Spoilers ahead for the Swordsmith Village Arc and the final arc of the manga.
The short answer
Yoriichi Tsugikuni carried a black Nichirin blade, the colour that marks a Sun Breathing user. During his fight with Muzan Kibutsuji it turned crimson red, the effect the Hashira would rediscover three centuries later. After Yoriichi died, the sword was sealed inside the Yoriichi Type Zero training doll, where it rusted for 300 years until Tanjiro Kamado broke the doll open and claimed it.
What Yoriichi's Sword Actually Is
Yoriichi Tsugikuni is the strongest swordsman in the history of the Demon Slayer Corps. He lived during the Sengoku era, he originated Sun Breathing — the style every other breathing form descends from — and he is the only slayer to have fought Muzan and come within moments of ending the story four hundred years early. He is also the twin brother of Michikatsu Tsugikuni, who became the demon Kokushibo.
His weapon was a Nichirin sword, the same class of blade every member of the Corps carries. Nichirin blades are forged from scarlet crimson iron sand and scarlet crimson ore, mined from a mountain that sits in sunlight year round and is never covered by cloud. That absorbed sunlight is what makes the steel lethal to demons, and it's also why the metal behaves the way it does in a slayer's hands.
Nichirin blades are sometimes called colour-changing swords for a reason. The steel is a neutral grey when it leaves the forge. The moment a slayer grips it for the first time, it takes on a colour determined by that person and the breathing style they're suited to. Yoriichi's turned black.
Is Yoriichi's Sword a Katana?
Loosely, yes. Precisely, it's more interesting than that.
In Japanese terms, what defines a katana isn't just "curved sword." It's a blade of roughly 60cm or more, worn edge-up through the sash, with a moderate curvature called sori. A tachi is its older sibling: longer, more deeply curved, and worn edge-down slung from cords, because it was designed to be drawn from horseback. The uchigatana sits between them, and it's what actually dominated during Yoriichi's Sengoku era, as battlefield fighting shifted from horseback to foot.
From the workshop
Here's a detail almost every summary of this sword misses. Yoriichi lived in an era when a warrior of his standing would most plausibly have carried a tachi or an uchigatana. But the series draws his blade — and every Nichirin sword — with the shallow curvature and mounting style of a much later Edo-period katana.
You can see this on the replicas. Lay a Demon Slayer blade next to a historically-styled tachi and the difference is immediate: the Nichirin profile is noticeably straighter, with what curve there is concentrated near the base rather than flowing through the whole blade. It's a deliberate choice by the artist, not an error, and it's part of why Demon Slayer swords sit so well on a horizontal display stand. A deeply curved tachi wants to be displayed edge-down at an angle; these don't.
What Colour Was Yoriichi's Sword?
Black. Yoriichi's Nichirin blade was black, and that single fact explains more about him than almost anything else in the series.
What a Black Blade Means
Black indicates Sun Breathing. Because Sun Breathing is the original style from which Water, Flame, Thunder, Wind and Stone all derive, a black blade signals a wielder whose aptitude sits at the root of the entire system rather than on one of its branches.
Within the Corps, though, a black blade was considered bad luck. Slayers who drew one were said never to rise to Hashira and to die young. Because black-bladed slayers were so rare, nobody had enough of them to work out what the colour actually meant, so the superstition survived in place of the explanation. Yoriichi is the proof it was wrong: the strongest slayer who ever lived carried the colour everyone else was taught to dread.
Did Yoriichi Have a Black Blade?
Yes. Yoriichi Tsugikuni wielded a black Nichirin blade, and he is the earliest black-blade user the series identifies. Tanjiro Kamado later draws the same colour, which is the first hard signal that his Hinokami Kagura is a surviving fragment of Yoriichi's Sun Breathing rather than a separate family dance.
Why Yoriichi's Sword Turned Red
This is where most of the confusion comes from, because people who've seen the Muzan flashback remember a red blade, not a black one. Both are correct.
A Nichirin sword can enter a state called the Bright Red Nichirin Blade (kakutō). Under extreme pressure or heat, the steel flushes crimson and its ability to suppress a demon's regeneration increases sharply. It isn't a different sword and it isn't paint. It's the same blade in a heightened state.
When Yoriichi confronted Muzan, his blade turned red. Muzan survived only by shattering himself into more than a thousand fragments and scattering, an escape that cost him centuries of recovery and left him with a memory of that red edge he never shook.
The Hashira rediscover the effect independently, generations later, during the final battle. The technique had been lost for three hundred years, which tells you how far the Corps had drifted from what Yoriichi could do without apparent effort.
So Was It Black or Red?
Black is the blade's true colour. Red is a temporary combat state. If you're looking at official art or a replica and wondering which is correct, both are accurate to different moments: black is Yoriichi's sword at rest, crimson is Yoriichi's sword at the peak of the fight that nearly ended Muzan.
What's Engraved on Yoriichi's Sword?
Nichirin blades carry the inscription 悪鬼滅殺 (akki messatsu), which translates roughly as "destroy the demons" or "annihilation of evil spirits." It runs down the flat of the steel near the base, and it's clearest on Tanjiro's blade and on Giyu Tomioka's.
Worth being straight about one thing, because a lot of pages aren't: the series treats this as the Corps' standard marking rather than a personal motto, and Yoriichi's own blade is never given a distinct inscription of its own in his flashback appearances. Nichirin swords aren't personalised the way named weapons are in other series. So when a replica carries akki messatsu, it's following the Corps convention, which is the historically consistent choice rather than an invention.
From the workshop
If you're buying a replica with that inscription, how it was applied matters more than most buyers realise, and you can usually tell from the listing photos alone.
- Acid-etched characters sit slightly recessed into the steel and catch light differently from the surface around them. Look for a soft, faintly irregular edge to each stroke.
- Laser-engraved characters give crisp, uniform lines, usually a shade darker than the blade.
- Screen-printed or painted characters sit on top of the finish with perfectly flat, sharp edges and no depth at all.
Printed inscriptions look best on day one and are the first thing to wear off, especially on a blade that gets handled or wiped regularly. Zoom into any product photo at full resolution before you commit.
Who Forged Yoriichi's Sword?
The series never names the individual smith. What we do know is that the blade was forged in the Sengoku era by the swordsmiths who supplied the Corps at the time, three centuries before the methods used in Tanjiro's era. That gap is why Hotaru Haganezuka reacts the way he does when the sword finally reaches his workbench. He isn't restoring a weapon. He's handling a piece of his own craft's history.
The swordsmith village lineage matters here too. The family that later produces Kotetsu are the ones who built the Yoriichi Type Zero training doll and sealed the blade inside it, and they guarded it for generations without any of them opening it.
What Happened to Yoriichi's Sword After He Died?
It was hidden inside a training dummy and forgotten for three hundred years.
The Yoriichi Type Zero is a six-armed mechanical doll built in Yoriichi's image, kept in the Swordsmith Village and capable of 108 attack patterns. Tanjiro trains against it during the Swordsmith Village Arc, lands a strike that takes its head off, and finds the sealed blade inside. Haganezuka then restores it.
We've covered the Yoriichi Type Zero and the discovery of the sword inside it in full here, including who built the doll, why it has six arms, and Mitsuri's early hint that something was hidden in the village.
Does Tanjiro Use Yoriichi's Sword?
Yes. From the end of the Swordsmith Village Arc onward, the restored 300-year-old blade is Tanjiro's primary weapon for the rest of the series. He doesn't borrow it and hand it back. It becomes his sword.
When Tanjiro grips it, it turns black, the same colour it held for Yoriichi. That moment is the confirmation the story has been building toward: the Hinokami Kagura his father taught him is Sun Breathing, passed down through generations of Kamados as a dance because the Corps itself had lost the original.
If you're watching the anime and searching mid-season, the discovery happens during the Swordsmith Village Arc, and the restored blade is in Tanjiro's hands from that arc's conclusion onward.
Where Is the Sword Now?
Tanjiro carries it into the Infinity Castle and through the final confrontation with Muzan, which is the fight the blade was effectively forged for three centuries earlier. Once Muzan is destroyed and demons cease to exist, the Demon Slayer Corps disbands and Nichirin swords have nothing left to do.
The story doesn't follow the blade to a museum or a shrine or a descendant's hands afterward, and that absence is the honest answer to where it is now. Its arc closes when the thing it was made to kill is gone. The modern-day epilogue is deliberately a world with no need for it.
Yoriichi's Blade vs Tanjiro's First Nichirin Sword
| Yoriichi's blade | Tanjiro's first sword | |
|---|---|---|
| Era forged | Sengoku, roughly 300 years earlier | Taisho era, present day |
| Colour when drawn | Black | Black |
| Swordsmith | Unnamed Sengoku-era smith | Hotaru Haganezuka |
| Condition received | Heavily rusted after three centuries sealed in the doll | Newly forged |
| How it was obtained | Found inside the Yoriichi Type Zero | Issued after Final Selection |
| Fate | Restored by Haganezuka, carried by Tanjiro | Destroyed in combat |
What Yoriichi's Sword Looks Like Up Close
Most descriptions of this blade stop at "black katana." If you're choosing a replica, drawing it, or building a cosplay around it, the details that actually distinguish it are in the proportions and the fittings.
From the workshop
These are the figures a full-size Demon Slayer replica should land near. Anything well outside them is either a scaled-down piece or a costume prop:
- Overall length — roughly 40 to 41 inches (101–104 cm) sheathed.
- Blade length — roughly 27 to 28 inches (68–71 cm), which sits in genuine katana territory rather than wakizashi.
- Handle — around 11 inches (28 cm), long enough for a real two-handed grip. A handle much shorter than this is a strong sign of a shortened display piece.
- Weight — about 2.2 to 2.9 lb (1.0–1.3 kg) in carbon steel. Aluminium and zinc-alloy props come in far lighter and feel hollow the moment you pick them up.
- Guard — plain and geometric, with no openwork. The interest on this sword is in the black of the blade, not in a decorative tsuba, which is exactly why a poorly finished guard stands out so badly on it.
The two things to check that listings rarely mention: whether the habaki, the collar at the base of the blade, sits tight against the guard with no visible gap, and whether the handle is pinned with a proper bamboo or brass mekugi peg rather than glued. A gap at the habaki means a loose assembly that will rattle, and a glued handle can't be taken apart for maintenance.
Buying a Yoriichi Sword Replica: What Actually Matters
Four things separate a replica you'll still be happy with in three years from one you'll quietly retire to a cupboard.
Steel type. Stainless steel blades are display pieces, full stop. Stainless is more brittle than carbon steel at sword lengths and isn't built for stress. Carbon steel — 1045, 1060, 1095 and similar — is what you want if you care about the piece behaving like a sword. It needs light oiling to prevent rust, which stainless doesn't.
Tang construction. A full tang runs the entire length of the handle as one continuous piece of steel with the blade. A rat-tail tang is a thin rod, often welded on. For a wall display either will hold. For anything you intend to pick up, swing or pose with regularly, the weld on a rat-tail is a genuine failure point.
The black finish. A black blade asks more of its finish than a bare steel one does, because there's nothing else carrying the look. Coated blades chip at the edge first and the tip second. Expect a cheap coating to show bright steel along the edge within a few handlings.
Price floor. Below roughly $60 you're buying a painted blade with cast fittings and a loose handle, and it will look like one in person whatever the listing photos suggest. Buy one good piece rather than three cheap ones.
Every anime blade we stock is listed with its steel type, tang construction and full dimensions, so you can check all four of the points above before you commit to anything.
Frequently Asked Questions
What colour was Yoriichi's sword?
Black. Yoriichi Tsugikuni's Nichirin blade took on a black colour, which in Demon Slayer indicates a Sun Breathing user. It turned crimson red during his fight with Muzan, but black is the blade's normal state.
Did Yoriichi have a black blade?
Yes. He is the earliest black-bladed slayer the series shows. Black blades were considered unlucky within the Corps because their users supposedly never became Hashira, a superstition Yoriichi flatly disproves.
Why was Yoriichi's katana red?
Because it entered the Bright Red Nichirin Blade state during his battle with Muzan. Extreme pressure turns a Nichirin blade crimson and sharply increases its ability to stop a demon regenerating. The technique was then lost for 300 years.
What is Yoriichi's sword called?
It doesn't have an individual name. Unlike some anime weapons, Nichirin swords aren't named personally. They're identified by their owner and their colour, so it's simply Yoriichi's black Nichirin blade.
Does Tanjiro use Yoriichi's sword?
Yes. After Tanjiro finds it inside the Yoriichi Type Zero doll and Haganezuka restores it, the blade becomes his main weapon for the remainder of the series, and it turns black in his hands just as it did for Yoriichi.
When does Tanjiro get Yoriichi's sword?
During the Swordsmith Village Arc. He discovers it while training against the Yoriichi Type Zero, and he carries the restored blade from the end of that arc onward.
Who forged Yoriichi's sword?
The individual smith is never named. It was forged during the Sengoku era by the swordsmiths serving the Corps at that time, using methods three centuries older than those of Tanjiro's era.
Why doesn't Yoriichi's sword break?
It nearly did. Three hundred years sealed inside the training doll left it badly rusted and unusable, and it took Haganezuka's restoration to bring it back. Its survival comes down to being sealed away, not to the blade being indestructible.
About this article
Written and fact-checked against the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba manga by Koyoharu Gotouge, published in English by VIZ Media. Sword construction and terminology notes come from blades handled in our own workshop. Last reviewed September 2026.