---
title: 'Why Kokushibo Is Demon Slayer’s Best Demon'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=4B5RHIMvpnk'
video_id: '4B5RHIMvpnk'
date: 2026-08-01
duration_sec: 1839
---

# Why Kokushibo Is Demon Slayer’s Best Demon

> Source: [Why Kokushibo Is Demon Slayer’s Best Demon](https://youtube.com/watch?v=4B5RHIMvpnk)

## Summary

In this video, the creator explains why Kokushibo is her favorite demon in Demon Slayer, focusing on his unique backstory, his retained human memories, and his tragic pursuit of power. She contrasts him with other demons and relates his jealousy to a personal figure skating experience, ultimately arguing that his story represents a very human and relatable struggle.

### Key Points

- **Favorite Demon with Limited Screen Time** [00:45] — Kokushibo is the narrator's favorite demon, even though he appears in the story for a short period compared to protagonists like Tanjiro and Giyu.
- **A Backstory Unlike Other Demons** [03:19] — Kokushibo's story isn't meant to make the viewer cry; he remains the same person from human to demon, chasing the same goal.
- **Retains Human Memories** [05:10] — He remembers his human life and his name, Michikatsu Tsugikuni, which sets him apart from demons who lost their memories when Muzan transformed them.
- **Moon Breathing as Blood Demon Art** [07:30] — His blood demon art is Moon Breathing, the narrator's favorite, and it's fascinating because it's derived from Sun Breathing, the only technique that can truly harm demons.
- **The Humanity of Jealousy** [10:56] — Kokushibo's motive is jealousy toward his brother Yoriichi, a relatable human emotion, but he can never move past it, which makes his story tragic.
- **Figure Skating Parallel** [12:03] — The narrator uses her own skating experience to explain the dynamic between hard-working Kokushibo and naturally gifted Yoriichi, highlighting the frustration of being outshone despite effort.
- **Abandons His Family** [17:11] — When reminded of Yoriichi's power, Kokushibo leaves his wife and children to chase strength, an act that shifts the audience's sympathy and shows his obsession.
- **Defeats Himself** [21:17] — In his final fight, he regenerates his head, sees his demonic reflection, and acknowledges that Gyomei and Sanemi have bested him, essentially causing his own defeat.
- **Antithesis of Tanjiro** [23:14] — Unlike Tanjiro, who grows stronger while never chasing power for its own sake, Kokushibo's entire existence revolves around surpassing his brother, which ultimately destroys him.

### Conclusion

Kokushibo's story is a powerful cautionary tale about the corrosive nature of unchecked jealousy and the pursuit of power for its own sake. His defeat comes not from external enemies but from his own inability to find meaning beyond being the strongest.

## Transcript

character for this and the next movie is going to be good.
channel into another video. Today is another character app and voted on by my subscribers. We will be talking about Kokushibo. different than the first two because Tanjiro and Giyu are my favorite
characters and they also are present in the story for a lot longer than Kokushibo is. Kokushibo is my favorite demon. We're going to talk about why, but he's in the story for not very long. In fact, I feel like he's probably one
of how long it takes to reveal him since he's a big deal. So, this video might be see. But before we dive in, I actually wanted to show y'all something because I have adult money and I made a decision. And I don't regret it, by the way. Don't
don't feel like I regret this at all. I'm going to add to it soonish cuz I'm I'm going to add to it soonish cuz I'm not 100% sure, but I did a thing.
bicep. Yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking of adding wisteria to it probably to make it a little bit more obviously Demon Slayer reference and not just the word destroy, but we'll see. But it is my second tattoo and my second Demon Slayer
second tattoo and my second Demon Slayer tattoo. Oh god. [laughter] girl adult money and she realizes they don't hurt that much. Anyway, I just going to dive right in. But before we do, don't forget to like this video,
comment your thoughts. I am currently trying to get more followers on Instagram. My Instagram is at about 15 and a half thousand followers right now. I have set a big lofty goal for myself to hit 30k by my 30th birthday, which is
September. [music] So, help a girl out. The incentive is I post pictures there. I post [music] Instagram stories, and I do a lot more want to follow me. It's linked in the description. Okay. So, like I said,
Kokushibo is my favorite demon. I do want to put a disclaimer out there right now that if you've been watching my channel for a while, you might know this. I lean very heavily towards favoring the Demon Slayers in Demon
Slayer. I think it's mostly because I tend to be someone who just prefers to tend to be someone who just prefers to like the good guys. I have never really been someone who's like, "Oh, this villain is really interesting and has a
lot of depth, so I'm going to prefer them over the good guys." I've never grew up on Disney. >> [laughter] Disney are pretty much just villains. You don't really feel empathy for the
villains in Disney. So, I think that's mostly why. I do really love how the think that's one of the strengths of the story. So, I think it's a really great way to start out talking more about the demons none other than talking about
Kokushibo. Kokushibo, like I said, is my favorite demon. And I actually do think that that is because of the way he is written. It is very different from most
of the other demons. There is one other demon that is a bit similar to him, I think, in a lot of ways, but also is very different in a lot of ways, and that's Kaigaku. And I actually really like that in Kaigaku's story Kokushibo
is the one who ended up recruiting him into the demons because I do feel like [music] they're they both kind of deal with similar with similar problems. So, what makes Kokushibo so
different, you say? First things first, the obvious one is that his backstory is not this like really sad, he lost a bunch of family members, or you just are sobbing over him because he went through so much. You're not feeling those kinds
of emotions for Kokushibo, which makes him very different. And it makes him to me just a bit more interesting. In a story where everyone has kind of similar backgrounds, which is the point, by the way, is that most of the characters all
kind of experienced similar experiences and ended up making a choice that kind of led them down whatever path it went down. Kokushibo kind of stands separately from them because he represents a very human feeling.
Kokushibo's story is not meant for you to feel bad for him, at least I don't feel like that's the point of his story. His story is more to just offer a His story is more to just offer a perspective and offer a very human
perspective and offer a very human character that makes the wrong choices character that makes the wrong choices over and over and over again. Kokushibo actually keeps his memories. In fact, one of our first full interactions with
him when we Uta shows up is him telling him what his human name was, which was of course Michikatsu Tsugikuni. We instantly take a sharp turn that is different from most of the other demons. Well, Doma I think is kind of similar. I
can't really speak on him too much, but yeah, he remembered his human life. Kokushibo also remembers his life, and Kokushibo doesn't really change from human to demon. He remains the same
person. His motives are the same. He's still chasing the same thing. And that's what makes him so interesting to me is that his story is more of just when you keep chasing the wrong thing, it's eventually going to come back to bite
you. I'm not going to lie, since I just reread this literally this morning, I'm so excited for the movie because first things first, this fight doesn't have as much like back and forth. So, I think people are just going to enjoy the
pacing a bit more because it's very heavy on the fight sequences on and on and on and on and on and then we get the back story. So, let's start with just the fact that I think Kokushibo's really cool. I just think he's really cool. I'm
is what happens when I don't write a script. But that that's what y'all want. So, I first things first think he's just really cool. I think his character design is cool. I'm not going to lie. I know people think he's really creepy.
People don't like him because he has six eyes and it is very creepy and it's like I think that's actually really cool because he since he doesn't really change when he turns into a demon, he's still chasing the same things. He just
kind of evolves, I guess. The only demon characteristic of him is that he now has six eyes. Everything else about him remains human. And I along with his character because his character is so still tied to what he
was when he was human compared to most the other demons that don't even have memories of when they were human because Muzan took that away from them because he knew if they remembered who they were, they would probably not like being
a demon anymore because most of those people were inherently good people that just were put in a bad position. So, I really like his character design. The six eyes is creepy, but it's cool. And then his blood demon art, of course, is
moon breathing and his blood demon art is my favorite blood demon art of all the characters because I do like the idea that he was a demon slayer who could use a breathing style. And the whole point of breathing styles for the
Demon Slayers is that it makes them more on par with demons. Like Gyomei explains it in the fight itself that breathing styles is a way to make humans more like
styles is a way to make humans more like demons. It gives them more ability to demons. It gives them more ability to have the same stamina as them. So, when you take an actual demon and you give them a breathing style, he sounds kind
of invincible, right? Like he seems to be like a character that would be rather be like a character that would be rather hard to defeat. So, personally, I am incredibly excited to see moon breathing animated because it's going to be
interesting to see how they do that. I feel like a lot of times in the story when a character is depicted as moving very, very quickly, we just don't see there after they did it. They've done that multiple times with Tanjiro. I
slightly different way to depict the speed. There's definitely times where Kokushibo does just appear there, but I will hope since so much of that is his ability that they'll start to, I don't know, like animate it in different ways
that show his speed without just making it like oh, he wasn't there and then he was there cuz that might get a little repetitive. I'm getting a little bit off topic here, but overall, just his character design, his abilities, I was
locked in immediately. I just found it so interesting that so many of the demons don't keep their human characteristics or their human memories. And even someone like Gyokko who doesn't have like a sad backstory, obviously
does not take on a human at all. He does not look human at all. Again, like the parallels, the only really similar character, Kaigaku was just kind of a mini Kokushibo. It's almost as if Kokushibo like took him
>> [laughter] >> I'm going to turn him into a not quite Kokushibo is that he wants to be the best. Okay, so getting that out of the way, let's talk about his backstory. So, one of the main reasons I love his
backstory so much like I already touched on is that it is first of all just different. Well, I like I said there are some characters that have similar characteristics in their backstory. His just is different in the way that he
remains the same. He's not trying to have a second chance at life. He's not, you know, about to die and Muzan offers to save his life. He just at some point in time decides that becoming a demon is the next step in usurping his brother's
power. But of course, then we see later on that he wasn't even able to do that as a demon. Yoriichi would have killed him if Yoriichi didn't just die of old age when he approached him when he was
in his 80s. I almost find Kokushibo's story in a way to be slightly relatable. Not on the extremes of, you know, I will stop at nothing to be the best at whatever, right? Like that I think it's very clear that while he has very human
emotions and his motives are very human that most of us experience. I think could say they've never experienced jealousy in their life, right? Like we've all experienced jealousy. It's a very real human emotion. We all feel it.
What's important though, and it's what Kokushibo couldn't do, is that we know how to act upon that jealousy. We know that it is wrong and that we need to
move on from it. We need to figure out a way to make sure that we don't act upon that jealousy. And Kokushibo's never able to figure that out. Like he able to figure that out. Like he literally dies asking, why was I even
born? Something that I found very poignant about Kokushibo's story is that I could relate to it in some way. I can't relate to all of these backstories where people just lose all their family, they're about to get married and their
wife is poi- you know, like Akaza's backstory. Kokushibo's is actually a bit more relatable to me. So, I'm going to briefly talk about why and again I'm >> [laughter] >> the way he handles this jealousy, but
I'm a figure skater. I've been figure skating since I was 6 years old. I've been doing it for a very long time. I have taken breaks because of financial have been skating for pretty much as long as I can remember. And in skating,
there are different types of skaters. You've got the ones that are not very talented, but they work incredibly hard. They just show up every day. They bruise
on the same jump over and over and over again. They keep falling, they keep work really, really, really hard every single day. They never give up because they want to be the best. You have the opposite end of the spectrum, which is
the super talented skaters. And the super talented skaters often times don't have to work that hard. They can even sometimes from the others around them be perceived as lazy. They don't really work that hard. They kind of show up
work that hard. They kind of show up when they want to and they maybe get off just don't really put in the work because they're so talented it comes that are in the middle, which have a little bit of talent and some work ethic
and a combination of the two kind of gets them there. Important to note that the ones in the middle are usually the most successful. The hard workers, not because if you don't have the talent, sometimes you just get stuck no matter
how hard you work. Sound familiar? Sounds a little bit like Kokushibo, right? He was working super super super super hard and he just wasn't improving
the way he wanted to. Then we have Yoriichi who's like those skaters that I was saying that just have all this talent and don't have to work hard. Many of those skaters end up not really getting anywhere in the sport because
you. Eventually you have to be willing to put in some work in order to make it. But sometimes a few break through. These skaters that just don't really put in the effort end up national champions, end up world medalists, Olympic
champions, what not. And it's incredibly hard for the ones who don't have the talent but are working incredibly hard to watch that one talented skater that's kind of perceived as lazy to just make it. That's a Yoriichi, right? So the
reason I bring all this up is because I've been there. As someone who fell a little bit more in the middle, I grew up when I was young with a lot of talent but I it caught up to me very very quickly and I had to learn how to
instead of coast work hard and I didn't always have that work ethic and that sort of thing and that's another story for another time. But it was incredibly hard when I would show up to the rink every single day, skate my entire
every single day, skate my entire session, fall fall fall fall, get back up, make a mistake, try again, and watch someone who started skating five years after me pass me up. I get jealous. I get very self-conscious when that sort
of thing happens because you have to sit there and wonder why is this person so lucky that they get to just land everything easily and they start being super successful at the sport even though they don't skate as often as I
though they don't skate as often as I do. And Kokushibo in a very very extreme way is experiencing that with Yoriichi. Because Kokushibo was born the favorite, Yoriichi was born with a weird birthmark and wasn't talking and was seemingly
like attached to his mother's side. And that's the way Kokushibo, or Michikatsu I should say, was perceiving him the entire time as this kid that was just weak. And then all of a sudden, he was able to do something that Michikatsu
couldn't do for years. When Yoriichi picks up that wooden sword for the first time, the bokuto, and is able to strike the teacher four times. Michikatsu specifically says, "I've been training with this guy for years and I have never
once been able to land a blow on him." And Yoriichi did it without even trying, with zero interest in it, didn't even really want to do it again because he doesn't like hitting people. And it is natural to see that and be very upset
and mad and have like a very great inferiority complex because you have worked so incredibly hard, but this person just passes you up like that. I think it's interesting that we explored a character like this because Kaigaku
has some similar characteristics, but you can argue that with Kaigaku, he's jealous of Zenitsu, but Zenitsu's not necessarily stronger than him or better than him. In fact, Zenitsu is arguably not as strong as him. His inferiority
complex stems from the fact that Jigoro continued to treat them as equals even though he was obviously better. When in Michikatsu's experience, even though
he's been working really hard, he gets passed up immediately. And he just chases that literally for the rest of his life. You know, a part of me does feel bad for Kokushibo because it is going to mess you up when that happens.
But, the way he acts upon it is when we get a little bit problematic because he get a little bit problematic because he is so obsessed with trying to pass him is so obsessed with trying to pass him up that he keeps doing things at the
expense of other people's feelings, right? So, then he starts to talk about the fact that he, after Yoriichi just kind of ran away when their mom died, he kind of fell into like a nice, calm life. He got married, he had kids, and
then the moment he was reminded of Yoriichi's ability, of Yoriichi being so Yoriichi's ability, of Yoriichi being so much stronger than him, he abandons much stronger than him, he abandons his wife and kids to chase strength, to
chase his brother. And this is where I start to say, "Okay, I no longer feel bad for you." Because now you're just kind of acting like a kid. Like you're just being very dramatic
>> [laughter] >> and very self-centered to the point of leaving your wife and kids behind to chase the strength that you don't need. It It's not like you're trying to protect someone. Like if he left them
behind in order to protect them, that's kind of what like Sanemi does with Genya is he distanced himself from Genya so that he could try to protect him. Kokushibo, Michikatsu, while he's still human, by the way, this This is why it's
like he doesn't really change when he becomes a demon. He just evolves into a step for him. While he is a human, he abandons his family. And then he's just He still can't be as good as Yoriichi.
He can't master sun breathing, he has to create moon breathing, which is also so cool, I guess, because when you think about it, sun is the true weapon against
demons. The only reason Nichirin Blades work is because there's sunlight in them, because sunlight is the only thing that can kill demons. So, it is so that can kill demons. So, it is so interesting that Kokushibo, Michikatsu,
picks up moon breathing because it is literally a reflection of sunlight. That's what the moonlight is, right? So, it is quite literally just the weaker >> [laughter] >> Which is like, man, like you just hit
him while he's down. Like, okay, I can do moon breathing, which is just a weaker version of sun breathing in the sense that a moon is literally like moonlight is literally just sunlight reflected on it. So, it's
just not as strong. That's why demons can be out at night is it's just not enough sunlight to actually burn them. It's so, so, so interesting. And then the next thing he does is he is met with Muzan. And Muzan, in a way, like does
manipulate him into becoming a demon, but Michikatsu is very easy to manipulate at this point. Muzan doesn't have to, like, say, I'm going to, you so that you can continue living. He doesn't just give him no choice like he
did with Akaza. Akaza didn't have a choice. Before he could do anything, Muzan's fist in his face. Like With Michikatsu, all Muzan did was say,
Michikatsu was like, "Yeah, yeah, makes sense." And he felt like that was going to fulfill his wish of being stronger than his human brother because he would be a demon, which would make him stronger,
naturally, than a human. And then he meets up with Yoriichi and is still meets up with Yoriichi and is still unable to kill Yoriichi even though he's unable to kill Yoriichi even though he's now a demon. And Yoriichi is in his 80s.
And that ends up being the way he dies, too. I don't see people talk about this as often as they do with Akaza. And you can argue it's because the Akaza fight has now been animated. A lot more people have seen it since a lot of anime only's
hadn't seen it until the movie came out. But even before the first movie came out, I haven't heard as many people talk about the fact that Kokushibo was able to also regenerate his head. Like, he fully regenerated his head after they
fully regenerated his head after they cut it off, but he saw his reflection of cut it off, but he saw his reflection of the monster he became, and you can say I think honestly Kokushibo defeated himself more than Akaza defeated himself
because he was not affected by the emotions of the characters fighting him. emotions of the characters fighting him. He was not affected by their teamwork or their protection of each other. He was affected by how strong they were, and
affected by how strong they were, and that Gyomei and Sanemi really were able that Gyomei and Sanemi really were able to go toe-to-toe with him and eventually get the upper hand, and that's what ended up being the reason why he died
ended up being the reason why he died was because he just realized that he's been chasing the strength his entire life, and even now he's not able to be the strongest because Gyomei and Sanemi do manage to win the fight by beheading
him. His entire life, his entire life of trying to be the strongest, ends up being the thing that causes his end because he was never able to do it because Sanemi and Gyomei were able to win that fight. He never once won a
fight. Even though, I mean, okay, obviously he did. He won multiple fights right? He killed who knows, maybe thousands of Demon Slayers, right? Many many Hashira, but in that moment, what we see as an audience is that he was
never able to win because he was so obsessed with being the strongest that obsessed with being the strongest that he was never able to look past that, and it ended up being his downfall. I find that just so interesting. I find his
character to be so interesting because it's just a little bit different than a lot of the other characters and what we see what their motives are. He's a power. He's like the antithesis of Tanjiro. Tanjiro becomes stronger and
stronger and stronger and he never once is chasing power. He never once is like, to be a Hashira." He starts chasing becoming a Hashira when Rengoku dies and
and tells him to be a Hashira or when he realizes it's going to help him in his quest to turn Nezuko into a human. But Tanjiro represents like the exact opposite, which is interesting because Tanjiro also somewhat represents
Yoriichi, even though he was never as talented as him. I guess Tanjiro saying with skating. The person that has a little bit of talent, a lot of work ethic, is more likely to make it far than the people on the other two sides.
than the people on the other two sides. But Yoriichi was an anomaly. Michikatsu wasn't. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he worked, he could never stack up to be as good as his brother. And he died wondering why he was even born
because he was never able to fulfill his goal, no matter what he did, no matter what he was willing to do, leaving his family behind, killing so many innocent people just in pursuit of power that he was never able to get. His story is
somewhat tragic in that way because he's a character that was just never able to figure out what he needed to do. And in a way, he never met someone along the way to help him see things differently.
characters throughout the story who kind of have a similar problem to him, but usually cross paths with Tanjiro and Tanjiro is able to help them understand a different way of looking at life, but he never got that ability. He never was
able to be saved by someone. He just was so obsessed with power that he alienated everyone and it was stemmed from when he was a kid and he had like major major
jealousy of his brother as soon as he realized that his brother was so strong. So, that's why I love Kokushibo so much. He stands apart from most of the other demons because he doesn't seem like he's just this evil guy. He's scary, he's
very cool, he's very fast, the start of his fight is crazy. His entire fight is crazy. When it's animated, holy moly, it's going to be so good. I'm going to make so many videos about it, holy moly. But, he doesn't come across as like a
Gyokko or a Doma where it's like, "Oh, you're just kind of a psycho." He has very human emotions and in a way he feels the most human of them all because of his character design, because he's held on to that human side of him this
entire time, but it still isn't good enough and he is so obsessed with power that he becomes a demon just so that he can try and be as strong as Yoriichi, but he never gets there and he is able to understand that that time when he
fought with Yoriichi in Yoriichi's dying moments is the moment he lost, really, and he's been in search of this power ever since. He's been chasing this thing that can never happen because Yoriichi died a natural death instead of being
killed by him. Dare I say Kokushibo and Yoriichi's stories are the peak of Demon Slayer writing. I've said how much I love Sanemi as a character, too. I really think Gotouge just whenever they were
writing about siblings, their pen was on fire. Like, I don't know if maybe Gotouge-sensei just has siblings and has had like certain relationships with their siblings or whatever or if it's just like a general curiosity to them.
Maybe they're an only child that never experienced it, but holy moly, their writing of siblings is just so interesting. I would say most of the characters that are involved in a very like obvious sibling plot are some of
story. And that's Muzan, Kokushibo, Yoriichi, Sanemi and Genya, Tanjiro and Nezuko. All of them are written so incredibly well that you can tell that Gotouge really, really, really loved writing about siblings and took their
going to say about Kokushibo at this point in time. Like I said, I I I knew there's just not as much content about Kokushibo. I just one, think he's really That's one of the reasons why he's my favorite. And two, I think his story is
just interesting because it's different from most everyone else. And it's from most everyone else. And it's scarily relatable as an audience. We all can relate to him in some way. And it's scary. It's scary to be confronted with
a reality that we could pick if we were in that world. That's how I feel about Kokushibo. That's how I feel about Kaigaku is they're thrown in our face as a you might be this if you were in this world. Can you really honestly sit here
world. Can you really honestly sit here and say that you would not choose the easy route, the route of power, the route of security, you know, because it's very hard to die as a demon, the route of strength when given that
of other people. I think that's a question that like we as an audience are being presented in this moment is you might end up like him. You might end up like Kaigaku because you're in a world where your instinct is to go survival
mode. And the people who are willing to just give their lives, like Gyomei. Gyomei specifically says to become a Hashira, you cannot cling to life. You have to be aware that tomorrow is not guaranteed because of the life that you
live. that's not normal. Most of us don't like most of us clean the life. Life is life. There's an unknown of what happens when you die. The demon slayers are the not normal people. The demons, especially Michikatsu, Kokushibo,
especially Michikatsu, Kokushibo, Kaigaku, even Doma, are more normal. They represent like real humanity. And I This is one of the reasons why Demon Slayer is so good. Anyway, that's what I have to say about Kokushibo. He's an
interesting character. He's written really well, and he's still way down characters in general. I would say he's probably maybe 20th on my list because Slayer that I [music] care a lot more about. But, he's just so cool and so
interesting. So, there you have it. There are my thoughts on Kokushibo. Let me know your thoughts on Kokushibo in the comments down below. But, thank you you liked it, don't forget to like this video, subscribe to the channel, leave a
access to exclusive perks like early release of videos, being a part of choosing what videos I make every single week, [music] and more, make sure you join my channel membership. For a small monthly fee, you [music] help support my
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