Break out the tissues! One of the most tragic demons in Demon Slayer is getting his own article. Gyutaro is not the most powerful demon in all of the series, but he’s certainly up there with the best of them. Worst of them. Same dif.
But while he isn’t the strongest physically, he and his sister Daki certainly left a demon-shaped emotional impact crater on the blasted surface of my heart. Gyutaro and his little sister Daki were born into abject poverty in the Entertainment District. Kid had it rough. Little man’s life was rough even before he got out of the womb. His mother would beat the unborn Gyutaro up in an attempt to have a miscarriage so he wouldn’t be brought into the world. She then tried to beat him to death after he was born so she wouldn’t have to feed him. Joke’s on her, though, because she died of syphilis first.
Unsurprisingly, Gyutaro’s life didn’t improve after the death of his mother. He and his sister wandered the streets, surviving on what they could forage and steal. Due to his poor hygiene (he couldn’t exactly bathe while fending for his life), the other neighborhood children would make fun of him and torment him. Kids are assholes. After obtaining a forgotten sickle from a customer in the district, Gyutaro used the weapon to kill insects and rats for him and his sister to eat.
As his sister began to grow up, Gyutaro became her sole protector. She began working in one of the district’s high-class brothels during her teen years, and Gyutaro acted as her “collector” when her clients would refuse to pay. Things were looking up for the siblings, until one night changed everything for the worse. After returning home from work one day, Gyutaro found his sister tied up and nearly burned to death in a ditch after she had blinded a samurai with a hairpin. When the samurai returned to finish the job, Gyutaro split the bastard’s face open with his sickle, and then killed his sister’s cruel madame for good measure. On the verge of death, the exhausted pair were visited by the demon Doma, who held the Upper Rank Six position at the time. The demon offered the pair a few drops of his blood in order to save them from certain death, transforming them into a pair of powerful demons in the process.
As full-fledged demons, Gyutaro and his sister lived in the Entertainment District, eating their fill of human flesh. According to Gyutaro, he had eaten fifteen hashira in his demon career—pretty good numbers.
What are his abilities?
Due to his close relationship with his sister, Gyutaro is able to detach his core from his body and store it inside of his sister’s, and Daki is able to do the same. Because of this ability, Gyutaro and Daki are both immune to decapitation so long as they are not beheaded simultaneously. Gyutaro’s deep connection to his sister also allows him to sense the things that she senses, which lets the siblings coordinate their attacks with deadly efficiency. Although they are two separate beings, Gyutaro and Daki essentially share a body. They are two halves of the same whole, and one cannot be defeated without destroying the other.
Drawing from childhood experience, Gyutaro uses sickles as his weapon of choice. Like other Upper Ranks, Gyutaro has extraordinary speed, strength, and durability. He killed fifteen hashira, after all. One of his most devastating skills, however, is his ability to poison people. His childhood lack of hygiene paid off! Now he is able to coat his sickles with a deadly poison that is lethal even in trace amounts. One small cut from Gyutaro’s sickles is enough to kill. Even Tengen, whose shinobi training gave him a high tolerance to poisons, was forced to stop his own heart in order to keep the poison from spreading further throughout his body.
Gyutaro augments his sickle strikes with his unique Blood Demon Art, which allows him to generate gouts of his own blood to barrage enemies. These blood sickles are also coated in deadly poison, making him lethal at close and long range. He’s one dirty boy, no matter how you slice it.
(featured image: Ufotable)
