Genya Shinazugawa serves as a significant supporting character during the Swordsmith Village Arc and sports one of the most feral personalities in all of Demon Slayer Corps.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Genya is one of the instantly recognizable faces in Demon Slayer, thanks to his distinguished expessions and body language rife with rage and irritable content.
Beyond the immediate qualities and feats he has to offer, the character entails a whole lot of back story and significant strengths.
He’s got a short fuse
Genya’s immediately visibile personality can be summed up in one word — cantankerous. He’s always wearing the scrunched up face that screams anger in large and loud fonts.
His first encounter with Tanjiro happens during the Final Selection, where he grabs Kanata by her hair after getting upset, which compels Tanjiro to prevent him from doing that and even breaking his arm in the process.
He’s always ill-tempered and prefers that no one else talk or interact with him, much less try their hand in a potential friendship, which is exactly what Tanjiro tries to do every chance he gets. This irritates Genya to no end but he eventually goes on to warm up to him and his friends.
A younger brother to a Hashira
Genya is always fighting alone but he has a brother, who’s none other than the Wind Hashira, Sanemi Shinazugawa. Both of the brothers are similar in many regards, like their constant expressions of rage and short fuses.
They both give in easily to their tempers and sport many battle scars throughout their bodies. And yet, there’s one biting difference between them that Genya has spent all his life compensating for, and that is talent and combat techniques core to the Demon Slayers Corps.
Genya doesn’t have a talent for breathing techniques and also lacks other skills that the other demon slayers do. Sanemi doesn’t acknowledge him and Genya always strives to change that, to gain his brother’s respect while doing all he can to save others and slay the demons.
As a compensation, he pours his efforts at training and to replace the breathing techniques that he can’t use, he uses recitation of the same words to enhance his concentration. He’s also proficient with his sword and the double-barrel shotgun.
Unafraid to resort to extremes
Genya approaches the demon slaying business with sheer will and unfazed, relentless rage. To make up for his lack of natural talents and skills, he resorts to other, often dire and risky measures.
One of these measures unique to him is that he can turn into a demon for brief periods. He achieves this by eating the flesh off an alive demon, which temporarily grants him the strength and regenerative powers of a demon.
He uses these acquired powers to enhance and modify his weapons too, like fusing the bullets of his shotgun with his demon cells, turning them into projectiles that he can steer and change the trajectory of at his own will.
He later goes on to use these powers to further inflict major damage unto Muzan’s mightiest soldiers.
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