Muzan Kibutsuji is Demon Slayer’s ultimate villain, the progenitor of all demons, has obsessive fear of dying and seeking perfection and the immunity to sunlight, is cruel and a narcissist and possesses immense power, but in secret is cowardly, relying on his intelligence and manipulation over others, while fearing any sort of imperfection.
He’s a complicated bad guy, psychopathic tyrant, reigning by terror, but who essentially can be defined by his roots as a sickly human desperate for his life by being responsible for so much suffering in his quest to defeat death and be immortal.
Appearance
Muzan is a tall man with a lean muscular build accompanied with an unnaturally pale skin complexion that can be easily mistaken as unhealthy and sickly.
He has a parted and small-length wavy black hair, two set of curly wavy bangs on each side of his face in the middle and sharp and almond-shaped eyes.
His irises are a vibrant red color with a black vertical pupils that resemble a cat together with visible cracks around the pupils. He also has sharp nails in blue area that fades to light blue where it pointed on his hands.
During the Heian period, Muzan’s appearance as a human wasn’t very different from his current appearance with the addition of his fangs and slit pupils. Interestingly, in a model sheet, it was seen that even after his eyes were still red in color.
Muzan wore the outfit of a sokutai, a black-colored robe marked with gray patterns while wearing a kanmuri type of headgear. When he became progressively sicker, Muzan then wore a plain white kimono and long hair was evident with eye bags.
Personality
Muzan is cold-hearted, ruthless, intimidating, cruel and supremely intelligent psychopath. He sees no value in any human he has met and doesn’t show much value to his own subordinates.
Rarely ever visibly upset or happy, he shows about him on most occasion completely monotone and detached, even when he callously murders his own subordinates.
The only times that he ever shows emotion are when his vision of perfection is moving forward or when he has his subordinates completely submit to his will.
After being told by Hantengu that Nezuko Kamado survived the effects of sunlight, Muzan shows a side that is completely opposite his constant composed attitude as he is shown to be ecstatic at the prospect of absorbing her in order to finally gain the immunity to the effects of sunlight himself.
In addition to this, he also shows himself to be extremely arrogant and prideful, first seen when he mockingly asked a platoon of soldiers that were sent to kill him if they were referring to him.
His arrogant side is also revealed when he grants Kagaya Ubuyashiki about never receiving any divine retribution from the gods or the Buddha for his millennia of murders, believing that the gods have let him off the hook for crimes.
Furthermore, he is observed to also have an incredibly sadistic attitude as he is first shown to remind Tamayo of how she murdered and ate her family following her transformation, visibly smiling in a cruel manner as she wells up with tears and further reminding her that she killed more people as well.
In addition, when Muzan has Nakime summon the Demon Slayer Corps inside the Infinity Castle he brags to Tanjiro that he will murder the entirety of them inside that night, and when he responds with a vow to hunt him down Muzan dares boldly to the Demon Slayer to follow up on his threat if he can.
It is evident that after his experience with Yoriichi Tsugikuni, Muzan’s more vicious and overconfident nature was held back by the sheer terror that was brought upon him for wishing to be on a path to achieve this great mission, only to come back after learning of Nezuko’s ability and discovering there is a new opportunity to accomplish his ultimate goal that is now in his hand.
Abilities
Overall Abilities
As the Demon King, as the first and the progenitor of his kind, Muzan is the strongest demon in existence.
Even after dissolving a drug that was supposed to weaken his powers and make him back into a human, Muzan was able to easily annihilate close to a hundred Demon Slayers in a short period of time effortlessly.
During his fight with a marked Giyu Tomioka and Tanjiro Kamado, the former said that an Upper Rank’s strength is beyond comparison with Muzan’s, while the latter failed even to follow his attacks and successfully dodged out of them with pure instinct.
After Tanjiro got close to the Demon King, Muzan nonchalantly slashed out Tanjiro’s eye, he later stated that his attacks were too fast for him to detect through smell.
After unleashing whips in his back to fight with, Muzan massacred dozens more Demon Slayer and he was stated to be too fast for Obanai Iguro, who commentating that he couldn’t continuously breathe even with the assistance of Giyu and Mitsuri Kanroji and was constantly being damaged by the Demon King’s attacks.
As Muzan’s attacks got fiercer and faster, even a marked Gyomei Himejima was pressed back by his attacks, while Mitsuri was completely unable to see his attacks in the first place, being forced to dodge based on pure luck and instinct, eventually getting overpowered and severely wounded by Muzan’s whips.
Obanai also said that in order to buy even one second for the dawn to arrive against the Demon King, the Demon Slayer Corps would need to sacrifice the lives of many Demon Slayers, another example of his great power.
However, even with the arrival of Zenitsu Agatsuma, Kanao Tsuyuri, and Inosuke Hashibira to help the current combatants and give them a chance for a momentary victory, their monumental efforts were destroyed when Muzan revealed hidden whips down his thighs that were even faster, and had him completely overwhelm Giyu, Gyomei, Sanemi, Obanai, Zenitsu, Inosuke, and Kanao even if the former four were marked and the latter three are initially hidden and had the element of surprise.
Moreover, Gyomei’s leg was sliced off and Giyu’s right arm was cut off, the rest of them greatly injured by the attack with the exception of Kanao who was left paralysed by fear in the face of such ferocious strength.
