details about the Hashira's names, Breaths, or symbols, but today I want to focus on the word "Hashira."

To get this out of the way, I use "Pillar" all over this blog because I thought that's what they were called. I was astounded that phrase was not translated, as it is a (somewhat rare) case of a one-to-one translation equivalent. They are the pillars that support the Demon Slayer Corp, after all. The kanji for it (柱) very literally means "pillar" in any modern day Japanese to English dictionary. But since you all know the word "Hashira," let's climb up and see where it takes us! First, the kanji itself (brought over from China and given the Japanese pronunciation "hashira," based on the existing spoken Japanese language), is composed of 木 for "tree" and 主 for "master" or "main/principal," among other semi-literal or more widely applicable possible meanings in modern kanji dictionaries. However, Prof. Owada Tetsuo, a retired university professor who published an unofficial book of his own Kimetsu no Yaiba interpretations based on Japanese demon slaying folklore, points out that 主 can also be interpreted as a still flame atop a candlestick, and that 柱 (hashira) is a tree that cannot be moved. (I'll continue to use a lot of Prof. Owada's details in this explanation, as well as details I have picked up in other research.) That makes 柱 closely associated with holy trees found in, or treated as, Shinto shrines throughout Japan. As Shinto is a nature-based belief system, trees are often something that a kami (deity) will inhabit. Keep Shinto in mind, because we're going to focus on that a lot.

Before that, let's finish up with the kanji 柱. According to the first official fanbook, there is an upper limit of nine Hashira because there are nine strokes in the 柱 kanji. (See this dictionary entry for a breakdown of those nine strokes.)

Now that the easy official tidbit is out of the way, back to the Shinto fun stuff and conjecture! We need to dive a bit more into the spoken Japanese language, from which a lot of Shinto terms derive. For starters, the Japanese language uses counter words for when you say a certain number of beings or objects. You could think of this as "a sheet of paper" or "three rolls of tape." It is an annoying part of starting out your study of the language because there are a lot to memorize based on sizes, shapes, types of animals, etc. Deities also have their own counter word: 柱 (hashira). This goes to show how the Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corp are something more than human, what with how much power they possess.

Now if we think about the pronunciation of the spoken Japanese word from long before a Chinese written character was assigned to it, the "hashi" of "hashira" is a "bridge." Clever ones among you might know that "hashi" also means "chopsticks." But even chopsticks have the same effect as a bridge! They serve as a connection, bridging the gap between you and what was another living thing, that which will become a part of you as your sustenance. "Hashira," as pillars, are likewise something that serve as a connection, in this case, a vertical one. They are that which connect us with the heavens, or in the case of the Demon Slayer Corp, they bridge the gap between the limits of human strength and the inhuman strength of demons.

As another Shinto tie, one of the connections that Prof. Owada and I both made was that there are nine pillars that support the main sanctuary in shrine architecture like that of Izumo Taisha Grand Shrine. Or rather, in the case of at least one of the historical iterations of Izumo Taisha, there were nine groups of three massive tree trunks each, resulting in a shrine over 48 meters in height (see here for photos of how big the remains of those pillars are and how exciting the archaeology is). These pillars give you a sense of awe for just how powerful pillars can be, especially when you have a spread of nine to distribute the weight. Now, there's more that Prof. Owada and I would both say about how Izumo Taisha also ties in with the "Ubuyashiki" surname or the "yakata" title by which the Hashira address him, but that's a dose of nerdery for some other time.

A distractingly fun little fact is that the "gi" of Giyuu (義) and the "zen" (善) of Zenitsu, when used in names, can both be read as "yoshi."

We know they both pass down these kanji in their names to their descendants, Giichi and Yoshiteru. This means the following scenario is entirely possible: Zenitsu: Everyone, behold! This is the embodiment of the love Nezuko-chan and I have for each other, our son Yoshitarou!

Giyuu: Oh, what a coincidence. This my son, Yoshitarou.

Nezuko: Wow!! What an honor! Giyuu-san and I both have a son named Yoshitarou!

Zenitsu: asdhaodhauifigidfygasgdil

In case anyone needs to know this, last night I learned that flush toilets would had made their first appearance in Japan at some point during that year-ish of Tanjiro's Corp service.

A messy ramble about sword decor

Kimetsu no Yaiba was sleeping on menuki, man.

That came back to mind today while visiting a museum exhibit of very fancy sword mountings (like so), because I am me and admiring very realistic metal insects and tiny metal carvings of Tale of Heike battle scenes will always come back to my fandom brain rot. The menuki specifically were on my mind because they are decorative pieces on the handles that hide the mekugi, which are key structural elements--pegs where the handle is attached to the blade, and where some might say a soul is put into a sword.

And, a few years ago while KnY hype was at its height, I heard some people who seemed to try to talk down the hype, saying, "the swords don't even have mekugi! Those aren't real Japanese swords!" Which means a lot to most non-nerds, I'm sure.

True, a lot of the Nichirin-to don't include visible pegs in their design, which you could argue is just because they are covered up with other wrappings on the handles. But realism really isn't a concern since Sanemi and Shinobu would probably constantly stabbing themselves with those tsuba.

So anyway!! The tsuba! The handguards and what they say about the characters is a very, very nice touch, and I love wondering if the swordsmiths designed those fully based on their own imaginations and perhaps what crows told them about the kids (like "he was a charcoal farmer" or "he's a Rengoku") or if the swordsmen got any chance to put in their own requests on the regular ("I was a charcoal farmer, I don't know what to ask for" or "Sabito had one like this"). It's also fun to see the creativity involved in creating the scabbards for unique swords like Shinobu's and Iguro's.

But we can do so much mooooore!

I love the simplicity of the Nichirin-to. They are elegant and purposeful, with engravings being earned and standardized. But they are also beautiful, and the general idea must be "if those swordsmen are putting their lives on the line, we will give them powerful tools, but they might as well get to enjoy something decorative for the rest of their likely short life." The menuki would have been such an opportunity for this, though the details would be hard to spot in both anime and manga format. So instead I just want to ponder the possibilities.

Shinobu:

I was very inspired by all the metal inlay bugs and the butterfly motifs I saw today. I love the elegant engraving on the scabbard, and that her tsuba takes part of the traditional Shippou (Seven Treasures) pattern to make a vague butterfly shape. But I also saw one today that have a wisteria shaped menuki (and other bug motifs!!). But also, knowing her, she might be pleased to have a decorative little fish tucked behind the cords.

Sanemi:

I LOVE THE VIOLENT PINWHEEL. What a whimsical way to express wind! Speaking of bugs, why not give him a rhinoceros beetle, symbolic of fighting spirit? After all, I even saw realistic little snail ones today, anything goes. And while we're thinking wind--

Rengoku:

Wind chime??? Even the balloon flower pattern like was on the wind chime in that scene makes a lovely metal engraving pattern on other mountings on the scabbard. Totally unrelated, but today I say a brand of tangerines called "Shiranui" (the same name as the First Form of Flame Breath) for sale at the store, so heck, why not an apricot theme somewhere too? Orrrrrr you can also work with a "heart" theme to compliment all the flames. Oh, speaking of hearts--

Mitsuri:

Mitsuri's tsuba might look like four hearts, but this is actually an uncommon but traditional spin on a cherry blossom motif. Aside from all the possible ways you play with a cherry blossom motif, the traditional "inome" protective pattern is nowadays considered romantic because it looks like an upside-down heart. There's a lot of nice ways of using that shape, like a window in the a tsuba, or in her case, maybe to frame some other pattern used as part of an engraved piece. Speaking of "inome" though--

Inosuke:

"Inome" means "boar's eye," though it looks more like a boar snout. Kanamori could have done all kinds of things with this motif, or even used little boar-shaped menuki! Not that any of those efforts would have mattered.

Iguro:

Clearly the snake theme could be used a lot, but why not be more creative? He's actually a pretty sensitive dude, and my read on him is that he seems to like scenes that imply "purity," partly because he ses himself as so tainted and doesn't dare taint anything pure. Nature motifs like snow, or the elegant snow-moon-flowers triple motif suit his poetic soul nicely, and snakes are considered a water element (makes sense that his Breath stems from Water Breathing), so some water related theme could work too. In this same vein, snakes are generally considered as much as water element as dragons, so giving him a dragon item would also fit just fine with a snake theme.

Himejima:

Hard to think of this one in the same way as the others, but I'm sure there are methods for decorating it. Like, what does he even use as a scabbard? Maybe he has a nice strong brocade or woven cord for wrapping up the chains? There are so many ways you could work in Buddhist themes for him, especially the six characters used to write "Namu Amida Butsu" (but that's already all over his haori). There's gotta be good themes out there (both of Buddhist origin or general Japanese folk and/or poetic culture) to play on the idea of "strength." Oh heck, just give him a little Benkei-related motif, or a motif related to a famous demon slayer of the past.

--ON THAT NOTE--

Wouldn't it be cool if, like there are "Tale of Heike" themed menuki, there were menuki celebrating famous moments in Corp history? Maybe it was suddenly very popular to make menuki of Uzui vs Gyutaro once that momentous battle occurred? Uzui would love that. You could also have more subtle history, like motifs shaped like The Marks, which the swordsmiths have maintained in their traditions without knowing why certain symbols became associated with certain Breaths. If Yoriichi hadn't been disgraced, he probably would have been a common theme too.

Uzui:

ALL THE DECOR, but what about fireworks all over the shiny lacquer? Or the scene in Tale of Genji in which Genji stands in a storm at the beach (a hidden reference to the names of each of Uzui's wives)?

Muichiro:

GINKGO LEAVES, MAN. And the moon because it would be ironic.

Tanjiro:

What if he had a little SUNSHINE on a simple menuki?? Something nice and understated! Or even his fox mask!!! Or--oh, oh, oh---

Giyuu:

WHAT IF THEY HAD MATCHING FOXES

Also, it would be very nice if there was some useful of the waves and clouds pattern on the metal pieces of his scabbard.

Zenitsu:

There's already a lot of lightning and triangle on this sword, and I like how his matches Kaigaku's. I could see this being a situation of Zenitsu getting his sword polished and using the opportunity to ask for any number of cute and auspicious decorations and being flat out told, "no, this is what Thunder Breath swords look like."

Kanao:

Freaking flowers everywhere, but I also saw a crest today that had three butterflies in a circle around a flower, and it was repeated all over the sword, especially the lacquer of the scabbard. Wouldn't that be a cute reference to the sorts of people who inspired her to learn Breath technique and then sneak off to the Final Selection?

Genya:

He has such a very typical straightforward tsuba you'd actually see in real life. You one of the menuki themes I saw today? One one side, it is a "speedy demon" running off with a stolen stupa (which has the relics of Buddha inside), and on the other side, a Buddhist protective deity running after the demon with a sword. WHAT A FUN PAIR. Something like this would be such a cool way to reference his reliance on the Nenbutsu for Repetitive Action, too. But give that deity a glock.

I realize that a lot of this is very casually referencing motifs and hidden cultural details I've referenced elsewhere in various posts throughout this blog. I am far, far too lazy to go link those. Hopefully they're all properly tagged as "KnY Nerdery." Anyway, since you've come this far, here is an obligatory "SWORD BABY" photo because I always like photos when I get to hold tamahagane.

LOOK, A BABY SWORD, ISN'T IT BEAUTIFUL???

You need a mountain to make a sword

Mt. Youkou, which only exists in the Kimetsu no Yaiba universe is essentially named "Mt. Sunlight," is said to receive the most sunlight, which gets soaked into the Shoujouhi iron ore and Shoujouhi iron sand—both of which also only exist in this universe and are named for a particular shade of red. This mountain is therefore crucial to the development of Nichirin blades, and deserves more focus than a one-time mention in Chapter 9. If demons were to find this place and prevent them from mining, the Corp would be screwed.

A mountain is a finite resource, though. This post was supposed to be short and simple to say: 1. Large portions of that mountain are lost in the effort to collect the sunlight-soaked iron sand 2. Large portions of that iron sand is lost in smelting it into steel 3. Large portions of that steel is lost in the smithing process

But of course, it is not short and simple, I have more to say about charcoal and what this all means within the context of the KnY world and additional speculation about the production of Nichirin blades.

First you need to break the mountain! Okay, so you start with a mountain. This one is said to be “closest to the sun,” which has made some people theorize that this is the tallest mountain, Mt. Fuji, but perhaps that is just a way of saying it is in a sunny spot in the east. The main criteria is that it is very exposed to the sun. I think the "it doesn't rain" there thing is an exaggeration, as there are trees drawn there, so I assume it has some sort of a water source.

I will focus primarily on collecting the Shoujouhi iron sand as opposed to the ore, because in real life steel smelting in Japan, iron sand was more widely available than ore—and however they got the Shoujouhi ore, I’m guessing it was more of a process of scraping it off exposed parts of the mountain instead of digging deep in the dark for it. It used to be that that iron sand was collected in rivers and lakes from the natural, slow erosion process, but going by the illustration in the manga panel, they appear to practice kanna-nagashi, a process of collecting iron sand in large amounts by speeding up the natural erosion process by scraping off chunks of granite mountain into man-man waterways, and channeling it through a series of collection pools to sort the heavier iron sand from the rest of the sediment. Another reason to suspect this method is because the "Kana" of Kanamori's name is written with the same "kanna" kanji: 鉄穴 ("iron cavity," as opposed to the more common real life last name Kanamori which uses the simple 金 for metal/gold).

In the heyday of real-life traditional iron and steel smelting with iron sand, kanna-nagashi resulted in mountains being leveled because they used up so much of the natural environment. This was used for meeting almost all of the iron and steel needs of populous Edo period society, which did not need as many swords as in previous eras but needed anything from tools and nails to pots and pans. The swordsmiths in Kimetsu no Yaiba only needed to make swords for the Demon Slayer Corp (which we’ll use for referring to the organization’s full history, though it was less formally called “the demon hunters” for most of its existence). The swordsmiths making Nichirin blades were probably frugal with the precious Shoujouhi iron. They needed to make it last for as many centuries as it would take to defeat Kibutsuji Muzan.

Not all iron sand is created equal! While what's very crucial to Nichirin blades is that the iron that has soaked up the power of the sun, what's also crucial to making Japanese blades is a high level of purity in the iron. To put this in perspective, the more common kind of real-life iron sand (akome) that could be used for general iron needs might make up 5-10% of the rock plucked off the mountain, but masa iron sand, the kind that was (and still is) preferred for making Japanese swords might only make up about 0.5-2%. These sands would differ in size, the amount and array of impurities, and how high of a temperature and how long you need to smelt them. However, the real-world smelting process for making sword-quality steel used a mix of these two kinds of iron sands, so it might be reasonable to assume they stretch out the Shoujouhi iron sand supply by supplementing it with high quality sands from other nearby, shadier mountains. There is also the matter of how much of it was Shoujouhi ore, and how much of that ore was available relative to the sand on this fictional mountain, but I’ll focus primarily on a real-world iron sand based processes for consideration on numbers.

Anyway, we've perhaps already wasted at least 85% of what we've taken from the mountain to get this sand, and then it's time for smelting the Shoujouhi iron sand (and Shoujouhi iron ore, in this case) in a traditional tatara clay furnace, because for most of Japanese smelting history, that was what you had.

Tatara iron and steelmaking made the most of what Japan had! Smelting iron in clay furnaces did not originate in Japan, but while many other places in the world had more abundant sources of iron ore to start with, Japan did not, so the tatara method was continually development to make the most of what was available: iron sand. Two of the other major ingredients in this method were clay and charcoal, the qualities of which were important in setting off the chemical processes of smelting the iron sand into pig iron (which would be refined into better iron or for steel for making swords). With Edo period developments in this Japanese smelting method, they were able to skip the pig iron step and achieve a sword-quality steel, tamahagane. Tatara is still the only method with which you can achieve tamahagane.

Look at this beautiful sword baby:

(Fun fact: Tamahagane is covered with many different colors—but rather than being indicative of Nichirin-like properties, these are tiny films of remaining impurities in the metal, which reflect light similar to how it bounces off a soap bubble or a CD. Cool, huh? I also tend to theorize that the coloring changing aspect of Nichirin is a matter of bending the visible spectrum of the sunlight contained within them.)

We don't have time here to go into the fascinating details about how this smelting process works and why tamagahane gives you the characteristic attributes of Japanese blades, but suffice to say, what's crucial is that tamahagane has a high level of purity and an ideal amount of carbon for making blades that are both strong and ductile. However, prior to the Edo period development of tamahagane, we don't actually know all the details about the materials used. Swords could vary widely in quality in the Sengoku period, and it's very likely that the high-quality ones (like what the demon hunters would had used) mixed stronger, imported iron with the local iron sand. This is another reason I'm willing to bet Nichirin blades might be reenforced with other material, though it is still entirely possible in-universe that they are purely Shoujouhi and the craftsmanship of the swords back then was purely thanks to the swordsmiths’ efforts.

A quick note here before we go on: historically, it makes the most sense for Tanjirou to have been offered tamagahane at the end of the Final Selection, because this was the standard material for Japanese swords at the time. In Chapter 8, Kiriya does not say “tamahagane,” but just “hagane,” which means “steel.” However, the first fanbook says that they choose their “kouseki,” which is “ore,” implying that this is still in a raw material stage. It’s possible that before the Edo period development of tamahagane, swordsmen were offered their choice of lumps of Shoujouhi ore, but given the speed with which Tanjirou received a completed sword, I’m willing to bet it had already undergone the smelting process with Shoujouhi iron sand in one big smelting batch. Although industrialized methods of smelting steel with mined iron ore, coke, and brick furnaces were already the norm by the early Taisho period, tatara was still in use, and still the only method of making tamahagane, so I am inclined to think the Swordsmith Village stuck with this and used tamahagane (and Japanese fans who are familiar with the tatara process all tend to assume the same, though most of the ones I've talked to about it are biased tatara nerds in the first place).

Charcoal is crucial in tatara and Japanese swordsmithing! We also don't have time to go into detail about the clay or construction of the tatara furnace, but because this is KnY and I love charcoal, we will touch on that briefly: The charcoal used in tatara would be slightly different from the charcoal Tanjirou produced for household use or the charcoal used in multiple steps of the actual smithing process (both as a heat source and as a coating in a crucial step of the process). In a tatara furnance, it needed to burn quickly and at high enough temperatures to melt iron sand, it was left somewhat "undercooked" in the charcoal making process so as to leave more volatile organic components. Even with those sorts of adjustments to the charcoal making process specifically for tatara, Tanjirou could absolutely talk shop with the Swordsmith Village charcoal producers.

Also, in order to get trees big enough for tatara charcoal use, the trees were ideally 30-50 years old. Forestry methods in tatara charcoal production typically allowed the forest to grow back every 30 years, but this meant they needed roughly 30 different areas to cycle through and cut down from year to year. A single operation of the tatara furnace typically requires about 12 tons of charcoal, that is, roughly one hectare of forest. (This is why industrial tatara in real life usually required owning entire mountains in order to have that much forest available.)

What is one tatara operation? For our purposes here, suffice to say that a tatara operation for the purposes of making tamahagane is a roughly 70-hour process of adding iron sand and charcoal to the flames every 30 minutes or so, resulting in a 2-3 ton lump of mixed metal, called a kera (which is written with sort of vivid kanji that makes it's like the "mother of metal," 鉧). What adjustments that might require to include Shoujouhi iron ore, I am not sure. It is an extremely labor-intensive process, with a high level of know-how required to be successful. It is very easy for the process to be ruined if the giant flames are not maintained, or the proportion of the materials is off, or if there is too much moisture or not enough constant air flow, etc. It also uses a lot of material. In addition to about 12 tons of charcoal, one operation typically requires about 10 tons of iron sand. Roughly 70% of the resulting kera would be tamahagane. That means, very roughly, that of the 10 tons of iron sand, only 15-20% remains as ideal sword material, but maybe only about 0.3-4% of the overall iron sand turns into top quality tamahagane.

How many swords are we talking? The Swordsmith Village exclusively made swords for the Corp, which in Tanjirou's day and age is said to be “a few hundred” people (Chapter 4, and given the context, I assume this means “a few hundred swordsmen” as opposed to including outside supporting roles). Tamagahane for a katana is about 4 kilograms, so you can get, conservatively (and this is only my guess based on weight calculations, not on actually numbers of lumps of tamahagane I found results for), about 375 swords worth from one kera, or maybe up to 90 especially high-quality swords. We see anyone from a Mizunoto like Inosuke to a Pillar like Muichirou getting their swords replaced without much fuss, and clearly some styles of Nichirin blades require more or less steel (looking at you, Stone Pillar). The swordsmiths likely also use material for practice and trying new techniques, as well as for having extra swords available like those stocked up in the village.

I'll allow you to think backwards about how much mountain this consumes every year in a Corp that has been collecting ore and sand from Mt. Youkou for 800-1000 years, with the more damaging kanna-nagashi process being used for about 250-300 years. Instead, I will work forward to say that for a typical katana, that 4-kilogram tamahagane results in only a 1-kilogram sword, so you lose material at this stage too.

To recap: The amount of Mt. Youkou destroyed but which gets collected as iron sand is only about 0.5-15% (if we're being generous). The amount of that iron sand which gets converted into tamahagane is only about 15-20% (or less if they are very stringent about Nichirin quality), though the numbers might be very different depending on the amount of iron ore used. The amount of tamahagane which remains as a finished sword is only about 25%. This is not even taking into account the amount of forest, clay, or even the series of stones necessary for the polishing process, not at all to mention expertise and labor.

So quit breaking your swords, Tanjirou.

Sources: In modern day, the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords (NBTHK, or Nittouho) operates the Nittouho Tatara furnace three times every winter, so most of these numbers are based on their modern-day operations (though they do not practice kanna-nagashi, which was primarily practiced in the Edo period when tatara was a major industry). Other info primarily comes from other tatara related museums, especially the Okuizumo Tatara and Sword Museum and Wakou Museum, though it’s been glossed over for fandom purposes. Also, I’m a sword nerd anyway.

Kimetsu Kitchen

This project started for a few reasons:

1. Obsession

2. Still not having won a ticket to the Ufotable cafe

3. Being unmotivated to cook

Also though there are other character bentou and fun follow-up attempts and art about demon slayers and their favorite foods in my Kimetsu Kitchen tag, please see below is the master list for the informative posts.

Granted, "informative" is more about saying what a food is and what background it has. There are some recipes posted with my cooking attempts, but attempt them at your own risk.

Taisho Period beverages and drinking age

Tanjiro, Himejima, and Muichiro's favorite foods

Shinobu's favorite food

One of Mitsuri's favorite foods

Giyuu's favorite food

Iguro's favorite food

Sanemi's favorite food

Inosuke's favorite food + random Inosuke thoughts

Haganezuka's favorite food

Rengoku's favorite food

Uzui's favorite food

One of Zenitsu's favorite foods + Thunder Bro name analysis

Kanao's favorite drink

Nezuko's favorite food

Genya's favorite food (not demons, that is discussed here)

Snacks in the Swordsmith Village arc

☆Master list of other nerdy Kimetsu no Yaiba topics here!☆

The opportunity presented itself to try a sake bath recently, which I did, in Douma's honor. I didn't notice the fragrance unless I was looking for it, and my skin was a little flushed afterward and I found myself a bit light-headed, probably more from the extra warmth than the small amount of alcohol. Anyway, please enjoy all the chaotic energy this wound up having.

Me: Checking texts, checking texts, working working working, oh yes!! This guy again!

My Research: Why do you have Tumblr open? We are in a rush--

Me: Yes, but I always get distracted when it comes to swords. You know this. Naturally, I am a fan of this guy who did the first metallurgical analysis of Japanese blades. Very neat! And you know why no one ever did the same kinds of cross-section analysis that did he until that point?

My Research: Sigh... because it would require breaking the blades, which no swordsmith wanted to do. Like it says so, right there in the text you need to be working on.

Me: Right! And that's why it's so-o-o-o funny that he and Haganezuka-san would have been contemporaries! Dr. Tawara was born in 1872, so he would had been only a few years older than Haganezuka-san! Hahahaha!

My Research: ...

Me: Put down that sword, I'm getting back to work.

My Research: You're doing research for work, no rabbit holes!

Me: Right! No rabbit holes!

My Research: And no tying this into Kimetsu no Yaiba!

Me: - giku -

My Research: Did you just say the sound effect for flinching in trouble? Whatever. Today we're looking into the birth of the fire god Kagutsuchi--

Me: -- GIKU --

My Research: --and a tangentially related inauguration ceremony, written like a "passing on of the fire," but the word "hi" for fire (火) can also be interpreted as spirit (霊), for once one eats food prepared by the fires in that hearth, they inherit the spirit, making an unbroken familial line--

Me: W-w-wow, I, uhhhh, didn't know that kanji could be read that way, haha, h-how about we get back to that Kagutsuchi, that "hi-no-kami," haha...

My Research: So odd for you to be the one keeping us on track, a welcome change! Anyway, when just-born Kagutsuchi was slain, it split into five new kami, those of Rock/Boulder--

Me: "IWA!" (no Kokyu)

My Research: Thunder--

Me: "KAMINARI!" (no Kokyu)

My Research: Flame--

Me: "HONOO!" (no Kokyu)

My Research: Waterfalls--

Me: "MIZU!" (no Kokyu)

My Research: No, that kanji says "taki," sorry. And finally, "tani," for valleys--

Me: "KAZE!!" (no Kokyu)

My Research: No???

Me: Like--like, you know--wind sweeping through the valleys, right??

My Reseach: Um...

Me: HEY LOOK A FIRE FESTIVAL HELD ON JULY 14TH

My Research: Now that is a totally different rabbit hole.

Me: LITTLE RABBIT, WHY ARE YOUR EYES SO RED???

Seeing that Hantengu has a kanji tattoo on each of his emotion clones, do they have a deeper meaning? Are they considered to be “primary” emotions? Also, does that connect to the colors they represent?

Sekido- Red

Karaku- Green

Aizetsu- Blue

Urogi- Yellow

Yes! Although Hantengu himself has "怯" (fear) and his final self-protecting form has "恨" (resentment), and Zouhakuten has "憎" (hatred), these four are a set, collectively known as "喜怒哀楽" (Ki-do-ai-raku), which is indeed shorthand for what are considered the primary emotions, but feelings and emotions in general. This idea comes from Confucianism, as the four basic motivations for people's actions and behaviors.

Some things to note, the character used for sadness (Aizetsu's 哀) is more about the emotion of sadness as opposed to a situation being sad, and the difference between Urogi's "happiness" (喜) and Karaku's "pleasure" (楽) is that things that make you happy aren't necessarily fun, like how playing a game is fun, but passing a big test you studied for may make you happy but isn't necessarily fun. Sekido's "anger" (怒) is more straightforward.

喜怒哀楽 can be used in everything from "he shows his emotions easily" to "she doesn't show her emotions much" to "they get really emotional, watch out for mood swings" and such. While 喜怒哀楽 is a neutral phrase in and of itself, it lends itself to both positive and negative nuance. On the whole, perhaps more negative ones, as there's a lot of phrases that imply one's emotions (and how they express them) being out of control and causing trouble. KnY seems to lean more towards the idea that 喜怒哀楽 need to be kept in check, lest you run away with your passions or obsessions (demon-like behavior), but if you're as strong-willed as a Pillar, you can also keep them focused on a goal (killing all demons). There are a few characters who don't show much of their 喜怒哀楽 are are treated like good characters (Ruka, Amane, for instance), but also characters who let their 喜怒哀楽 run amok and cause trouble for others, even if they are essentially good at their core (Zenitsu, Inosuke). Tanjiro shows us a whole range of 喜怒哀楽, but he generally is keeping them in check or righteous when he lets them loose, in a way that powers himself for some goal.

As for colors, it seems there's no set colors to represent the primary emotions, and it really is up to interpretation! Blue for sadness and read for anger seem pretty consistent, but I've seen yellow and green used interchangeably for pleasure and happiness. That sad, I found this webpage handy from an artistic/design perspective on choosing different shades and hues of a variety of colors to express those emotions.

What domestic skills do you think the Kamados would have had, being a multigenerational rural family with an incentive toward forest management?

(Winter washi paper making? Hide tanning? Wild Vegetable foraging? )

What kinds of useful tools and home things could they reasonably make themselves, vs buying?

I wish I was better versed in rural life skills to be able to answer this better. This is going to rely on my scattered and various but ultimately shallow experience, a touch of research, and looking back at canon for clues.

With starting at canon for my basis, we know that the Kamado family isn't rich. This is a point that has come up between Tanjiro & Nezuko, that the reality of their situation doesn't allow for frivolous purchases like nice new kimono, however, they're not in such abject poverty that they can't afford toys like Hanako's puzzle box or treats like Nezuko's favorite konpeito candy. They would likely focus on needs before treats, and that makes me think that if it is more efficient to buy something rather than produce themselves, they will. In order to make their work effective, it probably helps if they have goods tools in the first place, so I'm assuming that items like the kitchen knives and Tanjiro's axe--items that work better when made by someone skilled in their production--were purchased. The cart Tanjiro uses to transport charcoal is also an item which takes a lot of technical skill to produce. Even if multiple family members working together could have built and maintained the charcoal kiln, the wheels and axle might had been best left to an expert's labor.

My second consideration is whether or not they'd have had the items necessary for production; as these can be big and costly, and may be better suited for places that will get more industrious use out of them. For example, we know that Nezuko is skilled enough in sewing to be able to sell her work for some side profit, however, due to the lack of a loom in their house's design, I doubt she produces the fabric herself (I'm sure she could if she had a loom, though). Regarding the paper question, places selling washi for profit would need bigger work spaces than the Kamado family seems to have for that, but if they had the mulberry plants and labor to dedicate to stripping and treating the bark, I don't see why they couldn't be able to make small batches of small sheets of paper. The question is whether or not it would be worth it, what with a town nearby that has a reasonably active looking economy--there are two story buildings down multiple streets and even Saburo's lights run on electricity at his distance from the heart of town. It would probably had been more labor and cost effective to buy paper than to produce it themselves. Speaking of Saburo, Director Sonozaki's requests for the design of his house be that you could get the feeling that he lives by himself and that during the winter, he earns money for his daily necessities by making umbrellas. There are a good handful of Japanese-style umbrellas in his home, as well as a couple paper lantern, both of which are crafts which require a lot of know-how. My sense is that it made sense in the area around the Kamado home to have your craft or two you specialized it, and to make enough profit from that to benefit from others' specializations, as opposed to be entirely self-sufficient. The Kamado family maintains their quality of life by being good at making charcoal, not necessarily good at all things. Something I wondered about but couldn't find enough evidence on either way was whether or not they'd be able to make pottery in the charcoal kiln. I suppose they could, but whether or not it would be worth it would depend on the quality of the clay available to them if they could afford not to keep the charcoal kiln running for charcoal, their primary livelihood. Again, might make more sense to purchase these household items. A good jar is more useful than a wonky one.

That all aside, even if they don't specialize or have the tools for everything, I'm willing to bet the Kamado family knows the basics of a lot of skills and trades, and there's something they can't build from scratch, they know how to repair it. By this, I'm assuming basic carpentry for furniture, basic building techniques for repairing holes and cracks in the walls, being able to adjust the cart if something is off about the wheel, fixing clothes (as Nezuko clearly does), sharping knives and axes, patching up holes in things that should be able to carry water.

However, like you said, they were involved in forest management, and this is probably where a lot of their skills are rooted. Sure, they can buy good quality knives and dishes from town, but they can't afford to go to town everyday to eat. That's probably where they focus a lot of their skills which aren't oriented toward charcoal production--and a lot of charcoal production is forest management in the first place.

This means that in addition to foraging, like they do on multiple occasions Tanjiro's train dream, and catching fish like Tanjiro & Inosuke usually do for breakfast every morning in the second fanbook epilogue, they also likely collect fallen leaves and household waste to make fertilizer to raise a vegetable garden. It seems to me that with the size of the daikon we see Yuichiro cutting, the Tokito woodsman family probably also lived like this; perhaps even more self-reliant than the Kamado family. Speaking of daikon, dream!Takeo asked Tanjiro for more of his takuan, which is a pickled daikon. I'm betting that the small jars above the cooking hearth were basic cooking ingredients bought in town, like oil and vinegar, but some of the bigger jars on the ground were probably for things like pickling vegetables and otherwise preserving food.

Besides getting food sourced from their immediate surroundings, they could probably make tools out of what was also in their immediate surroundings--especially bamboo! This is a fast growing source of flexible wood that you can make all kinds of daily items out of, including and especially baskets. These might be for washing and drying fruits and vegetables, collecting mountain sprouts, or as Tanjiro showed us with his quick crafting skills, making something light-proof you can carry your demon sister around in. I'm willing to bet that he and his siblings all started very young on bamboo weaving, and weren't all that old before they started carving bamboo into whatever they needed.

Another item they were clearly skilled with was working with straw. The fact that they have a kayabuki style abode--that is, a thatched roof cottage--knowing roof repair was probably one of their most used home repair skills. We Tanjuro weaving straw sandals as he gives advice to Tanjiro, straw rain coats, and straw boots for Tanjiro to use in snow. Straw was also a material they could recycle once it would no longer stand up to other household purposes. We see a lot of uses of plant material like this, but not as much evidence of animal material use, nor a place to hang hides for tanning, so it's my feeling that they personally might not have had this skill. Would they eat wild game if given the chance, though? Even if its not their main source of sustenance like it might be for a more self-sustaining hunter, I would not be surprised if they grew up eating deer, boars, and rabbits. Although beef was already popular and this time due to Western influence, I doubt they'd have been able to afford this. Eggs were also considered a luxury item in this time period. In other time periods and cultures, we might had expected to see the Kamado family raising chickens, but not for these circumstances.

In general, I think that compared to modern Reiwa era kids or even kids already used to the conveniences of the Taisho era city, the Kamado children were all much more skilled at starting and tending fires and at using knives for building and maintaining tools. They probably feel as comfortable carving something as they do writing something. That said, people may have different specializations and interests, like we see that Urokodaki was especially drawn to wood work, including harder woods (like the "kirikumo" cedar for Nezuko's box, which does not exist in real life), and he liked using wood for artistic purposes too. I'm willing to bet his carpentry and carpentry repair skills far exceed that of the Kamados. And then we've got Aoi! She's a very talented jack-of-all-trades, but it may be that she's a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. While Urokodaki was able to to coat the box very thoroughly with "iwa-urushi" ("boulder lacquer" which likewise does not exist in real life). Aoi make have only known very basic lacquer skills, and ultimately, she was only doing repairs. With the Butterfly Mansion being a more modern, upscale build, and what with the wide availability of Kakushi, I feel she would be able to do things like basic plumbing fixes and furniture adjustment, but she probably devotes more skill to keeping the hospital actively running and can employ outside help for bigger jobs.

This got a way from just talking about the Kamados, but I hope it provides some framework for thinking about whether or not any given material might be in their skill set!