Zenitsu Agatsuma: How Powerful the Subconscious Mind is (Demon Slayer Anime Analysis)
Zenitsu, with his signature move ‘Thunder Breathing First Form’, shows us the true power of tapping into your subconscious.
The anime ‘Demon Slayer’, or ‘Kimetsu no Yaiba’ as it is known in Japan, is an anime series that has risen rapidly in popularity, due to the fast paced action, the childlike humour, as well as series exploring various themes such as compassion, trauma, and the power of your breath.
The characters within the series have the ability to execute powerful, elemental moves known as breathing forms. This power gives the wielders of such techniques the power to defeat beings known as demons. Demons are physically more powerful than the normal human warrior within the series, but through the power of the breath, humans known as the Demon Slayers have been able to defeat various demons and can even cast spells and enchantments.
Zenitsu Agatsuma, one of the main characters of the series, is known for his cowardice, whininess, and his unhealthy pedestalizing of women. He is known for running from battle, constantly complaining during his travels, and even fainting in the midst of stress, and at first glance he clearly does not seem like someone with heroic potential.
However, something strange happens whenever he falls asleep. He grows in power, tenacity, and courage. He acts nobly and with conviction, and he is focused and determined. When he falls asleep during the middle of a battle against a demon, he becomes a totally different person. When fast asleep, he is able to defeat demons using his signature technique ‘Thunder Breathing First Form’, with relative ease, efficiency and precision. It is almost like Zenitsu is possessed by a god whenever he falls asleep.
So we will explore what happens when Zenitsu falls asleep, why it is significant, and how we can apply the same principles to our subconscious minds:
The Power of Zenitsu
Zenitsu and Thunder Breathing
When Zenitsu falls asleep during the battle, he is able to tap into the full power of his practiced breathing form ‘Thunder Breathing’. During battle, his main technique ‘Thunder Breathing First Form’, is able to defeat enemy demons with power, speed, precision, and accuracy.
His breathing form of Thunder is significant, in that his attacks are efficient and precise, but also filled with high energy and destructive potential much like thunder and lightning in unison. When he is asleep, Zenitsu acts purely on his instincts, as he of course cannot consciously choose his movement patterns when he is asleep. When asleep, his movements feel automatic and purposeful, yet highly instinctual. When attacking enemies, it almost feels like Zenitsu is acting out a script, like he does not even have to think or exert cognitive strain in order to execute an action.
When awake, Zenitsu is powerless and always in his head. When asleep, Zenitsu is powerful, instinctual and fearless. When asleep, he is literally unconscious, in that he executes his movements without any emotion or impulse. He is like a machine when asleep, and when asleep, his actions are oriented towards nothing else but defeating the enemy in front of him. His precision in his purpose while asleep is like lightning: precise, rapid, sudden, focused.
Unlike the other elemental breathing forms such as water, flame, stone and wind; all of which has attacks that cover large areas, is unfocused, and can be enhanced or hampered by emotion and logic; thunder focuses on only one area, and its presence is transient. When seeing a flame, or a wave of water, they exist for several seconds, maybe even forever. With thunder, you see it once. Blink once and you miss the flash of lightning that illuminates the sky.
Zenitsu’s attacks using thunder is much the same thing. Zenitsu only demonstrates his power when pushed by an enemy, and only when he is in a deep slumber due to the fearsome sight of his foe. Once the threat is gone, so does the elemental power of Zenitsu’s thunder breathing.
The subconscious mind is much the same way as Zenitsu’s thunder breathing: purposeful, directed and oriented to a certain goal. Unlike the conscious mind that is pulled in many directions at once, the subconscious mind is united in purpose. The precise nature of the Thunder Breathing First Form Attack is symbolic of the precise and devastating power of the subconscious mind.
Zenitsu Falling Asleep
The fact that Zenitsu is asleep reinforces the symbolism. Deep sleep accompanied by dreams are the domain of the subconscious. It is when we are asleep that the subconscious is the most active and when the subconscious incorporates conscious experience into the person’s psyche. The fact that Zenitsu is asleep in battle literally represents Zenitsu being under the influence of his subconscious being. Such a state amplifies his power.
Zenitsu usually falls asleep in the middle of battle when he reaches his threshold of stress, anxiety and fear. This is when his conscious mind is overridden by his subconscious mind. Have you ever felt such intense fear, that you can’t think straight anymore, and you fall back on your pure innate instinct to survive? It could be argued that that is literally what happens when Zenitsu falls asleep.
The subconscious is far more powerful than the conscious. All actions are dominated by the subconscious. Many have even said that 5% of our actions are determined by our conscious thoughts, while 95% of our actions are determined by the nature of our subconscious. Zenitsu is an analogy of the power of the subconscious in that he is far more powerful when he acts using his subconscious instincts.
Many times our conscious minds are inactive and idle, but our subconscious is in perpetual motion. It is driven by energy supplied from the brain, and the messages the subconscious receives from the external world is transmitted through the mind via electrical impulses. Thus it is fitting that Zenitsu’s breathing form be thunder, the more elemental and pure form of electricity, much like the electrical power generated by subconscious processes. It is also fitting that Zenitsu moves faster while asleep, which reflects the way the subconscious operates while we are asleep. While asleep, the subconscious works faster to restructure our minds for us to fulfill our purpose.
How Can We Take Advantage of the Power of The Subconscious Mind?
Many people, like Zenitsu and the other warriors within the Demon Slayer Corps, are always looking to make themselves better, as they always should, day in and day out. However, whenever one tries to develop themselves, they always focus on the things that don’t give them the biggest return on investment. Most of these things pertains to the actions of a fully conscious being and mind.
First understand: any kind of journey to improve and better oneself always begins in the mind. One must use and train their minds to give themselves the impetus to change for the better and to maintain their momentum and power on their journey to their best selves.
So what does this have to do with our subconscious? Well, our actions our influenced by our thoughts, and our thoughts are influenced by our character and identities. Our identities are formed by how our mind operates, and the most powerful psychological force that is contained within our minds is the subconscious.
So to make any change and improvement to ourselves permanent, we can’t just attack the problem at hand with brute force with conscious effort. Yes, that is needed, but for long-lasting change, we must use our greatest source of power: our subconscious mind.
When changing ourselves for the better, we much literally change who we are. In other words, we must change our identities. We change our identities by making small actions that reinforce the identity we want to create in ourselves. The idea is that such small changes are so small that it barely registers on the conscious level, and what happens if small actions bypass conscious thought? It goes right into our subconscious!
Our subconscious then takes these small actions, processes them, and over time turns them into habits. Such habits then tells the subconscious mind that your person has adopted a new identity. Your subconscious mind then works to solidify your new identity so you can manifest it fully within the world. From this point, you do not need to exert conscious effort to demonstrate your new identity; you already are your new identity. The habits become second nature, and when acting out the little actions that created the new identity, the conscious is idle, the subconscious takes over, and you execute the action without really thinking.
For example, if we want to become better empaths, we could use the technique of mirroring when in conversation. Such an act might seem highly involving of the conscious mind at first, but over time, it becomes a habit, and the conscious mind stops operating to perform the action. The body continues executing this new skill so many times, and your identity as an empath is reinforced so much, that eventually such minor changes solidifies over time within your subconscious. Over time, you eventually become what you set out to be from the beginning: an empath.
So that is what we must do: bypass our conscious mind and insert our ideas into our subconscious. In order to get the best results, in order to produce the most change, we must reprogram our subconscious.
So what are some tactics we can use to influence and reprogram our subconscious? Some tactics include visualizations, journaling and reading certain kinds of books. We can even reprogram our subconscious by changing our external environment. We can reorganize our external environment by reorganizing our bedroom to match the new identity we want to take on, and choosing friends that live by the ideas you want to implant into your subconscious.
Like Zenitsu; cowardly, petty, beta male Zenitsu; we can become even stronger version of ourselves by turning on our subconscious and letting it take the wheel, again much like Zenitsu; powerful, determined, alpha male Zenitsu. By changing the messages our subconscious receives, we can change ourselves to be better than we are. Much like when Zenitsu falls into a deep slumber in the midst of battle, then unsheathes his sword in the flash of roaring, controlled power through his Thunder Breathing, we too can unleash the power of the subconscious mind. We should learn what Zenitsu Agatsumi has embodied and symbolized, in a flash of thunder: how powerful the subconscious mind is.
