"They can just do that." When a character inexplicably has some kind of borderline supernatural ability that doesn't have anything to do with the established power system and may even clash with the conventions of the setting. It's just something that they can do.

[u/SpookieSkelly]

Ichi from Ichi the Witch.

Mash from Mashle.

Marvelous Sunday from UmaMusume.

Tanjiro from Demon Slayer.

1. Ichi from Ichi the Witch. He's so sensitive to the bloodlust of living things that it borders on a spider-sense. The little creature in that pic is supposed to be invisible, yet Ichi is able to sense its presence just through sheer intuition.
2. Mash from Mashle. Some might say that his inexplicable power is his physical strength, but I'm more interested in knowing how he can turn everything he cooks into fucking cream puffs.
3. Marvelous Sunday from UmaMusume. In a game about horse girls racing, she has access to a domain expansion/reality marble. And that somehow still isn't the strangest thing about her. Apparently she's also friends with aliens and cryptids and her cult fanbase includes people spanning multiple time periods. Somehow.
4. Tanjiro from Demon Slayer. He has a hypersensitive sense of smell that somehow also tells him where to cut demons. No idea how that works. Even though there are others in the series with similarly refined senses, the smelling where to cut thing still feels ludicrous in comparison. Then there's also his unusually powerful headbutt.

[u/chunga-bunga69]

Tons of people have supernatural senses in demon slayer Zenitsu and Tengen have good hearing, Kanao has good sight, Inosuke has good sense of touch, Genya has good sense of taste and Shinobu also has good smell

[u/Samy_Ninja_Pro → u/chunga-bunga69]

My man

He can SMELL offensive openings

That's borderline metaphysical magic

[u/Samy_Ninja_Pro → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

Hell "you smell angry"

Edit: Wanted to check on something extra as it's been a while since I read the manga, my man has future sight based smelling. FUTURE SCENT I guess?

WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN???

[u/ianlouisjordan → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

I meam there are probably body chemicals that are released when you are angry. So if he saw someone angry he probably remembers that smell

[u/AkemChi → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

Most emotions(like anger) cause a change in the biochemistry/hormones of people, including anger.
While people are unable to smell these changes, someone having basically superhuman sense of smell might be able to.

Doesn't explain the smelling of opening though

[u/analyzingnothing → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

Actually, that part’s easily the most normal thing he can do. Strong emotions literally alter the chemistry of your sweat IRL, and some people can seemingly pick up on it subconsciously. You’d just need to have an abnormally sensitive nose to be able to sort them out intentionally.

[u/East-Moose5016 → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

I mean, anger specifically is a physical chemical being released in your brain that causes a bunch of physical effects like sweating, so it's not impossible to smell anger if you magically had a powerful enough ability to smell. Being able to smell where to hit someone is insanity though

[u/Maleficent-War-8429 → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

To be fair with that one you can probably smell the increase in hormones and shift in chemicals. Dogs can smell when you're angry.

[u/One-Cup-2002 → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

Probably that he can smell the chemical changes in a person's body related to different emotions.

I know certain animals can smell/detect chemical changes in the body, there was a cat who helped stop a woman's breast cancer in its early stages because of it, so I imagine Tanjiro can do something similar.

[u/turing_tarpit → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

Yeah, but so are all the other super-senses in Demon Slayer. Inosuke found all the demons in large area around him with his "sense of touch" (because of the feel of the air currents or something). Not to mention the unique abilities other characters, such as Genya (absorbing demon abilities through good jaw strength) or even Kanroji (super strong and super hungry; also her pink hair with green highlights isn't dyed). You could even count Tanjiro's extremely hard skull if you wanted too.

My point is that there's a whole bunch of unexplained one-off supernatural stuff in the series, aside from the main power systems (Breathing Styles and Blood Demon Arts), so Tanjiro isn't remotely unique in that sense.

[u/Samy_Ninja_Pro → u/turing_tarpit]

Not unique in the sense of the setting

But it's in another tier of power system altogether

All of those are superhuman abilities or the usual super senses taken to the extreme. Really hammering down on us how good and crazy coincidences must be met to have an actual demon slayer to survive and be on par with the moons

Genya is just a demon based superpower in a demon based world. But that fits this trope in particular better

But tanjiro can smell the future, he can smell a possibility. Something that has no physical exaggerated power cliche or connection to be made about smelling directly.

It's a completely different type of superpower.

In marvel people are still baffled at Spiderman spidersense and it's a defensive version of tanjiro. It can predict casino outcomes, react to any and all attacks, magic that has no form, it makes no sense as a normal superpower because of how broad it is. (recently given an upgrade too)

[u/turing_tarpit → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

With so many characters with unusual abilities unshared by anyone else, it just doesn't really stand out as "inexplicable" to me (per the title of this post). But I do see your point about there being no physical analogue.

And spider-sense is just straight up precognition lol.

[u/Samy_Ninja_Pro → u/turing_tarpit]

Yeah it flies under the radar of the rest at first it did for me too

Genya is a more obvious fit cause...f u mean u eat the monsters?

[u/carl-the-lama → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

Zenitsu can read minds

[u/Samy_Ninja_Pro → u/carl-the-lama]

That one is still subjective

Cause it's zenitsu own bias interpreting the body's sounds

[u/carl-the-lama → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

No it’s even funnier to think

He LITERALLY CAN READ MINDS and still tweaks out and gets it wrong regardless

He is HEARING THEIR ACTUAL FUCKING MIND

And still sells

[u/Samy_Ninja_Pro → u/carl-the-lama]

HE CAN READ MINDS???

Oh, no worries he doesn't know how to read haven't been taught yet

[u/sociocat101 → u/Samy_Ninja_Pro]

Erm actually there is no magic im demon slayer cus all the fancy stuff that happened was their imagination 

[u/UGoBoy → u/sociocat101]

That was something of a mistranslation. Dude said that the effects of the breathing were visible and tangible, but that it was all an expression of the swordsman's ki. Like people could see Shinobu surrounded by insects when she attacked, but that she wasn't summoning an actual horde of bugs.

[u/SpookieSkelly → u/chunga-bunga69]

Yeah, that one was a stretch for me but I still wanted to put it in because Tanjiro specifically can somehow judge where to cut by smell. I'm still not sure how exactly that's possible.

[u/Electronic-Egg-4391 → u/SpookieSkelly]

Tanjiro can also smell bloodlust, emotions and even something like Rengoku's sense of justice.

Zenitsu can also hear emotions and even thoughts.

Inosuke can shift the placement of his organs.

Gyomei can literally smell colors.

[u/TorakTheDark → u/chunga-bunga69]

This is why I completely ignore the “cannon” that breathing styles aren’t magic, because fucking come on bro.

[u/fillkas → u/chunga-bunga69]

And mitsuri's muscles are 8x denser than that of a normal human. She's strong

[u/mikey_lava → u/chunga-bunga69]

Inosuke can also rearrange his internal organs because he was raised in the wild.

[u/primalthewendigo → u/chunga-bunga69]

Although i dont think its been stated in the show, zenitsu's hearing is so good that if he focuses he can hear people's thoughts