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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | Have I lived hundred of years for this?... Was I so afraid of defeat that I became a monster?... Did I want to be strong even if it meant eating people?... Did I become this miserable creature because I didn't want to die?... No... Yoriichi... I just... I wanted to be like you... | „ |
| ~ Kokushibo as he stops his regeneration and allows himself to die. |
| “ | I could never grab hold of anything. Anything at all. I abandoned my home. I abandoned my wife and children. I abandoned my humanity. I cut down my descendants and abandoned being a samurai. But even all that wasn't enough? You said that those who master their paths all reach the same place. But I never did. I could not see the same world that you did. Why could I not leave anything behind? Why could I not become someone known? Why are we so different? Why in the world was I ever born? Tell me... Yoriichi. | „ |
| ~ Kokushibo's final thoughts and questions to his brother. |
Kokushibo (黑死牟 Kokushibō) is the secondary antagonist of the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba franchise. He is a member of the Twelve Kizuki, holding the position of Upper Rank One.
As the highest-ranking member of the Twelve Kizuki, Kokushibo is the right-hand man of Muzan Kibutsuji and the second strongest demon in the series. Unlike his fellow Upper Ranks, he tends to avoid using his supernatural abilities and prefers to focus on perfecting his swordsmanship skills.
As a human, Kokushibo lived during the Sengoku Period nearly five centuries ago and was a samurai by the name of Michikatsu Tsugikuni ((継国 巌勝 Tsugikuni Michikatsu), as well as the older twin brother of Yoriichi Tsugikuni, the progenitor of all Breathing Styles and the strongest Demon Slayer to have ever lived. He is also later revealed to be the ancestor of the Mist Hashira Muichiro Tokito and his older twin brother Yuichiro.
He is voiced by Ryotaro Okiayu in Japanese and by Jonah Scott in English.
His Evilness Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
In General/Background[]
- Even before he turned into a demon, Michikatsu demonstrated his selfishness by joining the Demon Slayer Corps merely so he could become as strong as his younger twin brother Yoriichi.
- To make matters worse, before he joined the Corps, he had already started his own family, having married a loving wife and sired several children with her. But when Yoriichi returned into his life, he abandoned them for the sake of his ambitions.
- While he did truly love his brother, he also resented him for his unparalleled strength and fighting skill because no matter how hard he trained, Yoriichi always proved to be far more superior than him. This made him extremely insecure and envious of his brother, and eventually led him to follow a darker path and sacrifice his humanity to gain more power and strength.
- He willingly chose to become a demon in order to avoid dying young from the curse of the Demon Slayer Mark and to give himself enough time to achieve his dream of becoming as strong as Yoriichi.
- He attempted to kill an elderly Yoriichi during their final duel, only to be nearly killed himself. However, before Yoriichi could land the killing blow, he abruptly died from old age. This led Kokushibo to furiously slice Yoriichi's body in half, as his one chance at a fair battle was now gone and his brother remained undefeated to the very end.
- To prove his allegiance to Muzan, he betrayed the Demon Slayer Corps, beheaded the then-current head of the Ubuyashiki family, and offered his head to Muzan as a token of his loyalty.
- Along with Muzan, he hunted down and slaughtered anyone who knew how to use Sun Breathing. This forced the surviving members of the Kamado family to go into hiding and led the Sun Breathing technique to be lost to the Demon Slayer Corps for centuries.
- As the oldest and strongest member of the Twelve Kizuki, he consumed hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people in order to gain more power for himself.
- His crimes led to the collapse of the Tsugikuni family, with no existing records of them by the time of the Taisho Era.
The Infinity Castle Arc[]
- He was responsible for turning Kaigaku into a demon. This led Jigoro Kuwajima, Kaigaku's former mentor, to commit seppuku as atonement for his pupil's treachery, making Kokushibo indirectly responsible for Jigoro's death.
- Despite having great expectations for Kaigaku as a demon, Kokushibo was extremely petty towards him during his transformation and threatened to personally take off his head if he spilled even a single drop of his blood from his hands.
- During his battle with Muichiro, Kokushibo showed no mercy against him and sliced off his left hand without hesitation in hopes that it would lead Muichiro to turn traitor and become a demon under Muzan's command. When Muichiro refused to abandon his humanity and continued to attack him, Kokushibo sliced off his leg and then killed him by cutting his body in half.
- This is made worse by the fact that despite his blood ties to Muichiro, he showed no hesitation in harming a member of his own family, demonstrating just how far he was willing to go to further his own objectives.
- He also killed Genya Shinazugawa, the younger brother of the Wind Hashira Sanemi Shinazugawa, by slicing off his arms and cutting off his lower torso. This led Sanemi to feel a tremendous amount of guilt for his indirect role in his brother's death, as he ultimately failed to protect the only family he had left.
- He attempted to kill Sanemi and the Stone Hashira Gyomei Himejima, and would've likely succeeded had he not lost the will to continue fighting. Even then, he was able to take off two of Sanemi's fingers and leave a large scar on Gyomei's head.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- While his crimes are unforgivable, his backstory is too tragic for him to be considered truly evil:
- He was born during the Sengoku Period to a respected clan of samurai. However, his father was a cruel and abusive man who wanted to kill Yoriichi, his younger twin brother, when he was an infant simply because of his scar.
- Due to being expected to take his father's place as the next head of the clan, he was isolated from his brother and his mother from a very young age.
- When he was growing up, he was constantly forced to compete with his brother. After his brother turned out to be a genius swordsman, his father completely ignored him and turned his attention to his brother, causing him to develop an inferiority complex as a child.
- After his mother died and his brother ran away from home, he was left completely alone with no one to rely on for support.
- He joined the Demon Slayer Corps and even privately trained with Yoriichi in hopes of becoming as strong as his brother. However, this ended in failure when he awakened his Demon Slayer Mark and discovered that he was doomed to die by the age of 25 as a side effect of the mark. His desperation to bypass the curse so that he could achieve his dream of becoming as strong as his brother was what ultimately led him to accept Muzan's offer to become a demon and turn against the Demon Slayer Corps.
- Had it not been for his father's selfish and abusive attitude towards him when he was a child, Kokushibo could've lived a normal life and had a healthy relationship with his brother.
- He suffered from severe insecurity due to having grown up in his brother's shadow. This insecurity also blinded him from seeing his own talent and greatness, even though he was leagues above the Hashira in strength during his service in the Demon Slayer Corps.
- Despite having become a demon nearly 500 years ago, Kokushibo is shown to have truly loved the family he had as a human.
- Even though he felt immense jealousy and spite towards his brother, Kokushibo still loved him and held on to the flute that he made for Yoriichi in the centuries after the latter's death. He also shed a tear of remorse after seeing that Yoriichi had kept the flute on him even in his old age and realized that his brother had still thought about him even after they became enemies in their younger years. While he spent most of his life claiming that he despised his twin brother to the core, in reality, he could never bring himself to truly hate his brother and was only lying to himself the whole time because he knew that if he accepted the truth, all the sacrifices that he made for the sake of his dream of becoming the strongest swordsman would all be for nothing.
- He was shown to have had a deep love for his wife and kids, and still had pleasant memories of them even after he abandoned them and became a demon. He was also delighted to find out that his bloodline had not only survived into the present day, but also produced another genius swordsman with Muichiro.
- Unlike Muzan and Doma, Kokushibo was a genuinely affable and honorable warrior who showed a great deal of respect towards his opponents if they were strong enough to impress him.
- Despite the fact that they were enemies, he showed respect and fairness towards Gyomei, Muichiro, and Sanemi for their strength, to the point where he offered to spare their lives if they agreed to turn traitor and become demons. He is also respectful towards Kagaya Ubuyashiki, complimenting him on his great intellect and how he managed to evade Muzan for several decades. In the official Demon Slayer fan book, when asked for his opinion on Gyomei, he answered that the latter resembled "the benevolent kings", further showing his respect towards the Stone Hashira.
- He also respected Akaza, even though he was well aware of how much the latter hated him, and even encouraged Akaza to do everything in his power to surpass him in strength. Although he did insult Akaza after learning of his death, he also expressed regret and seemed to genuinely respect his colleague, despite their longstanding rivalry.
- After managing to regrow his head, he saw a reflection of himself on Sanemi's blade and was so disgusted by his grotesque appearance that he started to question if becoming a monster was what he truly wanted out of life. This caused him to finally realize the heavy cost of his obsession with strength and bitterly give up on his dream. Having lost the will to live, he then committed suicide by negating his own regeneration, thus allowing Sanemi and Gyomei to cut him down and kill him once and for all.
- In his final moments, Kokushibo showed great remorse for all the choices he made in his life and lamented about how he ultimately failed to achieve anything he wanted in his centuries of existence. He also took responsibility for his crimes, and expressed how much he missed his brother and wanted to be just like him, giving him a very sympathetic death.
- This is made even more tragic by the fact that, in contrast to his fellow demons Akaza, Gyutaro, and Daki, Kokushibo was condemned to hell all by himself, with no one to share his suffering, and was not given the opportunity to reunite with his family in the afterlife. As such, he lived alone, died alone, and now must suffer horribly for his crimes alone without ever being able to make amends with his brother.
External Links[]
- Kokushibo on the Villains Wiki
- Kokushibo on the Kimetsu no Yaiba Wiki
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 Inconsistently Heinous
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