Shinobu Kocho

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?).

The Butterfly Mansion is the manor that the late Flower Hashira Kanae Kocho, Insect Hashira Shinobu Kocho, Tsuguko Kanao Tsuyuri, and assistants Aoi Kanzaki, Sumi Nakahara, Kiyo Terauchi, and Naho Takada live in. The manor is often used as a recovery base for injured Demon Slayers. All Hashira's live in this mansion due to their higher up status, unlike the other slayers that live there, Hashira's rooms are customized to their liking to reflect on their powers, whatever breathing style they have how the room is decorated color and theme wise. the mansion also has alot of lovely Jacaranda Trees around.

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 at the age of 19 with a slender short build and a fairly pale complexion with a somewhat big bust. 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 not engaged in missions, around the mansion she'll wear a black kimono that has visible cleavage and a slit that exposes her left thigh and leg, and a small purple symbol on the back the says "ハシラ" indicating she's a hashira.

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, also in her facade, she has sort of a superiority complex and rather a little arrogant about being a Hashira. 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. 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. Later on, she is shown to have a more compassionate side towards both Tanjiro and his sister after hearing their full story.

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, 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.

Shinobu reveals that she also suffers from an inferiority complex due to her inferior physical abilities compared to her fellow Hashira, having been jealous of them for possessing taller or more muscular bodies than her and cursing her own body for not developing further to make her more effective in combat. As a Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps, Shinobu is a very powerful and skilled combatant.

Indomitable Will: Shinobu possesses an undaunted spirit and incredible willpower, mostly due to her unquenchable hatred for demons. Even with her inferiority complex brought about by her small size and weak physical strength, and despite losing so much blood to the point she couldn't stand and not being able to breathe, she still stood back up.

Medical Expertise: Despite not being as combat-talented as the rest of her fellow Hashira, Shinobu instead displays immense skill and mastery in over medical and pharmaceutical fields to make up for her lack of natural-born combat ability, being highly knowledgeable about how to create various poisons using wisteria and utilize them in combat to achieve the most deadly effect.

Immense Speed & Reflexes: Shinobu possesses tremendous speed and reflexes enabling her to effortlessly evade and out-pace high ranked demons.

Master Swordswoman: As a Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps, Shinobu is one of the most powerful and skilled swordswomen in the entire organization.

Butterfly Dance: Caprice: Shinobu can leap into the air and charge towards her opponent, stinging them multiple times with her blade to inject poison in just seemingly one strike.

Dance of the Bee Sting: True Flutter: Shinobu dashes at her target at blinding speeds and uses the momentum of her speed to then strengthen a single thrust into her opponent and inject poison into them.

Dance of the Dragonfly: Compound Eye Hexagon: A six strike attack with which Shinobu aims to strike and inject her target with multiple doses of poison at the target's weak spots (such as the neck, heart, torso, etc.) in order to kill them with a large dose of poison.

Dance of the Centipede: Hundred-Legged Zigzag: An attack with which Shinobu uses her full speed to run a zigzag pattern that confuses their opponent in order to create an opening for her to directly stab her opponent's neck and inject poison to kill them, with the stab's force and power being further enhanced by the momentum of their speed. Doma noted that the sheer speed of this technique is strong enough to destroy an entire wooden bridge.