In short
Gyokko is Upper Moon Five of Demon Slayer, a demon who emerges from a porcelain vase and thinks he is an artist. He teleports from vase to vase, summons fish that spit poisoned needles, and sews the corpses of swordsmiths together into pieces he finds beautiful. As a human, he was called Managi and collected dead fish. Muichiro Tokito beheads him in the Swordsmith Village.
Contents
He introduces himself to a fourteen-year-old boy by asking whether he wants to see his art. Behind him, several swordsmiths are sewn together, pierced by blades, and some are still breathing. Gyokko calls this piece the Agony of the Swordsmiths, and he is proud of it.
In Demon Slayer, Gyokko is the most disturbing demon in the Swordsmith Village, because he kills with the seriousness of a craftsman. This article details his human past, his vases, his fish, his moult, and the fight that pits him against a fourteen-year-old Hashira, far from the rest of the Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps. The camp he serves is presented on our page about the demons of Demon Slayer and the demon Moons.
Who is Gyokko?
| Profile | Detail |
|---|---|
| Japanese name | 玉壺 (Gyokko), the pearl and the vase |
| Human name | 益魚儀 (Managi) |
| Rank | Upper Moon Five of the Twelve Kizuki |
| Age | around a hundred and thirteen years |
| Height and weight | 150 cm and 40 kg, 170 cm and 80 kg after the moult |
| Blood Demon Art | vases, fish, water and teleportation |
| First appearance | chapter 98 of the manga, episode 45 of the anime |
| Voice | Kosuke Toriumi in Japanese, Marc Saez in French |
| Status at the end | beheaded by Muichiro Tokito |
His appearance is one of the strangest in all of Demon Slayer. A white, armless figure emerging from a porcelain pot, children’s hands sprouting from his back, and two large green-lipped mouths where his eyes should be.
His body also changes size depending on the situation. One hundred and fifty centimetres and forty kilos in his usual form, one hundred and seventy and eighty after the moult, which makes him the only demon in the story whose profile lists two sets of measurements.
His real eyes are placed vertically, one in the lower mouth that never closes, the other in the middle of his forehead. The kanji of his rank are engraved on these two eyes, as with all the Moons in the story.
In Demon Slayer, the character describes himself as beautiful and his work as even more beautiful. He repeats it with every line, and the slightest criticism of his vases sends him into a rage, which ends up costing him more than his opponent.
His pettiness is the trait the story emphasises most. He attacks Hotaru Haganezuka, Tanjiro’s swordsmith, solely because this man is more focused on his work than Gyokko is on his own.
A demon jealous of a swordsmith
Gyokko does not try to kill Haganezuka. He wants to break his concentration, because seeing him work so seriously is unbearable to him.
This figure emerging from a pot is one of the strangest among the demon figures, and you will find the whole enemy camp in the collection of all the shop’s demons.
Gyokko vase figure
Pop figure, bumpy white head, an eye in the middle of his forehead, two green mouths, on a base with a vase and fish.
View the product · €79.90Managi, the child of the fish carcasses
Before becoming a Demon Slayer demon, Gyokko was called Managi and lived on the edge of a fishing village, on the coast. His parents went out to sea and never came back. Their drowned bodies were found, badly damaged.
The child found these bodies beautiful. From then on, he spent his time collecting fish carcasses and handling them, which was enough for the villagers to keep their distance and think him mad.
One day, a village boy comes to make fun of him. Managi kills him and puts the body in a jar. The victim’s parents find him, drive a two-pronged fishing fork into his body, and leave him to die on the spot.
The story gives him no mitigating circumstances and makes no attempt to excuse him. Managi kills out of irritation, stores the body like an object, and finds the scene a success. His transformation only changes the scale of his actions.
He holds out for half a day in this state. Muzan Kibutsuji, the first demon, passes by, sees a human who refuses to die, and transforms him. The future artist of the Twelve Kizuki was born of a chance encounter on the road.
The parents
Drowned at sea, found damaged, and judged beautiful by their own son.
The first body
A village child, killed for mocking him and stored in a jar.
The encounter
Muzan happens to pass a dying man who has been holding on for half a day.
Gyokko’s art, and what he calls beautiful
The word art comes up in almost every line he speaks, and Demon Slayer uses it to show a void rather than a talent. Gyokko creates nothing: he assembles bodies and presents them as finished pieces.
His centrepiece is called the Agony of the Swordsmiths. Several of the village’s swordsmiths sewn together, pierced by blades, in a position he considers elegant. The detail the story does not spare the reader is that some are still alive, and that their screams are part of the intended effect.
Doma once tells him that he placed a human head on top of one of his pots, the way you would place a plant. Gyokko sees it as a source of inspiration and thanks him.
This obsession is also a weakness. A demon of this rank who stops in the middle of a battle to defend the quality of his pottery gives his opponent time to breathe.
A work that still screams
The Agony of the Swordsmiths is made of living men. Gyokko counts their screams as an element of the piece, which makes it the harshest scene in the Swordsmith Village.
The vases, his pride and his means of transport
In Demon Slayer, Gyokko’s vases materialise at will. He takes refuge in one as soon as a blade approaches, comes out of another, and can repeat the manoeuvre indefinitely. No other demon in Demon Slayer has such mobility.
He makes and paints them himself, with real enough skill for Muzan to take an interest and sell them at a high price. It is the only aspect of the character the story does not ridicule.
The vases also serve as a prison. Gyokko locks swordsmiths inside them, manipulates their cells to fuse their bodies, and obtains the pieces he presents as his art. The general mechanism of these gifts is detailed in our article on demons’ Blood Demon Arts.
Touching a vase amounts to insulting him. Muichiro quickly understands this and uses it as a psychological weapon, commenting on the mediocre quality of the pottery throughout the battle.
An insult is as good as an attack
Criticising Gyokko’s vases makes him furious and costs him his composure. Muichiro gains more ground with remarks than with his blade.
His fish and his techniques
| Technique | What it does |
|---|---|
| Thousand Needles, Fish Killers | floating fish spit needles laced with a paralysing poison |
| Water Prison Pot | a sphere of water that traps the target and stops them breathing |
| Octopus Pot of Hell | giant tentacles emerging from his pots, which wreck the surroundings |
| Ten Thousand Slithering Pottery Fish | fish that eat flesh and release poison even when cut |
| Deadly Scales of War | his last-resort technique, used after the moult |
The Water Prison Pot is the most dangerous against a demon slayer. It cuts off breathing, and therefore the source of all a Demon Slayer swordsman’s power, and Muichiro only gets out thanks to the air a swordsmith child brings him.
The fish themselves pose a problem of method. A demon slayer knows how to cut a neck, not how to fend off a shoal of creatures that keeps re-forming. The fight thus turns into managing nuisances, while the real demon stays out of reach inside a pot.
The pottery fish’s poison passes through the skin. Cutting them is useless: they spill their liquid before crumbling to dust, which turns every parry into a wound.
Gyokko can also shape his own cells, change size, grow tentacles and summon creatures of various shapes from his pots. His repertoire is one of the widest in the enemy camp.
An attack on breathing
Gyokko’s water kills by suffocation. The story insists: a demon slayer deprived of air loses his techniques before losing his life.
The moult, his true form
When the situation gets away from him, the Demon Slayer demon moults. His body becomes covered in transparent scales harder than diamond, kneaded inside his vase, and his physical abilities go up a notch.
The moult also marks the character’s limit. He only resorts to it in an emergency, after losing the advantage, and the story specifies that almost no one has seen him in this state, because he killed his opponents before he needed it.
In this form, he moves at speeds the eye can no longer follow, and everything his fists touch turns into fish. Only three people see this appearance in the entire story.
The moult lifts the limits that held him back, making him an opponent of another level. Yet it comes too late: Muichiro has already awakened his mark and recovered his sword.
Haganezuka, the swordsmith he cannot distract
While Muichiro is suffocating in a sphere of water, Gyokko enters a shed and finds Hotaru Haganezuka bent over a blade. The swordsmith does not look up and does not even notice him.
This indifference drives him mad. He sends a fish to break the craftsman’s mask, and the man keeps working, so Gyokko decides to break his concentration rather than kill him, which wastes a considerable amount of his time.
The blade in question is Tanjiro’s, taken from a training puppet and restored throughout the arc. Our page on the hero of Demon Slayer and his sword tells what comes of this repair.
The contrast is deliberate. On one side, a demon who calls himself an artist and seeks admiration; on the other, a man who works without looking at anyone. Gyokko loses this duel even before the one against the Hashira.
A swordsmith who does not look up
Haganezuka notices neither Gyokko’s arrival nor his broken mask. It is this indifference that sends Upper Moon Five into a rage.
The fight against Muichiro Tokito
Muzan sends two Upper Moons of Demon Slayer, Gyokko and Hantengu, Upper Moon Four, to raze the Swordsmith Village. Without swordsmiths, the Corps has no more Nichirin blades, as explained on our page on Nichirin swords and how they are made.
Gyokko starts by devouring a villager, then spits him out, declaring him inedible. He then ambushes Muichiro from a vase, shows him the Agony of the Swordsmiths, and the fight begins.
The Mist Hashira gains the psychological upper hand and loses the physical one. He is caught in the Water Prison Pot, gets out thanks to Kotetsu, takes hits from the poisoned fish, and moves up a level when his mark appears. Our portrait of Muichiro Tokito, the Mist Hashira details this turning point.
One detail matters in this victory. Muichiro’s sword was not the one from the start: he had recovered his original blade, and it is with it that he gets through the scales. Without the repair carried out in the shed, the outcome would have been different.
The end comes all at once. Muichiro cuts through the scales and beheads Upper Moon Five, who dies still wondering how a child could destroy his art. Our article on the ways to kill a demon explains why only the neck matters.
Beheaded by a fourteen-year-old Hashira
Gyokko falls to the youngest Hashira in Demon Slayer, who had lost his sword and nearly drowned an hour earlier.
His conqueror has his own piece in the collection devoted to Muichiro Tokito, mist included.
Muichiro 25 cm figure
PVC piece on a rocky base, hand on the hilt of his sword, surrounded by swirls of turquoise mist.
View the product · €119.90His place among the Upper Moons
Gyokko does not count for much with his colleagues in the Twelve Moons of Demon Slayer. He greets Akaza while barely hiding his disappointment at seeing him still alive after ninety years, and talks pottery with Doma, the only one who willingly speaks to him.
Muzan treats him no better. During the meeting, the master tears his head off because he brings unconfirmed information, then orders him to join Hantengu once his mistake is put right. Gyokko reattaches his head and obeys.
This scene places his real level. He remains Upper Moon Five, and therefore a demon capable of killing a Hashira, but he ranks far behind Kokushibo, Upper Moon One, and our article on the strongest demons in the story details this ranking.
Gyokko is also one of only two Upper Moons to work as a pair, with Hantengu. The others always operate alone, which makes the mission to the Swordsmith Village exceptional in more ways than one.
How this group works internally, its ranks and their rules, is explained in our article on the Twelve Kizuki and their hierarchy.
Beheaded by his own master
Muzan tears off Gyokko’s head during a meeting, over poorly checked information. The demon puts it back in place and leaves on his mission without a word.
In the shop, he keeps his ring in the demon head ring series.
Gyokko ring
Adjustable silver-coloured ring, topped with his white enamel head with purple markings.
View the product · €19.90
