In short
Gyomei cries all the time because he is a Buddhist monk of extreme compassion, moved by everything, from an unhappy child to a piece of paper thrown on the ground. His tears also carry an old grief: the orphans of his temple, killed by a demon one of them had let in. They say nothing about his strength, since this blind giant is the most powerful of the Hashira.
Contents
Two metres twenty, a hundred and thirty kilos, an axe and a flail linked by a chain, and tears flowing in almost every appearance. Gyomei Himejima, the Stone Hashira, is the strongest demon slayer in Demon Slayer, and also the one who cries the most.
The contrast amuses, then it intrigues. These tears are not a one-off gag: they come back in all his scenes, serious or funny, and they have a story. Our page on the Demon Slayer Hashira presents Gyomei among the nine.
The short answer: he cries over everything
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Why he cries | extreme compassion, that of a monk |
| What makes him cry | a child to pity, a death, a tiny detail |
| What he recites | Namu Amida Butsu, a Buddhist prayer |
| The grief he carries | the orphans of his temple, killed by a demon |
| What his name says | the first character evokes compassion, the second a cry |
| What his tears do not say | weakness: he is the strongest of the Hashira |
The first reason is his character. Gyomei feels the suffering of others with an intensity no one else in the Corps shares. An unhappy child, a wounded demon slayer, a demon who was once human: everything touches him.
The second is his faith. Gyomei is a Buddhist monk, and compassion towards all beings is at the centre of his practice. He cries while praying, prays while crying, and sees no reason to hide either.
The third is his past, the heaviest of the three. Before joining the demon slayers, he lost almost all the children he was raising, and that night has never left him.
Three reasons to cry
Gyomei cries out of temperament, faith and grief. None of these tears stops him from fighting.
Tears for a piece of paper on the ground
The comic side comes from the details. The manga’s bonus pages specify that he cries over almost nothing, even shedding tears when he finds a piece of litter left on the ground.
His very first scene sets the tone. At the Hashira meeting, when Tanjiro is brought before them with Nezuko in her box, Gyomei bursts into tears while telling his prayer beads. He finds him pitiful, and considers that it would be kinder to kill him to put an end to his misery.
The line is shocking, and it says everything about the character. His pity is real, but it does not stop him from wanting to apply the rule. Gyomei cries over those he is about to judge, and he judges them anyway.
In Demon Slayer, the other Hashira never comment on his tears. They are part of him like his height or his white eyes, and the series shows them without ever making them a weakness.
The audience, on the other hand, has seized on them. Gyomei’s tears are among the images fans reuse the most, as memes as well as fan art, often to underline a moment that is too moving. The character who cries over a greasy piece of paper has become, for many, the ideal reaction to a heart-wrenching scene.
A pity that judges
Gyomei cries over Tanjiro at the Hashira meeting and in the same breath suggests killing him, out of charity.
A Buddhist monk among the demon slayers
Gyomei is the only Hashira in Demon Slayer who wears his religion on him. His haori is covered in characters, the formula Namu Amida Butsu, which entrusts his soul to the Buddha Amida, and he never parts with his prayer beads with their big beads.
He recites this formula aloud, before a fight, in front of the dead, or simply when something moves him. For him, prayer accompanies every act, including that of killing a demon.
His past as a monk also explains his calm. Gyomei speaks slowly, in a deep voice, and rarely gets angry. His tears flow without his face tensing up, as if crying were part of his breathing.
His tears are part of this practice. The Buddhism he follows makes compassion towards all beings a central virtue, and Gyomei takes it all the way, to the point of also crying over the fate of the demons he faces.
Our article on religion in Demon Slayer details these prayers, these prayer beads and what the series borrows from Japanese Buddhism.
Prayer before the blows
Gyomei recites Namu Amida Butsu before every fight. For him, praying and killing a demon are not at odds.
The green haori covered in prayers, the purple scarf and the prayer beads make up the Gyomei cosplay, in the collection dedicated to Gyomei Himejima.
Gyomei prayer cosplay
Green haori covered in characters, purple scarf and prayer beads, over the black demon slayer uniform.
View the product · €99.90What does his name mean?
Gyomei’s family name, Himejima, is written with three characters that already announce his tears. The first, hi, refers to Buddhist compassion and sorrow. The second, mei, means a cry.
Together, the first two form himei, the Japanese word for a cry of distress. The third, jima, means islet. Gyomei therefore carries in his name compassion, lament and solitude.
Koyoharu Gotouge chooses her characters’ names with care, and this one is among the most telling in Demon Slayer. The giant who cries is called, literally, the islet of the cry of compassion.
Our article on the meaning of Demon Slayer names decodes the other Hashira in the same way.
A name that cries
Himejima brings together compassion, the cry and the islet. Gyomei’s name tells of his tears before he even appears.
The temple and the nine children
Before the Corps, Gyomei lives in an isolated temple where he takes in children with no family. There are nine of them, he goes without food so they can eat, and he raises them alone despite his blindness.
One night, one of the boys, out after curfew, runs into a demon. To save his own life, he promises to let it in and puts out the wisteria incense that protected the temple. This boy’s name is Kaigaku.
The demon comes in and kills the children one after another. The older ones run away, Gyomei stands in front of the youngest, Sayo, and strikes the demon with his bare hands until daybreak, with neither weapon nor technique, until the sun finishes it off.
In the morning, Sayo, in shock, tells the villagers that he did it all, meaning the monster. People think she means Gyomei, who is arrested and sentenced to death for the massacre of the children he was protecting.
Kagaya Ubuyashiki, the master of the demon slayers, gets him out and offers him a place in the Corps. Kaigaku, for his part, will become a demon slayer, then Upper Moon Six, as told in our article on Kaigaku, the pupil turned demon.
The cruellest part of the story lies in the twist of fate. The child who opened the door to the demon becomes a high-ranking demon himself, and it is Zenitsu, not Gyomei, who faces him in the Infinity Castle. Gyomei never settles this score in person, and prays for the child he raised rather than for the demon he became.
Why is he wary of children?
From that night, Gyomei keeps tears and a wariness. He saw children he loved betray or abandon him, and he no longer trusts anyone easily, least of all the young.
The demon slayers who train with him find this out during the Hashira Training. Gyomei sends them under icy waterfalls, makes them move enormous boulders, and only judges them after observing them for a long time.
Tanjiro wins his trust in an unexpected way. When Gyomei congratulates him on choosing to save a swordsmith rather than pursue a demon, Tanjiro replies that he hesitated, and that he does not deserve the compliment. This honesty is enough: Gyomei acknowledges him, in tears.
Our article on the Hashira Training tells of these trials and the place Gyomei holds in them.
A wariness that melts
Gyomei accepts Tanjiro because the boy admits he hesitated. He was expecting honesty, not heroism.
The strongest Hashira, with tears in his eyes
Gyomei’s tears fool no one in the Corps. He is the most powerful Hashira in Demon Slayer, recognised as such by his peers, by Kagaya and even by Kokushibo, who judges his body trained to its maximum.
Blind since childhood, he finds his way by the sound of his chain, which tells him the position of everything around him. His weapon, an axe and a spiked ball linked by a chain, is the only one in the Corps that is not a sword.
His style, Stone Breathing, is one of the five main breathing styles, derived directly from Sun Breathing. Our page on all the Demon Slayer breathing styles explains its place in the breathing tree.
Crying and striking do not contradict each other in him. He cries over the opponent, prays for them, then crushes them. Compassion does not soften his blows, it accompanies them.
Arms crossed under his kesa covered in characters, Gyomei comes as a pop figure with white eyes, among the shop’s pop figures.
Gyomei prayer figure
Pop figure about 10 cm tall, arms crossed, white eyes and kesa covered in characters.
View the product · €79.90Facing Kokushibo and Muzan
In the Infinity Castle, Gyomei faces Kokushibo, Upper Moon One, with Sanemi, Muichiro and Genya. There he reaches the Transparent World, the perception that reads the opponent’s body, even though he cannot see.
The fight costs Muichiro and Genya their lives. Gyomei prays for them on the battlefield, in tears, before setting off again towards Muzan. Our article on Kokushibo, Upper Moon One tells this duel to the very end.
Against Muzan, he holds the line until dawn, one leg lost and his body at its limit. His tears have never been as frequent as in those last hours, and his blows never as heavy.
He also bears the Demon Slayer Mark, which appeared during the fight against Kokushibo. This mark multiplies strength but dooms those who awaken it after twenty-five, and Gyomei is twenty-seven. He knows it, and fights like someone with nothing left to lose.
A mark that dooms
Gyomei awakens the mark at twenty-seven, knowing it dooms him. He fights on anyway until sunrise.
His last tears
Gyomei dies after the battle, when the sun rises over the defeated Muzan. In his last moments, he sees the temple children appear.
They explain that they had not abandoned him that night: those who ran away were looking for help or a weapon to defend him. Gyomei understands that the betrayal he had carried for years was no betrayal at all.
He asks them to take him with them, and leaves in peace. The tears that accompanied his whole life find their end there. Sayo, for her part, lives long enough to want to ask his forgiveness, as the manga’s bonus pages specify.
Our article on the Hashira who die in Demon Slayer looks back at this ending and at those of the others. Our page on all the Demon Slayer characters presents the temple children.
The children had not betrayed him
As he dies, Gyomei learns that the children who fled wanted to save him. His oldest sorrow fades away with him.
Gyomei, away from the fighting
The manga’s bonus pages draw a lighter Gyomei. He adores cats, like Mitsuri, and plays the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute.
In Kimetsu Academy, the school version of Demon Slayer, he teaches civics. His pupils are scared of him at first, until they notice that all his belongings are decorated with cats. Several of them even call him “dad” by mistake.
This portrait completes that of the warrior in tears. Gyomei cries because he loves, and what he loves ranges from the children he lost to the cats he collects on his belongings.
To keep Gyomei with you, a necklace bears his portrait with joined hands on a steel tag, among the shop’s necklaces, next to the other members of the Demon Slayers collection.
Gyomei steel tag necklace
5 cm steel dog tag, printed with the portrait of Gyomei with joined hands.
View the product · €17.90
