The Twelve Demon Moons were a group of twelve very powerful demons who acted under the direct command of Muzan in Demon Slayer. They have a number representing their rank engraved on their eyes. They are divided into the Lower (weaker) and Upper (stronger) Moons. The number indicates their rank among the Moons, determined by strength. When a member is kicked out of the group, Muzan de-ranks them, showing that they are no longer part of the group. Alongside Muzan, the Twelve Demon Moons are actually the main antagonists of the series and that is why we have decided to introduce all of them to you.
If you’re thinking that this article is going to have only 12 sections, you are wrong. Namely, the series has introduced us to a number of Demon Moons, some of which have occupied the same rank as some others before them (technically, all of them are former because they are dead, but we’ll stick to the last known ones). In this article, we are going to tell you about each of them and their powers and abilities, ranking them from weakest to strongest.
Kyōgai (Lower Rank Six, former)
A demon and the former Lower Moon Six, he was stripped of his number by Muzan for slowly losing his ability to eat Humans and reaching his “limit”. He is the target of the second mission of Tanjirō Kamado who, accompanied by his Slayer counterpart Zenitsu Agamatsu, also occasionally meets the “fifth candidate” of their promotion, Inosuke Hashibira. He is also the first “Demon Moon” whose blood Tanjirō collects on Tamayo’s behalf.
His power lies in the tsuzumi grafted into his body, which allow him to rotate the direction of the rooms of his home on three axes as well as to reverse their places to make it a veritable labyrinth, destabilizing his opponents and preventing his victims from finding a solution. exit. The drum on his chest can also create an invisible claw attack slicing through anything in his line of strike. Human, he was a reclusive drummer and failed writer whose lack of talent was mocked.
Kamanue (Lower Rank Six)
Kamnue is a lesser-known demon who became the Lower Moon Six after Kyōgai was stripped of his rank by Muzan. He is killed by Muzan during his purge of the Lower Moons: he dies because he thought they should not be cast aside for their weakness, which their master—who has the ability to read their minds—interprets as a disagreement with him. His powers and abilities, aside from those possessed by all demons, are completely unknown.
Rui (Lower Rank Five)
Rui was the powerful Lower Moon Five. He appears to be a small boy with a gossamer hairstyle. Established in Mount Natagumo with other spider demons, which he transformed using his own blood (and with the authorization of Muzan, of which he has the favor), he manipulates his little world as he sees fit, assigning each a substitute role in his “family” of which he is the “younger brother.”
Originally consisting of eight members (not counting Rui), four of them are still alive when they appear in the story: the “mother”; the “father”; the “older brother”; and the “older sister”. Aside from transforming others into spider demons, he can also manipulate webs and strings and has the ability to save himself from dying thanks to the strings.
After confronting and defeating Tanjirō—whose brotherly bond he envies with Nezuko, which he attempts to take from him thinking he can make her his own sister and achieve the same—which (despite his best efforts to protect her) fails to defeat him and is then about to be executed, Rui is finally killed by the timely Water Hashira Giyū Tomioka. Weak due to his fragile health when he was a Human, he has retained the habit of keeping his hands occupied by playing string with his own silk from his old life.
Mukago (Lower Rank Four)
Mukago was a female demon who held the position of the Lower Moon Four while she was alive. She is killed by Muzan during his purge of the Lower Moons: she dies because the latter deduces that she is more afraid of the Slayers than of him, but also for her lie in his attempt to keep up appearances. Since that was her only appearance, nothing is known about her powers, aside from what is generally known about demon powers.
Wakuraba (Lower Rank Three)
Wakuraba is a lesser-known demon who held the position of the Lower Moon Three. He was, likewise, killed by Muzan during his purge of the Lower Moons: he dies because he tried – considering that they were all going to pass there – to flee from him. As with most other Lower Moons, his powers – aside from the general powers that all demons have – are completely unknown.
Hairo (Lower Rank Two, former)
A former Lower Moon Two, Hairo died before the story began. At a time when he was already transformed, he was nearly killed by Shinjurō Rengoku but escaped, then grew in strength until he became an Inferior Moon. Ironically, he died at the hand of the latter’s son, the first rank Slayer Kyōjurō Rengoku: it was following this mission that the latter was promoted as the new Flame Hashira to replace his father.
Emotionally unstable, he obviously had serious anger management problems causing him “suicidal” impulses, only managing to calm them down by committing suicide – without permanent death, however, since he was a demon – with his firearm: the reason This is probably due to the mistreatment suffered in his former life as a samurai within the Shinsengumi. But despite this lingering anger, he still retained his pride as a warrior and could show humility, admiring son Rengoku’s swordsmanship. His Blood Demon Art allowed him to manipulate shadows. As a human, he was a master samurai of the “way of the warrior” and a member of the Shinsengumi who was bullied by a group of snipers disparaging his sword skills.
Rokuro (Lower Rank Two)
Rokuro was the former Lower Moon Two, taking the position sometime after Hairo’s death. He is killed by Muzan during his purge of the Lower Moons: he dies because he makes the latter the audacious request to make him stronger, something their master cannot bear. Not much is known about his powers, but he was certainly a powerful demon as witnessed by his rank.
Ubume (Lower Rank One, former)
Ubume was a female demon and the former Lower Moon One. Abducting children and soldiers who had not benefited from parental love, she manipulated their minds with incense to pretend to play their mother, raise the children in self-satisfaction, weaken them and then devour them: towards those who did not accept her favors, she would lash out and then get rid of them mercilessly. She finally perished in a three-way fight against the first rank Slayer Sanemi Shinazugawa and his counterpart Masachika Kumeno who, however, also died there.
She was apparently a small woman in a kimono with long hair in a braided bun. Ubume was a selfish and twisted person, suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy and able to trample on others in order to be “happy with her family”. Ubume confessed to having killed her daughter for trying to escape from her; and her husband, who had tried to run away with another woman. Her Blood Demon Art allowed her to create illusions by inhaling burning incense into her victims. She preyed on a number of children, including Rare-Bloods.
Enmu (Lower Rank One)
A sadistic demon, Enmu was strongly devoted to Muzan and the only Lower Moon who survived the purge. Enmu is thus offered more of his blood by their master, making him more powerful and difficult to decapitate. He is the main antagonist of the incident aboard the Infinity Train, a locomotive aboard which several human disappearances are reported and which he ends up fusing with him by mutating his own body.
Enmu is ultimately killed by the combined efforts Slayers Tanjirō Kamado and Inosuke Hashibira. He has a Blood Demon Art that allows him to plunge his victims into a deep sleep, and to manipulate their dreams in order to lose them: he was thus able to enslave desperate humans and make them his accomplices by promising them pleasant dreams. However, he then likes to turn said dreams into nightmares to enjoy their dreamer’s despair.
Daki (Upper Rank Six, former)
Daki is the Upper Moon Six, a position she shares with her older brother Gyūtarō. Her Blood Demon Art also created “Obi”, an alter ego into which Daki split his power, which is literally her own belt that fetters or absorbs her victims like a constrictor snake and can come to life, expand at will as well as sneak into attics and other nooks. When she gets her full obi back, her hair returns to its original color and she regains her true strength.
It is very difficult to cut her neck: in her case, she protects it by softening it, making it take on the consistency of a strip of flexible fabric; moreover, even if the decapitation succeeds, her bond with her brother allows her to regenerate. She is eventually beheaded along with him thanks to the combined efforts of Zenitsu Agatsuma and Inosuke Hashibira. As a human, she was an honest, naive young girl whose singular beauty—including blue eyes—caught the eye of many people.
Gyūtarō (Upper Rank Six, former)
Daki’s older brother and the “true” Upper Moon Six according to Muzan. His Blood Demon Art allows him to prevent Daki from dying by decapitation, being the one on whom their integrity depends, and to cause his own blood to take the form of flying and sharp sickles. He is finally beheaded at the same time as her (a necessary condition to kill them both) by Tanjirō Kamado helped by Tengen Uzui.
His Blood Demon Art then explodes from his body in the next moment and the demon completes the destruction of what was left of the neighborhood. As a human, he was a collector born like his sister on the outskirts of the Rashomon of the Entertainment District in the poorest of its subsections, from a prostitute who tried several times to kill him before dying of syphilis. He was persecuted for its ugliness as well as his lack of hygiene.
Kaigaku (Upper Rank Six)
After Daki and Gyūtarō passed away, he assumed the role of Sixth Upper Moon, one of the Twelve Demon Moons. Originally one of the orphans that Gyōmei took care of, he was expelled by the other kids for stealing temple money. Later, he ran into a demon that he let into the temple in exchange for his life, which led to the deaths of the kids and Gymei’s arrest. Later, he and Zenitsu were trained by the Thunder Hashira. He joined the Demon Slayer Corps but had Kokushibo transform him into a demon beforehand. Zenitsu eventually put an end to him.
Kaigaku’s Thunder Breathing abilities have been improved since becoming a demon. At the time of his demise, he was still not fully acclimated to his newly discovered demon talents. Yushiro claimed that Kaigaku’s strength would have been so great that he could have immediately defeated Zenitsu with just one more year of training. Kaigaku’s master taught him the Thunder Breathing technique. He was unable to learn the first style, but Thunder Breathing allowed him to learn the other five.
Gyokko (Upper Rank Five)
A distorted-looking demon, he was the holder of the position of the Upper Moon Five. His power was tied to the jars, which he could use to move quickly or to summon monsters similar to aquatic creatures. Gyokko has a habit of distorting his victims’ bodies while they are still alive, turning them into grotesque living sculptures. He has a real fixation on art and it drives him to create things that in his eyes are beautiful, and he gets angry when someone criticizes his creations. He was killed by Muichiro during the attack on the Swordsmith Village.
Hantengu (Upper Rank Four, former)
A demon with the appearance of an old man, despite his weak and harmless appearance, held the position of the Fourth Upper Moon. He manifests his true powers and strength by dividing himself into multiple incarnations, each with a different appearance, personality, and abilities. He attacked the Swordsmith Village together with Gyokko, where he was killed by Tanjiro, but before he died he managed to inform Muzan of Nezuko’s immunity to sunlight, making her the new target of her master.
Nakime (Upper Rank Four)
A female demon who directly served Muzan, she was promoted to the rank of Fourth Upper Moon after Hantengu’s death. Thanks to her power she was able to control and move the rooms of the Muzan fortress via the sound of her biwa, where she also displayed the ability to create eyeballs to spy on the movements of the demon slayers even from a long distance. She battled Mitsuri and Obanai until she was manipulated by Yushiro, prompting Muzan to kill her to stop him from taking over the fortress.
Akaza (Upper Rank Three)
Akaza was a demon who held the position of the Third Upper Moon. Originally he was a boy who resorted to stealing to buy medicine for his sick father, who eventually committed suicide considering himself a burden to his son. He was then taken into the custody of Keizo, a martial arts master, who put him in charge of taking care of his sick daughter, Koyuki, with whom he fell in love. They lived happily together for the next two years until Koyuki was poisoned by members of a rival dojo and died soon after.
Blinded by rage he killed all 67 members of the rival dojo and encountered Muzan, who transformed him into a demon. His power was based solely on hand-to-hand combat and allowed him to create shockwaves using his blows. During the events aboard the Infinity Train he killed Rengoku. In the Infinite Dimensional Fortress, he battled Tanjiro and Giyu, after which he inflicted a fatal blow on himself after he regained his memories as a human.
Doma (Upper Rank Two)
Doma is The Upper Moon Two, a harsh and cruel demon, who has the ability to make and control ice thanks to his strength. His parents established a religious cult around him because they believed he was a wonderful and flawless child. He took over the cult after his parents passed away, and once Muzan converted him into a demon, he started eating his followers and killing Shinobu’s older sister Kanae.
Shinobu came up with a strategy to get revenge for her sister’s murder in which she turned her body into a lethal poison by ingesting a large amount of wisteria flower poison over a year before the battle and then letting the demon consume her to weaken it. When the plot worked, Kanao and Inosuke got the chance to decapitate him in order to atone for the loss of their loved ones.
Kokushibo (Upper Rank One)
Kokushibu, the Upper Moon One and the most powerful subordinate of Muzan, was Yoriichi’s older brother and a demon slayer by the name of Michikatsu Tsugikuni. He eventually decides to join Muzan as a demon in order to forever practice swordsmanship without having to worry about contracting an illness or growing old out of jealousy of his brother’s talent.
His method of combat, called Moon Breathing, is a direct descendant of Yoriichi’s Sun Breathing. He has the ability to regenerate and change shape at will because his sword is a part of his body. Gyomei, Sanemi, Genya, and Muichir work together to kill Lui, with the latter two succumbing to their injuries shortly after.
