Hotaru Haganezuka

Hotaru Haganezuka is a supporting character of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. He is a swordsmith affiliated with the Demon Slayer Corps.

Appearance
Hotaru wears a sunflower-patterned haori and has his head wrapped in a spotted head scarf. Like the rest of the swordsmiths, his face is concealed by a Hyottoko mask (wooden festival mask) to conceal his identity. When traveling he wears a large, woven hat with hanging floral wind chimes on top of the head scarf.

During the Swordsmith Village Arc, he is seen with a more muscular build compared to his initial appearance after he had been training in the mountains.

Unmasked, Hotaru is revealed to have long, black hair coupled with sharp eyes and distinctly-shaped thick eyebrows. However upon being attacked by Upper Rank Five, Gyokko, Hotaru now possesses several deep scars and cuts from the Demon all over his body, including an X-shaped one on his face, and has now lost the use of his left eye.

Personality
Hotaru is a rather hot-blooded individual. He seems to show very little care, if any, about anything besides the swords he creates. His passion for swords is so strong that he would be able to speak about them for long periods of time, a trait unique even among other swordsmiths.

The same passion that gives him the enthusiasm and extreme dedication in creating swords is also the reason why he is easily enraged (usually in a comical fashion) towards swordsmen that break his creations, especially Tanjiro Kamado, no matter the circumstance. When angry, he usually calms himself down by eating mitarashi dango. Bystanders can subdue him by either pinning him down or tickling his sides, as demonstrated by Kozo Kanamori, after which he will fall limp.

As Hotaru is socially inept in dealing with people, he is still unmarried. His intense and asocial behavior also causes other swordsmen to hate him and he lost a lot of clients because of this. Although he won't be honest about it, he is actually happy that Tanjiro still trusts him in making his swords.

His concentration on sword making is so immense that it prevents him from paying any attention to his surroundings when forging a blade, even when a demon is attacking him and inflicting severe injuries on him. When the process of forging or refining is interrupted by taking the sword away, he feels the need to restart the whole process from scratch again. As a perfectionist, any small scratch on a blade that is irremovable hurts him immensely.

History
Hotaru was born from a long line of swordsmiths from the Haganezuka Clan. When he was two years old, Hotaru was so horrible to deal with that his parents had a mental breakdown and the village's chief, Tecchin Tecchikawahara, had to raise him. The chief gave Hotaru his first name, which Hotaru does not like, because it sounds too cute and he would often badmouth the chief about it. According to the chief, he had been having a temper since he was a child, and would always throw tantrums right away and then go off somewhere.

Learning the craftsmanship of sword making from the other swordsmiths, he also became a swordsmith that forges and polishes Nichirin Swords for the Demon Slayers. After Tanjiro successfully survived the Final Selection, Hotaru was assigned by the Corps to forge Tanjiro's sword.

Fighting Style
Tantōjutsu: Hotaru is an expert in using a Tantō, though he practices the combat style with his razor-sharp knives. He usually shows his skills by attacking Tanjiro after he damages his swords.

Trivia

 * Hotaru's surname contains the kanji for "steel" (鋼), a reference to his occupation, and his first name means "firefly" (螢).
 * He hates his first name due to how "cute" it is.
 * Hotaru's favourite food is mitarashi dango, and he goes out to buy some whenever he loses his temper.
 * Hotaru has wind-chimes attached to his hat because he's liked them since he was a child. Whenever he would throw a tantrum, the adults would use the chimes to calm him down.
 * Tickling his sides is the only way to break his concentration, after which he humorously goes limp for several minutes.
 * In an omake, Hotaru is depicted as having a wife, but during the Swordsmith Village Arc he is said to be single.
 * The knives that Hotaru uses to try to stab Tanjiro in his temper tantrums were actually made by Hotaru himself. These knives are noted to be extremely sharp and should never be used for cooking.

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