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When Renji said he didn't want to get in the way, I've always interpreted it that he was referring to not get in the way of Rukia being adopted, this is, that was the best for her and he wasn't going to stop her despite his feelings for her and even the feelings he thought that Rukia had for him. Basically he decided for both of them. Those words appear just after Renji is aware that Rukia is very disappointed with his decision when she removes his hand, but he is trying to convince himself that this is the best for Rukia, and he is not going to interfere even though it hurts her too, so he kept telling himself to stay out of her way during those moments, to stop himself from doing what he really wanted, to tell her to reject the adoption offer, to tell her to stay with him:

I think Renji did want to keep at least a friendship with her, he had given up his feelings for her but I don't think he had given up his friendship with her.

But, until now I thought they had kept separated since the same moment of the adoption because of Rukia herself, because she felt very hurt by Renji's attitude during their separation and because he decided for both of them, and because to interact with him with restrictions was painful to her. But now, I find it an interesting option they kept some sort of relationship, and then something happened. Even reading again chapter 144 flashbacks, it looks like someone more or less forbade them to keep their relationship because it was going to a dangerous route (romantic love), could it be Byakuya? It's true they might have been aware of this too since the first moment Rukia was adopted, but I think important nobles can still have some sort of relationship with common people

When I talk about the period of Renji and Rukia's separation I usually say "almost 50 years" or "more than 40 years" of separation. Because there are 2 chapters where are said those 2 different statements:

-In chapter 179, Byakuya tells Rukia about her sister Hisana, and he says she died 50 years ago, and then 1 year after this he found Rukia and immediately adopted her:

-Then, in chapter 00-sideB, Ikkaku mentions that Renji's will has been strong for 40 years but that it's about time that they (Renji and Rukia) have the relationship that they used to have:

To make both stataments coincide I always think that Ikkaku's was just an estimate, and he knew they were some years more, he just rounded it (although that rounding it should have been 50 instead of 40). I think Byakuya is more reliable than Ikkaku in this case, because Byakuya must perfectly remind the exact date of his wife's death.

But, thinking about this matter, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe they are referring to different things. Byakuya is indeed saying the period of time since Rukia was adopted until the moment he tells Rukia about Hisana in chapter 179, and that time is 49 years.

But what Ikkaku is talking about is Renji's will to endure not talking to Rukia. So this would suggest that there was a period of time since Rukia was adopted, so 9 years, where Renji and Rukia still talked to each other, and then something changed/happened and both decided to stop doing it, and even avoided each other.

In the flashbacks of chapter 144 Renji had the intention to approach/talk to Rukia, but Kira warned him about it, so it looks like Renji didn't really have the intention to stay away from her since she the moment she was adopted:

And after this is when Renji tells Ikkaku and Yumichika that he has the goal to surpass Byakuya.

When I read those flashbacks of chapter 144 I thought they would take place little time after Renji graduated from the academy and started his life as a shinigami in a division. But it could be that before these scenes, and during 9 years, this include years of academy of Renji after Rukia was adopted and the first years of Renji as shinigami, Renji and Rukia had some sort of relationship where they sometimes talked to each other and tried to keep a friendship but that finally didn't work because, for example, they wanted more but that couldn't be with their current circumstances. If they interacted during some years after the adoption that would also explain that Byakuya calls Renji "Renji" because Rukia called him like that at that time where she still kept contact with Renji.

Both chapters were published with just a difference of around 6 months, chapter 179 is in volume 21 and chapter 00-side B in volume 23, so I don't think Kubo forgot he had made Byakuya say 49 years since Rukia was adopted. Or perhaps it was a typo and they wrote 40 instead of 49 in the 00-side B chapter, lol. Or Ikkaku only took into account the years that he had known Renji when he arrived at the 11th. I still think that Renji and Rukia stopped talking since Rukia was adopted. But I find interesting it might exist something we didn't know of Renji and Rukia's past during their separation.

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When I talk about the period of Renji and Rukia's separation I usually say "almost 50 years" or "more than 40 years" of separation. Because there are 2 chapters where are said those 2 different statements:

-In chapter 179, Byakuya tells Rukia about her sister Hisana, and he says she died 50 years ago, and then 1 year after this he found Rukia and immediately adopted her:

-Then, in chapter 00-sideB, Ikkaku mentions that Renji's will has been strong for 40 years but that it's about time that they (Renji and Rukia) have the relationship that they used to have:

To make both stataments coincide I always think that Ikkaku's was just an estimate, and he knew they were some years more, he just rounded it (although that rounding it should have been 50 instead of 40). I think Byakuya is more reliable than Ikkaku in this case, because Byakuya must perfectly remind the exact date of his wife's death.

But, thinking about this matter, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe they are referring to different things. Byakuya is indeed saying the period of time since Rukia was adopted until the moment he tells Rukia about Hisana in chapter 179, and that time is 49 years.

But what Ikkaku is talking about is Renji's will to endure not talking to Rukia. So this would suggest that there was a period of time since Rukia was adopted, so 9 years, where Renji and Rukia still talked to each other, and then something changed/happened and both decided to stop doing it, and even avoided each other.

In the flashbacks of chapter 144 Renji had the intention to approach/talk to Rukia, but Kira warned him about it, so it looks like Renji didn't really have the intention to stay away from her since she the moment she was adopted:

And after this is when Renji tells Ikkaku and Yumichika that he has the goal to surpass Byakuya.

When I read those flashbacks of chapter 144 I thought they would take place little time after Renji graduated from the academy and started his life as a shinigami in a division. But it could be that before these scenes, and during 9 years, this include years of academy of Renji after Rukia was adopted and the first years of Renji as shinigami, Renji and Rukia had some sort of relationship where they sometimes talked to each other and tried to keep a friendship but that finally didn't work because, for example, they wanted more but that couldn't be with their current circumstances. If they interacted during some years after the adoption that would also explain that Byakuya calls Renji "Renji" because Rukia called him like that at that time where she still kept contact with Renji.

Both chapters were published with just a difference of around 6 months, chapter 179 is in volume 21 and chapter 00-side B in volume 23, so I don't think Kubo forgot he had made Byakuya say 49 years since Rukia was adopted. Or perhaps it was a typo and they wrote 40 instead of 49 in the 00-side B chapter, lol. Or Ikkaku only took into account the years that he had known Renji when he arrived at the 11th. I still think that Renji and Rukia stopped talking since Rukia was adopted. But I find interesting it might exist something we didn't know of Renji and Rukia's past during their separation.

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Great insight about Rukia's personality. I agree with most of what you said.

But, I still miss something from Rukia's side with respect her relationship with Renji. I don't have any doubt that Rukia has been in love with Renji, at the very least since the academy. I interpreted it like that since their backstory was told in chapter 98, and the following scenes in other chapters only reinforced that view. What I miss is seeing Rukia's inner thoughts, or her expressing them, about Renji. Not really her romantic thoughts about him, but her thoughts about the painful, and long, situation their relationship went through, their long separation. I think that, precisely, the fact that Kubo was conscious that Renji was Rukia's romantic interest, and that she was in love with him, has made that he considered it was better not to touch on Rukia's thoughts about Renji.

Because, when I read the manga, I could see that Renji had been a very important person in Rukia's life. They lived together and survived together, went together to the academy, at some point they only had each other. Obviously they were very very attached to each other. The moment of the separation from Renji seemed even harder for Rukia than for Renji himself, and it wasn't on good terms either. However, we are never shown Rukia's thoughts about her lost relationship with the person who had been so important for her during a lot of time, and that it was also broken in a traumatic way. Rukia has expressed her thoughts about other important relationships and persons in her life, like Kaien, Ichigo and Orihime, even Byakuya, with who she also had a complicated relationship. But nothing about the almost 50 years, not only not talking to, but even purposelly avoiding Renji.

When you know their story, you can only find this strange. It's like the elephant in the room, it's there, it's so obvious, but Kubo doesn't touch on the subject. I know Kubo said he has a motto that it says "if it is hidden, it is the flower". He also said in an interview "it's more important what I don't draw than what I draw", what basically means the same too. This can have been the reason because, in her fight with As Nodt, Kubo omitted Renji in her fears among the persons that appear in her thoughts. It seems clear it was intentional, and the reason has to be to make us think why Renji is not there, when he is one of the most important persons, and at that moment I also think it was her most important relationship too, in her life.

But I think, maybe if Renji and Rukia's relationship wouldn't be a love story, which Kubo doesn't like to show as much as other type of relationships, he had put Renji in that scene, with the flashbacks of Rukia and him that define their relationship, and what Renji is to her. What I think is that maybe that the important moments of Renji that Rukia might have remembered, at least in the manga, because the anime changed it, might have been new ones we haven't seen yet, some of them of explicit romantic nature. After all, there have to be an explanation for something so strange that it looks intentional.

If I have to say what I would like to get the most from a new Bleach manga is more flashbacks of Renji and Rukia. More flashbacks of when they were kids, flasbacks of the academy period, and flashbacks of when they avoided each other. Only a few panels explaining something new of their past would make me happy. I love Bleach flashbacks, of other characters too, they add new pieces to complete the characters' and their relationships puzzles. And the puzzle of Renji and Rukia's relationship is in their past, it's a relationship that it was already written at the start of the manga, it only had to be revealed, and it was doing it by the pieces of their past that Kubo told us from time to time. The truth is I want more pieces.

Sorry if you have been asked this before but I was wondering is there some reason why Kubo never really showed too much regarding Rukia’s feelings towards Renji ? It’s not only her but even Gin & Ichigo with Rangiku & Orihime !! Like he gives enough so people can sense something but he doesn’t give a lot away. Is it about interpretation or he just simply doesn’t want to write romance too deeply ??

Kubo has said quite plainly that he doesn't want to put romance at the forefront. I think he's said this various times in various ways, but here's a pretty definitive quote from an interview he gave at the 2018 San Diego Comicon:

Q: Speaking of Ichigo's relationships with his friends, there seems to be a love triangle between Ichigo, Rukia, and Orihime. Do you delve more into this in later volumes? A. Tite Kubo: (laughs) I get asked about that a lot! I don't want to make Bleach into a love story because there are much more exciting things about their personalities and things that they can do instead of getting into the romance aspect of their relationships.

Kubo's answers are sometimes a little cheeky, but I don't see any reason to read this as anything other than face value. He may have had additional reasons to leave romance out of the story--it's a shounen and he didn't think that stuff would be of interest to the core of his readers, he didn't want to deal with angry ship opinions, etc, etc, but the long and short of it is the guy said "this is not a kissing story" and it's not.

Not to get too nitpicky--this was an interview, there's some degree of translation involved--but I actually find this kind of funny because while I agree that it's not a romance, I would *absolutely* classify Bleach as a love story. Bleach is about 600 love stories. It's about the love between a boy and his precious friends, the love between big brothers and little sisters, about the love between captains and lieutenants, about love that can only be expressed in battle, about love that turns poisonous and corrupts, about love that saves and purifies, about a love for the world you live in and want, with all your heart to make better. And while it's not a romance, I think it is about romantic love as well.

So, even though that's the real reason, I think it is also perfectly in-character for Rukia to act the way she does and I want to yap about it. I can tell right now this is gonna get long, so I am going to put it under a cut.

Just to get it out of the way up-front, I will briefly cover the other characters you mentioned. Both of this could easily merit their own essay, but I want to talk about Rukia, so I'm gonna keep it brief.

My interpretation on Gin and Rangiku is that they were not on romantic terms at any point of the canon timeline. My guess is that when she made it to the Academy and caught up with him again, it very quickly became obvious that he was no longer being genuine with her, and I think she cut him off. He is on a mission for revenge; she doesn't understand why he acts the way he does and distances herself from it. That being said, I (and I think many people?) find their parting scenes to be deeply, tragically romantic. I think this depends on your definition of "romantic." It never would have worked. He ruined it. If he had lived, it would change nothing. But Othello loved Desdemona, too. A story being a tragedy doesn't preclude it being a love story.

Ichigo is a teenage boy with a heart the size of three worlds. I think the amount of emotion he would like to leak out of his body is zero. I think the amount of emotion that does leak out of his body is so high that the signal-to-noise ratio makes it very difficult to determine discern anything meaningful. My reading of Bleach is that he does have special feelings for Orihime and that they are a slightly different flavor than he has for other people, but it's super hard to tell because he makes the same loving puppy eyes at Chad and Uryuu and Renji and Grimmjow. This guy is constantly torn between loving everyone he knows with the luminosity of a small star and trying to act too cool for school. Also, he's very young. He's still figuring this out, too.

Okay! Let's talk about Rukia!!!

The thing about Rukia is that she is really, really uncomfortable expressing affection. In the flashback scenes where she talks about how much she admired Kaien and Miyako, she's shown standing far away and looking at them from a great distance. When Byakuya compliments her bankai, she squeezes her eyes shut and has to look away.

Ukitake comments at how remarkably "open" he finds her to be with Orihime, even though what they are actually doing is training. You want to see a love confession? Here's Rukia's love confession to Orihime from We Do (Knot) Always Love You (Renji is here, too):

Feeling a little shy and fidgety, Rukia hesitated a few times as she replied to Orihime. "Th-that's because, Inoue I consider you……my……b-best girl-friend! So therefore……I thought…I should tell you first……" She spoke as her last few words became a little mumbled. "……your face is redder than the time I asked you to marry me ya know." "Sh-shut up!!"

A thing I really like about this though, is that while it is portrayed as something that sometimes holds Rukia back in her relationship, it's not portrayed as some sort of fatal flaw. She's a private person, and that's ok. This isn't a quality we often get to see female characters have. If this were a romance story, maybe we'd have to see her overcome this, but it's not! It's an action story and Rukia is a cool and stoic character, which is exactly how she wants to be!

I'm always pounding my shoe on the table over this, but I really, genuinely think that a significant chunk of Renji's character/personality design was specifically to be Rukia's love interest, which I think is based as Hell of him. He's good-looking, he's cool, he's devoted to her, he's powerful along the rules of the worldbuilding, but not in a way that overshadows her. And he meets her where she is.

The scene where Renji carries Rukia down the 8,000 flights of Soukyoku Hill stairs is, in my opinion, the most romantic scene in all of literature. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Rukia is so upset about being rescued, she is cannot stand the fact that anyone cares about her, or worse, that they would risk themselves for her. It's so clear that Renji understands this, and in the gentlest possible terms, asks her to accept his (and Ichigo's) help, as if she has any say in it at this point. He doesn't even make eye contact as he very obliquely says Let us care about you.

This causes Rukia, the most repressed woman in the universe, to hunch in on herself so that he can't see her cry and then he tells her to shut up. I am making little graspy hands at my computer as I write this. This is so good. Imagine. Imagine someone understanding you so well that they would spare you from your own emotions in this way. I am going insane.

This is not a Hallmark Christmas movie. This is a love story for those of us who struggle to connect with others.

I want to kind of hop out and say that I think there's a certain kind of person (me), who gets interested in romances almost exclusively from stories that have little-to-no romantic content. This is not an accident. For me, this is how I like it. I want to read about characters who save the world and I want them to be very business-up-front about it. I mean, yeah, I wouldn't mind if they kissed on screen once, but I don't need it. I have an imagination for that. I have fanfiction for that. I literally want them to do it on their own time. You know what's romantic to me? Meaningful looks. Backing each other up. Fighting in synch. Matching outfits. This is romance to me, and I think Rukia might actually agree with me.

This isn't to say that this is all of Rukia and Renji's relationship. I think they have talked about feelings, I think they've probably held hands and kissed or whatever, but where and when and how it happened is their own business. I think Renji probably wouldn't have minded getting on on-panel smooch, but this feels exactly how I think Rukia would want her relationship portrayed: We looked very cool and then, several years later, we were married.

Oh, and they also very much did get the horniest panels in all of Bleach, which, weirdly enough, I think Rukia would also approve of.

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With this last one, they have animated the scene where Rukia lets go of Renji's hand, 3 times. First, in the old anime. Then, in the movie Fade to Black the scene appears again in Renji's memories when he is trying to remember Rukia. And finally, from Rukia's perspective, I like a lot this last one, it's a different angle and the focus on their hands separating is powerful, and the light of that large window in front of Renji adds a special atmosphere.

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So, I was looking for a good quality image of this screenshot of the Bleach anime 20th anniversary video, and I couldn't find any with a clear image. Someone on Twitter posted quality screenshots of the video with Rukia's memories of Ichigo, Kaien and Byakuya, and all of them were good, except this one which still looked blurry. Then I realized that those scenes are supposed to be from Rukia's perspective, and in this scene with Renji the image is blurry because she was crying! Rukia had tears in her eyes and because of that the scene is seen blurry. It's a great and subtle detail. I love it

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Question 606 from Klub Outside is an interesting one, because it can give a glimpse of the years of separation of Rukia and Renji, and of how Rukia dealt with the situation.

Because, Byakuya has called Renji "Renji" since the start of the manga, this is when they arrived at Karakura to capture Rukia. This is before Renji and Rukia's reconciliation, so, why did Byakuya know that Rukia called Renji "Renji"? This implies that Rukia often talked about Renji. It should be often because, that Byakuya decided to call Renji by his first name implies that Byakuya had gotten so used to hearing about him that he already felt Renji as someone familiar, so it was just natural for Byakuya to call him simply "Renji". Or Byakuya saw something else in the way that Rukia talked about Renji. Because Rukia calls Ichigo "Ichigo" too, and Byakuya still calls him by his full name or simply "Kurosaki", even although he has come to appreciate him. So something must have noticed Byakuya that impelled him to call Renji by his first name.

I don't know if Byakuya and Rukia talked much between them about Renji, because they had a distant relationship that it made the communication between them difficult. Maybe Byakuya sometimes asked Rukia some things about her past, and then here she talked about her friends and the person who was with her at the academy. But also, with his indirect methods to worry about Rukia, perhaps Byakuya asked other people that Rukia talked to, maids and servants, or her division members, about what she would tell them. Even maybe Byakuya was sometimes secretly listening to some Rukia's conversations, lol. I've also read some theories that maybe Rukia said Renji's name in her dreams.

Another possibility is that during those years of separation, despite they avoided each other's paths, Renji and Rukia met sometimes when Byakuya was accompanying her, and they acted very awkwardly while Byakuya raised an eyebrow, and then Byakuya would ask Rukia about that guy.

Through all of this it's probable that Byakuya realized of the importance of Renji for Rukia, and I even bet he guessed the type of importance. Because I had always speculated that Byakuya had chosen Renji as his vice-captain because he wanted to know more of him because he knew of Renji and Rukia's past relationship, and this new answer from Kubo almost makes me sure of it. Because I doubt that Byakuya would choose someone like Renji, from the 11th division, not the type of shinigami that he would prefer to have next to him, if not for an ulterior motive.

I'd like some manga panels about this matter.

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People now hopped on this theory that the reason renji wasn't in rukias fears was bc she had absolute confidence in him and his abilities and she had nothing to worry about when it comes to renji as opposed to byakuya, ichigo and orihime. And i wish i could subscribe to this theory as well but i feel like that's not how fear works? And if rukia believes renji is invincible and nothing bad can ever happen to him ever... that's not really a good thing. That's why renji being the "fear you've been trying to avoid" worked so well, but kubo had other ideas i guess. How probable do you think this theory is?

I am always going to look to the manga first for "what Kubo meant", and I think the manga-only scene where Rukia tells Renji to go hide himself between fights is a pretty strong argument that she does not have anything close to "absolute confidence" in him. Further, the strongest evidence that she might have that view is the fact that she tells him he can handle Mask by himself, except that the delivery of that line in the anime came off to me as a lot less "I have full confidence in you, babe" and a lot more "This man is a clown and you can have him."

It feels like the anime is trying to cram as much as they can into a very strict time limit, and they are stripping out what they gotta in order to do that, most of which is character stuff. The way they paced the episode made me feel like you were supposed to be focusing 100% on how spOoOooky As Nodt's fear powers were, and 0% on whatever Rukia was going through internally.

The OG anime did Renji dirty constantly. TYBW has not been nearly so bad, but they are definitely reducing Rukia and Renji's role from that in the manga (and perhaps they are doing that to everyone. I can't speak to that, but R&R are my blorbos, so I can say for sure that they have both lost a lot of scenes and not been prominently featured in trailers despite being longtime primary characters.) Whether or not "something bad happening to Renji" was the reason he wasn't included in Rukia's first fear montage, the fact that they didn't just plop him into it suggests to me that Kubo had a reason, and that it was a strong enough reason that they kept it that way. Personally, I'm just going to keep believing my unhinged secret Renruki content conspiracy theories, and the fact that the anime cut it just supports the idea that there was secret, volatile content that was worth cutting.

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I've seen that this scene, that it has now been adapted by the anime but in a very different way, is being analyzed to prove if Renji is one of the most important persons to Rukia or not.

In the first place, that people have doubts about Renji's importance to Rukia is laughable. Renji and Rukia, who lived together during many years, and part of that time were just the 2 of them, surviving in that poor place, obviously forged a very strong bond. Renji was the most important person to Rukia during years. And later, after a very long and unwanted separation, they regained their previous relationship where they have again the strongest bond. Renji is the person with who Rukia spends her time in the Soul Society when she is not working or is with her family Byakuya, he was and still is her best friend (by the time this scene appeared in the manga).

What I don't undertand is why some people instead of thinking why Renji is not there, reach the conclusion of "Renji is not that important to Rukia", which doesn't make sense. I very much agree with what a Japanese renruki fan said on Twitter: "I don't think you're the right person to read BLEACH if you think that Renji's absence in that scene = poor Renji". kubo drew it like that because it has a meaning.

In fact, the Japanese fans I've seen on Twitter have been trying to interpret that scene to understand why Renji is not there, because the reason is never going to be because he is not really important to Rukia, so those fans try to find the real answer.

I had told my interpretation of those scenes of the manga here:

The truth is I was confused and I'm stil confused about the meaning of which were Rukia's fears in that scene, and why Renji is not there.

And the anime adaptation has made it even more confused, because they have simply copied what happened with Byakuya in his fight, in his case with Rukia's image, and in Rukia's case with Ichigo, Orihime and Byakuya. Why did they change it? No idea, and I'd find strange that it was Kubo's idea because the scenes in the manga have, in my opinion, a much deeper meaning, they were Rukia's meaningful memories of those relationships, and Rukia might feel fear of losing those relationships, not of their deaths, just like she lost her relationship with Renji. But in the anime it looks like Rukia is afraid they die so that would mean they really try to put those persons as the most important or closest to Rukia, which doesn't make sense if Renji is not there.

But with what I don't agree at all it's with the explanation that Rukia is not afraid for Renji because she knows he is very strong now. I doubt that Rukia think Renji is stronger than Byakuya or Ichigo, who went to the Royal Realm too, and, above all, it's just natural to be always afraid for the safety of the loved ones when they are doing something dangerous, like fighting someone very strong, or simply to be afraid to someday lose the loved ones.

I was very interested in how they were going to adapt the scene in the anime, and I didn't like it, it was much better with Rukia's flashbacks of important moments of those relationships. At least they didn't add Renji in the anime scene, what means kubo didn't forgot Renji when he drew that chapter in the manga, and it means that Kubo left Renji out on purpose, for a still unknown reason. I'm happy for that, and, despite I'd someday want to know why, in fact Renji is really being highlighted with respect to Rukia's other relationships precisely by not being in that scene.

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The age of Ichika and Kazui in the new one-shot

I've seen people speculating about their age and I think people think they are older than what they are really. Following the info we know from manga and novel, in the new Bleach one-shot Ichika is probably still 7 years old and Kazui just turned 6. I will explain it.

The fights of the last Bleach arc took place during the month of June. When Ichigo was sent to the human world by Nimaiya, it was exactly June 17th, the anniversary of his mother's death:

And he came back to SS the next day, and from here, 1 or 2 days passed until the battle with Yhwach ended. 

Then, in the last chapter there is a time-skip of 10 years, although it was the Obon festival, so that means it's August:

Renji and Rukia got married 3 years after the last arc, and in the novel it's said it was in December, so this is 3 years and some months. Ichika's birthday is October 28th. So she was born 4 years after the last arc, so she might be 6 years old in the last chapter, but she was actually still 5 (and 9/10 months) because she would turn 6 in October.

In the artbook Jet, Kubo drew an illustration of Kazui and Ichika as teenagers, and he said Kazui was 13 years old here, and Ichika was

around 15, so she is around 2 years older than him. Kazui's birthday is April 29th, so, him and Ichika probably have an age difference of exactly 1 year and a half. So, in the last chapter (August) he was 4 years old (and 3-4 months).

In the new one-shot 2 years have passed since then, but it hasn't still been said what month or Season is. But it seems Ichigo and his friends are wearing short sleeves at Keigo’s ramen shop, and if they are doing a ceremony for Ukitake, who died 12 years ago in June, it's very probable it be June too, or at least Summer. So Ichika would still be 7 years old (she would be 8 in October 28th), and Kazui just turned 6 in April 29th.

I noticed in the one-shot that in some drawings they really represented that age, and other times they looked a little older, but, going by height, Ichika is barely taller than her father's butt, and when she trained with Ikkaku she looked very small too, so it's clear she is still a very little kid (and/or maybe she inherited her mother's height too).

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The new Bleach one-shot was really a very sweet surprise. Although I practically stopped of publishing posts here, I’ve been following all Bleach news and new art that Kubo has been publishing, mainly through Twitter and forums, and I’ve especially been hoping for a new chapter of Bleach, and it finally happened.

 During the previous weeks to its release, I was very anxious about the period where would be placed, and what would treat, would be humorous, serious, the characters looked very different, if Ichika and Kazui appear, what age they will be and I will like their characters,   etc. And I was very happy it took place just 2 years after the last chapter, because then the kids would still be little. I wanted to see more of their characters as little kids because they would be more adorable. And the chapter confirmed they really are. Finally they have a more defined personality and we can feel attached to them because of who they are, and not because they are the children of our favorite characters. Very adorable kids indeed. And the rest of characters have the same personalities we loved. It’s like time hasn’t passed, like if the last bleach chapter was published the last week, the continuity is excellent.

Actually, reading some parts of the chapter, I felt like I was reading my dream fantasy, it exactly appeared what I wanted the most, to see Renji and Ichika interacting as father and daughter, and it was fantastically done by Kubo. The chapter is full of panels I adore, and especially seeing Ichika grabbing his father and taking refuge behind him, and Renji trying to calm and protect her placing his hand on her head, was the mos adorable thing in the world.

Although Renji and Rukia as couple had less focus, I liked very much to see them interecting again, in their house, and they looked very happy and relaxed. And they showed again that intimacy they have, seeing Rukia holding Renji’s hand to talk to the phone, instead of holding it herself, was a great detail.

I would like to see some kiss, but maybe that too much for what kubo want to show.

But, in short, I’m very happy and I can say that I’m almost totally satisfied with what I hoped of new Bleach content, and I almost don’t need anything else. 

Now, I’ve felt the need to express my thoughts, feelings and joy in this site again, so I will write some posts.

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New drawing by Kubo sensei for the COVID-19 quarantine

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Rukia and Renji's childhood friends - Info from BLEACH JET Booklet [Translation]

Here is my translation of Kubo’s character sheet for Renji and Rukia’s childhood friends. I know a lot of people have always wanted to know their names but I think no one had shared this information among the western fanbase yet!

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Once the outcome of the battle between Ichigo and Renji had been determined, chapter 98 is where Renji entrusts Ichigo with the rescue of Rukia. This is the character sheet of the three childhood friends who appeared in Renji’s recollections during that moment. Character names, traits and so on are revealed to the world for the first time!

(From left to right)

藤丸 - Fujimaru

He is the tallest of the group.

Has a strong sense of responsibility and is the witty one.

小三郎 - Kosaburou

Quiet.

He is a hard worker despite his appearance.

マメ次 - Mameji

Is usually the butt of the joke.

Timid but good with numbers.

Translator’s Notes:

I believe Mameji gets his name from the fact that he’s small! ‘Mame’ is often used in Japanese for small things.

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@renjiweek ———— Day 7: AU

I wanted to draw so much more for the renjiweek but couldn’t, but I also always wanted to draw Renji as a taichou and that I could do. 

Rokubantai taichou, Abarai Renji.

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Started watching Bleach with my bf and I instantly fell in love with Renji so I decided to draw him Based it on the image seen at the bottom!

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+add Lunchtime 🍙 框(キョウ)

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Lunch_box Meeting 🍱 Present for Chihaya-san 框(キョウ)

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RenRuki fan art ¯\_(ツ)_/¯