Why does Obanai wear a bandage over his mouth?

A striped haori, a white snake around his neck, two eyes of different colours and, above all, a bandage covering the whole lower half of his face. Obanai Iguro, the Serpent Hashira, is one of the most recognisable characters in Demon Slayer, and one of those whose face we see the least.

The bandage is no style accessory. It hides a wound and a story Obanai tells only once, very late in the story. Our page on the Demon Slayer Hashira presents Obanai among the nine.

The short answer: he hides a slit mouth

The first reason is physical. The corners of Obanai’s mouth were slit, and the scars run up towards his cheeks. The bandage has hidden them since childhood, so much so that almost no one in the Corps has seen his whole face.

The second reason runs deeper. This scar reminds him where he comes from: a clan of murderers and thieves, which lived for generations off a demon’s favours. For Obanai, the mark on his face is proof of dirty blood, and he hides it as he hides everything else.

Demon Slayer fans quickly notice that the character keeps his mouth covered in all circumstances, in battle as at rest. It is not vanity, it is a reflex he has kept since he was twelve.

The Iguro clan and the serpent demon

Obanai is born into a family that made a pact with a demon. A female demon with a serpent’s body lives with them, and the clan feeds her by handing over its newborns. In exchange, she shares with them the riches stolen from her victims.

The family lives in luxury, and it knows where this money comes from. The Iguro kill, steal and sacrifice their own children to keep their rank. It is one of the darkest pasts in all of Demon Slayer, told by Obanai himself during the final battle.

Obanai is the first boy born into the clan in three hundred and seventy years. The demon finds him too precious to be eaten straight away. She decides to wait until he grows up, and the family locks him away in the meantime.

The story does not dwell on the other children. We only understand that, generation after generation, newborns were handed over to the demon, and that no one in the house objected.

Our article on Obanai Iguro, the Serpent Hashira presents the character as a whole, from his origins to his place among the Hashira.

Twelve years in a cage

Little Obanai grows up in a room closed off by bars. He is fed lavishly, dressed, treated with strange consideration. He later understands that all this care had a single purpose: fattening him up for the demon.

The cage is not empty. A small white snake slips into it and becomes his only friend. Obanai calls him Kaburamaru, and the animal will never leave him again.

One day, the female demon has him brought before her. She examines the boy, finds him to her taste, and orders the clan to cut the corners of his mouth, so that his smile resembles hers. Obanai is twelve. The wound will never go away.

This detail explains why the bandage is not up for discussion. The scar is not just ugly in his eyes, it bears the signature of the monster that wanted to devour him. Every time he sees it, he sees the demon leaning over him again.

The escape with Kaburamaru

After that night, Obanai knows he has to leave. He manages to escape from his cage, with Kaburamaru, and flees across the countryside. The demon sets off in pursuit.

He owes his life to a man Demon Slayer fans know in a different light: Shinjuro Rengoku, Kyojuro’s father, then the Flame Hashira. Shinjuro arrives in time, kills the demon and saves the boy.

The image is surprising, when you know the drunk and bitter Shinjuro of the Mugen Train. At the time, he is still a Hashira at the height of his strength, and it is he who opens the way to the Demon Slayer Corps for Obanai. Our article on Shinjuro Rengoku, Kyojuro’s father tells the rest of his story.

Obanai then joins the Demon Slayer Corps, learns a breathing style derived from Water and rises through the ranks until he becomes a Hashira. Kaburamaru goes with him at every step, and the bandage never leaves his face again.

Fifty dead and a cousin who blames him

The price of the escape is terrible. Furious at losing her prey, the demon takes revenge on the clan and kills fifty members of the Iguro family before being killed.

A cousin survives. When she finds Obanai, she does not thank him. She accuses him of killing everyone by running away, and blames him for not letting himself be eaten as he should have.

Obanai knows this reproach is unfair. He was a child locked away, promised to death, and it was his family that had condemned him. But his cousin’s words stay with him, and he still hears them years later, having become one of the most feared fighters in Demon Slayer.

This is where the bandage takes on its second meaning. It no longer hides just a scar. It hides a boy who feels guilty for surviving, and who thinks his face bears the mark of all that blood.

Why does he believe he is tainted?

Obanai keeps saying he is dirty. He is not talking about his body, but about his blood. He was born into a family that killed for a demon, and he thinks this guilt runs in his veins.

This feeling explains his character. The Serpent Hashira is suspicious, curt, sarcastic. He trusts no one, watches the others and judges quickly. At Tanjiro’s trial, he is one of the harshest towards Nezuko, a demon protected by a demon slayer.

His hatred of the demons in Demon Slayer is personal. Every demon reminds him of the one who locked him away, and every demon killed erases a little, he believes, of his clan’s guilt. He is not seeking glory, he is seeking to cleanse himself.

The bandage is part of this logic. By hiding his mouth, he also hides the part of him that comes from the Iguro. He shows himself to the world as a demon slayer and nothing else.

The striped haori and the bandage make Obanai one of the easiest cosplays to recognise in the Obanai Iguro collection.

Kaburamaru, his eyes and his blade

Obanai’s eyes draw as much attention as his bandage. One is yellow, the other turquoise, and his sight is very weak on one side. In Demon Slayer, this flaw does not stop him from becoming a Hashira, thanks to his companion.

Kaburamaru, the snake from the cage, goes everywhere with him. He sits on his shoulders or around his neck, watches opponents and guides his master during fights. The two form a single pair of demon slayers.

His blade is in his image. Wavy like a snake, it serves Serpent Breathing, a style derived from Water that strikes along winding paths that are hard to anticipate. Obanai is not physically the strongest of the Hashira, he makes up for it with precision. Our article on Serpent Breathing details its forms.

Obanai’s portrait, bandage and snake included, can also be worn around the neck, among the designs in the Demon Slayer necklace collection.

Mitsuri, the one who does not look at the bandage

There is one person with whom Obanai lowers his guard: Mitsuri Kanroji, the Love Hashira. He loves her from their first meeting, and she treats him as no one has ever treated him, with a simple kindness that looks for nothing behind the bandage.

He writes her letters, which she adores. When she no longer dares wear the too-short uniform the Corps gave her, he gives her the striped stockings she then keeps in every fight in Demon Slayer.

Yet he never tells her what he feels. In his eyes, his blood forbids it. He promises himself to die fighting Muzan to wash away his clan’s guilt, and to speak to her only in another life, if he is ever reborn a clean man.

Our article on Mitsuri and Obanai tells of this couple made of letters and silences, and the one on Mitsuri’s pink and green hair explains what the young woman was hiding too.

The pair is often cosplayed together, and the outfits of the nine Hashira are gathered in the Hashira cosplay collection.

A merciless instructor for Tanjiro

During the Hashira Training, Obanai puts the demon slayers through a room where other demon slayers are tied to posts. They must strike without ever touching their bound comrades, while Obanai attacks.

With Tanjiro, he is even harder. He has never accepted Nezuko, and he has learned that the boy gets on well with Mitsuri. Jealousy adds to suspicion, and the training turns into a settling of scores.

Obanai does not forget either that Tanjiro defends a demon. For him, no demon deserves to exist, and the boy who protects one remains suspect, even after the trial before the Hashira.

Tanjiro holds firm and ends up passing the test. Obanai does not say so, but something changes between them. At the time of the final battle of Demon Slayer, he fights at his side. Our article on the Hashira Training details each trial.

The canvas of Obanai and his white snake finds its place among the Demon Slayer posters and canvases.

Blind against Muzan, and a promise

The last battle of Demon Slayer costs Obanai his eyes. Muzan destroys his sight, and he keeps fighting, guided by Kaburamaru, who shows him the enemy’s movements.

He protects Mitsuri to the very end. When day breaks and Muzan dies, the two Hashira are dying, and Obanai finally tells her what he had never dared to say. Mitsuri confesses that she loves him too. They promise to meet again in another life, and die in each other’s arms.

The last chapter gives them that other life. In present-day Japan, a couple who look like them run a small restaurant, and the man no longer wears a bandage. Our page on all the Demon Slayer characters traces each one’s fate, and the one on the Demon Slayer breathing styles places Serpent among the other styles.