WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Season 2, Episode 16, "Defeating an Upper Rank Demon," now streaming on Funimation, Hulu, and Crunchyroll.
Leave it to Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba's Tanjiro Kamado to invent a new Breathing Style on a whim when the two styles he already knows aren't working. The "Entertainment District" arc's battle against Daki and Gyutaro, the demonic siblings who share the title of Upper-Rank Six, is heating up as Tanjiro struggles to just stay on his feet. Tanjiro was too exhausted to perform the Hinokami Kagura and not suited for Water-Breathing, so he desperately combined the two Styles to save Hinatsuru from Gyutaro's grasp.
Breathing Styles are the cornerstone of the Demon Slayer Corps' battle against Muzan Kibutsuji's demons. These sword-wielding techniques, along with Total Concentration Breathing, give Demon Slayers superhuman strength and abilities against the nearly unkillable demons that plague Japan. The five main Breathing Styles are Flame, Wind, Stone, Thunder, and Water, yet various offshoots, like Tengen's Sound and Inosuke's Beast, also exist. Offshoot Styles are created when a Demon Slayer trains using one of the main five Styles, then tweaks it to suit their own body and skillset.
Earlier in Season 2, Shinjuro Rengoku confirmed that Tanjiro's Hinokami Kagura is actually Sun-Breathing, the original Breathing Style that even Water-Breathing stems from. As the original Breathing Style, based on the power of demon kind's fatal weakness, the Hinokami Kagura is more powerful than Water-Breathing -- but that's exactly why Tanjiro was forced to combine the two Styles. At the end of his endurance, Tanjiro can no longer withstand the Hinokami Kagura in the fight against Daki and Gyutaro, but he had already learned that Water-Breathing would get him nowhere because of his lack of power with the Style.
As he has so often done, Tanjiro course-corrected mid-battle and combined the Hinokami Kagura and Water-Breathing (Hinokami Watura?). Reasoning that combining the Styles would give him greater strength than Water-Breathing, but better endurance than the Hinokami. Tanjiro was quickly proven correct when he rescued Hinatsuru from Gyutaro in a burst of speed that surprised and impressed Upper Six. Until Tanjiro can use the Hinokami Kagura freely without such an intense physical toll, this new Hybrid Style might be the perfect solution.
Tanjiro finally realized that just because Water-Breathing doesn't suit him doesn't mean that all his training with Urokodaki was for nothing. In fact, taking elements from multiple Breathing Styles to create a new one is what members of the Demon Slayer Corps have been doing for generations. While his priority should be mastering the Hinokami Kagura, considering Sun-Breathing elicits primal fear from the very cells of Muzan Kibutsuji, practicing with this new Hybrid Style might be worth it to keep Tanjiro from being so exhausted so quickly in a fight.
They say that being a jack of all trades is better than being a master of one, but even if that's not necessarily true for demon-slaying, Hinatsuru owes her life to the fact that Tanjiro knows two Breathing Styles well enough to combine them. Tanjiro only used this Hybrid Style once in "Defeating an Upper Rank Demon," but given the abysmal state of affairs by the end of the episode that leaves Tanjiro as one of two men left standing, he might have to break out this new technique once again if he wants to have any hope of defeating Gyutaro and Daki.
