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Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Demon Slayer manga. Demon Slayer is now streaming onCrunchyroll.
In the world ofDemon Slayer, elite swordsmen use various breathing styles to combat demons. In the beginning, there was only one breathing style, Sun Breathing, but due to its complexity, theDemon SlayerCorps developed new breathing styles derived from Sun Breathing. From it came the five fundamental Breathing Styles, which were used as the basis to create other Breathing Styles.
Just because a Slayer discovers that the breathing style that suits them is one of the five, that doesn’t mean they’ll be one of the greatest Demon Slayers ever. In fact, a lot of the Hashiras, the Demon Slayer Corps' strongest warriors, use breathing styles that aren’t from the fundamental styles. At the end of the day, it all stillcomes down to individual talent and training. However, you could say that the five fundamental breathing styles are the most refined since they were developed hundreds of years ago and had plenty of time to be polished and improved by their users. The only style that would guarantee a highly skilled slayer is Sun Breathing, and the reason for that will be explained below.
Number of known forms
11
Known users
Nichirin blade color
Blue
Water Breathing imitates the way water flows and adapts those into human movements.Its forms involve bending the user’s bodyand arms and swinging their weapon in fluid motions. Water Breathing is the most common Breathing Style in the Demon Slayer Corps, and multiple Slayers pick up the style because it is said to be easier to learn than the others.
But even if Water Breathing is the easiest style to learn, if a Slayer’s body isn’t suited to it, they’re still better off switching styles. It’s what happened with Tanjiro. He started with Water Breathing but eventually realized that the technique wasn’t for him. His body felt more comfortable with Sun Breathing, whichhe slowly but surely transitioned to.
9
Red
Flame Breathing attempts to mimic the ferocity of flames. Its forms involve brazen strikes and slashes that “burn” their enemies through pure intensity. The most memorable user of Flame Breathing is, of course, the latest Flame Hashira, Kyojuro Rengoku. The position of the Flame Hashira has always belonged to someone from Kyojuro’s bloodline, ever since the conception of Flame Breathing in the Sengoku Period. However, that tradition stopped due to Kyojuro’s untimely death.
Little known fact:Mitsuri Kanroji, the Love Hashira, also knows a bit of Flame Breathing. Before developing Love Breathing, Mitsuri actually trained under Kyojuro Rengoku to learn Flame Breathing. This was shown inKimetsu no Yaiba Extra: Kyojuro Rengoku’s Story: Part 2, a side story about Kyojuro.
7
Yellow
Thunder Breathing is a style that relies on mind-numbingly fast movement. Users of this style train their legs to their very limit so they can move and strike as fast as thunder.The various moves of Thunder Breathingare actually based on a real-life swordsmanship technique for quick draws known as Iaijutsu. Thunder Breathing is the only fundamental Breathing Style that doesn’t have a representing Hashira during Tanjiro’s time. A previous Thunder Hashira, Jigoro Kuwajima, taught Zenitsu everything he knows about Thunder Breathing.
While the breathing styles that Demon Slayers use don’t literally summon and manipulate the elements, objects, or concepts they’re named after, there is an exception for Kaigaku. This former Demon Slayer became a demon and receivedthe Blood Demon Artknown as Electrokinesis, which allows him to generate and control black bolts of lightning. He uses this ability in tandem with his mastery of the Thunder Breathing techniques to literally use electricity with his blade.
5
Gray
Stone Breathing makes its users like impenetrable rocks, unwavering in both their offense and defense. Its only known user,Gyomei Himejima, the current Stone Hashira, is the strongest Hashira during Tanjiro’s era. He welds his chained flail and axe with incredible talent, able to efficiently attack and defend in any direction.
Considering Gyomei is the only known user of Stone Breathing (apart from the unnamed Slayer who developed it during Yoriichi’s time), there’s a chance that it might be relatively difficult to learn. It’s also the only one of the five fundamental Breathing Styles that hasn’thad another Breathing Styleto branch off of it, implying that there might not be a lot of people who could have even attempted to make any.
Green
In other pieces of media that use elements in fighting, wind is often seen as the calm and soothing element, but that’s not the case inDemon Slayer. Wind Breathing specifically strives tomimic the turbulent destruction of whirlwindsin its forms. Said forms use violent spinning attacks that will slash anyone in the vicinity. Demons killed by Wind Breathing attacks often comment on how painful and hate-filled the attacks are, according to theKimetsu no Yaiba Second Fanbook. Like Thunder Breathing, Wind Breathing mirrors a real-life swordsmanship style called Jigen-ryū. This style specializes in opening strikes and high stances.
“That’s right! And that wind… is going to wrench off your head!” - Sanemi to Kokushibo about his Wind Breathing
13
Black
While allnew Breathing Styles stem from oneof the five fundamental Breathing Styles, those five all originate from Sun Breathing. It is a style developed by a man named Yoriichi Tsugikuni during the Sengoku Period, about 500 years before Tanjiro’s time. Yoriichi is also the strongest Demon Slayer in history, able to defeat Muzan singelhandedly in a flash. Both fortunately and unfortunately, he was a littletooskilled, as the Sun Breathing style he developed required incredible skill that hardly anyone possessed. The difficulty of learning Sun Breathing was thecatalyst that created the other Breathing Stylessince the Demon Slayers had to alter Yoriichi’s style to better suit their limits.
A couple of people managed to learn Sun Breathing, but they were almost all killed shortly after Yoriichi’s death. Fortunately, someone whowasn’ta Demon Slayer also managed to learn the style, a man named Sumiyoshi Kamado, who passed Sun Breathing onto his descendants. Sun Breathing made its way down the Kamado family until finally reaching Tanjiro Kamado, who learned it from his father, Tanjuro.
As mentioned above, anyone who finds themselvescapable of using Sun Breathingis sure to be a master swordsman. That’s because you’d need incredible skill to even attempt to study it. All the other Breathing Forms are sort of like bootleg versions of Sun Breathing. They were created because the Demon Slayers simply lacked the skills to perform Sun Breathing techniques and had to tweak them, making them weaker but more usable and teachable.
16
Light Purple
Other than the five fundamental Breathing Styles, asixth style, known as Moon Breathingwas also directly derived from Sun Breathing. It was developed by Yoriichi’s older twin brother, Michikatsu, and is considered the second-strongest Breathing Style. Jealous of his brother’s talent, Michikatsu turned to Muzan and became a demon to gain more power, becoming the Upper Rank One demon, Kokushibo.
So, why didn’t Moon Breathing become one of the Corps' fundamental Breathing Styles? Well, theDemonSlayer anime and manga don’t really explain why, but there are a couple of theories among the fanbase. The first is thatmaybe, like Sun Breathing, Moon Breathing is simply too difficult for most people to learn. Pair that with Michikatsu’s massive ego, and it’s hard to imagine him having the patience to mentor anyone struggling with his style. Another theory is that the Demon Slayer Corps willingly chose not to use the style due to the shame they felt for one of their own joining the demons. It could also be that therewerepupils of Moon Breathing, but Kokushibo and Muzan just drove them to extinction, similar to how they almost did with Sun Breathing.
Due to Kokushibo’s longevityas a demon, he has been continually honing his skills in Moon Breathing. It’s why Moon Breathing has the largest number of forms out of all Breathing Styles, having a total of 16 known forms. However, no one really knows how a human Demon Slayer would perform the Moon Breathing forms, as the only examples of them are performed by Kokushibo, who incorporates his Blood Demon Art into the moves.His Blood Demon Artallows him to create and control blades shaped like crescent moons. He often spawns and launches these blades as he performs his Moon Breathing forms, wreaking chaos and death among his opponents.
Demon Slayer is now available to stream onCrunchyrollandNetflix. The release date for the next season of Demon Slayer, the Infinity Castle Arc, has not been announced yet.
