Case study, Bleach: tools vs transformation

[branchandroot]

There's a theory I've had for a while and been collecting examples of: that, in anime and manga that feature both possibilities, power externalized as a tool is generally beneficial, or at least controllable, while power internalized as a transformation will generally get out of hand. Bleach has been my flagship example for a long time now.

I'm waiting to see whether the latest turn will bear out or run against this theory.


We start with the shinigami and the hollows, who bear out the theory very well. Shinigami externalize their power into swords while hollows transform to embody their power. The contrast only became more pointed when we met characters who approached the meeting point of the two. The visored gain the faces of monsters when they release their power while the espada gain the form of humans only until they release their power. Power, Bleach tells us, is two-edged and must be handled with care lest it run away with you.

This being the case, I was, let us say, unsurprised that Aizen has become steadily less human in appearance. He's taking the wrong path, symbolically significant six wings notwithstanding, and it's going to get out of his control; this is already written out for all to see in his body, and we've seen it follow along narratively in his increasing loss of emotional control.

Ichigo is the one I still wonder about. He has already taken a jog down the out-of-control path and nearly killed one of his own companions just to emphasize the fact for us. Now, however, we have something that looks a bit different. He has, apparently, accepted Zangetsu, the personification of his power, into himself completely, and the result is a transformation. This transformation, however, is human, and even having, as he says, become his own attack, he still manifests a sword.

Tool or transformation?

The whole question may be complicated by the approach of apotheosis, which has after all been the trajectory of the story nearly from the start. After humans, asura (shinigami), and hungry ghosts (hollows), with animals implicit and Hell shown at least once, of course we need devas to round the tally out. Will that mean some form of fusion, of internalization of power, that somehow remains under control? Ichigo's current form, and Aizen's response, seem to suggest it. But the very limitation of this to Our Hero (hail the King? or will it be more complicated than that?) really just sustains the theory for general use.


Which means that, even as Naruto and KHR devolve into the uninteresting and the forced, I have at least one series I'm hanging on, week by week.

Comments

[fulselden]

Oh, man. Someone else who's still reading Bleach! (Also, hi! new body here!)

And thank you for this post, as it gives me some new and interesting things to think about wrt Bleach, which I've been reading on and off with decreasing levels of investment and increasing levels of horrified fascination (how long can a fight scene go on for?! how many times can a female character get sidelined?!?!) for, well, years.

I have a lot of residual fondness for it nonetheless, as it was I think the first manga I ever read - or at least the first crazily-addictive-shonen-manga (I think the actual first might have been Blade of the Immortal, which is obviously an entirely different kettle of fish). And I still remember being blown away by my first exposure to both typical manga visuals (establishing shots of the sky! and telephone poles!), and what I now realise are hilariously archetypal shonen tropes (Ichigo is getting a new power! omg!). Good times.

So I'm interested that Bleach is still holding your attention while Naruto etc have fallen by the wayside - I gave up on Naruto even before the timeskip (for some reason its treatment of female charcters irked me even more than KT's) and the only other shonen I'm still sorta following is Kekkaishi, which gets flagged in my head under 'children's serial that I like and can respect' rather than, as with Bleach, 'baffling and bizarrely compelling cultural artefact'.

And, well, I agree with everything you say here - I too have been wondering what Aizen's final form would be like for a while (at the moment, a crazy moth-seraph! who knew!). And I appreciate the way the power-as-transformation theme runs right through from the insta-costume Ichigo gets as a Shinigami - perhaps the lines have never been as tightly drawn as all that. I suspect though that Ichigo's willingness to [MORE SPOILERS] sacrifice his power will insulate him from any long-term ill effects, and I'm sure that, as you say, ascension of a sort is in the offing. The power that interests me, though, is Orihime's. I guess she's going to get to destroy the mystical ball-bearing at some point, but I hope she's allowed to do something else along the way.

Anyway. As you can probably tell, I have been nursing a need to vent about Bleach. So thanks for the opportunity!

[silv_magiccraft]

I have to say that I do not put nearly as much thought into reading Bleach as you do, but upon reading this a lot is making sense. Now I'm suspecting that there may be more depth to Bleach than I expected. It is something to think about, and something to watch for. You've made me more interested in Bleach again!

-Silv

[7veils]

You've certainly thought about it more than me. The only reason I'm reading Bleach is because they've finally gotten on with it. It being the business of The Confrontation between Ichigo and Aizen, with the assumption that we're going to learn more about why they are having this battle royal to begin with. I'm more than irritated with the fight-after-fight-after-fight plot structure. Now it's simply a matter of having invested so much time reading so many chapters, it's pointless to drop it without finding out the whole reason behind this endless Groundhog Day.

Sure, once in awhile, I think "Oh, nice!" — (although maybe Gin is just playing possum again) — but mostly, I just want to find out what this is all about.

[kaigou]

power externalized as a tool is generally beneficial, or at least controllable, while power internalized as a transformation will generally get out of hand

My first reaction: humans use tools, thus the tool-using is in line with "as we expect from/of a human", while the transformation-internalization of power is not as innate to being human... therefore, the uncontrollable aspect comes from blurring the lines of "what is human" or even blurring the lines of whether one can still call oneself "human".

Hrm, Naruto would continue this line, seeing how the average ninja has a variety of powerful tools but I can't recall any instance of a fighter being overcome. The various... uhm, whatever that ridiculously long Japanese word is that means "body with tailed animal spirit trapped inside"... have either been shown to easily succumb to the internal-power or to have gone through a major struggle/training to keep that from happening. Sasuke would be the crossover in this, I'd say, in that his external (family) tool/power is strong but it's never shown consuming him, while the internalized possession-like power (via the cursed seal) does appear to consume him, and distort him, if in slower or subtler ways than Naruto's flashy possession. I guess that would make Sasuke the... and the word went right out of my head. The version in a clinical trial that everything else gets measured against, for comparison. UGH. It's still too early for my brain.

For that matter, D.Gray-man is otherwise a ridiculously overwrought and needlessly complicated storyline but it does cleave very closely to your premise -- including stating explicitly that excorcists whose power is weapons/equipment-based are distanced or limited as to how much power they can draw, due to the distance between equipment and user (not merging, that is). At the same time, internalized power (err, the manga has a word for it, something like bio-based or, uh, man, I should just go back to bed and RESET or something) is outlined as being significantly more powerful but also of vastly greater danger to the exorcist, draining the user's life-force, literally taking years off the person's life. And, in some cases, even consuming the user, or developing in dangerous, unstable, and unpredictable ways.

(It occurs to me that another quiet but important trope in japanese entertainment is the notion of certain acts or ways taking "years off your life" -- the phrase is known in the West, but I don't know if we're looking at it in the same way. In western stories I can think of, it's usually expressed as wearing down the person's stamina or endurance in some way, such that the person's life ends because they're worn out. In Japanese stories, the person seems to recover quite easily, and the "years off the life" translates into literal reduction of years -- a mindset, I guess, that requires one assume every life has a preset number of years. The contrast of "years" = "amount of energy" in the West, versus "years" = "literal total number fated" in the East.)

[wombat1138]

power externalized as a tool is generally beneficial, or at least controllable, while power internalized as a transformation will generally get out of hand.

I know not of Bleach (nor Naruto/KHR), but would you fit Sailor Moon and other "magical girl" henshin series into this model, or do the gender issues make a difference?

[madame_parker]

I love Bleach meta, it reminds me that it's not a too bad series in terms of themes and characters. But that still doesn't stop me from fuming all over KT about the way he has gone out of his way to weaken every single female character in the cast.

[cothurnus]

I do think that TK wanted, and, indeed, still wants, in Bleach, to examine many of the themes which you here bring up, but I feel that maybe he lost sight if his own symbolism? Or that he wanted to write something nuanced, but didn't have the space to develop those nuances as fully as he wanted.

For example, there is a theme of Ichigo's possibly losing himself in his search for power, exemplified perfectly in his fight with Ulquiorra, as you say. But the implications of this are not revisited, or haven't been as far I've read. Then, the fact that he takes on the power of Zangetsu in himself, but loses all his powers in so doing, again links to this theme, but I don't think that the implications were fully explored.

However, I will agree with you, flawed as Bleach may be, at least it's not uninteresting.