Demon slayer: Rengoku – Character analysis

Demon slayer: Rengoku – Character analysis

Without a shadow of a doubt, Rengoku has to be the most beloved side character in recent anime, but honestly, that belovedness is completely deserved and earned. Right? He’s a character that moves with extreme Keystone principles that make him the most respectable character by other hashir and Shinobi, but even for us as an audience watching the show Demon Slayer. If you are new, welcome to the Molino Kingdom where we take potential positive lessons that we learn from anime and learn how to positively apply to our own lives, become our highest version.

Before we jump into the backstory and mentality of Rengoku, be sure to get your hands on my free official Sasuke Uchiha course, and of course, join our Moluna Kingdom Discord Brotherhood. And if you ever want to go 10 x deeper into self-development, be sure to check out the Moluna Kingdom Patreon. Let’s get straight into it.

There is a huge lesson I saw in Demon Slayer, specifically with Rengoku, that plays a huge part in people’s lives in the real world. But before we take a deep dive into that lesson, let’s first dissect who Rengoku is in the first place. According to fandom.com in the Rengoku analysis they provide, we see that Rengoku is an extremely powerful character from the show Demon Slayer who possesses an extreme level of charisma and optimistic energy, and this is pretty self-explanatory, right? From the jump, whenever Rengoku is on screen, there’s always this extra air of confidence and elation.

When I was watching Demon Slayer, the 20 times that I’ve watched it, it became more than obvious that Rengoku is one of the characters that makes everyone feel safe. You know how even in real life, there’s always that one person that has concrete levels of self-esteem, and just by being in their presence, you find yourself becoming more confident yourself?

Well, that’s Rengoku, as his energy permeates the room wherever he goes. It is self-evident that Rengoku possesses a high level of self-discipline. Rengoku, as we’ve seen, expresses huge pride in the art of honor and morality in his fighting, and because of it, gained the respect of many.

Rengoku is also one of those that respects the lives of his comrades and prioritizes camaraderie more than anything. One fun fact that shows this is that Rengoku wants on his own will avenge the lives of nine dead comrades who are eradicated by the flute demon. As far as power levels go, I mean, if you’ve watched Demon Slayer, then you’ve seen it with your own eyes. Who’s that on his own accord Rengoku defeated the lower Rank 2 demon named Tyro, and even upper Rick demons have commented on his capabilities.

Going back to his personal character, Rengoku sincerely reminds me a lot of Itachi Uchiha. Now okay, hold on, let me explain. I don’t know, but like I truly mean this in the sense that like Rengoku’s respect and prioritization of family reminds me heavily of Itachi’s respect for family more than anything. Rengoku wanted his younger brother to grow up and succeed and become his highest version, which really made me think about Itachi’s relationship with Sasuke and the levels Itachi took to ensure that Sasuke would grow up to be exceptional, even though he’d definitely use a very unique route to accomplish that goal.

And similar to Itachi, Rengoku had a somewhat complicated love-hate relationship with his father Shinjiro. Though they may not have agreed on everything, the love was definitely there, right? And the relationship is precisely one thing I actually want to dissect in this blog. But after Rengoku’s death, we, of course, saw Shinjiro cry, showing that how he was acting on the outside wasn’t necessarily how he felt about his beloved son on the inside.

One of the major things that stood out to me about Rengoku’s character while watching Demon Slayer was the way he treated Nezuko compared to the rest of the Hashira. As we know, Tanjiro showed Nezuko to the Hashira when he first arrived and all hell broke loose.

Don’t get me wrong, like I completely understand why they were so shook, right? They’ve lost countless comrades and brethren to the demons. But still, Rengoku being completely empathetic to his comrades’ behavior towards Nezuko still managed to find it within himself to look for Nezuko’s heart, which he was able to see.

It was very clear to him that Nezuko was different than any other demon he had ever encountered, and that Nezuko clearly didn’t want any smoke. And even with his own personal history with demons, he found it within himself to manage his emotions, place history to the side, and try to embrace something new-being friends with demons.

Which, if that doesn’t show the level of Rengoku’s character, bra, I really don’t know what will. Okay, so there are two major lessons that I’ve personally learned from Rengoku when watching Demon Slayer the 20 times that I watched it. One is the actual levels of pristine compulsion he feels towards protecting others. Now, I can be totally wrong, but I feel like Rengoku learned this from his upbringing when he was trying to protect his younger brother Sinjiro from their father.

I felt that to maybe some extent, Rengoku felt that their father wasn’t doing his best, and that he himself placed the burden of helping to raise Sinjiro into a capable self-individual unto himself. And once again, I could be wrong, but I feel Rengoku kind of carried that same loyalty of seeing his brother succeed to other people in his life.

Rengoku did not know Tanjirou, Zenitsu, and Inosuke for that long, but regardless, he still treated them with the same levels of positive upbringing like that of his younger brother.

It’s almost like he placed this obligation to help those who are around him no matter what. And it makes sense because this mentality goes hand in hand with his high levels of shinobi honor and morality.

In the Bible, John 15:13 says that there is no greater act of love than laying down one’s life for your friends. And like I said, bro, this man barely knew Tanjirou and them, and as we saw, bro, well, yeah, we saw what happened. This man truly laid down his life fighting to protect his new people comrades, and that’s, of course, one of the reasons why everyone has this deep found respect for Rengoku.

The other thing I really, really wanted to point out has to do with Rengoku’s relationship with his father. And this makes me personally, from my own life, absolutely love Rengoku. Not because I’m personally dealing with the same problem, but because I’ve seen it happen to so many people in my own life. And though Rengoku is a fictional character, the lesson can definitely be applied to real life.

Guaranteed, what I personally admire the most is how Rengoku did not give into his father’s pressure. Rengoku wanted to be a high-level Shinobi, he truly and genuinely wanted to become a Hashira and help fight demons to change the world. However, his father was completely against it. Now, later we saw that Shinjiro didn’t really completely mean the things that he was saying to Rengoku, but regardless, during Rengoku’s childhood, Shinjiro’s negativity was extremely potent and definitely had effects on both of his two sons, especially after their mother had passed away.

And then, of course, you know Shinjiro wouldn’t put the booze down, so that doesn’t help. What you have to admire is Rengoku’s absolute Ironclad mental fortitude, and this is a life lesson that anyone and everyone can learn from, bro. It is completely human nature to want the love and affection from your parents or the people who you cherish the most, right? There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make your parents proud, and as a son, proving your value to a father is something that usually lingers in the back of our heads, unless your father’s evil.

Why wouldn’t you not want to make him proud? But Rengoku is dealing with the particular situation where his father was against his goals in life, and this becomes a tricky situation. Do you go against your cherished loved ones and follow your dreams, or do you suppress your dreams and validate your cherished loved one? In real life, I see this happening on a large scale to so many people, especially high schoolers and young adults, people around my age.

They may want to start a business, but their parents are against it, or maybe they don’t want to go to college because they won’t help them with their dreams, but their parents are completely against them, or maybe they want to become an athlete or an artist, but their parents want them to be something that they are not.

This is a constant battle that a lot of young minds deal with, in fictional or not. It is inspirational when you see someone like Rengoku have a dream, and even with his own father telling him he won’t ever grow, see that said thing, he still has the mental fortitude to go after it and then of course make it a reality.

Hey, look, it sounds very woo and like, “Oh bro, whatever,” but it really is true. A giant test of mental fortitude is the ability to go against the grain, especially against powerful forces like family or society, and continue down your own unique path even when others that you personally cherish are against you. Make a blog about his capabilities on the battlefield, and I would even love to do a battle breakdown on his final battle in the Demon Slayer movie.

If you found this blog valuable, be sure to drop a like, but more so, let me know your thoughts on Rengoku and if his character inspires you or not. Also, let me know what character breakdown you would like to see next. Thank you!

Andreea Blaga

That’s me, Andreea Blaga, author of the blog https://anime-everything.com. I work as a content creator in the US. I am also passionate about Japanese Anime.