Who Is The Strongest Hashira In Demon Slayer?

The final few episodes of "Demon Slayer" Season 1 see Tanjiro and friends finally come face to face with the famed Hashira, the upper echelon of the demon slayer core. Every single Hashira is a master of the Total Concentration Breathing technique, and each one has mastery over a unique elemental breathing style that affects their combat techniques and swordplay.

These prolific fighters make Tanjiro look like a complete novice when it comes to swordsmanship, though so far, the series has only shown a few of them in real combat situations. This includes the Flame Hashira, Kyujuro Rengoku; the Insect Hashira, Shinobu Kocho; and the Water Hashira, Giyu Tomioka. 

While both Rengoku and Tomioka go toe-to-toe with members of the Twelve Kizuki (the Hashira's parallel in the ranks of the demons themselves), only Tomioka actually slays one of the Kizuki, and it's of a lower number rank. In fact, the true strongest Hashira has yet to lift his sword on screen and is essentially used as comic relief in his appearances thus far.

Gyomei Himejima, the enormous, blind Stone Hashira, is currently regarded as the strongest Hashira in the Demon Slayer Corps, with a few characters in "Demon Slayer" even saying so themselves in Chapter 134 of the manga. When viewers first meet Himejima, Tanjiro is on trial before the Hashira because he has been traveling with a demon against the Corps' rules — his sister Nezuko. Himejima spends the entire trial weeping profusely and praying, proclaiming that Tanjiro should've never been born out of pity for the boy. His melodramatic lines (delivered with the utmost seriousness) are honestly hilarious whenever they cut to him, though his backstory is hardly funny at all.

Himejima is initially a normal, blind man living in a temple with orphaned children, until one day when a demon attacks the temple and slaughters the children. Himejima is enraged and discovers just how strong he is when he utterly destroys the demon, which leads to him being recruited to the Demon Slayer Corps by the leader of the organization itself: Kagaya Ubuyashiki (Demon Slayer wiki). Himejima's immense size and the strength of his Stone Breathing technique make him far and away the most powerful Hashira in all of "Demon Slayer."