In short
Wind Breathing is one of the five basic breathing styles of Demon Slayer, which come from Sun Breathing. Offensive, made of fast rotations and gusting cuts, it is the style of Sanemi Shinazugawa, the Wind Hashira. It has nine forms, from Jinsenpū Sogi, Dust Whirlwind Cutter, to Idaten Taifū, Idaten Typhoon. Two styles were born from it: Muichiro Tokito’s Mist and Inosuke Hashibira’s Beast.
Contents
Sanemi Shinazugawa enters Demon Slayer by driving his sword into Nezuko’s box. Then he slashes his own arm to tempt the demon with his blood. From his very first scene, the Wind Hashira carries the violence of his breathing style: blows that whirl, chop the air and leave no respite.
Here is where Wind Breathing comes from, its nine forms, the story of the man who carries it, and the two styles born from it. To place Wind among the other breathing styles, our page on all the Demon Slayer breathing styles presents the fourteen known styles.
What is Wind Breathing?
In Demon Slayer, Wind Breathing, Kaze no Kokyū in Japanese, is one of the five basic styles, with Water, Flame, Stone and Thunder. Like the others, it descends from Yoriichi Tsugikuni’s Sun Breathing, who taught each pupil a version adapted to their body.
Wind is the most aggressive of the five. Its forms rest on fast rotations, multiple cuts and attacks that sweep everything around the fighter, like a squall that does not choose its target. Where Water adapts and Flame strikes head-on, Wind overwhelms the opponent with blows.
It is also a fertile style. Two personal styles were born from it, Mist and Beast, which makes it, with Water, one of the basic styles with the most descendants. Our article on the breathing tree shows the whole family.
Nine forms, all named
The nine forms of Wind Breathing all bear a known name, from Jinsenpū Sogi to Idaten Taifū.
The nine forms of Wind Breathing
The nine Wind forms bear names of storms, tempests and wind deities. The table sets them out in order, with their Japanese name and the image it evokes.
| Form | Japanese name | The image in the name |
|---|---|---|
| First | Jinsenpū Sogi | Dust Whirlwind Cutter, a whirlwind of dust that planes away everything in its path |
| Second | Sōsō Shinatokaze | Claws-Purifying Wind, the claws of the wind of Shinato, a Japanese wind deity |
| Third | Seiran Fūju | Clean Storm Wind Tree, a tree caught in the clear breeze of a mountain |
| Fourth | Shōjō Sajinran | Rising Dust Storm, a sandstorm rising towards the sky |
| Fifth | Kogarashi Oroshi | Cold Mountain Wind, the winter wind racing down the mountains |
| Sixth | Kokufū Enran | Black Wind Mountain Mist, a black wind and a storm of mist |
| Seventh | Keifū Tengukaze | Gale, Sudden Gusts, the powerful wind of the tengu, a mountain spirit |
| Eighth | Shoreppū Giri | Primary Gale Slash, the cut of the first violent wind |
| Ninth | Idaten Taifū | Idaten Typhoon, the typhoon of Idaten, deity of speed |
The names draw on Japanese mythology. Shinato refers to an ancient wind god, the tengu is a mountain creature said to be able to raise storms, and Idaten, a Buddhist deity, is famous for his speed. Wind is the style with the wildest names, and they suit the man who shouts them.
The forms show a real progression. The first skim the ground in whirlwinds and scratches, the next rise, fall and envelop the opponent, and the last unfold in the air, in rotations few fighters can follow. Most of these advanced forms appear during the final assault, when Sanemi faces the most powerful demons in Demon Slayer.
This violence has a surprising counterpart: Wind leaves little room for pure defence. Sanemi does not dodge, he strikes faster than the opponent. His scar-covered body says it better than any speech: this style is practised at close quarters, accepting being hit.
Our poster stages this gusting Wind: Sanemi bursts out of a green whirlwind, predatory smile, shirt open on his scars. It is filed in the posters collection and the complete Sanemi Shinazugawa collection.
Sanemi Wind Breathing poster
Cotton canvas, Sanemi bursts out of a whirlwind of green gusts, predatory smile and raw scars.
View the product · from €14.90What Wind demands of the fighter
Each basic breathing style corresponds to a body and a temperament. Wind first requires inexhaustible energy: its rotations work the whole torso, and its series of cuts leave no pause to catch your breath. A Wind fighter must be able to strike ten times where another would strike once.
It also requires a certain relationship with pain. Wind advances at close quarters, without trying to avoid every blow, and relies on speed to give more than it receives. Sanemi takes this logic to its end: he wounds himself on purpose to release the scent of his rare blood and disorient demons. It is not a method that is taught, it is his own.
Like all breathing styles, Wind rests on Total Concentration Breathing, which the Hashira maintain day and night. It is what lets Sanemi string gusts together without collapsing. Our article on Total Concentration Breathing explains this common foundation.
Sanemi Shinazugawa, the Wind Hashira
Wind Breathing, in Demon Slayer, is above all Sanemi. Spiky white hair, scarred face and torso, white haori open over his uniform, the Wind Hashira is seen as the most brutal in the Corps. He despises demons to the point of refusing to spare a single one, Nezuko included.
His hatred has an origin. As a child, Sanemi protected his brothers and sisters from a violent father. One night, their mother, turned into a demon, kills almost all the siblings. Sanemi fights her until dawn to save Genya, the last brother still alive, and kills her. Genya, in shock, calls him a murderer. The two brothers will barely speak to each other for years.
Sanemi also carries rare blood, which the series calls marechi. Its scent intoxicates demons and slows them down, an advantage he exploits by wounding himself in combat. His scars come partly from that. Our portrait of Sanemi Shinazugawa, the Wind Hashira tells his life in detail.
If you want Sanemi full-length on a shelf, our 30 cm figure shows him bare-chested under his white haori, the blade resting across his shoulder. It is filed in the demon slayer figures collection.
Sanemi 30 cm figure
30 cm figure, spiky white hair, scars on the torso, blade held across the shoulder.
View the product · €69.90Sanemi against Nezuko and Tanjiro
At the Hashira meeting in season 1, Sanemi refuses to accept that a demon could fight alongside demon slayers. He pierces Nezuko’s box, then holds out his bloodied arm to her, convinced she will not resist his blood. Nezuko turns her head away. The scene proves in front of all the Hashira that she does not eat humans.
This moment matters for the whole story of Demon Slayer. It is Sanemi’s gesture, intended to condemn Nezuko, that ends up protecting her: the Hashira can no longer deny what they have seen. The master of the Corps, Kagaya Ubuyashiki, then agrees that Tanjiro and his sister may stay in the Corps, on condition that they prove themselves. Sanemi will never forget the humiliation, but he begins, without saying so, to see Nezuko differently. Demon Slayer fans see in this scene the first step of a character who will change a great deal before the end.
Tanjiro, for his part, does not forgive the insult to his sister. Despite orders, he headbutts Sanemi. The relationship between the two young men begins with this hostility, and it only softens during the Hashira Training, where Sanemi makes the demon slayers suffer under his wooden sword.
It is also during this training that he crosses swords with Giyu Tomioka, after a badly received remark. Tanjiro, who has learned that Sanemi loves ohagi, later advises Giyu to bring him some to make peace. In Demon Slayer, even the toughest Hashira has a weak spot. Our article on season 4 and the Hashira Training tells of these scenes.
Genya, the brother with no breathing style
Genya Shinazugawa joined the Demon Slayer Corps to find his brother and ask his forgiveness. But he cannot master any breathing style. To fight anyway, he devours the flesh of demons, which gives him their strength and their ability to heal for a time.
He fights with a sword, but also with a gun, a weapon no one else uses in the Corps. Sanemi, for his part, does everything to keep his brother away from the fighting, even if it means hurting him. Beneath his anger lies a fear: losing the only member of his family he has left.
Lacking a breathing style, Genya trains with Gyomei Himejima, the Stone Hashira, who accepts him despite his differences. There he learns to channel his strength and to fight alongside others, a lesson his elder brother never managed to give him.
The bond between the two brothers is one of the most heartbreaking in Demon Slayer. Genya, deprived of his elder brother’s Wind, proves that you can be a demon slayer without a breathing style. Our portrait of Genya Shinazugawa, Sanemi’s brother tells of his path.
Genya comes as a pop figure, black mohawk, shaved temples and scars on his cheek. It is filed in the pop figures collection.
Genya mohawk figure
10 cm pop figure, black mohawk, shaved temples, purple haori over the uniform and guard at the belt.
View the product · €79.90A demon slayer with no breathing style
Genya Shinazugawa masters no breathing style: he fights by devouring the flesh of demons, and with a gun, a weapon unique in the Corps.
Wind on screen
On screen, Wind Breathing takes the form of green and white gusts, whirlwinds of dust and blades of air that scratch at the background. The studio ufotable gives it a rawer texture than Water or Flame, with strokes that seem to tear the picture.
The anime also gave it a scene the manga does not contain. Season 4 opens with a night mission in which Sanemi and Obanai Iguro fight together, long before meeting Tanjiro again at the training. The Wind Hashira appears there for the first time in full action, and no longer just angry. Our article on the differences between the anime and the manga tells of this anime-original opening.
Wind in the Infinity Castle
This part reveals elements of the Infinity Castle arc, which the anime has not yet adapted.
In Muzan’s castle, Sanemi faces Kokushibo, Upper Moon One, alongside Gyomei Himejima, Muichiro Tokito and Genya. It is there that Wind Breathing shows its most advanced forms, and that Sanemi awakens the Demon Slayer Mark. The fight costs dearly, and the two brothers share their last exchanges there.
The scene remains one of the strongest in the manga. It finally gives Sanemi a voice, as he admits what he has always hidden. To read this part of the story, our article on the chapter to read after the anime tells you where to pick up, and our page on the demons and the Twelve Kizuki presents Kokushibo.
The styles born from Wind: Mist and Beast
Wind gave two very different styles. Mist, Muichiro Tokito’s, keeps Wind’s speed but makes it elusive: its forms blur the opponent’s perception. Muichiro, who became a Hashira only two months after taking up the sword, even created its seventh form.
Beast, Inosuke Hashibira’s, is even more surprising. Inosuke invented it alone, without a master, through the fights he waged in the mountains where he grew up. He made it a wild style, with two chipped blades, whose techniques are called fangs. Wind becomes an animal charge in it.
These two heirs have nothing in common, neither character nor way of fighting. They show that Wind lends itself to very different bodies and temperaments. Our articles on Mist Breathing and Beast Breathing detail these two branches, and our page on the Demon Slayer Hashira presents Sanemi among his peers.
