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"Pleeeease Doma I neeed this. My sister's kinda dead, I live with my Tsugoko, I wanna help her out"
Hey buddies, this is like the third headlined former NPE that counts for IH I'm proposing (Oh boy I wonder who removed him). Anyways, since Demon Slayer is popular right now and currently ongoing for anime-watcher, I'll warn for some spoilers, even if there aren't that much, but just in case.
What Is The Work?[]
Demon Slayer, or Kimetsu no Yaiba is a manga series created, written and illustrated by Koyoharu Gotouge. It follows Tanjiro Kamado, who after returning from his work in the town, comes home to find his entire family slaughtered by the Demon King, Muzan Kibutsuji. He later finds that his sister, Nezuko has been converted into one of the demons; former humans created by Muzan with supernatural prowess and an appetite for human flesh and blood.
Not willing to give up on his only family, Tanjiro makes it his own duty to save his sister, joining the mysterious Demon Slayer corps and partaking in the ever long war against Muzan and the demons, aiming to kill the Progenitor of demons and end his reign of terror once and for all.
Who Is He?[]
Doma is a major antagonist in the Demon Slayer franchise. He is a powerful demon and one of the Twelve Kizuki, specifically the Upper Rank 2. As a child, Doma was considered "supernatural" by his cultist parents, who dedicated the entire Eternal Paradise cult to him due to his rather unique appearance, having born with polychromatic eyes. However, beneath his beautiful and elegant appearance, Doma was born sociopathic and unable to form or understand emotions. The entire cult began to worship Doma as a god, which the young Doma only reciprocated with disdain and contempt, finding them foolish and pitiful worms for worshipping a child and like him and just generally believing the concept of religion to be dumb and delusional.
When he was about 20 or so, the Demon Progenitor himself, Muzan approached Doma and turned him into one of his demons. With his newfound powers, Doma resumed his position as the head of the Eternal Paradise cult, and began devouring women in particular, believing that he's truly saving them by making them "live forever" with him. Doma would later go on to being responsible for several tragedies, such as being the reason for Gyutaro and Daki's conversion into demons, the murder of Kotoha Hasibira and subsequent orphaning of Inosuke, the murder of Kanae Kocho laying foundation to Shinobou's wrath and vengeful path and goals of killing the Upper Two, and later killing and absorbing her himself.
Heinousness[]
Heinous Acts[]
Doma is hated by almost everyone, and there's a reason for that. He is responsible for a good number of tragic events is probably the only demon in the series with the most amount of personal villainy, with the exception of Muzan of course. For starters, he's responsible for killing Kotoha Hasibira, swiftly killing her after she discovered his true nature as a demon and ran away. This led to her having to abandon Inosuke for his safety, before getting devoured by Doma. This makes him directly responsible for Inosuke's tragedy and his entire past in the first place.
Perhaps his worst one, killing Kanae Kocho and leaving her to bleed out before the sun rose, letting her to bleed out in Shinobu's arms. This causes Shinobu to live the rest of her life in grief and rage, and serves as her primary motivation. On top of that, he kills Shinobu right in front of Kanao during the infinity castle arc, absorbing her fully as he mockingly tells Kanao to not interrupt him when in the middle of absorption, essentially being responsible killing two of Kanao's surrogate older sisters, further deepening the personal villainy between her and Doma.
On top of that, Doma has devoured and killed THOUSANDS of women during his time as a demon. We see him in the process of devouring them multiple times, like casually eating women during Gyutaro and Daki's flashback (also being responsible for Gyutaro and Daki being turned into demons in the first place, by offering them his blood, essentially making their crimes Doma's responsibility too), or him coldly killing one of his female disciples while she was being rescued in Shinobu's arms. So yeah, putting it simply, dude is fucking depraved, even for an upper moon, and is behind the tragedy of SEVERAL characters.
Heinous Standard[]
Should be no problem. Despite Demon Slayer's particularly high Heinous Standards, Doma still stands out as one of the worst of the worst, and this is heavily emphasized by the narrative. His kill count being in the thousands definitely makes him pass, especially since it's exclusively women.
He comfortably stands out from Gyokko, Hantengu, Nakima, Enmu, The Snake Demon, Rui. They pass the standards mostly due to unique crimes that sets them apart (FTWD Mutilation, attempting to destroy a village that is crucial to the demon slayer corps, eating infants and so on), however, Doma easily beats with his sheer number of kill count compared to them, considering he has eaten thousands of women while manipulating them inside his cult.
On top of that, he is several personal villainy, mainly towards Shinobu, Kanao and Inosuke, that sets him aside from his fellow demons. The only other villain that outclasses him in personal villainy would be Muzan, but he obviously can't be compared to Demon King of course, as he is vastly more powerful than Doma, on top of him making him into a demon in the first place. So, should be an easy pass.
Mitigating Factors?[]
Not much to speak of Doma here in terms of false redeeming qualities. He doesn't genuinely care for his fellow uppermoons, and is obviously being faux affable to them due to his innately hollow and emotionless nature. He "cries" after Akaza dies but it couldn't be more obvious that is performative and fake, since he immediately gets over it and dismisses him just as quickly.
Inconsistencies[]
Moral Agency[]
The main reason he can't qualify any higher. Dude is fucking insane, to the point where it impairs his sense of morality where he can't even differentiate between right and wrong. Doma genuinely believes that him eating and devouring women is him "saving them" so that they can remain forever young with him. He cannot fathom that his maneating is a bad thing. Because he was raised as a cult's god from birth, he was led to believe that he was only saving these people from a terrible fate.
Other characters also acknowledge this, and Kanae Kocho even pitied Doma for having a flawed view of morality and being so empty inside. When Kanao provoked him, insulting and asking why he was even born if he was so mentally broken, Doma is genuinely shocked at why she was being so rude to him, further showing how delusional and impaired he is.
This is the same man that asked Shinobu, the girl whose life he destroyed, killed and absorbed, in the afterlife to go to Hell with him, having started to develop a crush on her, that's just how utterly insane he is. To summarize, his moral agency reaches to a point where he can't differentiate between right and wrong, genuinely believes that eating people is a benevolent act, and can't understand why it's wrong when others point it out to him. Even other characters confirm that Doma is indeed that mentally broken.
Care[]
While twisted, he did come to genuinely love and grow affectionate towards Shinobu after his death. In the afterlife, as Shinobu is holding Doma's detached head, he starts to develop a crush on Shinobu and tries to ask her out, wanting her to come to Hell with him. Doma feels true ecstasy for the first time as he finally feels an emotion. He realized that Shinobu actually made him happy, and grew to admire the concept of love. This makes his love for Shinobu genuine, so much so that he found her cute and wanted her to stay with him in the afterlife.
Tragic[]
Ultimately, it can't be ignored that Doma is genuinely tragic, and his backstory fully explains his behavior and how it shaped him to be like this, all of which holds up strongly in spite of everything. Doma, upon his birth, was appointed as his cult's god. People around started to worship him, projecting their sob stories to him and asking him for guidance. A baby Doma was distressed, annoyed and upset as to why humans like them would worship a baby like him.
While he was born without the ability to feel emotions, it is made clear that the toxic and mutually unloving environment he grew up in played a major toll in shaping Doma's amorality. He was only the object of fanatical worship, not genuine love. His parents never truly loved him, and when you take a child that is already mentally impaired from birth, and subject him to an unloving and fanatical relation like this, it is easy to tell why he's so messed up.
It is because of this treatment alone that Doma came to understand humans are stupid and needed his saving, which explains why he leads his cult and devours countless women, because he was conditioned to believe that this is the case since birth. While one could say that Doma isn't all that moved or affected by his tragedy. But the thing here is, that is the point. Doma was born this way. Because he was unable to understand feelings, he was unable to feel or process his tragedy. It is made pretty obvious that the hollow and unhealthy environment he grew up in contributed significantly to his broke psyche. He is much more nuanced and complex than "He is unaffected, so he's not tragic".
Final Verdict[]
Solid Yes.