Tamayo

Tamayo is a major supporting character of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. She is a demon, a skilled doctor, and close ally of Tanjiro Kamado. During the final confrontation between humanity and demons, Tamayo, along with Yushiro, joins forces with the Demon Slayer Corps to develop a drug that would aid in the defeat of Muzan Kibutsuji. Tamayo is a petite young woman with long, dark brown hair, parted in the center and worn braided back into a large, low bun, which is held in place by a floral tama-kanzashi hairpin. She has large, gentle eyes that initially do not possess pupils, only a haze of lavender that fades to dark purple the higher it goes, and notably red lips in contrast to her pale complexion. She is noted to have an attractive appearance by Tanjiro and Yushiro. Tamayo wore a dark purple medium-lengthed hōmongi kimono that is decorated with wavy pale purple tree branches and red flowers, and a cream-colored taiko musubi obi to secure it around her waist, as well as plain white socks and violet zōri sandals. During the confrontation between the Demon Slayer Corps and Muzan, Tamayo's eyes are shown to have black cat-like pupils and Yushiro's talisman scattered in her kimono. In her past, Tamayo wore her hair tied in a low ponytail. Tamayo is a gentle, wise, and incredibly intelligent individual. Having devoted most of her life the researching of demons and human transformation into one, she was one of the most knowledgeable individuals to be shown. Despite the generally antagonistic and virulent relationship between humanity and demons, she shows a great deal of kindness towards humans. She made it a part of her mission to assist injured or sick individuals with her expansive medical knowledge — Tanjiro Kamado being among them. Tamayo had a strong preference against violence: instead of killing humans for their blood, she chose to buy blood from consenting donors to survive. She was adamant in teaching her assistant, Yushiro, against violence and often reprimanded him for his habit of hitting others. She was one of the few demons who, after her transformation into one, was able to regain and retain her human emotions. However, despite her usual kind, caring, and considerate disposition and personality, Tamayo has displayed a more cruel and vicious persona upon confronting Muzan. This was seen when she gleefully boasted to him that she' had successfully created a human-transforming drug and managed to inject it into him, and later, upon being devoured and eaten, reduced to mere cells inside his body, Tamayo again showed her cruel side as she revealed the real effects of her drugs. Muzan hinted that this vicious personality was Tamayo's original personality back in her earlier years as a demon, though his antagonistic association with her makes this dubious. It is possible that Tamayo's stark change in demeanor is only triggered when being with Muzan due to the great hatred she bore of him. During her time as a servant of Muzan and prior to meeting Yoriichi Tsugikuni, Tamayo was shown to have a more docile personality, likely a result of her realizing how impossible it was to defeat Muzan with her power to avenge her family. However, this changed upon her witnessing Yoriichi's strength and how close he came to killing Muzan, as Yoriichi noted that he saw a glint of hope in her once-deadpan eyes as she realized that he'd almost killed her former master, showing that, upon seeing Yoriichi's power, Tamayo's resolve to avenge her family was reignited. Tamayo hated her identity as a demon: when she was first encountered by Tanjiro and he had deduced that it was her Blood Demon Art that assisted him, she mentioned that she could still be called a human. Upon learning that Nezuko had recognized her as a human and hugged her after helping defeat Susamaru, Tamayo pulled her in closer and tearfully thanked Nezuko. During her skirmish with Muzan to inject her drug into him, Tamayo declared that she had no intentions of being a demon and simply want to survive her illness and be with her family, showing that Muzan had tricked her into undergoing a transformation without speaking of the consequences.