Summary
- Water Breathing inspired the largest number of Breathing Styles among the five Fundamental Breathing Styles.
- Flower Breathing emphasizes grace and agility, with a unique vision-enhancing ability.
- Serpent Breathing incorporates snake-like movements, making attacks unpredictable.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Demon Slayer manga. Demon Slayer is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Every Breathing Style in Demon Slayer can be traced back to Sun Breathing, the first and strongest Breathing Style invented by the most powerful Demon Slayer in history, Yoriichi Tsugikuni. However, that doesn’t mean that all Breathing Styles directly branched off Sun Breathing. In fact, only six styles were directly derived from it, five of which became the Fundamental Breathing Styles: Water, Flame, Thunder, Stone, and Wind. From these five Fundamental Breathing Styles, even more Breathing Styles were developed, Water Breathing seems to have inspired the largest number of Breathing Styles, at least from what’s shown in the Demon Slayer manga and anime.
The techniques or forms of Water Breathing all involve moving a Slayer’s body, arms, and weapon in fluid motions to mimic the ebb and flow of water. As such, you might notice the Breathing Styles that branched off Water Breathing will have similar characteristics, although possibly altered to suit the more intricate details of the style.
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Flower Breathing
A Style of Grace and Beauty
|
Known number of forms |
7 |
|
Known users |
Kanae Kocho Kanao Tsuyuri |
|
Nichirin weapon color |
Light Pink |
Flower Breathing emphasizes grace and agility in its forms, making use of the fluidity of its parent style to nimbly move across the battlefield and slice up demons. Flower Breathing hasn’t really gotten its time to shine in the anime as of the Hashira Training Arc, but it will soon in the Infinity Castle Arc. Also, a unique ability that users of this Breathing Style have is to enhance their vision. Not to be confused with the Transparent World ability, the Flower Breathing ability allows its user to perceive the world in slow motion. However, this ability causes immense stress on the eyes and can cause temporary or permanent blindness.
There is currently no Flower Hashira, though there was one shortly before Tanjiro’s time. Kanae Kocho was a Flower Breathing user who reached the rank of Hashira and is also the older sister of the current Insect Hashira, Shinobu Kocho. Speaking of which, Insect Breathing also descends from Water Breathing, but is directly derived from Flower Breathing.
Insect Breathing Branched Out from Flower Breathing
|
Known number of forms |
4 |
|
Known users |
Shinobu Kocho |
|
Nichirin weapon color |
Lavender-Blue |
Insect Breathing is unique in that it’s the only known Breathing Style to have branched off an already branched-off Breathing Style. In short, it’s the only Breathing Style that’s three styles down from Sun Breathing. Another thing that makes Insect Breathing unique is that it’s the only Breathing Style that doesn’t rely on decapitation to kill demons. Instead, it uses a unique sword designed for stabbing and injecting wisteria-based poison, which is fatal to demons. As such, Insect Breathing forms revolve around rapid stabbing and thrusting to inject as much poison in as little amount of time as possible, mimicking the stinging of insects.
Shinobu Kocho is the inventor of Insect Breathing and is likely its only user since she is exceptionally physically weak for a Demon Slayer. The entire point of Insect Breathing is to compensate for her lack of physical strength by focusing on stabs, light cuts, and poison. Because of the lightness of her body though, what she lacks in raw strength, she makes up for in speed. The Upper Rank Two Demon Doma even stated that Shinobu might have been the fastest Hashira he’s ever fought.
“Of the Hashira, I’m the only one who can’t cut off a demon’s head. But I can make poisons that can kill demons. Impressive, isn’t it?” – Shinobu Kocho
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Serpent Breathing
Water Isn’t the Only Thing That Moves in Wavy Patterns
|
Known number of forms |
5 |
|
Known users |
Obanai Iguro |
|
Nichirin weapon color |
Lavender |
Serpent Breathing incorporates the slithering movements of snakes into its forms. Because of the twisted way its users move, demons have a hard time predicting where exactly an attack will hit. This style seems to take all the violence and unpredictability of Water Breathing and make that into its core principles. Obanai Iguro, the current Serpent Hashira uses a twisted Nichirin Blade shaped like a slithering snake, possibly inspired by the real-life Indonesian Kris Dagger, to launch winding attacks that rarely go where you’d expect them to. Additionally, Obanai also literally uses snakes when fighting. His right eye is partially blind, but he compensates for it with his pet snake, Kaburamaru, who can accurately read the opponents’ movements and relay them to Obanai.
Obanai got to show off some of the Serpent Breathing forms in Demon Slayer season 4, episode 1, “To Defeat Muzan Kibutsuji”, during the demon hunt he went on with Sanemi the Wind Hashira. However, that was just a taste; expect to see the full force of Serpent Breathing in the upcoming Infinity Castle Arc.
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Demon Slayer is now available to stream on Crunchyroll and Netflix. The release date for the next season of Demon Slayer, the Infinity Castle Arc, has not been announced yet.