Bleach: Main

Welcome to my pages on Bleach. In these pages, you will find lots of analysis, linguistic shots in the dark, and

Huge Spoilers Everywhere.

Okay. Now that we have that out of the way.

Total Goner

I love Bleach passionately. I love the tightness of Kubo's storytelling, and the subtle details that give his world such depth.

I especially love The Twist.

The Twist is Kubo's classic move, where he gets you reading along, building ideas up about who the characters are and how they relate to each other, and suddenly you find out something that takes your built-up view and twists it around. It makes you stop and think and feel around to get your bearings again.

My very favorite Twist is embodied in Ichimaru.

You see, by the time we got to the bad guy revelations, I thought I'd gotten the hang of Kubo's storytelling. As soon as Aizen showed up dead, I figured he was probably a villain. After all, he'd been nice in an ambiguous way and was now dead so no one could suspect him. I wasn't sure, but then, with Kubo, you're never sure.

Ichimaru, though, I thought must be a not-villain. After all, he acted so evil all the time! It was too obvious; Kubo's trademark seemed to be misdirection and reversals. I wasn't expecting Ichimaru to be the trickster with a heart of gold, because that was also too obvious. But I though, surely, he might be a spy on the bad guys or some such, and be acting so cruel and cheerfully rousing such suspicion against himself for some deep, complex reason. Because that's how Kubo's story worked, right?

Well... yes and no.

Revelations are revealed, and we come to find out that Ichimaru is exactly what he has seemed. Out of all the misdirection and hidden motives, Ichimaru is the one who has been totally honest and straightforward. We were encouraged to expect misdirection, and then given a villain, of all things, who is entirely direct. And yet... his perfect directness served Aizen as a bit of massive misdirection.

I loved it.

This is what started me really looking for the subtleties: the fine shadings of word choice (Terminology); the terribly balanced tension of paired symbols and triangulated relationships (Geometry); the wide ranging sources of cosmology and design that are worked into something new, rather than merely borrowed and plugged in (Soul Society and Hueca Mundo); the marvelously complex characters (Character Tidbits and Rukia).

Here they are; browse; enjoy. Or, alternatively, flee now.

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Links

The Soul Society comm has news, speculation, translations and analysis. Its sister communities cover fanwork and quick Bleach facts, too.

Wikipedia's set of Bleach pages are thriving, and a good place to fact-check and look for kanji.

Of the general information and forum sites, Bleach Portal, Bleach Society, Bleach Exile and Bleach 7 are much of a muchness. One or another will have basic info covered and all are fairly reliable. Bleach Portal, in particular, features Dosetsu's Zanpaku-tou guide.

The wonderful Elyciel has done nice manga summaries of issues 97 on.

A detailed information site, Nocturnal Alley, is under construction; some content appears already in the forums.

Bleach: Geometry

Kubo is very given to matching up his symbolism in twos and his people in threes. Sometimes, of course, the symbols get triangulated and the people get paired, but in general he seems to favor the other way around.

Symbols

Swords. Byakuya and Rukia have remarkably similar images associated with their swords; both hold the swords point down for one release or another, and both swords are white at some point. Byakuya's is shown as a white blade in it's final form, in 164. Rukia's, of course, is named First White Snow (or Sleeve of White Snow, depending on the translation you favor; I follow ocean's translation), and characterized by being totally white. This underlines the similarities in attitude that the two have, such as reserve and arrogance--the starkness of white--and helps emphasize the bond between them that even the characters don't always acknowledge.

Rukia and Ichigo are opposing images in this. The comments of others, on first seeing their swords released, note the color. "A black/white zanpaku-tou..." Since the zanpaku-tou are expressions of spiritual force, given shape by the developing spirit of the shinigami, this says some interesting things about kinship and complementarity. So, too, Byakuya and Ichigo are established as "White Pride" and "Black Passion", as the title of 165 puts it. They balance and oppose.

Back to similarities, we can observe that, in the first chapter, the pattern on the guard of Rukia's sword is clearly shown. After she has transferred her spiritual force to Ichigo, the sword he uses has exactly the same shape and guard-pattern, though in a much larger size. This suggests that, as Renji and Byakuya note later, Ichigo has provided only the raw force; Rukia provided the shape. We might say that, during the first arc, Ichigo was fighting with Rukia's spirit. Only after Byakuya cuts free her spiritual power from Ichigo does Ichigo have a chance to develop his own zanpaku-tou.

Masks. The Visored and the Arrancar are mirror images, as their names reflect. The Visored start as shinigami and gain a Hollow-ness, and the mask of a Hollow; note that "visor" is another word for something that covers the face. The Arrancar start as Hollows and gain shinigami powers, losing their masks; "arrancar" is a Spanish verb meaning to rip away or uproot. (More about the connection and difference between Hollows and shinigami on Hueca Mundo.)

Uniforms. This one forms something of a continuum. At one end are the shinigami uniforms, gi and hakama, black with white underthings. At the other end are the Arrancar uniforms, hakama and some variation on a tight-fitting coat, white with black linings. In the middle of the range, making the connection between them especially clear, is Ichigo, whose uniform during bankai is tailored like an Arrancar's but colored like a shinigami's, and, just to add to the complications, tattered like Zangetsu's coat. Note that Aizen, when we first see him among his Arrancar, wears the tailored white coat over a shinigami uniform; he has not merged the possibilities the way Ichigo does, but rather added one to the other.

Hunger. In 62, Ginta tells Ichigo that for a soul to feel hunger means that it's on the edge of becoming a Hollow. According to Rangiku's memory of when she met Gin, for a soul to feel hunger is a sign of spiritual power and the potential to become shinigami. Kubo gives us quite a few clues to lead us toward the idea that Hollows and shinigami are connected, or converging on a common center.

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People

The complexity of relationships in this story is wonderful. I particularly like it that, rather than having romance out of balance with everything else, either hugely over-weighted or else brushed off with a token gesture, it is woven in with all the other strong emotional bonds.

Rukia-Ichigo-Orihime. Ichigo has equally intense relationships with both Rukia and Orihime; they are not, however, equivalents or rivals or anything cliche like that. This evolves quite reasonably from their characters. Orihime is deeply determined and courageous, but she is also, as Ishida has cause to note during the Rescue arc, not a fighter per se. It carries over, emotionally, in that she does not force confrontations. Rukia, on the other hand, would never dream of letting Ichigo have his space when there's a chance she might talk/pound some sense into him. Orihime is the healer; Rukia is the wake-up call. They both motivate him, but in very different ways; and, as Rangiku points out in 201, Ichigo needs both their ways to stay on an even keel. And, while Ichigo has a fixation on rescuing both of them, Rukia's need for and acceptance of that is a limited-time thing, intense but pointed, much the way that being able to protect her life pulled Ichigo once and for all past his helplessness in face of his mother's death. Orihime accepts that protectiveness of her as an ongoing thing, a reflection of her protectiveness of him.

Ichigo-Rukia-Renji. In a reflection of the set above, Rukia has equally intense relationships with Ichigo and Renji. At first glance, again, she seems to relate to both very similarly--with lots of yelling and name-calling and pummeling. Again, however, what they are to her differs according to character and circumstance. Just as she is Ichigo's lifeline and moral compass, he is hers, the one who shoves back her apathy and sets an example. Renji, ironically for such a tough-talker, is her emotional comfort. The division of forces between them is telling; Ichigo is the one who stops the moment of her execution, but Renji is the one who carries her away.

I would say, in fact, that these two triangles form a reflecting pair. Both Orihime and Renji offer continuous support, though both of them are somewhat hampered by their respective traditional roles (Japanese school-girl and vice-captain). Ichigo and Rukia both offer each other sharp, singular moments of support. Looking for words that condense the flavor of the difference, I would say that the first is emotional support and comfort, while the second is spiritual support and comfort.

Byakuya-Hisana-Rukia. This one is just fascinating, and seems to revolve around sameness and absence. Hisana, of course, is physically absent, first from Rukia's life and then from Byakuya's. This points up the amount of time Byakuya has spent emotionally absent from Rukia's life, in parallel opposition to the way her emotional presence in his life is a pointed reminder of Hisana's absence. The stabbing point of that reminder, of course, is the strong resemblance between the sisters. And that resemblance may call to mind the similarities between Byakuya and Rukia; they share the graveness of their manners (except when Rukia is dealing with Renji or Ichigo), a tendency to keep things from their important people and try to take everything on their own shoulders, and even a style of fighting.

Ichigo-Ishida. Kubo seemed to take some amusement in paralleling these two, when we first meet Ishida, even giving them the same words with which to fend off social contact, as Orihime notices. ("It's no big deal" 35.13) Mizuro also notes the similarity of their general social grumpiness. This despite their stylistic contrast, of hot versus cold tempers. They both have the one-on-one ideal of fighting, certainly, as we see when they meet up for the second time, during the Hollow infestation. Their adherence to a personal reason for fighting (not out of duty or for an old grudge) also parallels. They each provide a mirror and critique of the other's way of dealing with life, power and trouble.

Hitsugaya takes part in two different triangles of the same shape. Hitsugaya-Hinamori-Aizen is one, and Hitsugaya-Rangiku-Ichimaru is another. In both cases, the woman has to choose between her captain and a childhood friend. In both cases, the woman turns away from her childhood friend and toward her captain. In the first case, Hitsugaya is the one Hinamori turns away from; in the second, he is the one Rangiku turns toward. In one instance, the captain is Good and in the other he is Bad, yet the pattern stays the same; and in the Bad case, Hitsugaya (Good captain) is the alternative, just to make it more pointed. That Kubo went to the trouble of setting these triangles up so precisely highlights that the loyalty owed to duty, rather than the loyalty owed to friends, forms the backbone of how shinigami act. Which, of course, is one reason Ichigo is such a startling and chaotic-seeming intrusion into their world.

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In Between

Brothers. Orihime and her brother, and Rukia and Byakuya make a pair, the first paving the narrative way for the second. In both cases the brother expresses an intention to kill his sister, and in both cases Ichigo is especially incensed and insists that big brothers exist to protect their younger siblings. Orihime and her brother form a short, high-contrast view. Having become Hollowed, he expresses the worst sort of possessiveness toward Orihime, wanting her to either live for him or at lest die for him. Given her sympathy, he winds up "dying" for her, in the end. This sets us up with the clue that un-brotherly behavior may, in fact, rise out of love and be twisted by miscommunication. Byakuya and Rukia, in a more complex register, are certainly textbook examples of miscommunication.

Rukia and Ichigo--Rain. These two ping-pong back and forth, calling to mind for each other past episodes of their lives, reliving those episodes, and eventually changing them. Ichigo's fight with the Grand Fisher, who killed his mother, recalls for Rukia Kaien's fight with the Hollow that killed his wife. In both cases she is asked not to interfere. In Kaien's case this results in his death; Ichigo, however, survives, offering her some redemption from the past iteration.

Byakuya and Renji's arrival to take Rukia into custody, and Ichigo's attempt to stop them, recalls for him the incident in which his mother was killed. Again, he thinks, he tries to save someone only to wind up being the one saved at the cost of someone important to him (57). The unchanging repetition drives him to make a far more extended effort to save Rukia, and, when it finally succeeds, he thinks that, because of Rukia, the rain has stopped. Given how consistently the painful-past scenes, and their reiterations, are marked by rain, and what Zangetsu tells us about rain marking sadness in Ichigo's inner world, the end of the rain serves as a fairly dramatic sign that Ichigo's painful past has been rewritten and redeemed, as Rukia's was.

Rukia and Ishida--Family. Rukia and Ishida share a rather painful relationship with their families. Both Rukia's brother and Ishida's father deny them the opportunity to advance in an attempt to protect them from the dangers that power and responsibility would bring. Neither Rukia (134) nor Ishida (124) understand at the time what motivates their guardians to denigrate their ability. Both of them wish to be acknowledged by their families. Since Kubo seems to pair or repeat things he particularly wants us to notice, I suspect this pattern of the powerful stifling those close to them in an effort to protect them will be one that Ichigo has to deal with in some form as he gains in power.

Bleach: Tidbits

A few character tidbits that didn't quite fit in anywhere else.

Yamamoto

The vol 15 omake chapter tells us that the Shinou Academy was founded 2000 years ago, and the Captain-General tells us that he was the one who founded it. Since humans have been around far longer than two millennia, and the division of plus and minus spirits seems to be a basic function, I suspect that shinigami have been around for far longer, too. Their level of organization may well be increasing over time, however, and perhaps their social stratification as well. There are a few things that hint at a far more savage past than the Academy's exams and Divisions' military bureaucracy--the possibility of becoming captain by defeating the current captain with the Division witnessing, for instance, or what Yumichika says about the old way of executing criminals by dropping them into a pit with a Hollow (87.5).

Contrary to such tooth-and-claw traditions, the Academy both shelters its students and inculcates a very institutional respect for the authority of the hierarchy. This shape of organization tells us that Yamamoto is deeply invested in order. This may help explain why he's so unwilling to countenance the independent judgment Ukitake and Kyouraku show in saving Rukia against the apparent will of the Forty-six.

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Byakuya

He seems to have a real temper on him, but looks like it takes a lot to bring it out. The very first time we meet him, when he and Renji come after Rukia, he's calm enough, speaks fairly kindly to his brash and careless vice-captain, and even lets Rukia convince him not to finish off Ichigo. Once Rukia is condemned, the stress seems to bring out a real edge, though. He picks a fight with Zaraki, for crying out loud, without batting an eyelash. When Renji goes, without orders, to fight Ichigo and loses, he declares Renji worthless and orders him to be tossed in a cell without treatment. And then says that Renji should be demoted, too. His judgment that, since Renji chose to fight alone, he had a duty to win is considerably harsher than the attitude his actions in the human world displayed--after all, he basically saved Renji's bacon when Renji pushed Ichigo into going ape for the first time and was unprepared for the consequences. On the other hand, after the crisis is over he barely grouses at all about Ichigo bursting into his hospital room like a brass band and calling him by his given name.

Interestingly enough, while Byakuya is undeniably an unspeakable snob, martial ability seems to earn his respect as well as noble blood... if not quite as much as noble blood. In 117, during the fight on the tower bridge, he starts by holding Ichigo in utter contempt, angered to the point of actually growling by Ichigo's temerity in fighting him. He tells Ukitake that Ichigo is a worthless nobody compared to Ganju. As Ichigo demonstrates his increased ability, though, Byakuya seems to calm down and address him more reasonably. Their duel on Soukyouko's mount follows a similar pattern. Ichigo's claim to have reached bankai infuriates Byakuya to the snapping point, but once Ichigo has demonstrated his bankai Byakuya focuses down again and addresses him by his full name. As opposed to various uncomplimentary epithets. Byakuya is quite well-spoken to opponents whose strength he respects, both with Renji and with Ichigo.

Bleach: Rukia

Which doesn't actually deserve the name, as it's more a matter of two factions snipping at each other. But they snip very loudly.

The Positions

The Rukia-is-a-wimp faction has always taken her first entrance and prompt defeat, without even releasing her shikai, as evidence for her lack of strength. Supporting details include the fact that she did not win a seat when she entered the Thirteenth, and the fact that she was in the human world on Hollow patrol in the first place, that being a moderately menial assignment. Another item often pointed to is her performance, or lack thereof, when Kaien is taken over by a Hollow. This faction speculated that Rukia did not have even a shikai, and might not know the name of her zanpaku-tou.

The Rukia-kicks-ass faction has always held that Rukia is quite powerful, and simply hasn't had a chance (narratively speaking) to show it. Evidence for this includes her spending the first arc in a gigai that drained her energy, and most of the Rescue arc in a tower of stone that did the same. In addition, this faction points to Renji's flashback to their childhood, and the fact that Rukia produces larger power-balls than he, who becomes a vice-captain, does. Also to the fact that Rukia's guard is patterned, when we first see it, which indicates she has gotten beyond asauchi.

The argument was finally resolved by authorial revelations in 201-2, where we find that Rukia does have a shikai, and one powerful enough to defeat a low-ranked Arrancar, and that she has the ability to gain a seat but that Byakuya arranged with her captain that she not be promoted so that she would not receive the high risk assignments that come with a seat.

This did not, however, stop the arguments.

And there are, indeed, a number of plot points that may seem odd, in light of Rukia's power. The Rukia-is-a-wimp faction has, therefore, continued to feel that their arguments were correct, and hold that Kubo changed his mind mid-stream.

I find this a doubtful conclusion, given the care and deliberation with which Kubo seems to write Bleach. He introduces characters and plot elements volumes and volumes in advance of when we find out the significance of those things. The story is very tight, and his characters do not make pointless reverses. (Though his visual designs do hiccup every now and then.) Therefore, I shall give Kubo the benefit of the doubt and see whether the odd points can be reconciled.

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Defeated by zako

We are introduced to Rukia when she comes tracking a Hollow that has come after Ichigo and, to a lesser extent, his sisters. If she is powerful, why is she wounded without even releasing her zanpaku-tou? This apparent contradiction has led some to suggest that Rukia only gained shikai after the end of the Rescue arc. I do not, however, think we need to reach that far for an explanation, which the presence of a patterned guard on her sword contradicts in any case.

Her reason for not releasing her sword is speculative, since no character ever addresses it. But the fact that she is powerful might explain it. A strong shinigami could expect to defeat a minor Hollow without needing shikai.

In fact, her assumption of her own strength is an undercurrent in the whole fight, along with her shock at Ichigo's unheard-of spiritual power. She pays far more attention to him than to the Hollow. Even as she cuts the Hollow's arm to make it let Yuzu go, her eyes are on Ichigo. She actually turns her back on the Hollow while talking to Ichigo about how the Hollow's real target is him, and this gives it the chance to swat her across the street. She says herself that she was careless to do so, which suggests that she does know better but didn't think it necessary to attend more closely to this minor opponent.

Then, of course, Ichigo tells the Hollow to fight him one on one. It does so. Rukia throws herself in front of him and into the Hollow's jaws, at the last breath, to prevent them closing on Ichigo.

She was injured because she was careless and perhaps arrogant, yet still unwilling to let Ichigo be killed by his own pig-headedness. This fits with her character, as we first meet her, which is indeed arrogantly self-assured but also deeply dedicated to her duty. Which is, as she points out to Ichigo, to give her life to save endangered spirits, if that's what it takes. (Of course, Ichigo immediately takes issue and insists that such sacrifice is not duty but something more personal. More about the way they counter-balance each other, ethically, on Geometry.)

In fact, the scenes in which Rukia defeats Deiroi suggest to me that, far from forgetting this initial sad loss, Kubo is making a theme of it. We know that Arrancar are, in general, very powerful, yet Deiroi loses to Rukia's shikai--very much the way Rukia lost to a minor Hollow in that very first fight. As in that fight, Deiroi has his sword out but does not use it quickly enough to make any difference, quite probably for the same reasons of arrogant overconfidence. As Illforte says, upon Deiroi's defeat, Deiroi rested too heavily on the assumption of his own power. And, like Rukia, he pays the price for that.

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Brotherly love

Next, if Rukia knows that her brother arranged for her not to be promoted in order to protect her, what is that flashback scene in 134 about, when she comes home from first reporting in and he asks whether she's seated? She seems very upset to admit that she's not, that her ability was not sufficient to be seated immediately.

This is a classic Kubo scene, and one of the things that most convinces me that Kubo has been writing with a powerful Rukia in mind all along.

This scene both makes sense and gains great poignance if we assume that Byakuya did not tell Rukia at once what he had arranged. Thus, his inquiry as to whether she is seated becomes a question of whether Ukitake has held her back as Byakuya wishes--of whether Byakuya has succeeded in protecting her. His relief that he has, combined with his characteristic reserve, could explain why he seems to take no notice of Rukia's shame at not advancing. Given the extent of his reserve, however, I am inclined to think that he noticed but was still unwilling to explain the details of his rather unorthodox arrangement, and perhaps unwilling to risk her arguing against the arrangement with him or with her captain.

Rukia, not being aware of his arrangements at the time, of course, feels that she has failed the standards of the noble house that took her in. The tension of emotions and silence between them is heartbreaking. Byakuya's unspoken protectiveness and his unwillingness to reveal himself to Rukia pulls against Rukia's desire to make him proud and to gain his acknowledgement. The connection she wishes for is actually already present, Kubo informs us when he reveals Byakuya's arrangements; but Rukia can't see it and Byakuya can't admit it. Indeed, given that it's Rukia's mod-soul standin who tells Ichigo of the arrangement, it's possible that Rukia still doesn't know.

Classic Kubo; a beautiful example of The Twist. Note, too, that it parallels Ishida's father's attempt to keep him from becoming a Quincy very precisely. In neither case was the protectee aware of the protector's motivation.

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Anime divergence

It is also, perhaps, worth noting that the anime diverges from the manga on this point. The anime episode based on the vol. 15 omake, in particular, explicitly shows Renji demonstrating greater strength and testing into a more advanced class than Rukia, at the academy. The manga shows Rukia in the same class... but late to her first day. That sets the pattern for the plot-point made in that manga chapter: that Renji forms bonds with some of his classmates, particularly Kira and Hinamori, while Rukia does not. The scene in which Renji gloats over going on field-work focuses narrative attention, not on he and Rukia being in separate classes, which does not appear to be the case, but on Rukia being alone while Renji is in company. The animators chose to refocus this section and suggest that Rukia had difficulty with the scholastic, as well as social, aspect of the Academy.

Ironically, one of the moments cited by the Rukia-kicks-ass faction is also anime-only. This is the scene during Renji's flashback when he and Rukia start to develop their spiritual power and she is shown producing a larger ball of power than he does. In the manga there is no indication given, during 98, of their relative strength--only the information that Rukia had it, where only Renji had in their child-family group, previous to Rukia joining them.

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Strength

A word about strength, in general.

A lot of people on both sides of this debate, and, indeed, in the fandom as a whole, seem to be trying to define strength as if it were some kind of mathematical formula. Arrancar equal or exceed captains, therefore Arrancar + less than captain = defeated shinigami. Higher seated officers can handle Huge Hollows, therefore less than Huge Hollow + defeated shinigami = less than seated officer.

The problem is that Bleach doesn't work like that.

Kubo gives us plenty of general rules so that we can get a picture of how all the parties stand in relation to each other; but he also takes a good deal of trouble to present us with a lot of examples that are not reducible to such straight math. Kaien was a vice-captain. Yet the Hollow that defeated him was not an Arrancar, nor a Menos, nor even a Huge Hollow. Why? Because the Hollow got the drop on him with an unexpected one-shot that, apparently, Aizen had designed into it.

Victory and defeat do not depend on how many spells the combatants can perform, or on who has shikai or bankai. Bleach is not dealing with some kind of sporting competition, with rules and weight classes and handicaps. It deals with a lot of dirty, scrambling fights in which victory and defeat hinge, not only on strength, but on determination and emotional balance and pure luck, too.

And this is why I can't help feeling that the readers calling foul and plot-hole over Rukia's fight with Deiroi haven't been paying a lot of attention to the story Kubo has been telling all this time.

Bleach: Soul Society

One of the primary sources Kubo drew upon when describing the various worlds in his world, and Soul Society in particular, seems to be Samsara--the six Lower Realms of Buddhist cosmology.

Flow of Souls

We're told in 46, and by Rukia who is one of the more (relatively) reliable narrators, that the human world and Soul Society have a flow of souls moving between them, and that it goes in both directions. It's an evenly balanced cycle, that being the point of the lecture--when the Quincys destroyed Hollow-ed souls, rather than cleansing them and sending them on, that attrition unbalanced the exchange.

One thing I took from this was that very few Hollows escape shinigami attentions for good. Rather Hollow-dom and the Hollow World seem to form a sort of annex or waiting room, off the path from the human world to Soul Society. Souls constantly enter as new Hollows and leave as killed/cleansed Hollows, and while there is this permanent eddy in the flow of souls the net effect is null. Hollow-ed souls take a detour, but most of them get there eventually.

I also wondered about Hell, though. We see that sufficiently sullied and/or unrepentant souls do not enter the flow between the human world and Soul Society, but rather get Door 3. Whether this is temporary or permanent is not clear. Since this whole migration-and-rebirth thing has a very Buddhist flavor, I'm guessing it's temporary. So that makes another eddy or annex, from which souls will eventually enter circulation again.

So what we have is not two worlds, as Rukia's metaphors imply, but four, between which souls migrate.

Assuming all this, it is possible to map the Bleach worlds very, very loosely onto the six realms, or conditions of being, of Samsara as follows: hell=hell, animals presumably=animals, humans=humans, shinigami=asuras, hollows=hungry ghosts.

Asuras being particularly identified with fighting, they make a reasonable parallel to the shinigami. Hungry ghosts being characterized by neverending hunger that cannot be fed or filled, they correspond pretty well to the Hollows. This, of course, begs the question of where the devas, the sixth world's occupants, are, but I think that may be what Aizen is looking to become. (note on Samsara and denizens)

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Living in Soul Society

Some things seem very straightforward. Souls appear in Soul Society with the same age and appearance they had at death, and proceed to age from there. This made me immediately wonder why Soul Society is not chock full of doddering oldsters, since that should be the majority, though perhaps not by much. In fact, the truly old seem very rare, in what we are shown. Going back to the Buddhist flavor, one thought that occurs to me is that, in the Bleach universe, souls that are killed early need to finish out their time, somehow--need to live a whole life in order to get whatever opportunities for enlightenment are to be had and burn off all of their karma. Rukongai, then, could be yet another eddy or annex, the home of "interrupted" souls; thus souls that have lived their full lives in the human world and died would not come there; instead, perhaps they are immediately reborn. When a Rukongai soul dies or is killed, perhaps it is reborn into the human world. Or as a Hollow. Or even as a member of the Court of Pure Souls. All depending on circumstances.

That gets us to the whole idea of being born in Soul Society. If shinigami more or less equal asuras, it makes some sense that souls are born/reborn among them--the Court of Pure Souls functions in some ways as a separate world from Rukongai; it's even got gate guards associated with the four holy beasts that keep it separate from Rukongai. We are told that shinigami and noble houses live there. Perhaps what makes the noble houses noble is precisely that their children are born into the Court of Pure Souls, and live out lives in the service of that world.

This is not, of course, a perfect parallel. Shinigami do also come from Rukongai; the 'worlds' are not completely separate and can be bridged without dying in Rukongai and being reborn. That fluidity is actually characteristic of Bleach in general. It is equally obvious that it's possible to bridge the human world and Soul Society without death and rebirth, witness both Ichigo and his father. The Hollow-Shinigami connection, that they are two sides of one coin, also seems pretty separate from this sometime parallel, and both the Visored and the Arrancar merge Hueca Mundo and Soul Society in their very persons. Ichigo, being still alive, adds the human world to that merge. None of this has any particular parallel in Buddhism.

This is entirely in line with Kubo's subtlety and sense of complexity; he didn't just map characters onto a pre-existing cosmology, he borrowed some shapes from Buddhist cosmology and worked them into something new.

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Structurally speaking

Speaking of complexity and fluidity.

This is, to date, pure speculation, but I think that, based on the rarity of shinigami with the strength to become Captains in the Thirteen, specialization among the Divisions is not rigid. I suspect that the tone of a given Division follows the Captain, by and large, rather than specific Divisions having permanent specialties.

The Eleventh, in particular, seems to be defined by a shared philosophy first, combat-heavy assignments being a secondary effect. As Yumichika tells Hisagi, everyone in the Eleventh shares Zaraki's attitude that, since everyone dies sooner or later, the important thing is to fight well until then (147). This is partially natural selection, and partially people getting pointed at the appropriate captain, by my guess.

This is somewhat complicated by the example of Kurotschi, who seems to have inherited both the Research Institute and the Division that had been built up around the last Institute head, Urahara, who was also a Captain. There is no evidence that the Institute is particularly associated with the Twelfth, or any other, Division, but a captain who is also the Institute head probably makes for a certain amount of related assignments. The same may or may not be true of the Second, under Soi Fong.

The rarity of truly powerful shinigami may also explain why there are two Captains wearing multiple hats.

The one Division that seems more likely to have a set specialty is the Fourth, since their headquarters are set up to serve as a hospital.

If specialization by Division or philosophical stamp by the captain are circumstantial developments, if, that is, there is no one answer to this, that would be very like Kubo. Much the way that some shinigami from Rukongai take their sector name as their surname (Hitsugaya, Zaraki, Kusajishi) while others choose by some other criteria (Hinamori, Abarai). It all depends.

Bleach: Hueca Mundo

The Hollow world's names, and some aspects of the Hollows' appearance, clearly derive from Hispanic languages and traditions. Terminology covers most of the linguistic issues, but it is worth noting here that the speech of the higher Hollows is peppered with words in Spanish. Basura: trash. Suerte: luck. One of the earliest observed attacks was named as Sero, that is, cero, zero.

Why Hispanic sources?

Given the facility with which Kubo uses Spanish I'm guessing he's personally familiar, perhaps with Mexico specifically. If that is the case, then the idea of hungry ghosts may well have immediately suggested El Dia de los Muertos to him.

The Hollows' masks, in particular, bear an extremely strong resemblance to calacas, the skull masks worn by dancers and placed on family altars during El Dia de los Muertos. (source, source) (Thanks go to Andrew JP for pointing this out.)

Thing is... El Dia de los Muertos welcomes back ancestors, and feeds them. It celebrates the dead and offers them the pleasures of the living. There's a certain resonance with the whole idea of spirits that linger for their families' sakes becoming Hollows, as per the arc with Orihime's brother. But it crosses up strangely with the hollowness of the Hollows. They're a much better match with the hungry ghosts of Buddhism than with the (generally happy) dead of this festival.

To be sure, hungry ghosts in general do seem to be a two-edged concept, sometimes only desiring due and proper sustenance from their families, and sometimes malicious/greedy/insatiable. And, of course, Kubo never seems to take content too directly from his sources, so the merging of the Asian-style ghosts with the Mexican-style ones is very consistent with his writing style as a whole.

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Evolution

Hollows themselves progress along somewhat the same path as a shinigami's zanpaku-tou--reasonable enough if the shape of "shinigami powers" is the sword as we see when Ichigo finds his own during his re-making down in Urahara's pit. They start small, increase in size as they increase in strength (rather like shikai and bankai), and finally compress in size as they gain sufficient control to command all that power with precision (much they way Isshin points out captain's can compress the size of their swords).

What Rukia explains in 28 is the axis along which Hollows move. A soul becomes a Hollow, she says, when it loses its heart and becomes reduced only to instincts--hence the skull-like mask that protects those raw instincts. Based on how Orihime's brother behaves as a Hollow we can read heart as conscience, altruism. These are, indeed, things that would mitigate instinct. Clearly, though, the Hollows who are able to dispense with their masks have not regained their hearts; they still have the holes that make that much clear. What they gain, that can protect or direct their instincts, may be mind, instead--power and mind. Hitsugaya's description of the three grades of very powerful Hollows make it clear that the lowest level, the Menos Grande, has very little intellect. This makes a certain amount of sense, for a merged entity; the mind of something created by lots of beings mushed together might be a bit soupy. The higher the level, though, the greater the intellect. And the smaller the size. So power plus intellect seems to suffice to guard the instincts.

The fact that Grimmjow was able to remove the Grand Fisher's mask, in 25, suggests that power is a manipulable thing, and that it is possible for Arrancar to skip other Hollows past stages of development. This runs nicely parallel to the way Rukia transferred power to Ichigo and "skipped" him up to shinigami.

Given the way Arrancar are referred to as gaining "shinigami powers" we might consider the hallmark of shinigami to be the ability to command and manipulate their spiritual force, not as a gross physical transformation, the way Hollows do, but as an art and weapon external to them. Conversely, what the Visored seem to gain is the strength of raw desires, though still mediated by the heart; certainly what Ichigo shows in 55, when he first fights Renji, is a wild, almost hysterical, release of emotional control very much like his Hollow self, when that aspect develops--and this after his spiritual strength has been opened by what Ishida calls "resonance" with the power of a Menos. I find it significant that the sketch at the end of that chapter is of a faucet, the metaphor used for Ichigo's power, with the knob broken off.

Wildness, as Ichigo's Hollow-self demonstrates, and control, as Zangetsu says in 63, seem to be the sides of the coin that define Hollows' power and shinigamis' power. From two different directions, the Visored and Arrancar arrive at a balance of self-control and uninhibited action.

I also find it significant that the nature of a shinigami's power (the zanpaku-tou) is cooperative. As Zangetsu teaches Ichigo, the first step is to acknowledge the sword's identity, its separate existence, by learning/asking its name. The next step is to trust it, as Ichigo understands while fighting Zaraki, to offer the shinigami's power to the sword and accept the sword's strength and support. The last step, according to the training Ichigo receives to reach bankai, is the other way around; to convince the sword to give it's full strength to the bearer. Since Ichigo is challenged to find the bit of his own soul that corresponds to Zangetsu, the part that is his strength, I suspect that the shinigami also needs to find the heart of the shinigami's own power. I infer, by the way this ramps up the power of the zanpaku-tou, that the point of that last step is to make the full abilities of the bearer available to both halves of the partnership.

How this partnership is reflected or altered among the Arrancar has yet to be seen; I'm very curious to find out how it will show up. Given the basically selfish nature of Hollows, I suspect the reflection will be very skewed indeed.

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Sado connection?

The only character who is not a Hollow who has an explicit connection to Mexico is Sado, whose grandfather is Mestizo, and who was raised for a time in Mexico. And I'm a bit twitchy about that coin of his (identifiably a Mexican coin, with Mexico's arms on it), wondering whether it will become anything other than a symbol-of-grandpa.

8/08: Indeed, I was correct. Sado's arrancar opponent, Gantenbainne Mosqueda, provokes an epiphany and makes the connection explicit for us. Following up on earlier hints, this fight confirms that Sado's powers are like the Hollows', rather than Shinigami or Quincy's (ch 260-1).

Bleach: Terminology

Two things help delineate what group characters belong to: habitual clothing and language. This is where I talk about language. The source for this page is quality time with my collection of searchable dictionaries.

Soul Society

The terminology for this world is drawn from Japanese with a sprinkling of English.

Chuuouyonjurokushitsu. Chuuou: central. Yonjuroku: forty-six. Shitsu: room.

The interesting part, here, is that this shitsu does commonly means room. But in all cases where it forms a word relating to rulers, it seems to refer equally to place and people. Kyuushitsu, for example: palace/imperial family. While the most reasonable translation is probably "chamber of the central forty-six", this elision of place with people makes me think it could also be given as "the central forty-six rulers".

Goteijuusantai. Go: guard. Tei: court. Juusan: thirteen. Tai: company.

The simplest part, here is the tai, which indicates a company or group in a military or paramilitary context. This go is used to write guard in the compounds for bodyguard, personal guard or military escort, while this tei is used to write court in both the political and judicial sense, which lends an interesting edge to the captains' insistence that they are bound to carry out the rulings of the Forty-six. It suggests that they are, as a military body, the personal guards of these rulers (who, recall, include judges) and their decisions.

The ranks within the Thirteen all revolve around the root Taichou, or company leader. Sou-Taichou, adds the sou that means "general". This is general as in general assembly or surgeon general--not the military rank General, but the general that indicates "overall". (Not that the two aren't connected in English, but two different characters are used for those two meanings in Japanese.) Fuku-Taichou, of course, uses the fuku that means assistant, sub-, or vice-, giving us Vice-captain.

Kidoushuu. Ki: demon. Dou: Way or art. Shuu: masses or great number.

Two things, here. First, this ki, appearing alone, seems to be pretty universally read as evil spirit or hungry spirit, or, in the case of Buddhism, suffering spirit. Which tends to imply that this is spirit-that-messed-up or spirit-that-is-angry. (And also offers a linguistic clue about the connection between Hollows and shinigami.) But in all the kanji that designate a kind of soul--heavenly soul, earthly soul, spirit of the tree--it's also this ki that is used to make the compound. So I'm a little inclined to read kidou, here, as "arts of the violent spirit". Or even simply "soul arts", which has a nice resonance with the world-name Soul Society, given how dedicated to violence and fighting all the shinigami seem to be.

Second, this shuu has its own interesting connotation. It is used to indicate an organized group that is not military. An organization of the masses, the common people. A particularly famous example is the Oniwabanshuu. Hence my own translation of Kidoushuu as Soul Arts Group, which is the closest I can come in English to the connotation of shuu.

Onmitsukidou. Onmitsu: spy (also secrecy or privacy). Kidou: maneuver.

Kidou, here, has both the connotation of mobility and of a police group, words describing police being where these two characters seem to appear most often. I would actually translate this one as Those Who Move Secretly, but that is rather unwieldy in English. Covert Ops is not an unreasonable compromise translation.

The title of the Onmitsukidou commander, Gundanchou or Corps Commander, definitely adds to the idea of this body as a military one.

For individual shinigami names, see Chirachira's Name List, where they have already been well glossed.

English, in some ways, forms the bridge between Soul Society and Hueca Mundo. Both use it sometimes. To start with, "Soul Society" itself is in English. The same is true of a handful of terms such as "plus" for spirits that are not troubled or held back in the human world.

English as primary identifier may wind up going to the "Visored", the shinigami-hollow hybrids that started out as shinigami. Their type-name is clearly English. But the Visored, thus far, have names in Japanese, as do the shinigami, making a clear connection between their beginning and their current status. So we'll have to see.

The English word "Hollow", of course, defines the spirits that have become hungry ghosts. Once into the world and ranks of the Hollows themselves, however, the language changes over to Spanish.

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Hueca Mundo

The world-name itself is "empty/hollow world", in Spanish. And while the names of the minor Hollows are often in English, the names of the higher types are generally not.

Menos Grande. Menos: minus. Grande: big.

Rukia explains this type to us, when we first encounter it, as a Hollow that has formed by absorbing a great number of smaller Hollows and merging them into a single being. The menos, in this case, forms a clear parallel and opposite to the "plus" spirits.

Hitsugaya tells us that, within the ranks of Aizen's forces, there are three types.

Guerrean. The spanish guerrar, to fight, seems most likely. The third-person plural conjugation, guerrean, would be pronounced very much as girian when transliterated to Japanese. "They fight" seems like a very accurate name for the beings Hitsugaya tells us are more or less Aizen's cannon-foder.

Ajuukasu. This one has me stumped as to derivation.

Vasutoroode. This is the category that Aizen's strong Arrancar that are not Espada seem to constitute. The first half may well be Vasto: vast. Rodar, to roll, spin, or fall suggests itself for the second half; the first person preterite is rode. This could, tweaked a bit, give us something like The Great Fallen, and the "fall" in this case has a strong connotation of tumbling or out of control. This would fit the raw-instinct aspect of all Hollows well.

The term Arrancar seems to refer to any Hollow that has removed its mask, which, according to Hitsugaya's explanation in 197, creates the possibility of gaining shinigami powers but does not, in and of itself, produce those powers.

Arrancar. Arrancar: to rip away or uproot (also to start up or make go faster).

Given that the Arrancar remove part or all of the masks Hollows produce, in contrast to the Visored who gain masks, the "rip away" definition seems primary. However, given that the Arrancar are powered-up Hollows, the "go faster" definition may well also apply.

In much the same way that high-power Hollow attacks and whatnot are given in Spanish, the 'titles' which the highest Arrancar hold are given using Spanish ordinal numbers: Primero--first, Segundo--second, Tercero--third, Cuarto--fourth and so on. Generally speaking, ordinals are not used in Spanish after "tenth". From here on the regular forms of the numbers in question might well be used and still understood in the ordinal sense. Either or both of the following appear. Once--eleven (undecimo--eleventh), Doce--twelve (duodecimo--twelfth), Trece--thirteen (decimotecero--thirteenth), and so on up to Veinte--twenty (vigesimo--twentieth).

Individual names are interesting in that they both appear to derive mostly from Hispanic language sources and to have their spelling altered. This strikes me as very KT. He doesn't just take things wholesale and paste them into his story. He tweaks them. He messes with them.

Ulquiorra. This is likely based on Urquiola, the name of an oil tanker that had a major spill and explosion off the coast of Spain in 1976. (Credit for this find goes to Himawari1.) This fits nicely with his introduction, which can only be called catastrophic, and the black tear track like marks down his face. The elision of 'l' and 'r', in Japanese, makes the pronunciation of either version identical... in Japanese.

Llamii (Yamii). This one depends on the pronunciation of 'll', in Spanish, as 'y' is pronounced in English. I suspect the name is based on llamee, the imperative form of the verb llamear--to flame or blaze--which fits well with the aggressive and explosive personality of this character. Also with his generally orange coloring and flame-like eyebrows. The change from a long 'e' to a long 'i' is, again, a minor one. And, interestingly, one that would seem like the natural pronunciation of 'ee' to an English speaker.

Grimmjow. This seems to be a switch back to English. The name is suitable enough to a character whose sole remaining mask-part is the jaw.

Deiroi. Potential root could be derruir, to destroy. Derrui, preterite: I destroyed. Precise but iffy grammar, Italian: dei--of the, roi--roer, to gnaw or corrode, first person present.

Idolado/Adorado. If this is derived from Spanish, the kana for "e" at the start indicates either an "a" or an "i. So it could be idolo, idol, and -ado, which can indicate "shaped like" or "the office of". Something like "idol-esque". Or it might be derived from the verb adorar, to adore or worship; adorado, adored. Either of these would fit nicely with both the arrogance of the Arrancar and the high respect all the Arrancar seem to give Aizen, who says his goal is the throne of heaven.

Illforte/Il Forte. This one appears to be Italian. There are two possibilities. Ill: negative, un-. Forte: strong, heavy, hot, vigorous. Given the mannerisms of the character, I suspect that some reasonable translations might be languid or refined. Or Il: the. Which would, quite the opposite, mean The Strong One. Since this is Kubo, I suspect the opposing meanings are quite intentional.

Shaw Long . As ocean suggested, it looks like Xiao Long is the source for this one. The most likely meaning, in that case, is "little dragon". Incidentally, this is a name likely to be widely recognized from The Condor Heros, a popular Chinese martial-arts drama.

Nakiimu. I'm a bit doubtful on this one, but it could be from the Portuguese naquim. It's a transliteration of Nanking, and appears to designate a drawing style, too, in reference to China.