Hinokami Kagura

+ Tanjiro Kamado
	+ Yoriichi Tsugikuni

	+ Sumiyoshi Kamado
	+ Sumiyoshi's Son
	+ Tanjuro Kamado
	+ Tanjiro Kamado

**Hinokami Kagura** (ヒノカミ神楽, *Hinokami Kagura*?, lit. "Dance of the Fire God") is a Breathing Style only known and taught by the Kamado Family, later revealed to be the first Breathing Style, **Sun Breathing** (日の呼吸, *Hi no Kokyū*?).

## Overview

The Hinokami Kagura is a Breathing Style that is passed on from father to son in every generation alongside the Hanafuda earrings. The Kamado family uses the Breathing Style within a ritual ceremony practiced every new year, where the Breathing Style user offers the Fire God a dance from sunset to sunrise to ward off threats and diseases.

The dance is composed of twelve segments repeated throughout the night until dawn. Tanjuro noted that the breathing technique utilized in this dance allows the user to never exhaust themselves no matter how long they move, making it such that they can seemingly dance forever. The last user is Tanjiro Kamado, who learned the Breathing Style from his father, Tanjuro Kamado. Other people can learn this technique if taught either by a Kamado descendant, a student of Yoriichi Tsugikuni who succeded in learning Sun Breathing, or Yoriichi himself.

    The Hinokami Kagura is later revealed by Shinjuro Rengoku to be a legendary Breathing Style known as **Sun Breathing** (日の呼吸, *Hi no Kokyū*?), a long forgotten Breathing Style and the first one to ever be created. All other Breathing Styles are derived from it as the result of Yoriichi Tsugikuni, its creator, modifying it to suit the individuals he taught who were unable to use it.

Both the Hinokami Kagura and Sun Breathing are Breathing Styles that mimics the sun, specifically the weakness of sunlight on demons and powerful burning effect of solar flames and heat, and replicates it with the user's movements, techniques, and abilities. All techniques and forms are extremely varied and have no set pattern, making it the most versatile and effective against demons. Users of Sun Breathing visualize themselves seemingly manipulating solar flames when unleashing its techniques.

Tanjiro noted that using this style increases his overall power and speed, which is due to the fact that his body is more suited to Sun Breathing as opposed to Water Breathing.

Upon seeing Yoriichi perform the twelve forms through his ancestor's memories, Tanjiro realized that, despite being replicated with a surprising degree of accuracy for hundreds of years and his own mastery of Hinokami Kagura, Hinokami Kagura had unnecessary movements, such as different wrist angles, footwork and breathing rhythm, compared to the Sun Breathing directly performed by Yoriichi. Removing them enabled him to use the Breathing Style in its nigh-purest form, to the point that Muzan saw Yoriichi's visage overlapping with Tanjiro's own when he was performing the techniques against him.

Dumisani Mavundla once stated that Sun Breathing follows the same principle as Flame Breathing; where the user cuts and stabs with so much strength and force, or delivers powerful strikes where the friction generated in the air or on the opponent's skin replicates the burning effect of the sun.

Unlike the other Breathing Styles, each form of Sun Breathing has a proper name, instead of being named First Form, Second Form, etc.

Due to Sun Breathing's adaptability and versatility, a user is capable of adapting to any situation in combat when using the Breathing Style much faster than a user of any other Breathing Style.

## Weaponry used with this Breathing Style

For humans, most known users of the Sun Breathing have wielded Nichirin swords whose blade is black in color.

## Known Users

* Sun Breathing Users
* Hinokami Kagura Users

## Techniques

Sun Breathing was initially created with 12 techniques all connected to one another by Yoriichi Tsugikuni. Later upon meeting Muzan Kibutsuji, Yoriichi perfected his swordsmanship form, creating a new unnamed thirteenth form.

* **Dance** (円舞, *Enbu*?) - The user performs a singular downwards vertical slash in an arcing motion.
	+ **Dancing Flash** (円舞一閃, *Enbu Issen*?) - A modified version of Dance created and only utilized by Tanjiro Kamado. The user combines the Thunderclap and Flash technique of Thunder Breathing with the high-powered slash of Dance by inhaling huge amounts of oxygen, increasing the pumping of blood through the entire body, focusing it on the legs, and releasing it all to assault the target with a slash. This technique was capable of out-speeding Genya Shinazugawa, Nezuko Kamado, as well as the fleeing Hantengu.
* **Clear Blue Sky** (碧羅の天, *Heki-ra no Ten*?) - The user spins and twists their upper body in a circular motion, releasing a 360° slash.
* **Raging Sun** (烈日紅鏡, *Retsujitsu Kōkyō*?) - The user unleashes two consecutive horizontal arcing slashes around themselves to strike incoming attacks.
* **Burning Bones, Summer Sun** (灼骨炎陽, *Shakkotsu En'yō*?) - The user performs a singular slash utilizing a spiraling motion which extends in front of themselves to defend from imminent frontal attacks.
* **Setting Sun Transformation** (斜陽転身, *Shayō Tenshin*?) - The user backflips into the air before performing a singular horizontal slash which aims to decapitate the target.
* **Solar Heat Haze** (飛輪陽炎, *Hirin Kagerō*?) - The user rushes forth, now attempting to deliver a strike seemingly enveloped in a heat-haze, masking the true length and location of the blade to deliver an unexpected strike.
* **Beneficent Radiance** (輝輝恩光, *Kiki Onkō*?) - The user spirals into the air four times whilst swinging their sword to perform a singular attack upwards to strike the target once.
* **Sunflower Thrust** (陽華突, *Yōkatotsu*?) - The user performs a singular thrust utilizing the tip of their blade to strike the target.
* **Sun Halo Dragon Head Dance** (日暈の龍・頭舞い, *Nichiun no Ryū Kaburimai*?) - The user assumes a high stance, before unleashing a number of consecutive slashes in a fluid motion in the form of a Japanese dragon made of solar flames. This technique is capable of decapitating multiple targets at once.
* **Fire Wheel** (火車, *Kasha*?) - The user flips into the air behind the opponent before unleashing a singular vertical slash in a circular motion to swiftly cut the target in half.
* **Fake Rainbow** (幻日にち虹, *Gen'nichi Kō*?) - The user performs high-speed twists and rotations, thus creating afterimages used mostly to evade attacks. The afterimages work most effectively on enemies with sharp vision.
* **Flame Dance** (炎舞, *Enbu*?) - A two-combo strike which starts with a vertical slash leading into a horizontal slash right after.
* **Thirteenth Form: Hinokami Kagura** (拾參ノ型: 火ノ神 神楽, *Jū San no kata: Hinokami Kagura*?, lit. "Thirteenth Form: Dance of the Fire God") - The user continuously performs all twelve forms of Sun Breathing in repetitive succession to increase the accuracy and agility of its movements, and attacks. This form was created solely for the purpose of killing Muzan Kibutsuji, since the repetition of all twelve forms aims to destroy Muzan's twelve vital organs (seven hearts and five brains) that move freely inside his body. It can also work on demons with similar shape-shifting ability and numerous vital organs, like Yuzuriha Kijin.

## Trivia

* The Kamado family has preserved the Hinokami Kagura as a ceremonial practice all the way to present times, Tanjiro's great-great-grandchildren, Sumihiko and Kanata, are practitioners of it.
* Dumisani Mavundla, the creator of Star Breathing, is the only one of Yoriichi's students who survived the massacre of all Sun Breath users, capable of using both breaths at the same time and capable of utilizing Sun Breathing like every Sun Breath user even when his sword isn't even black.
* Hitotsuyanagi Higashisanjo's husband, Oimikado Mushanokoji, also managed to survive the massacre (since he wasn't a target by Muzan and Kokushibo since they didn't know he could use Sun Breathing) and passed on the Breathing Style to his descendants with another woman after Hitotsuyanagi's death.
* Black Nichirin blades actually symbolize the ability to wield Sun Breathing. The only reason they are considered a bad omen is because those who wield them were and are often targeted by demons, due to Muzan's fear of them and due to the massacre of all the known Sun Breathers (apart from Dumisani and Oimikado) after Yoriichi's death which left no record of it and the Breathing Style was considered almost extinct.
* Before Kokushibo died, he mentions that all swordsman who knew of and used the Sun Breathing were killed by both him and Muzan Kibutsuji, before proceeding to question why the Sun Breathing still persists due to the existence of the Hinokami Kagura.
* Kokushibo and Shinjuro Rengoku independently identified the Hinokami Kagura as the Sun Breathing, the latter through the memoirs of his Demon-slaying ancestor, Enjuro Rengoku. The two styles were later confirmed to be the same. There is a (previously unknown) thirteenth form, which can be learned from the Sun Breathing as a Hinokami Kagura user, that is achieved by completing the twelve movements in succession.
* Tanjiro remained uncertain of the breathing style's true nature until he gained access to the memories of his ancestor, Sumiyoshi. His ancestor's wife, Suyako, requested to see the Sun Breathing performed during Yoriichi's last visit to the family. Sumiyoshi memorized the movements and was gifted the hanafuda earrings by Yoriichi before parting. The breathing style and earrings were then secretly passed on from father to son in the Kamado family every generation as a rite of passage. Henceforth, the Sun Breathing became known as the Hinokami Kagura.
* The passing of Sun Breathing as a Kagura draws heavily from Shintō mythology. In Japanese folklore, famous tales in volumes of the **"Nihon Shoki"** (日本書紀, *Nihon Shoki*?) and **"Kojiki/Furukotofumi"** (故事記, *Kojiki/Furukotofumi*?) explain that the Kagura ritual originates when Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, retreated into a cave, plunging the world into darkness. In response, Ame-no-Uzume, the goddess of revelry and dawn, danced outside the cave to entice the sun goddess out. From these events, the Kagura was born, a ritualistic dance that honors Kami (Gods and ancestral spirits). Likewise, Sun Breathing was disguised as a Kagura and passed down as the Hinokami Kagura.
* The term and technique **Fire Wheel** (火車, *Kasha*?) is in fact an inspiration from the classic yōkai Kasha, literally meaning "Burning Chariot". Kasha are demonic beings with the head of a cat or tiger while having the body of a man, and have fiery tails. They ride on burning chariots around the world, snatching up the bodies of the recently deceased of those who have made heinous sins and take them to hell.
* It is implied that the reason **Flame Breathing** (炎の呼吸, *Honō no Kokyū*?) should never be referred to as **Fire Breathing** (火の呼吸, *Hi no Kokyū*?) is because its pronunciation is exactly the same as **Sun Breathing** (日の呼吸, *Hi no Kokyū*?).
	+ The kanji for "sun, day" (日, *hi*) has the same pronunciation as the kanji for "fire" (火, *hi*).
* After Tanjiro had witnessed Yoriichi perform all thirteen Sun Breathing forms through Sumiyoshi's memories, he noted his own current Hinokami Kagura forms contained wasted movements, then proceeding to try and fix those once he resumed battle, as such Tanjiro only starts naming his attacks as Sun Breathing thereafter, which showed that the Kagura moves were not as strong as they should be before Tanjiro actually saw Sun Breathing in its purest form.
* Another god of fire in Japanese mythology is the **"Sambō-Kōjin"** (參寶荒神, *Sanbō Kōjin*?), sometimes referred to as the **"Kamado-gami"** (竈神, *Kamado-gami*?). Sanbō-Kōjin is sometimes identified as an incarnation of the demon-slaying **"Āryācalanātha"** (不動明王, *Fudō Myōō*?), who was the servant to Mahāvairocana (Known in Japanese history as **"Dainichi Nyorai"** (大日如來, *Dainichi Nyorai*?) or **"Birushana Butsu"** (毘廬遮那𐏹, *Birushana Butsu*?) whose worship is related to the sun.