The booklet that came with the movie ticket has a few Taisho Secrets, I plan on scanning and translating them tomorrow in a reblog. For now, one tidbit with no illustration:
Among the Kimetsu no Yaiba cast, who are the best and worst at waking up in the morning?
The Best:
1. Rengoku Kyoujurou (He can wake up according to whatever time he set for himself)
2. Kamado Tanjirou (Heâll either wake up at the time he intended to, or heâll wake up quickly if someone says something to him)
3. Hashibira Inosuke (Heâs ready to make a racket from the instant he wakes up)
The Worst:
1. Kamado Nezuko (Sheâs the type to not fully regain consciousness)
2. Agatsuma Zenitsu (The type to roll around in bed a while instead of getting out)
3. Kochou Shinobu (The type to have low blood pressure)
Gotouge Koyoharu: âHello, Iâm Gotouge. Thank you for coming to watch the movie! Furthermore, there were a lot of staff members who put their all into producing this theatrical release, and Iâm truly grateful for all their hard work. As I was drawing the one-shot included here with Rengoku-san as the main character, it really hit home to me what a good child he is, and how very âmain characterâ he is. Rengoku-san never complains no matter how hard it gets, he values his family and friends, and heâs a very forward-facing person. Everyone, please value your families and the people close to you in your lives, okay?â
Gotouge-sensei made this special mini-version of âTaisho Secretsâ to celebrate the theatrical release:Â
What sorts of dreams does Tanjirou usually have?
Tanjirou tends to have a lot of dreams about battles and training. In his dreams heâs constantly ruminating about what didnât go well, and he analyses how to do it better next time, and he sees a lot of ways to work with situations you can expect in battle. His dreams feel pretty clear and realistic.
What was Tanjirouâs mother most skilled at cooking?
Tanjirouâs mother was very skilled at cooking, she made a wide variety depending on each season. She also really liked trying out regional recipes that other people shared with her. Her childrenâs favorites were sanma-no-soba dumplings and tofu baked in miso.
(Translation note: Sanma-no-soba dango is a rural dish from the Nagano area, a decent distance northwest from where Tanjirouâs family lived (see my post about canon geography here). It has a piece of mackerel pike wrapped in a dough made of buckwheat flour.)
Is Nezukoâs hair accessory something she started doing herself?
The reason Nezukoâs hair isnât bound up now that sheâs a demon is because Tanjirouâs not that good at doing it for her (Nezuko also now cannot do it herself). The accessory she has at the front is the one piece Tanjirou can do well for her, and since Nezuko doesnât remove it, it stays.
While Nezuko is sleeping as a demon, does she dream? If so, what sorts of dreams does she have?
Nezuko always dreams of her family. Zenitsu and Inosuke, as well as other people who have been nice to her will make appearances as well.
In the Mugen Train arc, Zenitsu seems to be the only one who has any familiarity with trains. Has he ridden one before?
Zenitsuâs a city boy, heâs of course ridden trains before. Thatâs why I think going out and training with his master in the mountains was 10 times harder for him than it was for Tanjirou and Inosuke. He doesnât really care for the inconveniences of the countryside.
In the Mugen Train arc, the tanuki version of Tanjirou that appeared in Inosukeâs dream was called Ponjirou and the mouse version of Zenitsu was called Chuuitsu, so what was the rabbit version of Nezuko called?
Rabbit-Nezukoâs name was Pyonko. Sheâs a girl, so Inosuke took a little extra consideration of her than for Ponjirou and Chuuitsu.
Does Rengoku-san have any favorite sayings or mottos?
Taorete nochi yamu: âIf you put in your all, youâll stand your ground even in deathâ
Seishin ittou, nanigoto ka narazaran: âNothingâs impossible if you put your mind to itâ
This is a character who leaves a very deep impression. Does he have any real-life models?
Rengoku-san does have a real-life model. Actually, besides Rengoku-san, most of the Kimetsu characters are modeled after people in real life. Theyâre typically normal people who the author happens to know.
Why do the men in the Rengoku family have hair like that?
The Rengoku family has long since had a practice called âKankagari.â For the duration of their pregnancies, every seven days the wives will spend two hours gazing at a large flaming torch. This seems to be what causes the men in the family to have flame colored hair. That being said, it seems that itâs normally bad for a pregnant womanâs health to stare at large flames, so please donât attempt this.
(Translation Note: This was released on 2020/10/16, whereas the first chapter of the Rengoku Gaiden illustrated by Hirano-sensei published on 2020/10/12 had Rengoku declare that the hair color is due to his ancestor having eaten too many fried shrimp. While thatâs funny and Iâve been wondering if demon slayers have a natural flamingo-like trait, Iâm interpreting it now as something Rengoku said to cheer up Kanroji. As I was looking up Kankagari to see if itâs a real thing (seems itâs Kimetsu-universe only and not something that exists in real life), I saw Japanese Twitter commentary that this may be a practice thatâs been going on long before the Rengoku family was slaying demons, and in Toujurouâs case, it means itâs become genetic, or the Rengoku family is still following this practice into modern day. This clan knows no chill.)
When Enmu was human, what sort of person was he?
When Enmu was a human, he had a tendency ever since he was a child to not be able to tell the difference between dreams and reality, and this caused a lot of problems for the people around him. As an adult, although he was not a doctor, he made bad use of things like hypnotic therapies, like convincing sick people who didnât have long to live that they had been restored to health. Although theyâd later figure out that this had all been a lie, he continued to perform this awful scam over and over.
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Hello! I wanted to ask you a question since you have a lot of insight into the time period of kny. I tried looking if thr dresses that tengen's wives use could have a specific name (obvs there wasn't anything like it in the time period) Its a little confusing because they aren't only short, they also have no sleeves, so i was wondering if maybe you had any idea
Hey there! While these sorts of outfits are a staple of kunoichi (female ninja) costumes nowadays, that's usually what they're called: costumes.
Everyone sort of knows they didn't actually exist, so the sleeveless miniskirt look is usually just referred to as kunoichi outfits/costumes/apparel. The thought, I think, is that it allows for more freedom of movement, but also people just find the silhouette really stinking cute and don't want to let go of the fantasy. It's as entrenched in collective ninja fanon now as shuriken are.
There are sometimes sleeveless hanten (coats, similar to haori and happi but slight differences between them), but even so, those are usually referred to as "sleeveless hanten" and often they are either used for a little extra warmth over a kimono, or again, for costumes, like in modern Yosakoi dance. Historically, there were men who would wear sleeveless kimono because they did jobs in which sleeves got wet or got in the way, but women would had been thought very, very strange to wear anything sleeveless.
Speaking of popular ninja culture not being based on reality, most of the modern Japanese image of ninja is based on Edo and especially Meiji era popular fiction, which combined various people of the Warring States era who specialized in a number of various very cool jobs and skills into one sort of person who could do them all, and then expanded on their capabilities with generous imagination. I've said more about the weirdness of the Uzui ninja clan in this post, but if we just focus on outfits, Tengen is already weirdly flamboyant as it is, and his wives would have turned heads for showing so much skin that, as one author wrote on the topic, kunoichi in these outfits 'wouldn't had even been able to get away with convincing anyone they were Japanese.' Since the point was not to stick out, you'd be far, far more likely to see actual female ninja dressed more like Uta and Suyako, or they'd be quick to disguise themself as any number of normal townspeople.
But as stated, the Uzui clan is weird. I think we can look at Uzui's wives, and their culturally/historically inappropriate outfit choices, for more than just being necessary fanservice in a Shounen Jump manga. It tells us more about the closed-off society in which Tengen and his wives grew up.
Women in their particular in-universe ninja society were raised to think very, very lowly of themselves, their only purposes being to serve their husbands by bearing offspring and sacrificing themselves for him if need be. With that in mind, there probably wasn't much of a modesty and shame mentality instilled in them. It was probably a communal society in nobody would bat an eye to see anyone naked. Bodies, and by extension, their strength and sexuality, were practicalities, not something to make a fuss about.
Across cultures around the world you find a very wide variety of attitudes towards nudity, especially nudity in family or bathing contexts, and their ninja society seems to fall very heavily on the side of bodies not being inherently shameful. With that upbringing, infiltrating the pleasure quarters probably meant far less to them than it would had to normal girls in the Corp who likely were raised with very conservative standards of the time, and if the onsen trip with Giyuu referenced in the second fanbook is anything to go by, or even Tengen lewd methods of motivating Zenitsu in the light novels, they see absolutely nothing wrong with full nudity in the presence of someone outside the family unit if it's in the context of social bathing (and while rare nowadays, there are mixed bathing onsen throughout Japan. Yet on the whole, Japan still tends to lean more towards conservative standards in everyday dress. Context is key).
I find their continued use of scandalous outfits similar to how some people continue to keep the modesty standards they were raised with even when living long term in a place with different standards; it's not that they're unaware, they just have a different value system attached to how they view the body and clothing, and what's interpreted as stimulating and not stimulating. Which is to say, they probably had a lot of very distracted boys on that round of Pillar Training, depending on where the boys were brought up. If in places where it was still common to see open breastfeeding in public, it may not had bothered them much. Zenitsu, being a city boy, might had been more influenced by Westernized standards of modesty.
This brings me to something I really appreciate about Tengen, although this is just my personal take: his love for his wives is not surface level. He cares deeply for their well-being and his pride for them is in who they are as individuals (something unusual in his upbringing). He does not play the part of a pervert; he's got three wives because his upbringing gave him three wives, not because he sought that many. Whether or not they are beautiful seems like a non-issue to Tengen. As much as he loves very un-ninja-like flamboyance, he's not one to get caught up on things like sex appeal; bodies are just bodies, sometimes the fact that your wives have wide sex appeal is just a practicality, Tengen's not possessive of who is looking at his wives or not (which perhaps is due to his communal upbringing), it's not as if they're his private property to look at or hide. His wives are his best friends before all else, and I really love that.
The Sound Pillar past, I have heard that explore a bit in databook about being ninja.
Also what happened his sibling that still remain.
Also what there react
Combining info from the fanbooks and Chapters 80, 87, and 90 we get the following narrative of Uzui Tengen and his family, as complete as I could fill it in. It's always possible the anime version will expand and give us more, but here's what I've got in chronological format.
Uzui Tengen's father was the leader of their clan, one of a few ninja clans who lived in close community. Ninja were regularly sent on missions, but it is not clear what those missions were. Women and children were also expected to undergo strict training and go on missions, but women were primarily only valued as baby-makers, and it was common for one man to take multiple wives. The wives, at least in the Uzui case, were chosen upon agreements between families. (For more commentary on the unusual and cult-like nature of the Uzui ninja clan, please see this post.) In Chapter 80, Makio recalls how she never used to be afraid of dying because she was so brainwashed to believe her only value as a kunoichi (female ninja) was to put her life on the line in support of the strong male ninja.
Tengen is the oldest of nine children. Of note, Fanbook #2 states that he has a mother and father from whom the nine children came, but as multiple wives is the norm in this village and Uzui was 15 when they were forced to fight each other, I think it's reasonable to assume many of them were half-siblings (even if all with one very busy wife, that would make the youngest one only around 7~9 years old or so, by my guess. But, it doesn't seem unreasonable in this clan that an 8-year-old would be expected to take part in this fight.)
Tengen had his three wives by the time he was 15. Since he is 23 when canon takes place and Hinatsuru (from a ninja clan second in rank to the Uzui clan and who has a good balance of core ninja skills) is 21, Makio (physically a highly capable ninja but her short temper causes her to fail her missions and yes, she is Tengen's cousin, please restrain your knee-jerk reactions and accept the cultural difference and move one) is 20, and Suma is 19 (and yes, Fanbook #2 said she likes both men and women), that means his wives were respectively 13, 12, and 11 when they fled the village. As Suma's younger sister was originally the one being considered as a bride, this means they were willing to marry off girls even younger than that. See this post for more commentary on multiple wives in the Taisho period, and as an added note, the legal age for women to marry in Taisho was 16. The Uzui ninja clan was entirely counter-cultural in the first place, though, so this doesn't apply very directly to them. Furthermore, due to their curse, the Ubuyashiki clan had very usually early expectations for children to wed, and they always run a not officially recognized organization. Otherwise, most of the cast seems to follow more usual Meiji/Taisho family patterns.
Of the nine siblings, three of them died before Tengen turned 15, simply due to the lifestyle. When Tengen was 15 (clarified according to Fanbook #1), Tengen's father pit the remaining six siblings against each other so that only the strong would remain. They were all concealing their identities and did not know they were fighting their own siblings. According to Fanbook #2, Tengen killed two of them, and his younger brother (second oldest) killed another two, and Tengen was pissed when he realized what was happening. He couldn't bring himself to kill his remaining brother, though that brother was just like their father when it came to his values that only the strong should survive, and he really didn't care about killing his own flesh and blood.
This was when Tengen decided he didn't want to live like this, and he took his wives and fled. For a while (according to Fanbook #2), he often said he should go to hell, but this made Makio angry, it made Hinatsuru cry, and it made Suma bite him so he stopped saying that. He did continue to think that he should eliminate the rest of this evil Uzui clan, but he could never bring himself to kill his father and little brother. (So, fanfic writers, grab your pens, we can assume the Uzui clan is still active.)
Anyway, once he was free of that lifestyle where he had to constantly hide his presence, he thoroughly rebelled and embraced the flamboyant.
It's unclear when and how Tengen learning Breathing technique. It's possible there was knowledge of this technique in some form or another among the ninja (though his wives don't seem to display it), and it's also possible he learned from a cultivator. Sound is an off-shoot of Thunder, but it's unclear whether Sound was established before he came along, or if he created this Breath to make extra use of his keen hearing. (What I would give to see Tengen/Kuwajima interactions, preferably arguing about which Breath is superior.)
It's unclear how much time passed between fleeing the clan and joining the Demon Slayer Corps. Given his ninja skills, as soon as he found out about the Corps (and perhaps by extension, demons), passing the Final Selection was probably a breeze for him. It was either right after the Final Selection (and therefore still waiting for his uniform), or just as he had made up his mind to join the Corp that he declares his new rule to his wives: their lives are #1 priority. #2 priority is morally upright humans, and #3 is Tengen himself.
And they're like, "whaaaaaaaat."
But sure enough they all accept the demon slaying mission, and before long, Tengen and his wives meet Oyakata-sama one fine spring day, I assume upon attaining the rank of Sound Pillar. Oyakata-sama sympathizes with how hard it must had been for Tengen--for all of them--to go against what they were raised to believe, and to fight to protect people in what they've deemed a morally upright course of life. Tengen's like, "this guy gets it" and becomes as big a fanboy as any other Pillar is for Oyakata-sama. It's purely conjecture, but I'm guessing he and Oyakata-sama both were somewhere around age 15~17 at this meeting (again, we don't know how much time has passed since Tengen left the ninja. Due to Kanae and Tengen's shared presence at later flashbacks, he couldn't had been older than 18~19).
Tengen goes on to be super popular. The most popular Pillar in the Corp, Taisho Rumor has it. His wives all help on missions too, but there's an agreement that they'll get out and live a happy domestic life once they've bagged an Upper Moon--enough of a contribution to, perhaps, to feel they've atoned for the sins they committed as ninja (or at least, this was how Hinatsuru proposed the idea). Once the arm gets chopped and the eye gets cut, Tengen gains a really good excuse for retiring, but it was just his luck to have declared three Tsuguko within hours of his forced retirement. (Like, I doubt this counts for anything. And if he ever calls them that again his trio of Tsuguko are probably going to be more confused than anybody else.) Anyway, Nezuko brings him back from the brink of poison-induced death and he basically walks home.
While still involved in the Corp in training the rank and file members and guarding Kiriya upon his becoming Oyakata-sama (meaning he, like Himejima, was trusted with knowledge in advance about Kagaya's very flamboyant exit plan). After that he truly goes into domestic retirement mode and makes friends with a fellow lop-sided former Pillar, however drab he always thought that person was. He takes enough of a liking to said former Pillar that he brings him along on co-ed hot spring dips and lets him hold his first child. Which of the three wives birthed the first child, we don't know.
And then one of his descendants goes on to be a flamboyant gymnast, but still gathers once a year under Ubuyashiki's leadership to perform the Sound Breath forms as a sacred Kagura dance.
And we still don't know what became of Tengen's brother. For all we know, modern gymnast Uzui Tenma and his six other siblings regularly avoid explosive attacks on their life from a generations-held promise to eliminate them. PARKOUR---but more flamboyant. (I hope it's obvious that I am being silly here and have no canon basis for this.)
Is there a reason why Shinobuâs name is written in hiragana while Kanae and Kanaoâs (and Aoiâs) are in katakana? and is there a reason why their names donât have kanji or is it just a stylistic choice? Also, how do Shinobuâs shoe blades work? I wonder what other sneaky weapons she (and the others) have.
Got to pick a fellow nerd and native speaker's mind on this one. Also, I have more recently learned that in this time period, katakana and hiragana names were considered humble (even men with aggrandized names would often have them written phonetically), and before kanji was widely used outside of the more educated circles of society, it was simply more accessible. This doesn't seem to have been consistently applied among the KnY cast, though, as the Kochou girls were highly educated, so phonetics were a stylistic choice. On the contrary, the potentially less formally educated Kamado and Shinazugawa families used kanji extensively, with one Shinazugawa sister (Koto) being written in hiragana.
Anyway, based on discussions with a native speaker nerd friend, here's our consensus, along with some extra thoughts:
Names:
Shinobu (ăăźă¶)
Hiragana has a soft feel to it, as far as Japanese writing in concerned, so this makes it feel like a pretty and gentle girl's name. However, in kanji like ćż or ćČ, the meanings might lean negative, even if they can also be positive or neutral. ćČ feels a bit sad and wistful, thinking back on something, and while ćż can be in reference to being able to endure, it mostly makes people think of someone who works underhanded: aka, ninja, and this would overlap too much with Tengen. But there's the fun thing about Shinobu--all these positive and negative nuances here can totally work for her.
Kanae, Kanao (ă«ăăšăă«ăăČ)
My friend's thoughts were that hiragana would had made these overall soft character feels too soft. The katakana, with its stronger angles and bolder strokes, shows more strength in them. I've also heard an interpretation of Kanao's name that it shows Kanae's wish for her in how it transforms the name.
Stick with me for this--"e becomes o."
Which is obvious, but if we state that in Japanese, it's said, "e ga o ni naru," which is a pun for "egao ni naru."
ăšăăăăČăă«ăăȘăă
çŹéĄă«ăȘăă
"Egao" is smile, so Kanae wanted to see Kanao smile.
If that was indeed intentional instead of just a fan theory, then the katakana may make it more obvious. I think using ăČ* instead of ăȘ was a stylistic choice, like in how Makio's name is likewise ăŸăă* instead of ăŸăă, maybe to make them seem less like boy's names that often end in very masculine "o" kanji.
*In some romanization systems, these are written "wo."
Aoi (ăąăȘă€):
My friend didn't seem to find anything odd about Aoi's name being in katakana, it's just one option of many for a decently common name. I think it's a let down because of how many fun kanji options there are for this time, but I wonder if this was so as not to overlap with Tanjiro's mother, Kie, whose name uses the kanji commonly used for the "aoi" plant. Being in katakana, perhaps, is to make us think more of the color blue instead of the aoi plant. Also, phonetically written names were seen as humble and very common at the time, for men as well (though it was more common for women).
Hidden weapons:
I have no real life knowledge on which to based this, but I've always assumed it was a woven straw sole with the blade hidden within the weave, and she manipulates it with her toes--like as long as the tip near her toes is given the right push, it just slides right out, especially if the shoe is bent, since the blade itself can't bend. It would stick right out with a splinter manipulated in just the right way out to poke out of the opening of flexible skin.
As for hidden weapons, we assume Uzui has the general ninja array. perhaps just all lined with wisteria poison nowadays (but with his Breath, there's probably very little use for them). I think Shinobu might even hide more needles on her person lines with medicines or poisons for her own personal protection from both humans and demons alike, as he's canonically not physically strong and has to be resourceful.
As for the others, though, since Nichirin blades are the only truly effective weapon against demons, and since most of them have little to hide in their work, we didn't find it likely that anyone else would carry concealed weapons. I had considered Iguro, but he's strong enough to use a sword to remove demons' heads and to use his bare hands to subdued a misbehaving Corp member, he does not need anything else, and he's even with his bendy style, he's not trying to be crafty or pull anything untoward in his swordsmanship. Notably, many of the Pillars, and even Tanjiro, have shown they are skilled in open hand techniques to subdue human opponents; none of them require the extra edge that, say, a kunai might give them in those techniques.
To take this back to Shinobu, though, I'd argue that her words are just as potent as her poison and should be considered dangerous. ; p
Let's go on a quick deep-dive about this somewhat forgettable detail! After all, Genya's gun tends to leave more of an impact than that Nichirin-to he was so insistent on getting. But on this blog, I like swords, as well as sword decor.
The hand guards (tsuba) throughout Kimetsu no Yaiba range from symbolic items that are totally impractical (like a sharp pinwheel) to subtle accents inspired by real swords (like the elegantly charcoal-inspired one). Genya's is so close to some real-life tsuba designs that you can call this type by its name: namako-sukashi (æ”·éŒ éăă).
"Namako" is in direct reference to "sea cucumber," because that it what the shape of the cut-out segments resemble.
Wait, wait, wait, no, I'm not going to compare Genya to a sea cucumber. There's more we can say about this, really. And this was actually a very common motif integrated into many different tsuba designs, including highly complex ones!
However, it is best known for this design that looks very close to Genya's tsuba. It has been praised for centuries for being elegant in its simplicity. Although it is categorized as a namako-sukashi design, it is also called a "Musashi" tsuba because it is widely said that the master swordsman Miyamoto Musashi (1584â1645) himself designed it.
You know, Miyamoto Musashi. The guy who wrote "The Book of Five Rings." The undefeated duelist who wielded two swords. The guy who, if up against a demon, would definitely not need to resort to blasting the demon's head off with fire-power, or when that fails, panicking and taking a bite of out it.
Perhaps they don't have much in common as far as fighting abilities are concerned, apart from Genya also being a double-wielder. We can, however, look for some similarities between Genya and Musashi in terms of lifestyle. Musashi could be a bit of a loner; he was the sort of guy who stuck to his own path instead of minding social conventions, and he would easily leave behind home and all his possessions if it was for a greater purpose. He was self-made in a lot of ways, and practicing Buddhism was deeply woven into Musashi's philosophies.
Let's put a pin in Buddhism and set aside those sea cucumbers. We can instead look at this motif for its overall shape. The overlapping circles make up the most basic form of a wachigai (èŒȘéă) crest.
Basically, any crest made up of 2 to 10 circles in any arrangement can be considered a wachigai-type crest, though the names will get more and more specific for each arrangement. In general, these are considered auspicious because of the unbroken layering of good things. They got popular in the Heian period and got picked up by everybody from Sengoku samurai families to families with influence around the start of the Meiji period. But like, anybody who wanted to give something an auspicious touch could find ways to use repeating patterns like these. They are super common, and I would even argue that Shinobu's tsuba is based on a wachigai-type pattern.
To focus on the simple, basic wachigai pattern of two overlapping, linked circles, we can find examples of it in, say, a highly-ranked house of the pleasure quarters of Kyoto, the Wachigai-ya, which uses that as their crest. But Genya was not in the Entertainment District Arc, so let's instead go back to that pin we put in Buddhism. Among the handful of religious institutions that use this crest, one of them is the Buzan sect of esoteric Shingon Buddhism. There are actually multiple explanations of what sorts of duality it represents, like two inseparable realms where Buddha is just as present, but one of the simpler concepts is bonjoufuni (ćĄèäžäș), the idea that both holy persons and common folk alike are both human, entirely and inseparably the same.
Now, in Genya's case, we have someone of two co-existing states: human and demon. Even for being human, he is capable of what is impossible for humans; he fully embodies the strength and regenerative capabilities of a demon, as well as the same weaknesses. Despite encompassing a demon's traits, Genya is not like Nezuko or Tamayo or Yushiro. He is human. He's got both states.
He is like overlapping circles.
Or maybe he's like a sea cucumber, if sea cucumbers can also eat demons.
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Hiii love your work! Gotta have one ask here that's that's bugging me ever since the Chapter where they described that Kokushibo had seen other demon slayers just like Genya who could eat demons and gain powers from them, which would then I would have to ask (to someone who likes lore ofc), do you think Sanemi would have those other powers too? Or maybe their mother? Of course I don't really remember if the eating demon gene(?) came from heritage, but if so, wouldn't that be cool 0v0, ok that's it have a good day to you!
I do, I do love the lore so much... and I'll make you a bet, if Sanemi ever heard of Genya's abilities prior to Pillar Training, as much as it would have pissed him off, I make you a bet that he would have curiously taken a bite on his next mission.
My understanding is that the ability to eat demons is not hereditary, Genya is just a weird anomaly as much as Sanemi is a weird anomaly with Marechi that makes demon's drunk. We've seen demons exposed to Genya's blood and none of them ever seem effected by it, so that means Sanemi's condition is not hereditary. Genya's ability is so weird that it probably pops up as a random genetic mutation, and other people out there since the one whom Kokushibo encountered who had this same mutation might had blissfully gone about their lives with no idea, and who knows, maybe they lived long enough to pass it on to their children.
What we must also keep in mind is that genetics are complicated, much more so than whether a trait is dominant or recessive. Many traits are affected by many different genes, which may trigger each other or not depending on other genes. Probabilities much more complicated than just if there's a dominant gene or two recessive genes involved, so even though you might see recurrent genetic issues and traits among siblings, it's also not unusually for one child to have something especially odd. Case in point, Kiyoshi was a Marechi, but his siblings Shoichi and Teruko were not (we do not know about their parents). That being said, I like to think that Shinazugawa Shizu happened to have a weird collection of genes, just through happenstance of what got passed down to her and maybe a mutation or two. When that set of genes got passed on, it expressed itself as Marechi in Sanemi, and the ability to eat demons in Genya, based on the total collection of genes they wound up with.
Why Shizu instead of their father, whom they picked up a lot of their physical strength from? Because Shizu is the one whom Muzan decided to make into a demon.
Despite the number of them out there, Muzan doesn't make new demons because he likes there being a lot of demons out there running around with this blood. He's been trying and trying to find someone whose unique constitution will turn them into a demon with cells impervious to the sun, assuming they even survive the transformation. That's why he bothered going all the way out to the mountain home of a family of charcoal farmers, hoping one of them might be capable (whether that was because he knew about their ties to Yoriichi or because he wanted to see if deep ties with fire were enough, we don't know, and I assume the latter). Shizu, unbeknownst to herself, may have been carrying around a weird set of genes in the first place and Muzan was curious is that might be what he's looking for a demon, simple as that.
If that's the case, would Sanemi then carry genes that could be expressed in a later generation as a demon eater, or as Marechi? Sure! But in a world without demons, I guess they'd never know.
Taking the time cues from throughout the series, this is an attempt to organize the course of (primarily) Tanjiro's demon slaying career. There will also be analysis of how fast Corp members move through ranks. Very open to being corrected.
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 Kanaoâs early memories of going the Butterfly household in a winter setting, whereas Kanao joined on May 19. Information like that wasnât published until those episodes might had already been in production, so I assume they werenât 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 canât 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 âtwo yearsâ of training. We donât know how much time passes between breaking the boulder and the Final Selection beginning. For cleanlinessâs sake, letâs 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, itâs still cold weather. Nezuko has been awake a very short time before meeting Tamayo, who can tell sheâs 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. Itâs 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: Nothingâs growing in the fields.
Unclear how long they take to recover at the Wisteria Crest House. Itâs âuntil their bones healedâ and given the speed at which these shounen manga characters recover, Iâm going to say itâs two weeks or less. However long, this is Tanjiroâs 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 Iâm going to assume that they have a comparable amount of experience to Tanjiro if you go by kill count (Inosukeâs probably gone after plenty of little demons) or level of demon (I canât 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 âchildrenâ 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 âwhat an interesting style, letâs send him to a place with a lot of demons that wonât hurt him too bad so we can see what his abilities are like, itâll be good to have one person clean those pesky areas up instead of distracted my more experienced childrenâ or âhmmm, heâs very strong but just doesnât have confidence yet, letâs force him to build some confidence. Oh, he doesnât seem to notice, oh dear.â
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 Ruiâs defeat even though they didnât face him personally). Simply holding their own against a demon like Enmu probably meant something even though it was Rengokuâs contributions that enabled them to survive that fight and ultimately give Tanjiro the opening shot at Enmuâs neck. So why isnât at least Tanjiro a Pillar? Weâll 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. Itâs 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, Murataâs 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 âsafety in numbersâ 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. Letâs 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, heâs 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, heâs 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, itâs 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 donât 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 Rengokuâs 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, itâs 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. Heâs the strongest Sun Breath user by default anyway, though no one knows this. (Giyuu might have even tried to insist that look, thereâs someone else with qualification to be the Water Pillar now, let him have it, please, PLEASE.) Thereâs also a lot of questions and theories in the fandom about what happens when multiple people in the same Breath fit the criteria. Is Jiichanâs idea to have Kaigaku and Zenitsu as joint Pillars really all that unusual, or not? We just donât 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" (æ±)", 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 âfive yearsâ to become a Pillar, or âtwo years if someone is very talented.â
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. Murataâs been very, very lucky to have lasted seven years. Itâs 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 heâs 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 Genyaâs 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. Tanjiroâs 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 theyâve 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 Genyaâs 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 havenât 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 donât know if itâs 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 Shinobuâs company, but itâs 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 Kanaoâs 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 wasnât 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 heâd 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. Thatâs probably why Kokushibo recognized potential in him, and Kaigakuâs 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 didnât 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 Tamayoâs window to propose collaboration (which Shinobu was likely worked up about, knowing this was Oyakata-samaâs 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 Himejimaâs 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-samaâs side). Students were free to give up on Himejimaâs 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 Giyuuâs place, itâs possible it was the very following day. That night is when the following 67 chapters take place.
Therefore, Tanjiroâs 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 âfull bloomâ, 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 backwardsâŠ
Muzanâs defeat: Late Dec/early Jan
Beginning of Tanjiroâs 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 DecemberâŠ.. f@%$*#.
2 or 3 months longer than where I hoped weâd be.
Tanjiro might had been exaggerating that two years a little since âhalf a yearâ, âhalf a yearâ is pretty vague, despite that he was likely keeping track of the dates in his writings. Iâd 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 weâve 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 wouldnât 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.
Iâm done. Brain out. Time makes no sense anymore. Ultra-limited cherry blossom blooming periods will now haunt me more than they already do.
Observations on Douma's takes on the Kocho Sisters
Douma's first interaction with a Kocho girl is when he faces off against Kanae. She put up a good fight, but ultimately not a memorable one for him. After some reminding, he recalls her for her kindness and Flower Breathing, and that the sun came out before he could eat her, what a shame. He's encountered multiple Pillars, and presumably eaten all the other female ones thus far, and he only remembers Kanae because his memory is good in the first place.
Her kindness did leave a distinct impression on him, as even in her dying moments (at least as Shinobu recalls to Tanjiro) she still showed sympathy for demons. Douma has probably been short on this in his existence. As interesting as that was about her, he was never particularly in want of kindness (or anything), so that's all it was. A passing peculiarity.
Four years later he meets Shinobu, and realizes right away by her speed that she must be a Pillar, despite how small she is. He's intrigued by her Insect Breath, but that's about it. Shinobu's partial goal was to get eaten, banking on the fact that he wouldn't be able to resist a powerful female, but she was continually frustrated by how her power didn't leave a tantalizing impression on him. Even after he remarks that she may be the fastest Pillar he's ever encountered, he still points out how her ability to take his neck is her undoing. Shinobu, as little more than a passing amusement, very nearly found herself mercy killed and left out as garbage while he kept snacking on his silly followers who sought him out for eternal happiness, making him too full to have much appetite for just another dead Pillar.
Still, what he finds so attractive about her is not about how strong her finds her. To the end, dead or not, he isn't impressed by her strength, but by her unwillingness to be limited by it.
Then he meets Kanao.
If Shinobu accomplished the rare feat of stirring something exciting in his heart, then Kanao accomplished the even rarer feat of getting an angry rise out of him. No one else has gotten Douma to make this "oh, I don't like you" face.
Despite all his experience with Pillars and generally being unimpressed by Shinobu and Kanae's abilities, he's very quick to size up Kanao as more of a threat.
"She may have more ability/raw power than the Pillar girl I just ate."
Being more careful of Kanao as a foe drives Douma to identify why she's more of a challenge (her vision predicting his attacks) so he can nullify it (crush her eyes). Despite having a very unique little hatred for her (has only one else in his existence dared or bothered to criticism him? Well, besides Akaza, but Akaza is was his best friend, he doesn't count, tee hee! <3) and being a little more on guard, he still sees Kanao as nothing but small fry.
Douma's assessment of Kanao was so dismissive that she was but a bug to squish on another day in his meaningless existence. Since he thought more highly of her fighting abilities than of Shinobu's, that goes to show just how much he was toying with her, and how little he actually thought of Shinobu's abilities even after she impressed him with her willpower to draw blinding speed and pin him even after harrowing injury.
Even in the end, when he's not really all that upset about being defeated or dying, what finally strikes him is listening to Shinobu speak, and express so many firmly held emotions of her own--that it's gross to hear him speak her or her sister's name, that she's glad to see him finally dead, that it frustrated her to have to depend on Tamayo's help, but she's pleased with the results anyway, and her trust that one of her friends will absolutely take Muzan down.
Maybe Douma admired that Shinobu could feel things, and that was what impressed him most. Furthermore, this might be the first time in his existence he's ever actually listened to someone in earnest.
A collection of basic references, with links to more in-depth explanations and analysis. As much as possible details are taken from canon sources, but for what isnât expressly stated, sleuthing was required and therefore has a margin of error. Some sections are also outside-research based for what is hopefully handy meta, especially for fanfic writers.
Note: This post is likely to be edited with future additions.
Please see below the cut for the following topics:
- When does Kimetsu no Yaiba take place?
- Attempted timelines of various characters and canon events
- Where does Kimetsu no Yaiba take place?
- What are the official Corp ranks?
- Translations of some canon material printed outside the manga
- Meta analysis with close reading of canon or outside research on:
ââ-Demons mechanisms
ââ-Name analysis
ââ-Taisho Period details
ââ-Traditional patterns and symbolism
ââââand moreâŠ
This is a level of nerdiness no one asked for, but ever since I noticed that Tamayoâs kimono seems to have a Meisen pattern, my brain just up and went âand the Kochou haori is totally made with Yuzen dye, yup yup yup.âÂ
But then I sat down and thought about that more.Â
Yuzen, a resist dyeing method, came to mind because honestly it was the only thing that came to mind and I didnât consider anything else the technique is used for both crisp lines and faded colors, so it can be used for very elaborate patterns with a wide variety of color. However, itâs a very extensive process, and it remains very expensive. Itâs been popular since Edo times and remains popular today, so itâs unsurprising that it would have fit the tastes of the Kochou sisters in late Meiji, early Taisho times. If the large butterfly hairpieces are anything to go by, they must not have minded paying for pricey items that fit their tastes and style. Many of the haori throughout the series carry personal significance to the person who chose or inherited it, so Kanae must have wanted something nice.Â
Once we get to Pillar level, it doesnât seem that the haori are chosen for practicality (except perhaps in Iguroâs case, in which the stripes may alter his opponentâs depth perception). After all, the uniform itself is made with strict practicality in mind, unless you have the misfortune of being a female character with a character design that respects none of your own personal safety. So this makes me wonder, then, if the Kochou haori is indeed Yuzen dye, is it produced with the quality of silk youâd expect to see it used on?Â
It seems very likely to get damaged. If this is the case, then in half-hearted conclusion, the Flower and Insect Breathing techniques minimize the likelihood of damage, or Kanae had exceptional faith in Aoiâs mending and washing skills.
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So here I am, trying to study, starting with legit topics, digging deeper, I stumble upon this part of an article about the geomancy origins of the very influential "Kimon" (demon gate) when taken into consideration in architecture and ancient city planning, mentioning how disease and disaster was thought to enter the home via the hearth, gate, water well, and toilet and such, so these parts of the home required some deification to counter-act the evil, but it's written LIKE THIS:
And my brain shouts "ç«éăç«éçæČ»é"
Kamado. KAMADO TANJIRO.
And next thing you I'm back down a fandom theory rabbit hole. Nothing new, I already know the distinct rarity (but real world use) of this surname, as well as the fact that there are a couple Shinto shrines with this relatively rare writing of "hearth" in the name. But still, it makes me appreciate all over again all the very subtle use of lore throughout this manga, a huge reason I'm so obsessed with it.
So while I'm here, I learned this fun tidbit from an article that asked old people with rare surnames how they feel about them being suddenly very prominent (one old Ms. Kamado tried to start watching it but fell asleep), and I learned about the name æ è±èœ, notoriously difficult to read as "Tsuyuri". Basically, back in the Nara period (well before Muzan would had turned into a demon in Heian times), a dude was romancing a princess with poetry and made a reference to falling chestnut flowers at the start of the rainy season ("tsuyu") and the emperor was like "That's a cool idea, I'm going to grant that as a surname." (Actually, a lot of surnames get their start from emperors granting them.)
Now, we know Kanao chose this name for herself based on choices the girls set before her, including "Kochou" and "Kanzaki", already used by her new housemates. Poor Kanao probably couldn't read and didn't have any knowledge base to properly appreciate such a poetic name, which I'm guessing was a choice Kanae contributed (Shinobu didn't seem to have put as much thought into the choices for first names and probably didn't think much about surnames either, and Aoi was really pushing for her own last name to be chosen). Kanao might have heard explanations, or she might had just thought the kanji looked pretty.
But, what's interesting to me (and reading way too deeply into it) is that Kanao joined them on May 19. While we typically picture "tsuyu", the rainy season, as spanning June/early July-ish, the start of the season is tied to late May, so even in modern-day formal seasonal references in Japanese written correspondence (yes, formal Japanese is a fussy like this), appropriate references in May include a lot of ways of saying "we're heading into the rainy season, so please take care." Furthermore, the scenes we get of the Butterfly Mansion garden (in both the snime and the manga) include prominent hydrangea, a plant that screams "rainy season."
This isn't important whatsoever, but heeeey, it's fun coincidences.
A few other little tidbits and lots of conjecture:
--Tomioka and Agatsuma may also be names with ancient origins handed down from an emperor or two. Tomioka, written in a couple different ways and pretty uncommon (but not super rare) today, miiiiiight imply Giyuu was of relatively comfortable origins, perhaps with ties to the (defunct) warrior class based on his parents' choice of name for him (even toward the end of the samurai era only a couple generations or so before Giyuu was born, there were volunteer samurai squads named "Giyuu-tai" (righteousness/bravery corp). Further evidence of this is that even after their parents died of illness, it doesn't seem the children Tsutako and Giyuu were left particularly hurting for funds. In the "my wife" Agatsuma case, this is also pretty uncommon and I've only come across it pronounced Adzuma/Azuma. Since Zenitsu was abandoned without a name, we can't assume he picked up a rather higher-class sounding name from them. Either some caretaker he had later on chose it for him (possibly even as late a Kuwajima-shihan), or Zenitsu chose it himself (and this totally seems like a name in line with his tastes).
--Kanroji is the name of a temple; there is a pattern of higher class and noble families having surnames shared with temples (often due to ancient financial ties with said temples). There are, in fact, many existing Kanroji temples, and one of them in Wakayama even installed a temporary decorative "Love Pillar" and some subtle cat references and specisl promotions of the temple's preexisting good luck in match-making. Even the train stop nearby changed the sign to a pink and green fade. And yes, I am super disappointed that I had not heard of all this until the temporary promotion was over.
--Murata and all the Demon Slayer Corp extras (swordsmen and Kakushi, not swordsmiths who have metalworking pun-filled names) have extremely commonplace names.
OK, here's a weird one (I apologize in advance): How does Genya digest demon? Like, I know he's got that sense of taste that gives him the constitution to gain demonic properties upon eating demon flesh, but, how does he get rid of that? I'm constantly wondering why what happened in the Infinite Fortress didn't happen to him much earlier, given I imagine he doesn't really have time to complete the digestive process. (again, I'm so sorry to burden you with my morbid curiosity)
Just for you, Anon, I read again through Genya's parts (and suffered).
Rather than a sense of taste being the reasoning for this (though it's convenient to group him in with the Five Senses group by calling it that), Gotouge has stated pretty plainly that his unusual biting force and digestive organs are entirely unique within the Corp, and they are what gives him the temporary ability to gain the strength of a demon.
While the strength is temporary, it seems some amount of regenerative ability remains, provided his neck isn't cut. Otherwise he likely would had died early in the fight against Hantengu (Aizetsu was surprised he wasn't dead and assumed it was because he missed vitals points), and later on he assumed he's going to die when an attack is headed for his neck, which he wouldn't be able to recover from. Kokushibo has encountered one other demon slayer over 300 years ago who had the same ability, but that person's vital point was their stomach, which was why Kokushibo tried to get rid of him by cutting him in half at the stomach (he knew to expect a demon-eater likely due to information shared among demons, perhaos reading Hantengu's thoughts directly).
I suspect that Genya's reliance on Repetitive Action helped him survive and focus on regeneration early in his encounter with Aizetsu, before he could find the chance to later take a bite.
Once he does, it's hard to say how long the effect lasts. Those bites from Aizetsu last him a while, and he gains more strength by eating the demon wood, but almost as soon as he's effected by Nezuko's fire he reverts back. It may be a self-protective mechanism, and the same may happen under the sun. Of note, he reverted before Hantengu was defeated, and even though Hantengu was an Upper Moon, Genya didn't necessarily take on Hantengu's traits. We donât know if he would had been bound to Hantengu in any way.
As we get to know Genya better, we learn that Himejima and Shinobu find his condition worrisome. It's not well understood.
And Genya doesn't know the extent of it either, he's pretty surprised by the effects of consuming an even more powerful demon. Kokushibo's effect being so profound that Genya's healing is remarkably better than normal, and that Muzan can enter Genya's thoughts as he enters Kokushibo's, and that Genya can use Kokushibo's own blood techniques against him to manipulate his own cells goes to show both the degree which Genya's constitution can become entertwined, and just how much more powerful Kokushibo is than Hantengu. Furthermore, how much and the part of the demon Genya eats seems to be important, the seemingly insignificant hair already did more than eating Aizetsu's (presumeable) flesh, and the sword forged by Kokushibo's blood had an even more pronounced impact.
Genya has just discovered how powerful his ability is, and is in the process of finding out the danger of it too, being so intertwined with a demon.
Even if the temporary effects were wearing away as Kokushibo died, they didnât all disappear at once. Even if a seperation from Kokushibo had been instantaneous, Genya's viral spot had been cut (even if not severed the right way), and regeneration would had posed a huge challenge, if it was even possible.
Fun fact, for the sake of fanfiction I have read that scene aloud to see how long Genya might had lasted once the disintegrating process began; it probably would had taken 2~3 minutes to get through his whole last exchange with Sanemi (see, I told you I've suffered). If we go by presentation of events, Genya's disintegration did not start until after Kokushibo was gone, so there was a lag.
Since he can gain abilities almost immediately, it's possible his body may be reacting more like inflammation brought on by a food allergy than by his cells breaking down food in his digestive tract and delivering it throughout his body as would happen in normal consumptive circumstances. ^^; So that means the effect may also vary in how long it lingers or how fast or slow its effects can disappear, again, more like an allergy than like blood sugar. Not saying "Genya actually has an allergy, he's not digesting it!" or anything like that, I just see similarities in how to think about it, since normal digestion is a process that takes many hours, and Genya does seem to eat like a normal human otherwise (but who knows?).
That's all the analysis I've got, hope that helps?? If you need me I'll just be, like, crying.
Kanao already reached the Tsuchinoto rank (5th of 10) within about 1.5 months* of passing the Final Selection but then only progressed to Hinoto (7th of 10) over the following 10 months or so.* Why the slow-down? I've got a handful of possible ideas but no indication of if any of them would be true.
*(According to my timeline estimates.)
In the extra chapter in Volume 7 about all the suffering in Kanao's past, Kanao snaps. All of a sudden, she stops feeling anything. She doesn't think for herself at all, only doing things as she's told.
According to the Taisho Secret at the end of Chapter 163, Kanao learned Flower Breathing by observation, though neither Kanae or Shinobu approved of this. She entered the Final Selection without permission. Although, as Tanjiro puts it, the voice of Kanao's heart is very small, Kanao had a growing sense that she couldn't forgive demons for how they orphaned her housemates and took Shinobu's parents, sister, and Tsuguko from her. Straight from Word of God-touge, fighting demons is Kanao's will.
However, Shinobu at first worries that it's not really something Kanao felt that deeply about, and admonishes her simply to not falter or overthink things, and just cut off demon's heads. I suspect she declared Kanao her Tsuguko immediately as a means of keeping an eye on her, and that she had to enforce a professional distance that she otherwise never would had wanted to impose on Kanao.
I suspect that Kanao did not only observe Kanae; Shinobu may very well have had other Flower Breath users among her Tsuguko. We don't know how involved the Tsuguko were in the Butterfly Mansion household; I suspect there was a bit of professional emotional distance, seeing as how Kanao goes from referring to Shinobu as her sister to referring to her as her master. None of the other Butterfly Mansion girls ever use such close terms of endearment to Shinobu.
Although Kanao did enter the Corp of her own accord (feeling nothing, except perhaps "demons are bad, I should get rid of them"), she still is in a pretty broken, unfeeling state. When she's not on missions or training, she's content to sit somewhere and stare off into the sun (Kanao, your eyes, take care of your precious eyes!!). And since she doesn't need to think about anything besides cutting off demon heads, and she doesn't mind any fear or suffering, she probably goes about her missions in a manner similar to how Muichiro did in that whirlwind two-month journey to becoming a Pillar. The "I don't care (but actually I just hate you)" method of demon slaying, apparently pretty effective.
While we don't know how the rate of climbing the ranks is calculated, I suspect that Flower Breathing stresses evasion (see here and here), so Kanao likely doesnât spend at much time down with injury, and therefore she took a lot more missions. And, being in a Pillarâs household, she might have had a Nichirin blade she could use right away to start taking missions while hers was being made, giving her at least a 10-day leg up on the others in her Final Selection batch. Likewise, being in the company of a Pillar, sheâs probably gone straight into fighting higher level demons. And who knows? Maybe being declared a Tsuguko also adds to rank?
But then Tanjiro turns her world upside-down at the flip of a coin, like how Shinobu throwing coins around a bridge changed her life years before. And, little by little, the voice of Kanao's heart starts growing stronger.
While before Kanao was happy to simply stare off at the sun, Fanbook #1 tells us she's started looking at the world around her afresh. Bubbles!! Blowing bubbles is her new hobby. And she might not be good at treating injuries, but she goes on errands now for the Butterfly Mansion and likes bringing back candy and other small gifts for everyone. Look, it's even fun to poke the paw pads on cats! Beans! (Seeing as Shinobu doesn't like furry creatures (yet somehow puts up with Inosuke), Kanao probably only interacts with cats on her errands, and I'll bet Shinobu and Aoi both stay on pins and needles wondering what's taking her so long out there on her own). Kanao's even started to try helping with cooking! In one of the light novels, we see her go to Aoi for help, asking her to teach her new recipes.
And, a few months into this bright new outlook on the world where she actually takes and interest in things and forms her own opinions, the Uzui Incident happens, and Kanao, at least by Kanao's standards, flamboyantly stands up to him. It was a terrifyingly bigger and more complicated decision than she's ever faced in battle.
So here's a question:
Can a Corp member be
punished for anything by being downgraded a rank? Was there any repercussion to interfering with a Pillar's demon slaying mission? That might explain some of the sudden slow-down in Kanao's dramatic rate of promotion. What might also be possible is that a different Pillar, Shinobu, was concerned about the speed with which she advanced, especially seeing how emotionally stunted Muichiro was despite his skills, and how he wound up in more and more dangerous situations because of his rank. Even if Shinobu recognizes (perhaps with some surprise) that Kanao is innately talented, she's no genius, and she can't simply survive by cutting off heads as she climbs the ranks. Shinobu perhaps puts her foot down against Kanao's advancement to make sure there is time to focus on other aspects Kanao needs to mature in, and Oyakata-sama would probably be pretty understanding of that. This sort of request may be allowed purely because of the nature of the Hashira-Tsuguko relationship, regardless of the reason, who knows.
But what it also might be is that as Kanao starts feeling things, she starts feeling all the things. Whereas before she might never had cared enough to be affected by fear or pain or sadness or weariness, just as she's seeing the simple tiny pleasures of life with fresh eyes, perhaps she's lost the natural armor she had against these other feelings. And, given the reasons why she snapped in the first place, it may be an especially confusing process for her to have to deal with these negative feelings in a healthier way. That's got to have a negative impact on her effectiveness in battle, and if it ever breaks her focus (though I don't see any evidence of this ever happening), it could be something that leads to injuries, which would decrease her number of missions (but, given her mastery of Breath technique and Functional Recovery Training, she's probably quick to recover).
Even if Kanao doesn't get to the point of having breakdowns, people like Shinobu and Oyakata-sama would be keen enough of her development as a person that they might slow down how often she's assigned missions, as she requires that time to work at her new interests and becoming a more whole person. They've probably been watching over her without her even being aware of it, and as Shinobu perhaps devotes more and more time to her research, Kanao supposes that's the reason for her own slow-down in missions. If Master is busy, then the Tsuguko should merely help out and keep training. And it's not as if Kanao enjoys slaying demons; she's probably happily distracted with all these new things she finds she enjoys. She's probably never cared about promotion anyway.
But, would Kanao have blown through the ranks if Tanjiro hadn't unwittingly derailed her so dramatically?
As an aside, the aforementioned Taisho Secret also states that Kanao joined the Corp because unlike Aoi, she wasn't good at treating injuries. Yet in the extended epilogue comic in Fanbook #2 Tanjiro says she's a fantastic doctor??? Hmm???? When?? How????? Can she see well enough to administer medicine safely?? Umm? Aoi? Please supervise her???? No offense, Kanao, but--where---did--this--come--from???????
The booklet that came with the movie ticket has a few Taisho Secrets, I plan on scanning and translating them tomorrow in a reblog. For now, one tidbit with no illustration:
Among the Kimetsu no Yaiba cast, who are the best and worst at waking up in the morning?
The Best:
1. Rengoku Kyoujurou (He can wake up according to whatever time he set for himself)
2. Kamado Tanjirou (Heâll either wake up at the time he intended to, or heâll wake up quickly if someone says something to him)
3. Hashibira Inosuke (Heâs ready to make a racket from the instant he wakes up)
The Worst:
1. Kamado Nezuko (Sheâs the type to not fully regain consciousness)
2. Agatsuma Zenitsu (The type to roll around in bed a while instead of getting out)
3. Kochou Shinobu (The type to have low blood pressure)
Gotouge Koyoharu: âHello, Iâm Gotouge. Thank you for coming to watch the movie! Furthermore, there were a lot of staff members who put their all into producing this theatrical release, and Iâm truly grateful for all their hard work. As I was drawing the one-shot included here with Rengoku-san as the main character, it really hit home to me what a good child he is, and how very âmain characterâ he is. Rengoku-san never complains no matter how hard it gets, he values his family and friends, and heâs a very forward-facing person. Everyone, please value your families and the people close to you in your lives, okay?â
Gotouge-sensei made this special mini-version of âTaisho Secretsâ to celebrate the theatrical release:Â
What sorts of dreams does Tanjirou usually have?
Tanjirou tends to have a lot of dreams about battles and training. In his dreams heâs constantly ruminating about what didnât go well, and he analyses how to do it better next time, and he sees a lot of ways to work with situations you can expect in battle. His dreams feel pretty clear and realistic.
What was Tanjirouâs mother most skilled at cooking?
Tanjirouâs mother was very skilled at cooking, she made a wide variety depending on each season. She also really liked trying out regional recipes that other people shared with her. Her childrenâs favorites were sanma-no-soba dumplings and tofu baked in miso.
(Translation note: Sanma-no-soba dango is a rural dish from the Nagano area, a decent distance northwest from where Tanjirouâs family lived (see my post about canon geography here). It has a piece of mackerel pike wrapped in a dough made of buckwheat flour.)
Is Nezukoâs hair accessory something she started doing herself?
The reason Nezukoâs hair isnât bound up now that sheâs a demon is because Tanjirouâs not that good at doing it for her (Nezuko also now cannot do it herself). The accessory she has at the front is the one piece Tanjirou can do well for her, and since Nezuko doesnât remove it, it stays.
While Nezuko is sleeping as a demon, does she dream? If so, what sorts of dreams does she have?
Nezuko always dreams of her family. Zenitsu and Inosuke, as well as other people who have been nice to her will make appearances as well.
In the Mugen Train arc, Zenitsu seems to be the only one who has any familiarity with trains. Has he ridden one before?
Zenitsuâs a city boy, heâs of course ridden trains before. Thatâs why I think going out and training with his master in the mountains was 10 times harder for him than it was for Tanjirou and Inosuke. He doesnât really care for the inconveniences of the countryside.
In the Mugen Train arc, the tanuki version of Tanjirou that appeared in Inosukeâs dream was called Ponjirou and the mouse version of Zenitsu was called Chuuitsu, so what was the rabbit version of Nezuko called?
Rabbit-Nezukoâs name was Pyonko. Sheâs a girl, so Inosuke took a little extra consideration of her than for Ponjirou and Chuuitsu.
Does Rengoku-san have any favorite sayings or mottos?
Taorete nochi yamu: âIf you put in your all, youâll stand your ground even in deathâ
Seishin ittou, nanigoto ka narazaran: âNothingâs impossible if you put your mind to itâ
This is a character who leaves a very deep impression. Does he have any real-life models?
Rengoku-san does have a real-life model. Actually, besides Rengoku-san, most of the Kimetsu characters are modeled after people in real life. Theyâre typically normal people who the author happens to know.
Why do the men in the Rengoku family have hair like that?
The Rengoku family has long since had a practice called âKankagari.â For the duration of their pregnancies, every seven days the wives will spend two hours gazing at a large flaming torch. This seems to be what causes the men in the family to have flame colored hair. That being said, it seems that itâs normally bad for a pregnant womanâs health to stare at large flames, so please donât attempt this.
(Translation Note: This was released on 2020/10/16, whereas the first chapter of the Rengoku Gaiden illustrated by Hirano-sensei published on 2020/10/12 had Rengoku declare that the hair color is due to his ancestor having eaten too many fried shrimp. While thatâs funny and Iâve been wondering if demon slayers have a natural flamingo-like trait, Iâm interpreting it now as something Rengoku said to cheer up Kanroji. As I was looking up Kankagari to see if itâs a real thing (seems itâs Kimetsu-universe only and not something that exists in real life), I saw Japanese Twitter commentary that this may be a practice thatâs been going on long before the Rengoku family was slaying demons, and in Toujurouâs case, it means itâs become genetic, or the Rengoku family is still following this practice into modern day. This clan knows no chill.)
When Enmu was human, what sort of person was he?
When Enmu was a human, he had a tendency ever since he was a child to not be able to tell the difference between dreams and reality, and this caused a lot of problems for the people around him. As an adult, although he was not a doctor, he made bad use of things like hypnotic therapies, like convincing sick people who didnât have long to live that they had been restored to health. Although theyâd later figure out that this had all been a lie, he continued to perform this awful scam over and over.
Very open to feedback, because canon is as spread out as Muzan after his first date with Sun Breathing. Instead of tracking the year or distance from current timeline, we shall track this by Shinobuâs age (roughly, in most spots).Â
Despite being centered around Shinobuâs life events, Iâm also diving into Aoiâs life, the other Pillarsâ timelines of life events too, and doing some conjecture about Shinobuâs deceased Tsuguko.Â
Should be obvious, but spoilers ahead.Â
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I saw a post once that entertained the idea of Tsutako being in the background of Sanemiâs hometown in the anime, and it got me thinking about a sanegiyuu childhood meet cute.
- Though Giyuu was a much friendlier person as a child, he was still quiet, reserved and nervous. As a result, being in a bigger city was overwhelming and he struggled to keep up with Tsutako as they walked
- Without any people skills to speak of or the confidence to ask for help, Giyuu let the crowd swallow him up until he found a small spot he could cower in
- He ended up hiding under the stairs of a shrine where nobody could see him. He cried so quietly, nobody could possibly hear him either, but a boy did miraculously find him
- The boy was strikingly beautiful with stark white hair and piercing eyes. His presence made Giyuu stop crying almost immediately, but only because he was mesmerized.
- When the boy spoke, he was blunt and sort of rude but Giyuu hung onto every word he said as if he was a kind spirit come to save him
- âYou cry like my little siblings,â he observed. It was a simple, random sort of thing to say but it perplexed Giyuu so much that he didnât cry any longer
- Giyuu learned that this particular shrine is where the boy would find one of his brothers hiding, so when he saw Giyuu curled up, he thought something mightâve happened to him
- Giyuu reluctantly explained he was separated from Tsutako while visiting. In truth, he wasnât sure if he should trust a stranger but they were clearly of a similar age and that put him at ease compared to an adult
- âHeâs one of the sons of our landlord,â the boy explained, âHeâs fine. His familyâs a buncha dicks.â
- Profanities aside, Giyuu asked if he could lead him there, and the boy agreed
- âWhat did his family do?â Giyuu asked on the way
- âTheir kid brother said some shit about my family beinâ too big and my brother got into a fight with him about it.â
- âHow big is your family?â
- âNine of us. I have six siblings.â
- Giyuu learned that his mother had just given birth, which prompted the rude comment from their landlordâs son. He also had a father who he didnât want to talk about on account of him angering some violent people
- Though the boy didnât seem terribly interested in prying into Giyuuâs life, he still asked, âWhat about you?â
- âI just have my sister. My parents died when I was young.â
- âLucky you have a sister.â
- âYes⊠Iâm Giyuu, by the way.â
- For a moment, the boy looked hesitant to give anymore details about himself, but mustâve decided he doesnât have much to lose.
- âSanemi.â
- On the way to the landlordâs home, it began to rain so Sanemi pulled Giyuu aside near a food stall to wait it out.
- Giyuu, as luck would have it, did have a small amount of money on him and suggested they share a meal.
- Sanemi agreed, not letting on that he rarely has enough money to ever eat out. However, Giyuu became curious when Sanemi awkwardly held his food at his side and wouldnât take a bite.
- He didnt want to admit it, but his plan was to pocket whatever Giyuu bought him to bring home to his family. He wasnât going to tell Giyuu, but the boyâs earnest, honest face pulled it out of him
- In response, Giyuu bought him another and asked that he feed himself as well
- When Sanemi finally did eat, Giyuu smiled for the first time. It flustered Sanemi, who quickly learned he couldnât handle a pretty face
- When the rain ended, people came flooding to the streets in overwhelming numbers that scared Giyuu again
- To reassure him, Sanemi grabbed his hand and returned his earlier smile, promising heâll be okay as long as they stick together
- Giyuu took to Sanemi with awe. The crowd was still scary, but Giyuu grounded himself in the feeling of his companionâs hand and trusted his word.
- Eventually they did find themselves at the landlordâs house. Most of the family was out looking for Giyuu, but luckily Tsutako stayed and was there to greet him.
- This was also a relief to Sanemi, who wasnât sure he would be able to resist driving his fist into the face of the boy who fought with Genya
- Sanemi intended to leave with no commotion, just an odd empty feeling at the notion of leaving his new acquaintance, but Giyuu stopped him
- âThank you for helping me,â he said with much more confidence than the first time he spoke. âYouâre very kind, Sanemi.â
- Sanemi, flustered, shrugged and promised it was no problem. âCouldnât just leave ya thereâŠâ
- âMaybe weâll see each other again.â
- When Giyuu said this, he held onto the hope that because Tsutako new husband had close ties to Sanemiâs, they would surely meet again one day
- It was hard to explain but Giyuu felt drawn to Sanemi, like he was a special person he was meant to meet
- Of course, he couldnât predict the tragedy that would befall both of them
- Years later, long after Tsutako and the Shinazugawa family were murdered, Sanemi was welcomed into the Hashira and finally met Giyuu again
- Only this time, he was quiet and cold. He didnât give any indication that he remembered Sanemi and didnât have any of the kindness he was full of as a child. Sanemi decided that he mustâve turned into a conceited ass with no time for the little people, he probably didnât even remember him.
- But it was impossible for Giyuu to forget who Sanemi was. Even under all the scars and curses, he was still the boy who saved him that day. But Giyuu knew they had fundamentally changed as people, and clearly Sanemi wanted nothing to do with him any longer
- Unfortunately for them, the draw remains there no matter how far apart they try to drift.
i love how sanemi and giyuu are both the kind of person that push away others because theyre scared of caring for someone and losing them again. they do this in very different ways, tomioka's way is to ignore people and give them the cold shoulder until they give up, because who would keep pushing if he acts annoyed and uncaring? however shinazugawa will do anything but ignore the other person if they try anything. his way to go is to rage and get angry at others, effectively chasing them away once they see his violent and rude behavior.
however both of them are stubborn, and once he makes the decision, giyuu will keep pushing sanemi to his limits in order to befriend him. it seems that he doesnt understand sanemis yells to leave him alone and to stop being a weirdo, or perhaps he understands, but he just refuses to give up.
because he understands sanemi, he did the same, and it took away so many years of his life he could have enjoyed. he knows what isolation does to one, and he doesnt want that for his comarade. so he keeps bringing him ohagis is a sign of peace, and he will directly ask to be friends because hes just blunt like that. perhaps his snarky remarks are just teasing, like kocho does on him.