I know Iâve been Bleach sadposting on and off for a while now, but like, Iâm just finishing up my manga reread
and it doesnât seem like anyone is talking about what the Yachiru reveal(s) mean for Kenpachi as a character, which is a shame, because holy fuck, Kenpachi is maybe one of the most tragic characters in the entire manga
as far as most everyone else is concerned, and as far the man himself is concerned, Kenpachi is just an amoral sociopath itching for a battle that can seriously challenge him, but â knowing what we do about his childhood and his backstory â this is already a super shallow interpretation of his character
the guy grew up as a boy in a hobbesian state of nature, where life was nasty, brutish, and short, and where violence would have been not only normalized, but outright required, as a matter of life and death, to survive in the long term; he never had parents, let alone a guardian, so he was never given a name to call his own, and all he could do was raise himself; most of all, having learned no real language other than the language of violence, he was so overwhelmingly powerful and strong that no-one could ever really communicate with him, let alone interact with him.
like, Bleach isnât exactly big on psychological realism, but Kenpachi is fucked up. Kenpachiâs mountains of victims, murderous bloodlust, and lack of respect for human life in general are all unforgivable and inexcusable, but they were inevitable, and they are understandable, because this boy never had a chance. the boy we see in Unohanaâs flashbacks is a profoundly and persistently traumatized feral child.
enter Yachiru Kusajishi.
Yachiru is the one constant in Kenpachiâs life, and she is the only person in the world who actually connects to Kenpachi on his own level; she is the one person who is as fluent in the language of violence as he is and yet is utterly unafraid of him and the violence etched across his life. she is the only person who can teach him how to interact with other people in ways that arenât violence, because she is the only person who will ever interact with him in a way that isnât violent.
itâs easy for me to love Unohana, for so seamlessly being a secret badass â for being perhaps the single strongest woman in the series, in a series that already has enough of a dearth of powerful women
unfortunately, like, Unohana is also a total fucking monster
and I donât just say that because she has a rap sheet.
to Unohana, Kenpachi is nothing more than a subject to groom into her successor, the inheritor to her legacy of violence. if ever she had a responsibility as a human being to meet him as his equal and socialize him, as the only person in all of Soul Society who could, then she betrayed that responsibility utterly.
so instead it falls to Yachiru to treat Kenpachi like a human being, and to teach him how to treat other people like a human being.
and this is poignant enough, knowing who Yachiru really is â knowing that Yachiru is Nozarashi, that Yachiru is Kenpachiâs Zanpakuto spirit, that Yachiru is Kenpachi. for Yachiru to socialize Kenpachi and for Kenpachi to raise Yachiru is for Kenpachi to literally socialize and raise himself. for Kenpachi to name Yachiru is for Kenpachi to name himself.
but itâs legitimately heartbreaking to see the way Kenpachi and Yachiru relate to each other, and to see the person Yachiru is, and to really think about the two of them as one and the same.
Kenpachi comes running to save Yachiru at the drop of a hat, and Kenpachi is always there to protect her, whether she physically needs that protection or not. Yachiru is just as fluent in the language of violence as Kenpachi, and she is just as deadly and violent a character as he is, but she has never been shown to need to fight for her own survival in the way he has, and she has always been⊠emotionally innocent, in a way that he was never allowed to be, because he has taken up so much of that burden for her.
Yachiru is many things, because Kenpachi is many things, but she is, in some very real measure, the child that he never had the chance to be, and she is the inner child that he has sheltered and protected and tended to all his life, without even thinking about it or understanding what he was doing
and in return, Yachiru is his emotional center: she is an unshakeable pillar of care and support and confidence in his life, for all the times in his life when he has been alone, without anyone else to give him anything at all.
