Tanjuro Kamado

Tanjuro is a thin man with a wan complexion and black hair tinged with red at the tips. His crimson eyes lighten toward the bottom of the irises, and his son inherits both his coloring and his features. A long illness leaves his body weak and his skin dull. He is born with a mark on his brow.

His clothing echoes the outfit Tanjiro later wears, including a checkered haori, though his is orange rather than dark teal. While alive he wears the hanafuda earrings handed down through his bloodline. When he performs the family rite, he dresses as an Iwami Kagura dancer in a long dark robe trimmed in gold and red, a wide blindfold bearing the character for flame, and a carved wooden blade shaped like a burning sword.

Quiet, thoughtful, and warm, Tanjuro keeps a calm and dignified bearing while remaining keenly aware of everything around him. He maintains a peaceful home and often counsels Tanjiro on how to live. According to his son, he dislikes drawing attention to himself or revealing his true strength. That restraint vanishes the moment his loved ones are threatened, when he acts without hesitation or mercy.

Although he is not a Demon Slayer and his sickness leaves him fragile, Tanjuro is extraordinarily capable. He once cut down a towering bear, close to nine feet in height, using only an axe and moving faster than the eye could follow. His command of the family Kagura let him dance through bitter cold from dusk to dawn without tiring.

The birthmark on his forehead is in fact a Demon Slayer Mark, a trait that appears on Sun Breathing practitioners, as Shinjuro later explains. He could enter the Transparent World to read an opponent's blood flow and joints, and he lived in a Selfless State so complete that he radiated no hostility or fear even when facing death or a charging beast. His refined Sun Breathing, preserved as the family dance, was the legacy he passed to Tanjiro along with the inherited earrings.