#bleach lore

[fractoluminescence]

When I scrolled by a retweet of another Q&A translation mentioning an underwear question I'll admit this was not what I thought the post it was potentially talking about would be like

[writemessybleach]

I'm asking ChatGPT to explain Bleach lore to me and it's making more sense than watching the show.

[fractoluminescence]

So, I felt like I needed to add this to my reblog in case it didn't fit in the tags (bear with me, this is going to seem off-topic at first, but I'll get there. Also, I wrote this on my phone, so do point out any typos or repetitions, rereading myself is hard like this)

First off, my headcanon is that the places that are the densest in spirit energy in each dimension attract each other. Otherwise using portals to other dimensions could be used as fast travel. Think about it: if Soul Reapers could open Senkaimon to anywhere in the human world, that would be so OP. You could start in Karakura, open a Senkaimon, then open one back and end up in New York.

So my headcanon is that they can't. That they only reason they can just straight up open Senkaimon to Karakura is because it's so close. Like spheres with magnets stuck inside them that rotate so that the magnets are right up against each other.

This makes in-universe sense, too, because:

It's basically said that spirit energy affects other instances of spirit energy, more or less (with the powers of people waking up after hanging out with Ichigo or encountering Hollows)

It would explain why the "Wstern Branch of Soul Society" has little to no Hollows compared to Karakura. You'd think a place with so much magic would have Hollows - but no. Which means it's likely not spiritual energy at all over there. My hypothesis is that Hollows and dragons are mutually exclusive - that they kill each other when in the same area. So Hollows stick to the ones where they have good prey and no dragons, because Soul Reapers kill dragons as they see them as a threat (stated in BTW canon) and just don't want to be bothered with keeping such an ecosystem alive. As a result, people who can deal with Hollows pool where Hollows are, hence they go to Japan

Hence, Soul Reapers only really have to deal with Hollows in the area where the Juureichi is without needing to stray too far - which is convenient, because that's where their Senkaimon tend to lead.

Now. We don't know how big Hueco Mundo is, but the fact that the main cast still managed to reach Las Noches so quickly does indicate it wasn't that far (comparatively to the whole dimension - it was still some ways off of course). Imo, that's because, after Aizen settled there, way more strong Hollows pooled there than there used to be, especially after he made them stronger. So Las Noches was in the process of aligning itself with the other spiritually-dense areas of other dimensions - making it close, but not as close as Seireitei and Karakura were to each other already.

Now, what's the link with languages. The link, imo, is that the only reason the areas of Soul Society and Hueco Mundo that we know speak the same language as the main cast is because they do actually speak Japanese - and they do so because the general areas where their respective Juureichi are have been roughly aligned.

So. For Soul Society, it's simple - second headcanon, when Souls die they go to whatever oart of Soul Society or Hueco Mundo that is "closest" - so if the area with Karakura has had the Human Juureichi within it for a while, and Seireitei has been the Juureichi for Soul Society since its foundation, most of the Souls that arrive around Seireitei are from Japan, and over time that influenced the culture and language and made them line up.

For the Quincy, I think they started in Germany area-wise, but moved to Japan over time because they felt it was their mission to deal with the Hollows there - and since there were dragons in Western Europe, Hollows stopped showing up as much. They brought their language along with them, but it got lost along the generations and eventually only certain Quincy-specific terms remained in German in their vocabulary. And, when naming their techniques and the like, it just made sense to keep using German as a nod to tradition. The war with the Soul Reapers then started because their territories overlapped and because Quincy found a lot more Hollows to kill in Japan than they did back in Europe.

For the Arrancar, their personal powers are in Spanish, so it probably isn't passed down - then again, we don't really know how the names of personal powers get assigned, so. But still, I'd think if you didn't speak any Spanish at all, your powers wouldn't have a name in Spanish, and I doubt Arrancar are trying to give a nod to previous generations like Quincy - they're too individualist and isolated from each other for that.

Imo, what happened with the Hollows is that the Juureichi of Hueco Mundo didn't used to be Las Noches. It became Las Noches because Aizen made it Las Noches by gathering a bunch of strong Arrancar there, but the area where Las Noches was built used to be over Spain. The old Juureichi used to be over Japan, and had Japanese as a first language since the Souls that arrived in the area were Japanese. But most of the strong Hollows and natural Arrancars in Hueco Mundo were spread out so much that that Juureichi wasn't stable. So when Aizen picked Las Noches as his new base (because he wanted to take down the dimension's supposed king and thought it'd be fun to settle where he used to be), which was over Spain but wasn't the Juureichi because it wasn't that big a settlement despite housing a king, and made it into an outright forteress in which he managed to (more or less successfully) bring together very strong Arrancar, including multiple Vasto Lordes that he made even stronger, the Juureichi shifted.

The Hollows in the area, imo, probably originally had dialects similar to Spanish that had been brought in from the Human World - but as Aizen's influence grew, and he imo probably didn't bother making an effort in learning the local languages properly, they were partly forced, partly had to concead to using the language he himself used. It also allowed them to pretend like they weren't from different areas with different dialects, erasing what used to be their own culture in favor of sharing part of the Soul Reaper culture that Aizen had brought in. But he didn't care what their powers meant, because all he cared about was ordering them around, so he let them keep the names of their powers in the languages that sounded like home to them.

Imo, there's no way dimensions have official names, especially not Hueco Mundo. I think that was the local name of Barragan's area, not necessarily what the entire dimension calls it. As for Soul Society, I think that while Seireitei is the place with the most military power, the furthest out you go, the less reason people have to speak Japanese - because they don't care about Seireitei, and because the Souls that arrive there are from other parts of the Living World that aren't Japan.

Hell is a different matter. I do have headcanons for it, but they're not even fanwanking at this point, they're just plain me-making-shit-up. So I'll keep those to myself lol.

Anyway, that's my take. Hopefully this is readable. (Curious at to what @bleachbleachbleach think, in case you don't mind being tagged.)

EDIT: Spain or some Spanish-speaking place, at least. Same for German if there are other Germany-speaking places out there. Sorry about my I-live-in-Western-Europe bias coming through 😬

So, Bleach has an interesting language phenomenon that gets glossed over in favor of moving the plot along (a perfectly reasonable authorial decision), but I think has world building potential:

The Karakura kids and Shinigami all speak Japanese- they have Japanese names (even Chad), and call their Zanpakuto and flashy attacks Japanese names.

The arrancar have a variety of name origins, but all live in Las Noches, and call their special attacks and military rankings Spanish names, so it's reasonable to assume they're all speaking Spanish.

The Quincy again have a variety of names but are VERY German, with German weapons, ranks, techniques etc.

...but everyone can trash talk everyone else without a language barrier. How's that work?

[genericpuff]

if i had a nickel for every time a popular online fandom artist went through a massive career change that permanently changed their art for the worst but they obliviously flaunted it as "style development" i would have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice

[sun-bl3ach3d-fly]

i’m so glad that i live in the same timeline as miss hayden anhedonia

[fractoluminescence]

This is me nitpicking of course but pretty sure one of these is Tousen with his goggles on lol (image to illustrate the ressemblance)

That aside, thank you for all this. I always wanted to do something like this, but probably would've never taken the time to 🥺

well... after a lot of regret and having to resist the urge to course correct and turn this into a whole different project... I've compiled what is more or less all of the clear-ish-ly visible, unnamed background shinigami in Bleach, plus a few weird inbetween types who aren't unnamed and/or aren't "background" characters per say, but appear so infrequently that they might as well be.

I was going to try and track recurring characters but that quickly became untenable...

I was going to group them by similar looks in order to smooth over the ones that I couldn't be sure were recurring or just similar looking, but that was too much trouble...

I was going to separate out the named from the unnamed but got lazy...

I was going to include a bunch of others for technicality's sake but most of them were basically faceless stickmen in the background...

I was also going to include actual characters but then debated with myself over whether or not to include each of their unique outfits as a point of reference, but that's a whole massive thing all by itself --and I considered it because the idea behind this is sort of to be able to get a sense of what an "average" shinigami looks like, as far as face shapes, hair styles, accessories, etc... so to that end more costume details might have been nice

I know I threw the LN characters at the end but the forgot the other old zaraki, I'm probably not gonna bother fixing it

Other than a lot of generic anime shounen spikes and a few pompadours, and some predictably samurai-like topknots/ponytails, there are actually a surprising number of frizzy hair styles? It's hard to tell if some are more like punch perms or afros at times. Also a lot more glasses than I'd have expected?

And although I didn't expect my passing observation to actually hold true, there are in fact no random women in combat specifically throughout the whole manga. There are girls walking around the seireitei and the gotei facilities. There are specifically a few girls seen in groups of 4th division field medics. And there is just one nurse??? unless they've got a Nurse Joy thing happening. And the background girls are almost all black hair, twin tails, or a bun, and blunt bangs --I can't even tell if some of them might even be the same girl showing back up across different scenes, but i have no way of telling....

[akashis-waifu]

This is exactly how I imagine touch-starved antagonists act when they're around that ONE special person

[bansept]

Kubo just shared that Renji can cook, a little, unlike Ichigo who is probably a kitchen hazard.

It's enough to pull me out of my Ichihime slumber

[kawaiipsycho101]

*nervously pokes head out* WOULD…WOULD ANYONE LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT MY BLEACH OCS EVEN THOUGH I’M NOT THAT FAMILIAR WITH THE SERIES?

[getsusun]

So wait, from reading bleach wiki I got that Shinigami Academy was created about two thousand years ago, but it really does not sounds right, because about creation of Gotei 13 itself it is said that it became less barbaric and more structurized only after Big Quincy War. And also I definitely read that Ukitake and Keoraky were first Captains from Shinigami Academy, so I assumed that Shinigami Academy was created after Big Quincy War.

But my main question is not that. Where in this timeline is inventing asauchi? If all shinigami already have zanpakuto, and asauchi is a tool to draw it out/strengthen it, it looks like before asauchi only the strongest shinigami had zanakuto as we see them now - swords with powers. That sounds about right if you look at first Gotei Captains. So had Oetsu invented asauchi BEFORE Gotei 13 was created or after? (The Soul King and Royal Guard definitely existed long before Gorei, so I probably got all wrong). The Seireitei itself existed before Gotei 13? HOW DOES IT WORKS (sorry i just really like when everything is clear and logical and bleach timelines ARE NOT.)

Summing up: 

1) there was Soul Society and Soul King somewhere in his dimension, five great noble clans were doing politics and figthing each other and noble clans

2) then Oetsu invented asauchi and was taken into Royal Guard because of that (cough-cough, human experimentation, cough-cough)

3) May be some Great Noble Clans were giving Oetsu resources to create asauchi for them to make their own strong fighters?

???

n-1) Yamamoto with his terrifying friends defeated Yhwach and created Gotei 13

n) Shinigami academy was created, and the process of turning some souls into asauchi had begun (because now a lot of asauchi were needed),  i.e. Maggot Nest was created (or may be repurposed from usual prison?)

How Zanpakutō Are Made

We have enough pieces of the puzzle to guess how zanpakutō are made and how and why zanpakutō spirits manifest the way they do. I'm going to outline it for you presently.

We're told in chapter 540 that:

Asauchi are created in the same way as White was: many different Shinigami souls are used to create them; both are examples of what I call a "Cyber-Hollow".

With natural Hollow evolution, Hollows will eat other souls (with all of these being "interned" rather than destroyed) and each other until they gain enough "mass" to become a Gillian, all of which look and act totally identical. Asauchi are actually essentially Cyber-Gillians. They too look and act identical, as we're shown in chapter 523:

Ōetsu goes on to call them:

This is akin to how an individual Gillian can become just about anything when it transforms into an Adjuchas, after one soul achieves supremacy over the others. Now there's an interesting point to make here: Ōetsu claims White was made from the souls of many Shinigami, whereas Kaname says in chapter 532 and 533:

Now it could be that this is yet more singular/plural confusion in the translations here, but Kaname seems to be suggesting that White was made from a single Shinigami.

At any rate, White's purpose is confirmed in Kaname's second statement: White was meant to infect Shinigami as it did Masaki. It is, in effect, a Hollow equivalent of a zombie carrier for a zombie virus, a refined "bioweapon" compared to direct infection with the Hollowfication agent as seen in TBTP; Kaname & Co. were basically playing Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil or Weyland-Yutani from Aliens and creating Bio-Organic Weapons for military purposes. The infection vector being through bites is more readily controlled and less dangerous to the operators than the original form of a loose agent. This is again confirmed by chapter 529:

Whatever the truth is with regards to Kaname's construction of White, it's sort of immaterial as Ōetsu tips his hand: his Asauchi are made from many Shinigami souls layered together. Before we go on to the obvious problem of "Where does Ōetsu get the souls from?" we should finish up with the distinction between asauchi and zanpakutō. Our first clue is in chapter 522:

You can visually see the difference between the two entities. Asauchi are "blank", zanpakutō are "actualized" and can seem extremely human. He goes on to openly mock Ichigo and Renji's inability to distinguish them from Shinigami:

We get told in chapter 523 that:

This hints at the full story, as does chapter 529:

Until finally, we're told the truth in chapter 540, right before and after the comments about White:

So we need to take a step back and clarify something here as Ōetsu is being sloppy: Zangetsu is not White, or the remnants of White. White did not "enter" Masaki. Kaname tells us directly that White is a Hollow with "the ability to convert others into Hollows like itself," emphasis mine. White infected Masaki and Masaki began to Hollowfy, a process arrested by Kisuke. So what Ichigo absorbed was not White, but rather... Hollow Masaki.

This, plus her Quincy blood, fused with his Shinigami powers from Isshin. This is "the will and destiny Ichigo inherited." In a very real sense (in the same sense that Ichigo is Masaki and Isshin's flesh and blood) Hollow Masaki is Ichigo's zanpakutō.

Certainly puts the "I will protect" lines during the fight with Ulquiorra in a different light, doesn't it?

It was never about Orihime. It isn't, "I will protect her," in the original Japanese, it was only, "I will protect," and it is Zangetsu speaking about Ichigo. This is confirmed by 1. Zangetsu almost immediately taking several actions that threaten to kill Orihime (and Uryū) and 2. by Tensa Zangetsu later saying during Dangai training that the things Ichigo wants to protect are not what he wants to protect. Orihime almost dies during the fight because Zangetsu doesn't care about her, just like Zangetsu doesn't care about Karakura, as we're told in chapter 429 (admittedly also involving the sentiments of "Zangetsu", that is to say, not-Yhwach, which is also why Yhwach claims to be Ichigo's "father" later on):

In a very real sense, "Full Hollow Ichigo" can be read as Hollowfied Masaki protecting Ichigo yet again. Don't believe it? This parallel from chapter 680 ain't for nothing:

The Quincy power was mingled with the Hollow power because both were Masaki.

In another sense though, Zangetsu is Ichigo, as chapter 221 shows up with Ichigo beginning to dehollowfy Zangetsu into himself:

This presages the final revelation of the reforging of Zangetsu in chapter 542:

Now, we can all readily see that Ichigo's backstory is extremely convoluted compared to every other Shinigami's, but from his example we can generalize the truth of how an asauchi becomes a zanpakutō. It lies within two statements from Ōetsu:

"I used the asauchi just now as a trigger to extract this zanpakutō from within you."

"… And became your zanpakutō."

Again, Ōetsu is being a little sloppy in his terminology here, but we can divine the basic truth: your zanpakutō (essence) is something that's inside you all along. The asauchi is simply a mechanism for drawing it out and materializing it. So if you ever wondered why Tōshirō already has Hyōrinmaru in his soul in chapter -16, that's why:

The essence of a zanpakutō comes from within, not from without. In some sense, Hyōrinmaru is and always was part of Tōshirō. The same is true of every other Shinigami as well. (The correct way to think about Kusaka, if one credits that movie, is therefore that he shared an essence with Tōshirō.) It is the form of it that changes... on exposure to an asauchi.

To recap:

all Shinigami have a zanpakutō essence within them already

an asauchi serves to draw out this zanpakutō essence and fuse with it, creating a zanpakutō sword

this zanpakutō sword can manifest a zanpakutō spirit, its own personification

At this point you should be wondering: why do zanpakutō spirits look so different from their wielders if they are their wielders?

Well that's very simple: they're mixed with the asauchi. Remember: the asauchi is a collection of Shinigami souls (or parts of them, it's not clear). The essence of a zanpakutō is absorbed from the wielding Shinigami, creating a new entity. But that collection of Shinigami souls still has a massive influence on the manifestation of the completed zanpakutō, thus its radically different appearance and personality. These come from some kind of amalgamation of the souls used to create the asauchi.

Ichigo did not have this issue because there "was nobody else" influencing the expression of his zanpakutō (except the shard of Yhwach, which was also dormant until his powers woke up). Zangetsu simulated a normal zanpakutō using Hollow mask matter, but there were no "outside influences" in the form of an asauchi to change his appearance or behavior, hence why he's a mirror of Ichigo. Not so with every other Shinigami.

(This is bolstered by the assertion by Kubo that when someone else comes into possession of a deceased Shinigami's zanpakutō, although it can be completely overwritten, there is sometimes a "mixing" where the current owner's aspects mix with the previous one's.)

In other words, just like an asauchi is a Cyber-Gillian, a zanpakutō is a Cyber-Adjuchas. The wielding Shinigami provides the dominant soul to bring the component souls of the asauchi into order and advance their evolution to the next step. However, whereas natural Hollows become more animalistic as Adjuchas, Cyber-Hollows become more human as Adjuchas. This is why Ichigo and Renji couldn't tell the difference between all of Ōetsu's zanpakutō and Shinigami.

This also strongly suggests that the zanpakutō essence already residing within oneself is also what is unleashed via Hollowfication. It's simply that in Hollowfication, this essence is twisted and corrupted by the loss of heart, whereas in an asauchi-release, it's kept whole and pure. This in turn suggests that the zanpakutō essence is essentially a personification of the individual's will. This will be important momentarily.

So now we know how this process occurs once someone is handed an asauchi. But where do the components for asauchi come from? Well...

As @uraharashouten has recently noted, the Maggot's Nest is a prison exclusively for Shinigami who are believed to potentially be future problems. It's essentially the Shinigami equivalent of a CIA black site used by Minority Report's Pre-Crime Division.

Notice also what Kisuke says here in chapter -106:

The Maggot's Nest is not Kisuke's main responsibility, nor is it where people who have done normal crimes end up. There is an entirely separate facility for those, which is his main duty, and the Maggot's Nest is just a side-gig. That's why it's such a rinky-dinky little jail. We know of exactly one big prison in the Seireitei: the Central Great Underground Prison. That was his actual main job (although that facility is likely under Central 46's direct supervision, not the Onmituskidō/2nd Division). This is why Kisuke's punishment in TBTP was to be depowered—the warden of the CGUP would know too much to be imprisoned within it.

Now, why would you put the pre-crime prisoners in a separate facility from the normal crime prisoners? Because you want to do something else with them, of course.

Haven't you ever thought it was weird the Maggot's Nest looks more like a psych ward?

I'm going to move a little faster now. We get told in Can't Fear Your Own World, volume 3, chapter 21:

Oh-Etsu had initially planned to hold back the thing by turning him into a full Asauchi, but the Soul Reaper was still in the process of doing that research and was not capable of entirely erasing individuality in those days, so the monstrosity ended up becoming a demonic sword with the ability to devour his own wielder’s konpaku.

We're told in Spirits Are Forever With You that it takes much more time for Azashiro to assimilate people than objects, because their reiatsu resists the effects of his Bankai. As is usual, everything in Bleach is a test of will. So, in other words, the Maggot's Nest exists to break down a Shinigami's will:

This way it's much easier to erase their individuality before shredding their souls and forging asauchi out of them. The listless and broken cannot resist.

Which in turn ensures that the soul of the wielder of an asauchi will always be the dominant soul and properly inject their zanpakutō spirit into it. It's like a rigged version of a Gillian where a particular soul will always effortlessly dominate the others, regardless of how strong it is. There is no competition as in wild Hollows. Even the weakest Shinigami can subjugate an asauchi. And when that soul is strong enough...

They will all acknowledge it and submit automatically.

So there you have it: potentially dangerous Shinigami are mentally broken before being turned into asauchi, those asauchi then draw out an inner zanpakutō essence in a Shinigami and actualize it into a weapon, eventually forming its own "person" which is the same-as-but-different-from the wielder. All of the unsightly Hollow aspects of this are conveniently hidden from all parties, and no Shinigami ever suspects that they're using tame Hollows made from their dead comrades.

It's all nice and "clean".

[maangajuice]

🚨Urgent help is needed for my family🚨

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everyone !!! pls!!!!!! repost + donate if you can!!!!!!!

[crow-caller]

Oh yeah new video continues to be held up by copyright, gotta just wait for netflix

Lightlark 3 is on the 12th! How exciting. (You know my vid on the first book is creeping towards 1 million views?‽). I am both excited to see what absolute bullshit happens this time and fearful of the fact the series seems to be doing well. A year turn around for the publishing industry is insane— writing, editing, and publishing a book a year? It's not that surprising considering the end product but I can't believe me Vs lightlark will be a yearly tradition for the foreseeable future. Hell knows how many books she intends.

[miscellaneoussmp]

This makes three (3) ccs who have changed their hair for the qsmp.

[fractoluminescence]

The bird's eye view of Seireitei is just that, while the map is, well, a map. According to Wikipedia, Japanese maps were for a long time drawn with their use in mind rather than accuracy, which included the orientation (a map made to be placed on the ground and viewed from above may hence not be drawn with a single orientation in mind, for instance).

I started looking into this after reading this post because I thought I remembered reading somewhere that East used to often be at the top, but I was unable to confirm that this time around, so. But yeah, apparently maps in Japan often pointed whichever way the user was expected to be turned towards for the journey or the like. Hence, actually very traditional of him for his map to not be at scale and have East at the top.

Rukia is in the WHERE now?

[Bleach 089]

If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that my mental map of the Seireitei is very wrong, and that there is really no helping this at this point. I also realized that when I think about Soul Society, invariably west is always down, east is up, north is left, and south is right--which like, whyyyy would THAT be the way I orient the map?!

Because of Hisagi's dumb bowl drawing in Colorful Bleach, that's why:

[Colorful Bleach]

Naturally, I was curious about the directions Ikkaku offers here! Rukia is where?

"the barracks of the Thirteen Court Guard companies"

My assumption has always been that each division's barracks are separate from one another, and exist within the rest of the division grounds. We all assume this. We know we are correct about this. Though it WOULD be hilarious is this massive tower prison was just like, the barrack penthouse and the entire Gotei lived in one very flammable tenement. Also, the Gotei version of Rear Window would be magnificent. But anyway. I guess I assumed the rest of Rukia's Tower Complex was also prison, or that it was part of some amalgamated center where the Central 46 and stuff was, rather than barrack.

So what is Ikkaku talking about here?

Specifically, he says, 各隊の詰所 (kakutai no tsumesho), which he then abbreviates to 各隊詰所, each division's station/post (same "station" as in Coordinated Relief Station). In the Edo period, a tsumesho was basically a rest stop for visiting government officials, or people who were traveling to shrines and the like--a place to overnight, or nap, or wait. In modern parlance, it's kind of like a hostel. So I don't think he means like, the barracks barracks, the primary sleeping locations barracks.

Gotei WeWork

The Wiki article on tsumesho also notes that tsumesho can refer to like, shared office space for factory guards, or people who are coming and going, which makes the most sense in our application. So rather than 'every barrack for every division' I feel like the intention here is "Rukia is in the tower part of the shared workspace/staging area, Gotei WeWork." It makes sense to have one, particularly if this is where the library and reports archives live!

Also obsessed with the idea that the The Tower is just like, next to some crappy portable with one table, a wastebasket, a copy machine with zero toner, a cabinet with a shitton of paper and brushes and ink so you can handwrite your own copies, and a mysterious stained futon that literally every shinigami in the entire Gotei has napped on at one point or another.

But also, I feel like Ikkaku could have been a little more descriptive. "That can't-miss imperious white tower by the giant butte smack in the middle of town," maybe? But I guess if that's not how they talk about that place in their working day, then it's not how they talk about that place in their working day!

I'll also note that in this view, north is actually at the top of the image, unlike in Hisagi's drawing:

[Bleach e384]

In fairness to Hisagi, his drawing was explaining the POV of Ichigo et al having started in West Rukongai. Because they walked up to the West Gate to try to enter the Seireitei, it makes sense that the vanishing point (that which lies beyond the gate; that is, east) would be at the top of the frame. But I prefer to think of Hisagi as someone who would just draw maps like that, because now he's got me doing it, too.

[tunamayojazz]

voice of the scorned ; sword of thorns

bleach au, zanpakuto inumaki

[sunflowersandcherryblossoms]

Seriously... The Fullbringer Arc Bankai form, Ichigo's newfound, nonchalant, self assurance... The way this was — for me at least — the perfect time for Ichigo to embrace all of his facets and find balance...

... GRABBING A FUCKING CERO WITH HIS HANDS!?

The shihakusho

The Zanpakuto

The new Tensa Zangetsu

The white details

The tattoos/markings on his skin

The overall fierceness in his eyes

It could have ended here.

It should have ended here.

We could have had a flash forward to Ichigo graduating university, with the captains and lieutenants in Gigai attending.

We could have had a close up of Ichigo smiling fondly at them.

We could have had a fade to black scene with whichever voice you'd prefer, (I'd prefer Byakuya for many reasons, not all of them pertaining to shipping.) saying:

"Ready to go home?"

And Ichigo, with a low rumbling chuckle:

"Ready."

The last image is a Senkaimon opening with a bunch of Jigokucho flying out.

End Theme with scenes of everyone, years afterwards.

The former Karakura Team, flourishing, with a World Of The Living squad, that had taken on the mantle and responsibilities Ichigo used to have. Karin is with them, donning a shihakusho herself.

Yuzu, with a doctor's coat lab, opening the door of the Kurosaki clinic.

Isshin going through the Karakura hospital's corridor, a patient chart in his hand, talking with Ryuken.

Keigo, Mizuiro and Tatsuki, walking by the river, looking at photos and laughing. We get a close up of Mizuiro's hand to see one of the tickets Kyoraku gave them.

Finishing with our own peek at the photos they were looking at...

It's images of the Seireitei:

Ichigo with the Academy uniform, smiling widely

Kenpachi moping because he didn't want to take a picture.

Ikkaku, Yumichika and Hisagi waving at the camera.

Hitsugaya, being photographed from above, glaring at the camera.

Matsumoto hugging Hinamori and Nanao tightly. The other woman are wide eyed.

A photo of all of the captains in front of the First Squad's offices

All of the lieutenants having a picnic and cheering with their sake cups.

The first official photo of Ichigo with his new Squad mates (preferably the 11th)

Ichigo sitting on the engawa of the Kuchiki Manor, between Rukia and Byakuya, Renji by Rukia's side. Byakuya is smiling widely.

End credits.