In short
Sound Breathing is the breathing style of Tengen Uzui, the Sound Hashira of Demon Slayer. Born from Thunder Breathing, it mixes fast cuts and explosions, delivered with two large cleavers linked by a chain. It has five forms, three of which have a known name: Todoroki, Roar, Kyōzan Mugen and Meigen Sōsō. Tengen adds a technique of his own, the Musical Score, which translates the opponent’s attacks into music to find the gap.
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Tengen Uzui wants everything to be flamboyant. He proclaims himself the god of festivals, wears a headband set with precious stones, paints make-up around his eye and travels with three wives. When he fights, the ground explodes under his feet and his two cleavers whirl at the end of their chain. Sound Breathing is the loudest in Demon Slayer, just like the man who carries it.
Here is where this breathing style comes from, its known forms, the astonishing Musical Score technique, and the story of the former shinobi who created it. To place Sound among the other breathing styles, our page on all the Demon Slayer breathing styles presents the fourteen known styles.
What is Sound Breathing?
In Demon Slayer, Sound Breathing, Oto no Kokyū in Japanese, is a derived style. It was born from Thunder Breathing, one of the five basic styles that came from Sun Breathing. From Thunder, it keeps the speed and striking power. But it adds what Thunder lacks: the din.
Each of Tengen’s blows comes with a detonation. His cleavers strike, the chain whistles, and small explosive beads burst around him. The fight becomes an uproar, and that is intended: in this chaos of sound, Tengen hears what others cannot perceive.
It is a style tailored to one man, a former shinobi with exceptional hearing and an immense build. No other known demon slayer practises it. Our article on Thunder Breathing presents the original style, and the one on the breathing tree shows the whole family.
A breathing style that explodes
In Demon Slayer, Sound Breathing is the only one fought amid explosions, set off by the beads Tengen throws around him.
The forms of Sound Breathing
Sound Breathing has five forms, but Demon Slayer only names three. The second and third never appear. The table sets out the known ones.
| Form | Japanese name | What they do |
|---|---|---|
| First | Todoroki, Roar | The two cleavers come down together, in a cut followed by an explosion |
| Second and third | Unknown names | Never shown in the series |
| Fourth | Kyōzan Mugen, Constant Resounding Slashes | The cleavers whirl in cuts and explosions, forming a wall in front of the fighter |
| Fifth | Meigen Sōsō, String Performance | The blades spin at high speed and launch cuts and blasts |
| His own technique | Fumen, the Musical Score | Tengen translates the opponent’s attacks into music to find the gap |
The names are all borrowed from the vocabulary of sound. Todoroki refers to the roar of thunder or a drum. Kyōzan Mugen evokes a cut whose echo never stops. Meigen Sōsō makes the strings of an instrument ring, as if Tengen’s two blades were playing together.
The fourth form also serves as a defence. By spinning his blades in front of him, Tengen creates a barrier of cuts and explosions that nothing gets through. He uses it to protect his companions as much as to attack.
Two cleavers and a chain
Tengen does not carry one sword, but two. His Nichirin weapons are broad cleavers, almost butcher’s blades, linked by a chain. He can wield them with both hands, whirl them at the end of the chain, or throw them and recall them. Their weight would be crushing for anyone else, but Tengen is nearly two metres tall.
To these blades he adds his explosive beads, a legacy of his past as a shinobi. He throws them during the fight, and sets them off with a stroke of his cleaver. The effect is as much strategy as spectacle: the blast disorients the opponent and opens a gap.
You can build these twin blades yourself: our 1,478-piece LEGO model reproduces the two 105 cm cleavers, linked by a golden chain. It is filed in the Demon Slayer LEGO collection and the complete Tengen Uzui collection.
Uzui LEGO twin blades
1,478-piece LEGO: two curved 105 cm blades, black and gold, linked by a golden chain.
View the product · €139.90The Musical Score, Tengen’s ear
The most astonishing technique of Sound Breathing cuts nothing. Tengen calls it the Musical Score. During the fight, he listens to the rhythm of the opponent’s attacks, their pauses, their accelerations, and translates them in his head into musical notes. Little by little, he composes the demon’s score.
Once the score is complete, he knows the fight by heart. He knows when the opponent will strike, where the blow will come from, and where the silence lies in which to slip his blade. It is a slow method, which requires holding out under attack for a long time, but formidable once finished.
It rests on Tengen’s extraordinary hearing, honed since his shinobi childhood. In Demon Slayer, Zenitsu also has an exceptional ear, but he hears hearts. Tengen, for his part, hears the music of fights. Our portrait of Zenitsu Agatsuma, the most fearful of demon slayers presents the other heir of Thunder.
The demon’s score
Tengen turns his opponent’s attacks into a musical score: once the score is finished, he knows where to strike.
Tengen Uzui, the Sound Hashira
Tengen was born into a declining shinobi clan, led by a ruthless father. Of nine children, seven die during absurdly brutal training. Only Tengen and a younger brother remain, the latter as cold as their father. Tengen refuses to become like him and leaves the clan with his three wives. From this childhood he keeps shinobi reflexes, a resistance to poisons and an ear trained to catch the slightest sound, but rejects everything else: blind obedience, contempt for life, the idea that a child is just a tool.
He then joins the Demon Slayer Corps, in search of a life with meaning. His love of spectacle, his flashy outfits and his grand speeches hide a wound: he still blames himself for the death of his brothers and sisters, and he does everything to keep his own people alive. He even asks his wives to put their lives before the mission.
Our portrait of Tengen Uzui, the Sound Hashira tells his life in detail. And our poster stages this Hashira in full whirl, between his two blades linked by a chain, his headband set with stones and blue and gold arcs around him. It is filed in the posters collection.
Tengen twin blades poster
Cotton canvas, Tengen whirls between his two blades linked by a chain, blue and gold arcs on a black background.
View the product · from €14.90Hinatsuru, Makio and Suma
Tengen’s three wives are kunoichi, female shinobi trained like him. Hinatsuru, Makio and Suma accompany him on his missions, and it is their disappearance that takes him to the Entertainment District: infiltrated into the houses of Yoshiwara to track a demon, they have stopped sending news.
They play a real role in the fight. Hinatsuru throws a volley of wisteria-poisoned kunai during the final clash, and Makio and Suma help evacuate the district’s residents. Tengen cares about them more than his own glory. Our article on Tengen’s three wives tells their story.
Tengen and the trio
For his mission in the Entertainment District, Tengen turns up at the Butterfly Mansion wanting to take girls to infiltrate the houses of Yoshiwara. Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke step in and volunteer in their place. Tengen takes them with him, and disguises them as young women, with make-up so botched that the houses struggle to accept them.
The scene is one of the funniest in Demon Slayer. But behind the comedy, Tengen watches the trio and judges them. At first, he treats them as good-for-nothings. By the end of the fight, he recognises their courage and owes them his life. The Hashira who wanted to do everything alone discovers that he needs others.
This bond explains why Tengen stays close to them after his retirement. Our article on the Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke trio tells how these three boys became inseparable.
Sound against Gyutaro and Daki
In the Entertainment District, Tengen faces Upper Moon Six, the duo of Daki and her brother Gyutaro. The fight is one of the longest and most violent in Demon Slayer. Gyutaro, with his poisoned blood sickles, is a terrifying opponent.
Tengen is poisoned, but his shinobi resistance keeps him on his feet. He completes his score mid-battle, and Sound Breathing is unleashed. With Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke, he manages to cut off both heads at the same time, the only way to kill these linked demons. He loses his left eye and his left hand.
These wounds end his career as a Hashira. Our article on Daki and Gyutaro, Upper Moon Six presents his opponents, our page on the demons and the Twelve Kizuki places them among Muzan’s demons, and the one on season 2 and the Entertainment District tells the whole arc.
Our shower curtain keeps a joyful memory of this fight: Tengen reaches out towards you, and below him Tanjiro shouts, Zenitsu grimaces and Inosuke raises his hand. It is filed in the curtains collection.
Tengen Uzui shower curtain
Tengen reaches out, headband set with stones, above Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke in disguise.
View the product · from €64.90Sound on screen
In the Demon Slayer anime, Sound Breathing is a feast for the eyes and ears. The cleavers leave blue and gold trails, the explosions light up the night in the Entertainment District, and the Musical Score appears on screen as musical notes scrolling around Tengen. The studio ufotable made this style one of the most spectacular in the series.
The fight against Gyutaro, at the end of season 2, is its peak. The soundtrack follows the rhythm of the blows, the blasts answer each other, and you can feel the score being completed as Tengen gains the upper hand. For many fans, it is one of the best fights in the whole series. Our article on ufotable, the studio behind the animation tells how these images take shape.
An eye and a hand
The fight against Gyutaro costs Tengen his left eye and his left hand, and ends his career as Sound Hashira.
What Sound demands of the fighter
Sound Breathing requires extraordinary physical strength to wield two heavy cleavers, and a shinobi’s agility to leap amid explosions. Above all, it requires an exceptional ear and a memory for rhythm, without which the Musical Score would be impossible.
It also demands resilience. The score is composed under blows, and Tengen must hold out for a long time before he can use it. His body, trained against poisons since childhood, helps him. Like all breathing styles, Sound rests finally on Total Concentration Breathing. Our article on Total Concentration Breathing explains this common foundation.
After retirement, the trainer
Retired from combat, Tengen does not leave the Corps. In season 4, he opens the Hashira Training with an endurance test: running, jumping and repeated efforts, to his thunderous encouragement. His wives feed the exhausted demon slayers, with bowls of rice and dumplings served between sets. Tengen meets Tanjiro again there and makes no secret of his joy at seeing him back on his feet, after the Swordsmith Village.
He has lost none of his love of spectacle, nor his affection for the trio from the Entertainment District. He keeps watching over them, in his own loud way. Our article on season 4 and the Hashira Training tells of this first stage, and our page on the Demon Slayer Hashira presents Tengen among his peers.
