hello.

A forward: This timing is primarily based on manga indicators, though I did check one detail against the anime. I disregard Ufotable for seasonal indicators because they placed Kanao’s early memories of going the Butterfly household in a winter setting, whereas Kanao joined on May 19. Information like that wasn’t published until those episodes might had already been in production, so I assume they weren’t given all the information to work with, and disregarding flower seasonality probably makes it easier to keep consistent background art.

Inciting Incident: Tanjiro finds his family slain by Muzan, and Nezuko turned to a demon. Likely February 2~5, 1913 (see here for detailed explanation why).

Following that, Tanjiro took at least a couple days to reach Mt. Sagiri, we can’t be certain how long Nezuko managed to stay awake while she was starving following her transformation, but she was already crashed out on the floor before Tanjiro even got permission to train.

Following that, we get a general “two years” of training. We don’t know how much time passes between breaking the boulder and the Final Selection beginning. For cleanliness’s sake, let’s assume the Final Selection is sometime in winter of early 1915. There is no indication of how regularly Final Selections are held, with the sheer amount of rank-and-file members and how fast they get killed off, I assume Final Selections are held multiple times a year.

Tanjiro spends 7 days there, then recovers for 15 days until Haganezuka arrives with his sword. Unclear how many days it took Tanjiro to arrive at the site of the Swamp Demon after receiving his first mission, but 2 days after that, he arrived at Asakusa.

This means that within a month of passing the Final Selection, Tanjiro already encountered Muzan. From the use of his muffler, it’s still cold weather. Nezuko has been awake a very short time before meeting Tamayo, who can tell she’s already undergone a significant transformation.

Unclear how many days it takes Tanjiro to encounter Zenitsu and receive a mission that same day to go to the site of the Drum Demon House. Meets Inosuke that same day. It’s entirely possible Tanjiro met Muzan the night before, or that it was a couple days to a week ago (a week feels like a huge stretch).

SEASONAL INDICATOR: Nothing’s growing in the fields.

Unclear how long they take to recover at the Wisteria Crest House. It’s “until their bones healed” and given the speed at which these shounen manga characters recover, I’m going to say it’s two weeks or less. However long, this is Tanjiro’s longest break since he started his missions. The light novels imply the boys hung out long enough to be invited to a local wedding in town and for Tanjiro to go on a midnight flower-picking escapade. This was also their chance to makes friends, even if Zenitsu and Inosuke might not yet call each other that. By the end of this period, it may have been only 1.5 months or less since they passed the Final Selection.

---

SIDE ANALYSIS, PART 1:

Zenitsu and Inosuke are still noobs, but I’m going to assume that they have a comparable amount of experience to Tanjiro if you go by kill count (Inosuke’s probably gone after plenty of little demons) or level of demon (I can’t imagine Chuntaro ever allowed Zenitsu to stay in one spot for long, though he probably took forever to finally buckle down and sleep accomplish each task). Since Ubuyashiki Kagaya took a personal interest in each of his “children” and I assume he sent newbie Tanjiro to Tamayo right away on purpose, and likewise he might have chosen missions suited for Inosuke and Zenitsu, like “what an interesting style, let’s send him to a place with a lot of demons that won’t hurt him too bad so we can see what his abilities are like, it’ll be good to have one person clean those pesky areas up instead of distracted my more experienced children” or “hmmm, he’s very strong but just doesn’t have confidence yet, let’s force him to build some confidence. Oh, he doesn’t seem to notice, oh dear.”

I consider these points because although the methods of moving up the ranks seem arbitrary, it probably takes into account the level of demons a Corp members faces instead of only the number of demons they defeat (for example, the fanbook cites Zenitsu and Inosuke as having contributed to Rui’s defeat even though they didn’t face him personally). Simply holding their own against a demon like Enmu probably meant something even though it was Rengoku’s contributions that enabled them to survive that fight and ultimately give Tanjiro the opening shot at Enmu’s neck. So why isn’t at least Tanjiro a Pillar? We’ll continue this discussion later, the boys are still recovering from broken ribs.

---

Upon receiving their mission, they depart, and they spent one night in battle on Mt. Natagumo.

The aftermath coincides with the twice-a-year Pillar meeting. It’s unclear how long these meetings take, but long enough to cover many topics and drag in Murata to grill him about why he and his cohorts are so weak. Reminder, Murata has been at this for about seven years, and he is only of the Kanoe rank (4th out of 10). Kanao, meanwhile, in the span of about 1.5 months has gone from Mizunoto to Tsuchinoto (5th out of 10). Holy ship, girl.

---

SIDE ANALYSIS, PART 2:

If we go by the theory that Oyakata-sama did his best to send them on missions that suited them, Murata’s limited potential might had also limited the amount of danger Oyakata-sama was willing to put him in on his own. Hence, why so many Corp members were sent together to the Mt. Natagumo, but “safety in numbers” wound up tragically working against them.

---

Tanjiro receives treatment at the Butterfly Mansion after Zenitsu and Inosuke, and they spend another period of time in bed to heal. Nezuko probably spent most of this time sleeping. Let’s assume two to three weeks.

During that time, the anime adds a scene of Shinobu making an additional visit to the Ubuyashiki Mansion, as Rengoku receives his mission (perhaps the one to go investigate the disappearances on a train?). This coincides with the start of Functional Recovery Training, which Tanjiro and Inosuke participate in for 14 days while Zenitsu spends more time in recovery.

Once Zenitsu starts, he and Inosuke both quit within 6 days. Tanjiro spends another 10 straight days losing to Kanao. He then engages in 15 days of Breath training on his own before having a little rooftop talk with Shinobu, and then in another 10 days, he’s able to blow up a big gourd.

While there might had been more days in between, Zenitsu and Inosuke finally come around and start Breath training too, and 9 days later, they are able to maintain constant Total Concentration Breathing (this speed is attributed to Shinobu being a good teacher and Tanjiro sucking at teaching). Over some indeterminate number of days later, Tanjiro & Inosuke receive new swords, and Enmu receives a big whopping of Muzan blood.

To recap:

--Since starting Functional Recovery Training, Tanjiro has been at this for at least 64 days.

--If we assume 2.5 weeks in bed before that, he’s been at the Butterfly Mansion for over 2.5 months, maybe closer to 3.

--It has been roughly 4 to 4.5 months since he passed the Final Selection. In that time, Genya has grown 20 centimeters (and a quick search tells me that 7.6 centimeters is the average growth per year for boys in puberty).

Tanjiro & Co. receive their mission, and some indeterminate number of days later (very possibly the same day), they arrive at the train station, and spend one night in battle. Since a lot of the demon activity took place around the Tokyo area where Muzan was located, it’s possible that this was the geographically furthest they ventured in the whole series. A historical fan theory I heard regarding Taisho era night trains suggests it was on route to Osaka, which I accept. It was probably long, hard journey straight back to the Butterfly Mansion. They had hardly been gone at all.

While we don’t know how long they kept Tanjiro in bed before he went out to the Rengoku estate (possibly quite a distance away in a southwest Tokyo suburb), but at least long enough for the funeral proceedings to already be over and done with. We do learn very specifically that in the four months following Rengoku’s death, the boys generally reside and train at the Butterfly Mansion between individual missions they go on.

SEASONAL INDICATORS:

Azalea, blooms April through June-ish:

Hydrangea, blooms June through July-ish (but the dried blossoms can seemingly stick around for ages after the rainy season ends):

This means that that when they go off to Yoshiwara in drag, it’s hot and humid. Besides all that boy-smelling sweat under the kimono, their gobs of makeup had to have been running. It also means the fighting was extremely fast passed for all of those events to have happened over the course of a relatively short summer night.

(HOWEVER!!! The anime uses a ton of late autumn seasonal indicators and it makes me tear my hair out.)

By the time they accept this mission, it has been roughly 8 months since they passed the Final Selection (7 of which they have spent as Butterfly Mansion residents). Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu are all Kanoe (4th of 10, the same that Murata was after seven years).

---

SIDE ANALYSIS, PART 3:

Canon, fanbooks, gaiden, and light novels tell us the following criteria for being a Pillar:

1. Be the strongest user of your Breath

2. Defeat one of the Twelve Moons

OR 3. Defeat at least 50 demons and be of the Kinoe (10th of 10) rank.

If this is all it takes, Tanjiro should be a Pillar from the moment he defeated Enmu. He’s the strongest Sun Breath user by default anyway, though no one knows this. (Giyuu might have even tried to insist that look, there’s someone else with qualification to be the Water Pillar now, let him have it, please, PLEASE.) There’s also a lot of questions and theories in the fandom about what happens when multiple people in the same Breath fit the criteria. Is Jiichan’s idea to have Kaigaku and Zenitsu as joint Pillars really all that unusual, or not? We just don’t know. Although it's implied early on that nine is the standard number of Pillars (because there are nine strokes in the kanji for "hashira" (柱)", very rarely is this the case. In most scenes of all the Pillars gathered, there are fewer than nine.

The light novel story about Sanemi defeating Lower Moon 1 states that both he and Masachika were Kinoe-ranked, so I take that as implying you need to defeat one of the twelve moons AND be Kinoe-ranked. However, that begs the question how characters like Muichiro and Mitsuri climbed the ranks so incredibly fast even though it typically takes “five years” to become a Pillar, or “two years if someone is very talented.”

They probably faced very, very strong demons very frequently early in their careers, and this played in to them jumping up the ranks extremely quickly. Hell, Muichiro might had offed a couple of Lower Moons and a good handful of demons every night before he finally hit the right rank and numbers.

This also begs the question about how few Corp members actually survive long enough to reach upper ranks. Murata’s been very, very lucky to have lasted seven years. It’s also very telling that Giyuu found it hopeless that any other Water Breath user besides Tanjiro would have the potential of becoming a Pillar, despite there being a bigger pool of Water Breath users than any other Breath.

We can probably assume that the vast majority of Corp Members are killed off by the middle ranks, or even well before that.

---

Tanjiro & co spend only 1~2 nights undercover in Yoshiwara before the day Zenitsu encounters Daki. The following day Uzui tells Tanjiro & Inosuke to leave, but they all head into battle that night. Before sunrise, all three boys fall unconscious due to their injuries.

Tanjiro spends the next two months in a coma (now a Butterfly Mansion resident for 9 months or so). After waking up, he spends one more week in bed and is soon recovered enough to go out to the Swordsmith Village (unclear number of days possibly spent in Functional Recovery, but he’s basically fully healed after that extra week in bed). Unclear number of days to reach Swordsmith Village, he hangs out with Mitsuri on the very first night there.

SEASONAL INDICATOR:

Matsutake mushrooms: In season September through November-ish. This is served at the meal Tanjiro and Mitsuri share. Yummy.

But before that meal, Tanjiro gets hit in the head with Genya’s tooth. Besides Genya, there are other non-Pillar Corp Members hanging around the village, though we only briefly see their corpses later.

The following day, Tanjiro meets Kotetsu and begins training with the Yoriichi Type Zero battle doll. Tanjiro’s starvation begins, he survives on rain water while Kotetsu denies him sustenance for the following 7 days. For the first 5 days the doll held paddles, but by the 7th day they’ve been exchanged for swords. Tanjiro gets a hit in and Kotetsu grants him food. Tanjiro continues training for an unclear number of days after that before the sword emerges. Tanjiro has held on to Genya’s tooth for well over a week.

One night of battle. Nezuko, over 2.5 years since becoming a demon and roughly 10.5 months since waking up from her big nap, masters the sun. Tanjiro spends the following week unconscious (Muichirio and Mitsuri respectively spend 2 days asleep and are mostly recovered by the 3rd). An emergency Pillar meeting is called, Pillar Training is decided. Some indeterminate number of days passes before Tanjiro learns of the training.

---

SIDE ANALYSIS, PART 4:

Not all of the Corp may have been at the Training.

By the end of training (since they haven’t been taking any missions, we can assume the same at the beginning of training), Tanjiro, Zenitsu, and Inosuke are all Hinoe (8th of 10), while Kanao and Genya are Hinoto (7th of 10). This tells us a few things:

We don’t know if it’s mandatory to hit each rank, or if skipping ranks is acceptable depending on experience. Tanjiro probably got a huge jump due to his additional experience battling Upper Moon 4. For Zenitsu and Inosuke to have the same rank, they must had been taken on extremely formidable demons on their solo missions. Genya probably got a big jump due to Upper Moon experience, but he had to have already been pretty high up there using his own unique blend of Breath-free battle methods. Kanao probably picked up a lot of experience against strong demons simply by being in Shinobu’s company, but it’s unclear if she would have had solo missions, and if so, how many, and how in the world she already got to Tsuchinoto by the Mt. Nataguma arc (perhaps being an official Tsuguko plays some role?). Douma seemed to think Kanao had more innate fighting ability than Shinobu, so this can probably account for a lot of Kanao’s quick and steady(?) increase in rank even without much opportunity to go up against any of the Twelve Moons.

But what about Kaigaku? He seemed to still be in training during part of the year Zenitsu spent in training, so even though he passed his Final Selection before Zenitsu did, he wasn’t that far ahead of him timewise. He probably felt a lot of pressure to stay ahead of Zenitsu in rank, which might mean he went looking for strong opponents. The fact that he’d have survived them all is one thing, but each experience probably made him even stronger and stronger in a short amount of time, showing that he was also of a very, very considerable amount of talent. That’s probably why Kokushibo recognized potential in him, and Kaigaku’s hurry to eat as many people as possible to get as strong as he could as a demon was in line with the desperation he probably already felt to prove himself.

We can assume this transformation took place during the Pillar Training arc, making Kaigaku notably absent from training. But we also see that Nakime was searching out the locations of the whole Corp and spied at least one Corp member out on his own (who knows, maybe it was Kaigaku, but I suspect it was just a random member). She had determined the locations of 60% of the Corp members, probably because she found a few training sites, and it seems that in addition to looking for Ubuyashiki Kagaya, Muzan also wanted the certainly of knowing where each of the swordsmen were prowling. Although the demons were inactive ever since Nezuko mastered the sun, the Corp probably still assigned a reasonable portion to be on patrol while the others trained, or they took patrol and training in turns. My assumption is that members who didn’t have to participate, like Kaigaku, were among the highest ranked members.

Also, Oyakata-sama probably knew what all went down with Kaigaku. Sad times, sad times.

---

After hearing from Zenitsu about how much Pillar Training sucks, Tanjiro takes one more week to heal. He receives a letter from Oyakata-sama that day and immediately begins to pester Giyuu. After 4 days of being stalked, Giyuu finally relents and tells him about Sabito, and then agrees to start training. (If the order of training was different for everyone then Giyuu probably had several groups of trainees before Tanjiro got to his session.) This is the same day that Shinobu tells Kanao how she plans to defeat Douma, and the same day the crow arrives at Tamayo’s window to propose collaboration (which Shinobu was likely worked up about, knowing this was Oyakata-sama’s plan). Worth noting, Shinobu has already been poisoning herself for a year in preparation for battle with the demon that killed Kanae, so she had been at this since before meeting Tanjiro.

Three days after eating soba with Giyuu, Tanjiro begins training with Uzui for 10 days, then 5 days with Muichiro (others had been held there two weeks), some indeterminate number of days with Mitsuri, 4 days with Iguro, and then he got in trouble on the very first day of training with Sanemi. He probably arrived at Himejima’s abode shortly after that. On his first day, Murata has already been there for 10 days. Unclear if they start boulder training the same day, but it takes Tanjiro 7 days to be successful (during this time, Himejima spends time away from the mountain at Oyakata-sama’s side). Students were free to give up on Himejima’s training and move on, but good for Murata and his average buddies for sticking it out longer. Zenitsu receives word about Kaigaku on the day Tanjiro moves the boulder.

INTERESTING LACK OF SEASONAL INDICATORS LIKE SNOW.

Unclear number of days passes before Tanjiro arrives at Giyuu’s place, it’s possible it was the very following day. That night is when the following 67 chapters take place.

Therefore, Tanjiro’s Pillar training was roughly one full month, and combined with his recovery period, probably about 50 days since Nezuko mastered the sun. Shinobu and Tamayo only spent about one month or less in collaboration.

Following the battle with Muzan, Tanjiro spends three months in recovery.

The cherry blossoms are in “full bloom”, implying varieties like somei-yoshino as opposed to earlier or later blooming varieties, so this gives us a very small window in late March/early April.

SEASONAL INDICATOR:

When Muzan comes for a visit at the start of that long night, the Ubuyashiki girls are singing a song typically sung around New Years.

SEASONAL INDICATOR:

So!! If we work backwards…

Muzan’s defeat: Late Dec/early Jan

Beginning of Tanjiro’s Pillar training: Late Nov/early Dec

Swordsmith Village arc: Late Oct~early Nov

Yoshiwara arc: Late July, mid-August-ish

Train incident: Late March, mid-April-ish

Mt. Natagumo: Early-to-mid January

Final Selection: November or December….. f@%$*#.

2 or 3 months longer than where I hoped we’d be.

Tanjiro might had been exaggerating that two years a little since “half a year”, “half a year” is pretty vague, despite that he was likely keeping track of the dates in his writings. I’d be willing to tighten up the timeline just a bit to say the Final Selection was in late December 1914.

Of note: Most rural Taisho folks still celebrated New Years according to the old calendar, so we’ve got the following Gregorian dates for reference in case you want to play with them: Feb 6, 1913, Jan 26, 1914, and Feb 14, 1915. Even though we have birthdates for the characters, they wouldn’t have been likely to celebrate them in the Taisho era, and the westernized government was still having trouble standardizing the age keeping systems to count people from age 0 on their birthdate instead of age 1 from birth and increasing each New Year. You know, just to throw more wrenches into this whole thing.

Ungh. I tried.

Anyway, I feel relatively confident saying Tanjiro spent roughly a year in the Corp, give or take, and Muzan was defeated in late 1915 or early 1916.

And considering Tanjiro was at the 8th of 10 ranks after going up against a big handful of the 12 Moons and his sempai of 7 years Murata was still stuck at 4th or 5th, take from that what you will.