no but for real, ichigo was insane for the whole soul society arc. the man walks into enemy territory barely knowing what awaits him, not caring about who awaits him there because he swore on his soul that he will save rukia no matter what, every time he shows up in front of rukia heâs doing it in the most chivalrous and showy way possible, like landing into a kneeling position??? waiting for the very last moment right before the soukyoku strikes so he could swoop in like a knight in the shining armour?? that bird was supposed to be the real shit and ichigo just turns his back on it and holds it back with one hand like /do you mind????? weâre having a conversation here/. and he was like that not only @ the bird but also @ all these supposedly scary and powerful captains and lieutenants that stood nearby because nah, these old men can wait too, while he is having his ââŠ.. yo :)â moment with rukia. and while weâre on the topic!! no one is buying that nonchalant attitude, he knew exactly how cool he will look saying that. it was INTENTIONAL, he wanted to look cool and strong in front of rukia and others. and thatâs not all, he then spins zangetsu in the most disgustingly mocking fashion and then swings it down like /fuck your sacred sacrifical stand/ while these ppl are just still standing there like you dare?? and ichigo in fact DARES. And thatâs still. not. all. because then, when he fights byakuya, he continues to drop lines like âthe power in my hands was gained for her sakeâ and âiâll make you cry while apologizing to rukiaâ and he tells byakuya to hurry his ass up and pull out his bankai so he can destroy it? the absolute MADMAN. heâs purposely flexing his own bankai and keeps grinning because his confidence and resolve are That Strong. heâs fighting for the right thing, he needs to win, so he will win. like, whew no wonder everyone was a bleach stan back in those days because no one did it like him. soul society arc ichigo was the cockiest lil shit and heâs a king for that, and also he was purposely manifesting that big dick energy so people will think twice next time they try to hurt rukia. every single fight and all the bravado was for her and he was proud of being able to grow stronger for her and thanks to her.
why couldnâtâŠ.. kubo just,,,,,âŠ. draw them SMILINGâŠ.?????? how hard is it to draw a few lines?????? When i first saw this (no knowledge of wdkaly), i honestly thought ichigo was going to a funeral and rukia had an arranged marriage.
Sometimes I still think about how we as a fandom went from âfuck the LAâ to âBEST MOVIE EVERââŠâŠ. God itâs been two years and Iâm still in awe they really Did That!!!!!! Anyway Bleach LA has all the rightsÂ
Do you have a license for all these hot takes? âČ Unleash the other meta conversation. Please give use Ichigo.
Or not, apparently I don't know how to read and missed that you already did one for him. Oh well.
Even though Iâve already given my Hot Take about Ichigo (see here), I figured I can take this chance to write that meta I promised re: ichirukiâs double protag status, the meaning of ichigoâs name, and what it means to be a shounen hero. This will also sort of addresses the debacle a few months ago in regard to the Only well-worded, moderately coherent and somewhat valid IH meta I have read, which is also primarily about the meaning of ichigoâs name and how that ties in with the overall theme of protection throughout the manga. (I think the basis for the IH meta â that Ichigo only ever uses the serious form of the word âto protectâ for ORIHIME as an individual, and that the other times he uses them are for broader swathes of thingsâhas been debunked in the comments, but since I donât speak Japanese I really canât figure out the validity of either side of the argument so Iâll take it as it is. Also, when I say âsomewhat valid metaâ, what I mean is in the context of the narrative I donât think itâs valid at all, but at least there arenât major glaring logical fallacies in the meta itself. The bar is so, so low for IH meta. Iâm not even sure we can call most of theirâŠ. text-vomit⊠meta at all.Â
Anyway. Petty and off-topic.)Â
So, here goes: the meta about ichigoâs name and how it correlates to the theme of protection throughout the manga, what it means to be a shounen hero, and why and how those two things tie in with ichirukiâs double protag status!Â
Ichigoâs name is comprised of two kanji â one obviously the kanji for the number one, the other a kanji that means âto protectâ. We all know this. This leads to Ichigoâs name potentially having two interpretations: âone protectorâ (or as the official eng translation put it, the one who protects), or âto protect one thingâ (the translation used in the scanlatorâs versions + official kr translation). Both would make sense given the context of the entire story, but I tend to think the latter version is slightly more relevant (not necessarily more accurateâ just more relevant), mostly because in chapter 19, straight after hearing the meaning of his name, Ichigo goes on to single out one thing (one person) that he wants to protectâhis mom.Â
(And why does he single out his mom for this honour? Because his mom always protected him. This is relevant a little later.)
He then does go on to say that as his sisters were born and he went to the dojo and got stronger, the list of things he wanted to protect grew, so itâs absolutely valid to read his name as just meaning âprotectorâ. But, despite that, itâs very clear in the text that Ichigo always has one thing (person) that he wants to protect above all no matter what. This is the âoneâ thing that he associates his identity of âprotectorâ to. Initially, itâs his momâbecause when she dies, despite the âgrowing list of people he wants to protectâ still existing, Ichigo loses his sense of identity as âthe protectorâ. Sure, he still protects his sisters, but itâs duty driving himâ he no longer thinks of himself as a protector. How can he, when, in his view, heâs the one who practically killed his mother? His âgrowing list of people to protectâ halts to a stop, and years later, we see him telling Rukia that heâs ânot a good enough guy to stick his neck out for other peopleâ. This is a lie, as we all know, but itâs important that Ichigo is espousing this rhetoric. He has stopped actively wanting to protect.Â
So, despite Ichigo having an innate desire to protect, I would argue itâs conditional â 1) dependent on the one person he wants to protect the most (e.g. his mom, and, as I will argue in a moment, Rukia) being alive and well, because otherwise he just falls into despair and rejects his identity as protector, and 2) initially dependent on the subject of protection being someone close to him. Ichigo, despite having progressed to âI will definitely protect everybodyâ by the tybw arc, did not start thereâit was a progression! He starts off very small and quite selfish â first, the person most important to him, his mom. Then his family. Then his friends. Then friends of friends, then acquaintances, thenâand so on. This is why I said Ichigo is self-centred: everything he does is dependent first and foremost on the things and people that are most important to him. (Which is fine for a normal person! Maybe not so fine as a shounen protagonist, though that part comes later.) Ichigo doesnât start off with some lofty ideal to protect the whole world â compare that to Rukia, who lands in the story and immediately demands him to protect everybody, regardless of distance or convenience. As dux put it in his excellent meta, this is an instinct towards protection versus a philosophy of protection. Ichigo has an instinct to protect, like most people do! But Rukia has a philosophy of protection, which most people canât even begin to fathom or try to emulate. (This will, again, be important for a later point in this post, but for now, back to ichigoâs name.)Â
So basically, we have established so far that: Ichigoâs name means one who protects or protector of one thing. But whichever interpretation we go by, itâs evident in the text that Ichigo has a⊠tether person, of sorts, that he ties the meaning of his name and his identity of âprotectorâ toâa person he wants to protect above all. Initially itâs his mom. But after his mom dies?Â
Itâs Rukia.Â
Itâs blatant. Ichigo being unable to save Rukia in ch56 broken coda is DIRECTLY paralleled with him being unable to save Masaki. At the end of the arc, in having saved Rukia, Ichigo regains his identity as protector finally gets some closure re: the Masaki era of his life: âthe rainâs finally stoppedâ. Itâs very clear that Rukiaâs importance to his identity as protector is equivalent to the importance that Masaki had on it. Rukia has now become his âtetherâ; Rukia is now the person he wants to protect above all; Rukia is the one, who, should he fail to protect her, he would fall into despair and reject his protector identity again. He WAS a little down about being unable to protect Tatsuki, Chad, and Orihime in the HM arc, but it was nothing like the abject despair he experienced at Masakiâs death + Rukia being taken away for execution, and as soon as RUKIA comes back and affirms his identity, despite the fact of his failure still existing, Ichigo perks straight back up. Basically, failures to protect people other than Rukia get Ichigo down, but itâs not enough to keep him down as long as Rukiaâs still standing.Â
Ichigo also consistently goes apeshit over Rukiaâs safety in particular. Heâs not spurred into action re: going to find the Vaizards until Rukia becomes hurt. He thinks of Yammy and Ulquiorra, but his eyes donât glaze over black until he thinks of Grimmjow, who has hurt Rukia. He refuses to split up and Rukia specifically calls him out that itâs out of concern for HER safety. As soon as he feels Rukia being cut down, he immediately throws away the mission to go save her instead. And most importantly â whatâs the main criteria for Ichigo deciding on the one he wants to protect the most? Itâs the person who protects HIM. Rukia is one of the only people in the text who consistently protects Ichigo, physically, mentally, and emotionally. (She is also the only person that the text refers to as having âsavedâ Ichigo. Nobody else gets this distinction.)Â
Alright! So Ichigoâs instinct towards protection has a self-centred bent to it, and the person at the centre of this instinct has gone from being Masaki to Rukia. So what now from here?Â
A little bit of a tangent: when I first read the chapter regarding the meaning of Ichigoâs name, I was a little taken aback, because â what a selfish name for a shounen protag, for someone whoâs supposed to go on to become a hero of the world. Heroes donât get to protect just one thing, they have to protect everybody! How is Ichigo going to be a shounen protag saving the whole world, if heâs only going to protect one thing?Â
To answer this question, we need to have a look at what makes a typical shounen protag. Look at Naruto, whose âninja wayâ has rehabilitated countless people, who eventually became Hokage, so that âhis ninja wayâ officially became adopted as the whole Leaf Villageâs âninja wayâ. Look at Luffy and his crew, whose carefree attitudes and ride-or-die comradeship between their crew members is widely admired and emulated. Look at Fairy Tail, where Natsuâs guild is the ideal for what a guild should be, and many guilds have reformed in their image with their values. What makes a typical shounen protagonist, I would argue, are two main things: an indisputable, unshakeable, almost inhumanly good ideal widely recognized within the canon as the way that things should be, and the faith, power, and drive necessary to rehabilitate people to this ideal and change the world so that it becomes closer to this ideal.Â
Naruto is the ideal of a ninja. Luffy and his crew are the ideal of a pirate crew. Natsuâs Fairy Tail guild is the ideal of a mage guild.Â
Is Ichigo the ideal of what a Shinigami should be?Â
Not initially! Initially, heâs just a prickly little kid with a shitload of trauma and depression to boot! Initially, his instinct to protect has a self-centred bent to it! Initially, heâs not even a Shinigami at all!Â
This is where Rukia comes in. Rukia and her philosophy of protection is the ideal of this series â she is what all Shinigami should be. The text isnât even subtle about thisâRukia canonically has the most beautiful sword (soul) in all of Soul Society. Realistic or not, Rukia is the âabsolute goodâ of this universeâher ideal is, theoretically, the universal ideal.Â
But idealism alone doesnât make Rukia the protagonist-- Rukia lacks the faith, power and drive necessary to turn people to her way of thinking and enact change, which is the other key component of a shounen protag. This is the part that Ichigo suppliesâhis complete and utterly unshakeable faith in Rukia and her values, the power necessary to back those values, and the ability to spread these values far and wide so that other people start to take up these values as well. I said above that Rukiaâs philosophy of protection is so far-fetched that most people canât even begin to fathom or emulate itâbut Ichigo is not âmost peopleâ. Heâs a shounen protag, goddammit! He has the ability to take up an âidealâ that for most people would be impossible, and actually enact change towards that ideal.Â
This is why Ichigo and Rukia are double protagonists. Not because they were designed to be matchy-matchy or because of their avalanche of matching titles or whatever else. This is why. They are literally two halves of one shounen protagonist. Kubo called them sand and rotator in the side A and B poems, and he could NOT have picked a better analogy for them. Think of a watermill (or a sand mill, as the analogy is given), which is used to grind grain. The mill by itself cannot perform its purpose any more than the water by itself can magically grind the grain. The water needs to be driven by the wheel through the right mechanisms, and the wheel needs the water to actually function. Rukia drives Ichigo, points him in the right direction with her values, and Ichigo supplies the force necessary to enact change. Rotator, and sand. One protagonist, split into two.Â
(As a completely unrelated aside, I donât know what itâs like in Japan, but in Korea âgrinding the grainâ is a euphemism for sex, and watermills are inextricably associated with illicit liaisons. Theyâre the eastern worldâs equivalent to the western worldâs stables- any raunchy business conducted outside is usually conducted in a watermill.)Â
This is also why Ichigoâs name wasnât something more all-encompassing. He can âprotect one thingâ and still be a hero â as long as the âone thingâ he protects is Rukia. He wants to protect Rukia above all else, to the detriment of others, even (as evidenced by him turning away from rescuing Orihime to rescue Rukia)âbut Rukia tells him no, no, I refuse to be protected by you, you have to protect the whole world. This is why it HAS to be Rukia for Ichigo â anyone with less than the absolute selfless ideal that Rukia has could never make Ichigo into the hero. Rukia turns Ichigoâs head to the whole world, opens his eyes to the possibility of protecting more than those in his immediate circle, makes him selfless enough to go through with it. Rukia makes Ichigo the hero. (Big aside: Iâm not using âheroâ and âprotagâ interchangeably here. Ichigo is the âheroâ of the narrative, but BOTH ichigo and rukia are the âprotagonistsâ of the story.)Â
But that isnât the end of it. I have mentioned, in the past, that Bleach is not typical shounen, that it is structured more like YA lit and should be analysed as such. âBut Sera! You just spent like 2 A4 pages talking about why Ichigo and Rukia are Standard Shounen Protags together!â Ah but you see, thatâs only initially. INITIALLY, Ichigo and Rukia need each other to become One Whole Stock Standard Shounen Protag. Rukia lacks faith and drive, Ichigo lacks ideal. They need the other to support their flaws, initially. To be completely honest, this is an excellent way to start an unhealthy codependent relationship. The most beautiful part about Ichiruki is that they donât go down this path at all. They start becoming a whole shounen protag individually, by adopting the other personâs strength as their own. Rukiaâs ideals inspire Ichigo, and by tybw, he is as avid about protecting everybody as Rukia is. Rukia sees Ichigoâs unrelenting faith in the fact that she is a good person worth saving, and starts believing in it herself and reciprocates in kind in HM and FB arcs. This is where the YA component comes inâYA protags, unlike typical Shounen Protags, donât start off with an unapproachable ideal and the power+faith+drive necessary to change the world with it. They GROW into it. That is what Ichigo and Rukia are doingâthey are both growing throughout the whole story to fit their protagonist roles, so that eventually, they can become One Whole Independent protagonist on their own.Â
Itâs a beautiful, perfectly balanced, ironic jigsaw puzzle: Rukia had the ideal, but didnât have the ability to turn others to this ideal. The only person she turned to it was Ichigo, but that was enoughâIchigo turns everyone else to it as well, overcoming centuries of tradition. Ichigo had the faith and drive, but no-one to put it behind. The only person he put it behind was Rukia, and that was enoughâshe and her values guide his choices and actions, and he becomes heroic. Ichigo and Rukia each failed one criteria for being a shounen protag, except with each other, BUT THAT WAS ENOUGH. Affecting and changing just one personâeach otherâwas enough to set everything in motion.
A couple other points that I couldnât find a place to fit into the essay cohesively, but think theyâre still worth a mention:
Rukia says âall souls should be protectedâ, and she enacts this by protecting Ichigo, who is a hybrid of all the different soul types present in the narrative: human, quincy, hollow, reaper. Ichigo, despite being such a mixed entity, identifies firmly as shinigami, not because the shinigami convinced him with their ironclad, lofty morals but because Rukia did.Â
If Ichigoâs main flaw is being self-centred and tunnel visioned + a weird sort of superiority/hero complex, then Rukiaâs main flaw is probably the exact opposite - despite having this incredible ideal, her lack of faith in herself + her tendency to obey the system in all but the most dire, life-threatening situations. Even their flaws are a perfect balancing act, mitigating each other out. (Rukiaâs main flaws I probably want to go into in a bit more detail some other time, since itâs not something the fandom in general has much discussion on.)
So! In summary, the tl,dr version:Â
Ichigoâs name means âprotectorâ or âto protect one thingâ (both versions have been used in official translations). The latter is more relevant, as I have explained above. This âone thingâ initially is his mom, but by the end of the SS arc, it has very firmly become Rukia, again evidence listed above.Â
This had the potential to be problematic, as itâs not very heroic of someone to want to protect just one person, to hell with everyone else. BUT the narrative sidesteps that by making Ichigo and Rukia two halves of one shounen protagonist, and making them work best when they are together.
Shounen protags require two components: an ideal, and the ability+desire to enact that ideal. Rukia had the former, Ichigo had the latter. Thatâs why itâs not problematic for Ichigo to want to protect just one person mostâ because that one person is actually the âideal moral standardâ of their entire universe, and she keeps telling him to use his powers for good and not just her.Â
But thatâs not even all. Initially, they need the other to become âwholeâ, so to speakâ but they donât stay that way. Ichigo and Rukia have an immensely positive impact on each other, and help each other grow to adopt the best traits of the other and become a hero in their own right. Again, this is why they are both protagonistsâ because both of them kept growing and changing, right up to the final arc.Â
So, even though itâs been said a million times before, it bears repeating: Bleach genuinely is a story about Ichigo and Rukia, both of whom felt a little displaced in their own worlds and had trouble making connections. They connected with each other, and only then could their immense capacity for good could start changing the world. Thatâs really the crux of itâ that it had to be each other for these two, not anybody else. Nobody else could bring out the best in them except for the other. They would never have become this extraordinary had it not been for the other person recognising their inherent value. It absolutely had to be Rukia for Ichigo, and vice versa. Itâs always going to be the Ichigo and Rukia show.
People in the comments being all bitter. As if the arts arenât out here giving you a reprieve from all the shit y'all go through. As if the arts arenât out here making sure you live a little bit instead of just surviving.
It's funny, because I read a lot of romance manga and I didn't find the substance that Ichiruki has and I think I'll never find it. This kind of love, companionship and friendship is rare even in fiction
Itâs also funny that origos like to say âBleach is not a romance mangaâ but theyâve stolen canon IR moments/poems/titles because THEY KNOW IR is very romantic. And I donât know if they realize it or not but when they say âBleach is not a romance mangaâ to try and justify the bullshit ending theyâre pretty much implying that their shitty ass pairing and the other bullshit 686 pairing HAS NO romance at all.
Itâs wild how like⊠JKR is so skilled at so many aspects of writing, especially in little character moments, but when it comes to implications of throwaway lines she just⊠not a SINGLE thought.Â
Like in Chamber of Secrets, when Harry is talking to Tom / Voldemort and is like, you Framed Hagrid, Tom is like, yeah he was always trying to raise monsters,Â
he says that Hagrid tried to raise werewolf cubs under his bed likeâŠÂ
This wasnât a dream, a worst case scenario âgotcha!â chapter
Someone in Soul Society actually ordered and oversaw this machine of death being rebuilt
People actually built it back up
Itâs actually there again, this symbol of broken bureaucracy, this pillar of corruption and those at the top being left to poke and prod the ants as they please
The very first thing Ichigo changed in Soul Society was rebuilt
The very symbol of Soul Societyâs corruption and how easily those with power could abuse it, the thing Ichigo destroyed
The manner by which Rukia was sentenced to die, an excessive punishment by many measures
The thing Ichigo destroyed to save his friend, an effort that took him through several battles and showed us only the first glimpse of how far Ichigo will go for Rukia, his first declaration of âI have to save her!!â
And they rebuilt it
Itâs like Soul Societyâs higher ups forgot all about the substitute reaper who stormed into their realm and broke their rules, committing several crimes of his own to stop them from making one of their own
Aizen was sentenced merely to a prison for all heâs done wrong. Prison.
Whereas Rukia had been sentenced to DIE, for staying in the human world
Aizenâs punishment I feel not only was to force him to deal with what heâd done, but also a show that SS was changing after Ichigoâs impact.
We see him steadily through each arc break down old archaic rules, call attention to abuse of power, and become a driving force in change
But tell me, what changes when you build a tower of blocks back up, and just make it taller, stronger than it was?
it just becomes more intimidating and harder to break down
!
They rebuilt Soukyoku and made it even bigger
They disregarded everything that Ichigo fought for, everything he changed
And thatâs just one of many things that were taken back and ignored in this ending, just one more moment to wonder why we all bothered in the first place.
And to add insult to injury, the chapter in which we see it rebuilt, giant and imposing, is the chapter Rukia is made a captain. I actually canât believe heâd dare to do that, to put the thing that almost destroyed Rukia in the same chapter as her achieving such an honor, as if weâre supposed to remember she could have been killed, had it been his whim.
I just really canât believe this.
I canât believe that Ichigoâs impact on Soul Society could be so easily brushed aside, all his work wrought to nothing.
And thatâs exactly what this ending has given us.
Mayuri is still around. Nothing was done for the Maggotâs Nest. Nothing was done to âsettleâ the Shinigami-Quincy war other than kill all but (maybe) two of them. Nothing was done with the mod-souls, or the artificial souls. Nothing has been done to alter the flow of souls. Nothing has been done to make Rukongai less shit âŠ
You would think that a population that requires no food or water and apparently isnât prone to disease would be easy to manage, but they donât even set up the equivalent of police departments to keep the peace. (In fact, people routinely organize for protection if none exists; consider the Yakuza, the Mafia, etc., which all started out as secret societies designed to do just that before exploiting their positions and becoming protection rackets and organized crime outfits. Nothing like that exists in Soul Society. Maybe because itâs not allowed to. Probably because this is exactly how the Shinigami started, given Yamamoto and Unohanaâs backstory, and theyâve eliminated all successors. Who else might the Stealth Forces be assassinating?)
How have they left it so poorly managed after all this time? Because itâs designed to be that way.
Mayuri is a monster, but have you ever thought about the reason why he had to go and kill 28,000 souls in Rukongai?
Itâs because they werenât dying fast enough ânaturallyâ.
Broken families, atrocious conditions of squalor and poverty, random mass killings, crime, Hollow incursions ⊠the reason the Shinigami ignore Rukongai and donât take any steps whatsoever to improve it is that first, it provides an incentive for recruitment to their ranks and second, it makes sure that people die and get reincarnated, maintaining the balance of souls. It doesnât matter whether itâs depression, madness, a general disdain for human life, whatever; all they need is some kind of mechanism to arise in the population that inspires murder, because it does their job for them.
Itâs expedient; if it was a utopia, then theyâd have to all be like Mayuri, going out to routinely slaughter the population to keep things running. Loganâs Run style. They require it to be shitty, so that the system continues passively ticking over, otherwise theyâd have to actively maintain it.
I donât know if this is what Aizen meant when he called the Soul King a monster, but it couldâve been, and even if itâs not, itâs fitting. Soul Society is an experiment designed to get rats to eat each other. Its fundamental basis of operation is the promotion of suffering.
Itâs a concentration camp.
And that is what was allowed to continue running in that ending. The SĆkyoku being rebuilt is like them just building a newer, shinier guillotine to put the guards back on notice. The actual concentration camp never changed one bit.
You know how Soul Societyâs prison system is named after the various levels of Buddhist âhellâ? For example, Muken, where Aizen ended up, is more commonly known as AvÄ«ci. That means Soul Society is itself a kind of Naraka, a purgatory and/or hell, containing other Naraka.
This ending literally had Ichigo âI want to save a mountain-load of peopleâ Kurosaki leave Rukia and everybody else in hell and sign off on its continued operation, and Rukia become one of the wardens of the camp that tortured and repeatedly almost killed her.
Ichigo and Rukia had the biggest out-of-character endings of all of them, which is saying something.
So if you were to strip out Yhwach and the Quincy ark, you'd have Ichigo, Rukia, and company work against soul society itself?
They already were. That was the point of Toushirouâs little speech to Rukia in the Xcution arc about how Ichigo had changed Soul Society. Ichigo and Rukia were already working against Soul Society. They had already begun âwinning hearts and minds.â
Their victories were then totally undone by TYBW. Which is why at the end of TYBW, we see a miles-tall rebuilt execution stand. TYBW provided the pretext for reactionary elements in Soul Society to push back on the changes and if anything to solidify their grip even tighter than it had ever been before. (Much like how actual reactionary regimes will use security incidents to increase their control and eliminate opposition; the Nazi regime and the Reichstag fire is the archetypal example.)
Rukia and Ichigo then just give up, let it happen, discard their principles, ethics, and morals, and settle for mediocre and unfulfilling but supposedly comfortable lives. Rukia decides to actively work for this regime.
The whole point of everything they had done to that point was to undermine that regime as it existed. Indeed, while there were more revolutionary agents (i.e., Aizen, Ginjou, Yhwach), it is not fair to exclude Ichigo and Rukia from the revolutionary label, as they routinely operate in open and flagrant defiance of the regime in all the arcs before TYBW. Their solution just involves less scorched earth.
Of course, actually succeeding at revolutionizing Soul Society would mean confronting actors we simply never saw, like the other two great noble houses (who, presumably, since they are not represented at all in the Gotei 13, are very strong within Central 46). Which is why actually setting up Soul Societyâs political situation, and doing it early (i.e., at the Soul Society arc or earlier) was incredibly important. But, of course, none of that was done, because Kubo is a dumbfuck.
As it stands, as it exists as a whole text, Bleach is telling you that going ROW ROW FIGHT DA POWAH is pointless and you should just knuckle under to the regime and the powers that be, whether that be fascism, communism, capitalism, religious extremism, or authoritarianism or totalitarianism in general. Because thatâs what Ichigo and Rukia do. They break scarcely less thoroughly than Winston Smith does in Nineteen Eighty-Four. And it is wildly out of character for them to break like that, so itâs just a bullshit âendingâ and way to âendâ in general. Itâs literal trash.
And it is also part of why TYBW wasnât the end, and all of this is being addressed in CFYOW⊠which doesnât even feature Ichigo and Rukia, the protagonist of this story. Making CFYOW also literal trash, as any conclusion or continuation that does not involve Ichigo and Rukia beating the problem would be.
(Since I keep going to the Star Wars well, this is another parallel with Disneyâs trilogy: the Empire was beaten and the Emperor was dead and Vader was redeemed. That story was over. But because they had no idea how to tell a new story [even if it involved some previous characters appearing] they had to re-litigate a concluded narrative for nostalgia points to paper over their colossal fuck-ups, and in the process they completely undid everything that came before. That is essentially the same as what TYBW did.)
If I had to give it a name, I would call it something like a tonally dissonant non sequitur. It is a thing that bears no real relation to the thing that came before despite being under the same label and having some vague pretense at continuity. Itâs just some cheap welded-on garbage painted to look like the thing itâs stuck onto so as to trick you into thinking it should be there. As I keep saying, Bleach did not have a real ending. It never actually completed the arc it spent most of its time developing.
