Shinobu Kocho

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 sardonic 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]

Shinobu's anger at Doma CH140 Shinobu's true personality displayed during her battle with Doma.

It is later revealed that her outwardly calm and tranquil disposition is worn as a mask, as Shinobu holds an intense hatred for demons due to the loss of her sister, Kanae Kocho, at a young age, along with the deaths of her parents, almost all of her Tsuguko, and the families of her apprentices at the Butterfly Mansion. This hatred is so strong that she is in a near-constant state of extreme anger,[7] which is sensed by Tanjiro Kamado when the two individuals hold a conversation. Her desire for revenge rendered her unable to live the normal life her sister had wished upon her, instead devoting the entirety of her energy to defeating demons.[8]

Appearance: Shinobu is a petite, young woman with a slender build and a fairly pale complexion. She has large eyes that lack pupils, only a haze of gradient purple, making her eyes appear similar to those of insects, and rose pink lips. She has raven-black wavy hair that fades into a dark purple hue 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. Both of which grow an inch longer later on in the series. 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-tinted variation of the standard Demon Slayer uniform. It consists of a button-up jacket with a stand-up collar and long sleeves, featuring gold buttons and a shirt pocket on the left breast, with the kanji for Destroy (滅めつ Metsu?) engraved on the back of the collar. Beneath the jacket, she wears a white long-sleeved collared undershirt. Her long, saggy tattsuke-hakama pants are also tinted dark purple and are fastened at the waist with a white belt. Her legs are wrapped with a pair of unique kyahan—white and patterned with butterfly motifs—fading from pale turquoise to pink around the lower legs, and tied securely with white ribbons. Her tabi socks match the dark purple color of her uniform. Over her uniform, she wears a distinctive white haori that once belonged to her late older sister, Kanae Kocho. The haori features a butterfly wing design inspired by the Monarch Butterfly, with a color gradient that fades from white into pale turquoise and then pink along the sleeves and hem, cuffed with a black trim, with white-pale turquoise dots, resembling butterfly wing edges. For footwear, Shinobu wears white zōri sandals with purple straps, and she conceals a hidden blade in the right sandal—used as a last resort weapon.

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's surname contains the Kan-on'yomi reading of the kanji for "butterfly" (胡こ蝶ちょう kochō?). Her first name is written in hiragana and thus doesn't have any semantic values, but it's usually written with the kanji for "stealth, endurance, patience" (忍しのぶ shinobu?). Since her first name uses three hiragana characters, it's notably different to Kanae and Kanao's names, as they're both written with three katakana characters instead. Shinobu's rankings in the popularity polls are as follows: Shinobu ranked 6th in the first popularity poll with 1813 votes. Shinobu ranked 5th in the second popularity poll with 8787 votes.