The 5 Biggest Questions About Demon Slayer Shinobu, Answered

Contains manga spoilers

With her bug-like eyes and her butterfly haori, you only need to take one look at Shinobu Kocho to know that she's the Insect Hashira. In the world of Koyoharu Gotouge's hit manga (and the anime series it spawned), Hashira is the highest rank a Demon Slayer can reach in the Demon Slayer Corps. They each use a different Breathing Style and Shinobu's technique relies on mimicking insects, stinging opponents with smaller wounds and injecting them with poison in the process. She developed the style herself in order to join the Demon Slayer Corps, a decision rooted in revenge — her parents were killed by demons, and she decided to dedicate her life to ridding the world of them.

Shinobu made her debut during the Mount Natagumo Arc and quickly became a fan favorite. Naturally, people wanted to know more about the character and what made her tick, and there's still a lot that even fans of the series don't know about her to this day. We're answering the five biggest questions that people tend to ask about Shinobu Kocho, covering everything from her strengths and her weaknesses to her love life.

When Shinobu introduces herself in the "Demon Slayer" anime, she says: "I may be the only swordswoman among the Hashiras unable to decapitate demons, but as I've created a poison lethal to demons, I'm also rather awesome." That pretty much sums Shinobu up in terms of her abilities. But does that make her the weakest Hashira? Well, yes and no.

Shinobu doesn't have the same level of physical strength enjoyed by her peers, so, technically, she is absolutely the weakest Hashira. However, the fact that she was able to develop a wisteria-based poison and a Breathing Style that allows her to administer it is a testament to her mental strength. She wanted to join the Demon Slayer Corps so badly that she literally invented a new way of killing demons, and this (when combined with her tactical awareness and impressive agility) more than makes up for a lack of physical power.

Shinobu constantly has a smile on her face, even when she's informing a terrified demon that she's going to torture them for every person they've killed, as she did during her showdown with Daughter from the Spider Family. In situations like this, Shinobu's ever-present smile makes her look unhinged at best, psychotic at worst. But there's a reason that Shinobu always wears a smile, even in the heat of battle. Her parents aren't the only family members that Shinobu has lost to demons — her sister Kanae was also killed by one, a powerful Upper Rank demon named Doma.

After losing Kanae (who was also in the Demon Slayer Corps, rising to the rank of Flower Hashira), Shinobu's personality changed. In their youth, Kanae was the smiley sister, while Shinobu had a more stony exterior. Shinobu wears the smile that her sister always favored as a tribute to her, and she went even further, mimicking her sister's positivity and her habits. It's a way of keeping Kanae's memory alive, though it's also a mask, one that slips every so often (while she's sweet and cheery most of the time, other characters have confirmed that she has a fiery temper when it's called for).

Many "Demon Slayer" fans love to ship Shinobu and Water Hashira Giyu Tomioka as a couple, to the point that it's one of the most popular fanfiction topics. Shinobu has never been in an actual relationship with Giyu, but, reading between the lines, there seems to be something between them. Both characters were introduced in the Mount Natagumo Arc, and, while they seemed like polar opposites in many ways (Shinobu makes a point of being cheerful and Giyu is the stoic type), the subtleties of their interactions were quickly picked up on.

Shinobu's teasing of Giyu led to some memes implying that she was a bully, but Shinobu was really just trying to get Giyu to come out of his shell. She straight-up tells him that he's not well liked by the others and that he needs to open up more so people can get to know the real him. Getting Giyu to smile became a personal mission for Shinobu, with her asking the others to "please put your heads together on what to do to make Tomioka smile" during "One-Winged Butterfly," the second light novel spin-off of the manga.

The biggest clue that Shinobu is actually in love with Giyu comes in a line that might have gone over the heads of English-speaking fans. When they were about to go on a mission together, Shinobu said to Giyu: "The moon is beautiful tonight, isn't it?" While this may seem like a simple conversation starter, these words are actually used to confess your feelings to someone in Japan. This phrase (which is usually credited to the 19th century Japanese novelist Natsume Soseki) is used in real life and often appears in Japanese media.

Shinobu got the chance to avenge her late sister when she went up against Doma in a highly anticipated fight that didn't disappoint. The Insect Hashira arrived at Doma's room in Nakime's Infinity Castle to find him absorbing some of his disciples — a monstrous technique that allows the demon to merge the biological matter of victims with his own. She was able to land the first blow on Doma with her speed, stabbing him in the eye, but no matter what she did, she couldn't kill him with her traditional weapons. There was only one way — and it required her to die.

At the end of the battle, a fatally wounded Shinobu was absorbed by Doma — who was unaware that this was part of Shinobu's plan all along. Over the course of a year, she had been slowly poisoning herself so that, by the time she faced Doma, she had 37 kilograms of her wisteria-based poison in her system. This is several hundred times the amount needed to kill a regular demon, meaning it was enough to incapacitate Doma. Shinobu's adopted sister Kanao Tsuyuri and fellow Demon Slayer Inosuke Hashibira arrived just as the poison was starting to take effect, and, together, they finished Doma off, decapitating him.

So, how was Shinobu when she died? She was resigned to her fate. The fact that she had been planning this for an entire year meant that she had plenty of time to come to terms with what needed to be done in order to avenge her sister, something she'd been living for ever since losing her. She suffered some horrific injuries during her showdown with Doma, but it was Shinobu who had the last laugh.

A lot of "Demon Slayer" fans ask this question, but, unless you count the fact that she slowly poisoned herself so that she would be toxic to Doma when he absorbed her, Shinobu wasn't sick. While she was on the frail side, this was seemingly an artistic choice, more to do with mirroring her fragile mind than implying an illness. Her inability to decapitate a demon and her perceived weakness were never linked to a disease: She simply wasn't able to cut through the thick neck of a demon because she lacked the power to do so. She was, however, suffering mentally, something she admitted to during her fight with Doma.

Shinobu revealed that she had an inferiority complex due to the fact that she wasn't able to take off a demon's head like her peers. While some readers didn't like the way that her arc finished, one thing that was clear by the end was that Shinobu had a lot going on underneath that forced smile. And that's not exactly surprising: Maintaining a positive attitude while grieving for your murdered family and planning to let yourself be killed in order to get even is obviously going to take a heavy mental toll. Given everything she went through, it's a wonder that Shinobu was able to keep it together for long enough to get her revenge.