Lil Kocho Doodle

Lil’ Kocho doodle

Hello!! It’s such an honor to find myself in your ask box. Your work actually helped inspire me to make my own tumblr and AO3! Thanks for giving us such wonderful content! :D <3

My question today: How did Akaza retain his spot as an upper moon when he has such a low appetite? Muzan, Douma, and pretty much everyone else keep insisting that eating lots of humans is essential to building strength. Poor Kyogai even got booted from the ranks once he couldn’t bear to eat any more. But despite Akaza’s apparent inability to eat nutritious women and his preference to gain power through training, he was allowed to keep his spot and even given a special pardon from Muzan. Why do you think this is? Is the whole gaining-strength-mainly-through-training thing an ability that is special to Akaza? Could that be interesting enough to Muzan for him to forgive Akaza for having a weak stomach? Or is this just straight up favoritism because he’s loyal and does good work? I’ve always been confused at how he was able (and allowed!) to keep up with his fellow Moons, because they certainly all eat plenty.

Keep up the good work we appreciate you lots!! :D

Tumblr and AO3?? That is an honor! Thank you for joining the rocks I live under on the fandom internet, I hope you have fun! And thank you for your interesting posts thus far!

As for our favorite gym bro Akaza keeping his spot among the Upper Moons, he perhaps started with way, way, way more Muzan Juice than someone like Kyogai did. Akaza's always had such a focus on training as a means of getting stronger than I think it really does have as powerful an affect as Nezuko's sleeping, for as Daki noted, Nezuko's regenerative abilities were on par with or even faster than Upper Moons. However, we don't know that Akaza lacks an appetite in the first place. Unlike Nezuko he's never had a reason to hold back from eating someone who looks appetizing, and especially in his early days, I'll bet he ate plenty. However, overtime, Akaza has put more faith in his own strength and training, and sets his sights on someone else with a similar attitude, Kokushibo. Kokushibo likes this spirit in Akaza and let him live after he lost their battles (instead of absorbing him like he did with other loser demons), like professional courtesy between martial artists. Kokushibo's problems with Akaza are in his professionalism, not with his lack of eating humans. He's recognized Akaza as having potential as a worthy opponent, whether or not Akaza eats a lot of humans, because by this point, Akaza just doesn't need to. He's not like some lowly Lower Moon who needs to try to do something as crazy as eat over 200 people at once before he's even got a chance of challenging an Upper Moon.

Douma is more like our resident health supplement salesman and I'll bet he's never touched a dumbbell. Although Douma wholeheartedly believes that women are more nutritious because their bodies can support the growth of other human beings, that doesn't necessarily mean he's right. Also, what's most nutritious and beneficial to one demon might not necessarily be the sort of nutrition good for another demon's needs, like who knows, maybe the Snake Demon didn't just enjoy the flesh of babies, but they were easily for her to digest or something. The one common rule is that the stronger and healthier your food the stronger and healthier it'll probably make you, and if you're a strong enough demon to catch and eat a Pillar, that'll probably make for a really good protein shake.

See here for much, much more thought on how eating humans actually works and benefits demons, but even though this is the normal pattern of how demons get stronger, I don't think Muzan cares if Akaza isn't eating humans so long as he's strong anyway. It's annoying that Akaza is such a sissy when it comes to women, but like you said, it probably is straight up favoritism because he’s loyal and does good work. You know, except for that lack of blue spider lily results. Akaza's still an easier underling to have around than Douma, even if Douma is technically stronger.

Could Akaza overtake Douma, and perhaps even Kokushibo if he chowed down more on people, like the Pillars he's killed? While this could certainly help, by this point he's developed his own constitution to be so oriented toward physical training that perhaps digestion isn't even his strong suit (unlike Douma, that show-off who doesn't even need to use his mouth). It make not be that he can't eat, like how Kyogai found his limits, but it just takes more energy than its worth when he could better spend that on training. As for Akaza's eating preferences, he know he likely avoids eating women, and I could see him punching the head off some guy abusing his wife and then nonchalantly eating that guy while the wife runs off screaming, but what I truly wonder if he would had eaten Kyojuro is given the chance. It may be that he'd have seen this as a way for strong people he knew to live on, like mementos of their fights (but this feels like a very Douma style of looking at it), but on the other hand, he may have had too much respect for them and professional courtesy to have found them appetizing. Tanjiro, though, yeah, he'd probably had taken a big bite out of his brains just 'cause he hated him. Not that he'd gain much from eating a weakling like that, though! Eating people of that caliber is probably just like staying hydrated, not a proper meal. But again, this is all guesswork on his actual eating habits!

Things that ran through my head while watching this episode:

--Yes, still watching with somebody who is vaguely familiar but doesn't follow. She now understands why the whole island nation of Japan is in love with the 40 Billion Yen Man.

--For as many times as I've seen this fight, it was really nice watching with someone seeing it for the first time, it gave me some of that feeling too. It's still just such a passionately well-thought out fight. I wanted to joke in the last post that this is Rengoku and Akaza's dance. Like, especially in that part where they slow everything down and show details like how Akaza's block changes the direction of Rengoku's strike.

--I feel like I got to feel those raw emotional details again, like Akaza's terror at the sun rising and Tanjiro's gut-wrenching scr... well... it's not even a scream. He's not capable of anything expect that sound he made when the dust settled, and he sure wasn't capable of stopping himself from making that sound either.

--and just... Inosuke is so dumbstruck, he is so out of his league. And then when all is said and down, Inosuke really just has no idea what to do with all those feelings. And he sure isn't crying, ok???

--My favorite part of this fight is when it's down to raw grit, strength, and willpower, with Akaza trying to get away and Rengoku holding him there, with everything from his feet to his gut to his hands, all the while pushing his sword through an Upper Moon's neck. My gosh.

--What really drives that moment home for me is how Akaza still has the leeway to SSSSCCCCCRRRREEEEEEEEAAAAAMMMM in panic, but Rengoku can only mentally yell at Akaza; he just doesn't have the physical power left to lend anything to his voice.

--And then the soft and gentle voice he uses with Tanjiro when all is said and done... I am dead, Hino Satoshi has killed me.

--And Hanae-san's beautifully tearful voice has revived me.

--Man, just... wow. It's no wonder this death scene set the whole worlds' hearts ablaze.

How do you think the evolved form of Akaza was? Would he have changed his appearance or would he not have had any physical change? How do you think the change would have been?

If demons were Oni-mon, a collectable trading card game, there would be set courses of their potential based on how hard they train and how many people they eat. Like a road-map in their genetics!

But Muzan doesn't play Oni-mon. Muzan's too mature and scientific so such trite and childish games. Muzan is a man of science! That mean he's more likely to have a passing curiosity in bacteria and do a bunch of swabs around the house, and then he gets tired of waiting to see the results, and then he forgets about them until he comes back later to be pleasantly shocked how his bacteria cultures overgrew their containers in all sorts of unexpected shapes and colors.

That is to say, I think demons would have a very active form of epigenetics, that is, how their DNA responds to different behaviors and environmental factors, as opposed to following some set course in their DNA. As a simple real life example, years of diet and exercise will impact how you look at middle age, and two versions of yourself in alternate universes may be hard to recognize as having the same DNA because of this.

Demons are like extreme versions of this; they start with a certain set of DNA, and that DNA accounts for a lot of how they start out as a demon, and the ways that DNA is expressed will be more volatile to changes in their diet--or in Akaza's case, exercise.

So if we take Akaza as a demon developed through physical training and limited diet, then he's bound to look like some kind of gym dude bro no matter how far he gets from where he started.

Hang on, I gotta check something. Ufufufufufufu. Basketball was introduced to Japan in 1908. Moving on.

Something that's been key in major physical developments in demons, at least when we've seen them as they first occur (we don't know how and when Hantengu, Gyokko, and Daki discovered their own transformative abilities), is that there's an emotional elemental, like a sense of desperation. Specially, I'm referring to Nezuko and Kokushibo achieving what we might think of as their "ultimate forms," at least for what we saw, but given the "infinity" theme so common in demons, I'll bet they still could had gone further. Akaza really likes the idea of training forever, but it doesn't seem he's got a specific outcome in mind.

Other times, there is intention in how one develops, like when Nezuko figured out she could get small just because Tanjiro asked her to, or when Enmu was straining himself to merge with a massive physical object. I... I kinda don't think Akaza thought that hard about the pink hair (but something in his memories was drawn to pink, he must not had been able to help it.)

We've also seen cases of demons choosing not to show their most powerful, achievable form, for whatever reason, from convenience to aesthetic (Nezuko, Daki, Muzan especially). Akaza seems to have no qualms about this. Would he get angry about Speedy stealing his look, though? Annoyed at least, probably, Speedy is weak.

So if we take these factors into account, like desperation for some desired outcome and admiration of strength, who knows, maybe in some AU out there he figured out a way to merge his dislodged hand with Kyojuro's body as a means of forcing him to stay alive so they can fight forever.

But maybe we needn't look any further than Akaza's desperation not to die himself, so much so that he sealed the injury at his neck. If he were to keep developing from that point, perhaps before he manages to pop out a new head, his other muscles bulge first, especially in the upper chest area and arms. He'd probably be capable of taking of a much, much larger physical form than just his kinda short human-sized one.

And then maybe what would pop out...

.........would be a football-shaped head.

my favorite brothers