Kocho Shinobu

Shinobu Kocho (胡こ蝶ちょう しのぶ, Kochō Shinobu?) is a major supporting character of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. She is a Demon Slayer of the Demon Slayer Corps and the current Insect Hashira (蟲むし柱ばしら, Mushi Bashira?).[2][3]

Shinobu is also the younger sister of Kanae Kocho along with her adoptive younger sister Kanao Tsuyuri. After a demon killed her parents, Shinobu joined the Demon Slayer Corps along with her sister in order to protect others from suffering the same fate as her. Shinobu is a petite young woman with a slender short build and a fairly pale complexion. She has large bug eyes that lack pupils, only a haze of gradient purple, making her eyes appear similar to those of insects. She has very short black wavy hair that fades into dark purple at the ends, styled at the back of her head into a flat yakai-maki bun, fastened with a white, turquoise and light purple butterfly ornament. She has center-split, ear-length, voluminous curtain bangs that flow down to frame the sides of her face, with two slightly thinner chin-length locks of hair in front of her ears below them. She stands out among the more physically imposing Hashira due to her diminutive stature and small frame, which is later reinforced by her mentioning that she does not possess enough physical strength to decapitate a demon as the others do. According to Zenitsu, Shinobu is so cute, that she could make a living on her looks alone.

Shinobu wears a dark purple standard Demon Slayer uniform with gold buttons, consisting of a dark-purple tinted straight-lined black jacket and matching colored tabi socks and hakama pants, tucked into white butterfly patterned Kyahan fading into pale turquoise then pink around her lower legs, fastened with white ribbons. Over her uniform, she wears a white haori that previously belonged to her older sister, which has a butterfly wing pattern, specially that of a Monarch Butterfly, that fades into a pale turquoise then pink color gradient on the sleeves and hem which are cuffed with a black and white dotted trim. She wears white zōri sandals with purple straps for footwear, with a hidden blade in one of the heels.

When Shinobu was fourteen, her appearance was altered slightly. Her chin-length strands of hair in front of her ears were tucked in, and she had a different Demon Slayer uniform consisting of silver buttons and cloth a darker shade of purple. She also sported a plain white haori over it. Shinobu displays a bright, friendly and cheerful demeanor, always having an easygoing smile on her face regardless of the situation she is in. However, her outward behavior is shown very quickly to be a façade. This is displayed in the way she enjoys teasing others, to the point of being rather sadistic about it, enjoying most notably to pick on Giyu Tomioka.[4] Despite her relaxed exterior and her initial claim of wanting to get along with demons, she can be rather cruel towards them, which is seen when she kills Daughter after giving her false hope of helping her, and immediately attempting to kill Nezuko Kamado without giving Tanjiro Kamado a chance to prove that she was harmless to humans.[5]Later on, she is shown to have a more compassionate side towards both Tanjiro and his sister after hearing their full story.[6] As a Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps, Shinobu is a very powerful and skilled combatant.[10] Despite not possessing the physical strength to cut off a demon's head common to that of an average Demon Slayer,[9] Shinobu uses her creativity, ingenuity and other physical abilities to more than make up for it. Instead of the traditional method of decapitating a demon with a Nichirin Sword to kill them, Shinobu opts to use a modified version of a katana that acts as a stinger to inject a powerful wisteria-based poison that is lethal to demons.[11][12] In addition to her intellect, she is extremely fast and agile, allowing her to overpower demons very quickly.[13][14] Her true strength was revealed during her battle with the second most powerful Upper Rank demon, Doma, where she was able to go toe-to-toe with the demon briefly, even managing to outmatch him slightly and received praise from him.[15]