Okay, so this is probably old news to most of you, but while playing catch-up to what’s new in the fandom, I came across some entries re: Bleach Brave Souls that had me SHOOK and sent me into a frenzy of youtubing and redditing.
So now I only have one question:
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS:
WHAT
HOW
WHATTTT (three excellent questions)
SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT, THERE IS AN AU, WHITE DAY KNIGHT!KISUKE, WITH HIS HAIR PULLED BACK IN A PONYTAIL AND SHOJO SPARKLES AND WHITE ROSEPETALS IN HIS SPECIAL????
WHATttTtttTTTTTTfjasdsjdksad
SKGASDAQKJHGS
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ !!!!
1. I’M CRYING THEY’RE KNIGHTS TOGETHER AND HE STILL MANAGES TO PISS HER OFF IN EVERY CONCEIVABLE UNIVERSE ASLKJSDFHAL
2. HE’S STILL SHOWING OFF HIS MAN-BOOBS EVEN IN THIS VERSION I CANNOT
3. he has his hair pulled back that should be illegal in like 47 sovereign states or something
4. WHERE ARE THE AU FICCCCCSSSSSSSS??? (she said, as she tearfully added another folder in her to-write list, knowing it would never truly get written but just sit there, tormenting her forever)
There’s even a Movie 3 Kisuke out, apparently:
AND A KITTY!YORU WITH A SCRATCHED UP HAT AND A SHOTEN BOX OF TOYS, MY HEART
BUT THEN.
THEN, I SAW IT.
AND.
I JUST–
They got the VAs to record lines form the manga. I ACTUALLY GOT TO HEAR MIKI SHINICHIROU SPEAK THE WORD ‘BANKAI’
I’M–
KISUKE ACTUALLY SHOWS UP IN THE ANIMATION FOR HER SPECIAL WITH HIS LIL’ CUE CARD, I DUNNO IF I SHOULD LAUGH OR CRY
AND HE ALSO SPEAKS THE NAME OF HER FINAL SHUNKO FORM OUT LOUD AJKLFGASDFASD
BRB, STUDYING THE GAME’S KANNONBIRAKI TO AMEND MY BANKAI MECHANICS POST
Kidding aside, I'm not getting back into the game, I had THE worst luck with Kisuke drops (only got a 4* early on) and I don't want to tempt myself now that I have some disposable income 😂
That said, no-one's stopping me from tinkering with the android apk to see if I can extract any decent character renders 😉
oeyy i feel like i did a rushed job on the translation tho ;-; i think the mc i should have named him virgo ;O; So if you want me to double-check anything lmk
It didn’t feel that way! Don’t worry about it, everything was clear ;)
letsbleachdatkitty replied to your post:Bleach Brave Souls
❤️ Did you see Kitty!Yoru’s special attack yet? Kisuke is in there as well, plus it’s cute. ☺️
......wat.
OH MY GOD SHE CAN CLIMB ON TOP OF THE ROOF AND DOES THE CALIBRATION BUTT WIGGLE AND THE BOX SLIDE LIKE MARU WHILE KISUKE WATCHES, OMYGAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWD ♡ ♡ ♡
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THIS TO MY ATTENTION, @letsbleachdatkitty ;-;;;;;; ♡
So I read Kubo’s new one-shot, and like many others, I assume, I found that the most intriguing part came close to the end, where it was teased that this world is part of the grander universe of Bleach.
In retrospect, it should’ve been obvious, since the elements of the BtW world seemed a little too similar to Bleach: same essence, different names. I’m not sure what Kubo’s intention was exactly: was he just having some fun with this world, or was he truly pulling a JKR and giving us a peek into the Bleach universe in another country/setting?
I do like the possibility of the latter, though I did find a few inconsistencies (or rather differences that can fit into the overall universe with some creative squeezing xD ) that I wanted to talk about, so let’s get to it:
(more after the jump)
First off, let’s get this out of the way: yes, this is the same Soul Society, it’s not in any way a mistranslation, or a similar name that was tweaked as a tease from the translator (the lovely @kisukke).
尸魂界 (ソウル・ソサエティ) AKA Sōru Sosaeti, is written the exact same way in both universes.
In a previous post re: Bleach character ethnicities, this is what I had to say about why the Afterlife in the Bleach universe is Edo-inspired:
Why would the afterlife be modeled after Edo Japan? Because the mangaka is Japanese. If this were an American comic, it would most likely look like Christian heaven :p Or heck, maybe the answer is that out of all the religions in the world, the Shintoists had it right and they also allow plenty of Buddhist customs in the afterlife because they’re cool that way xD
In all seriousness though, this can be easily explained by saying the first people who created the SK and stabilized the unchecked traffic of souls were ethnically Japanese. Hence the creators of Soul Society were Japanese, which is why all the clans and basically everyone in Soul Society follow Japanese customs and have Japanese names. So, in essence, it doesn’t matter where you came from in the Human World, when you show up in Soul Society, you become integrated in that world and just magically know how to speak Japanese.
I made this assumption based on the fact that we see characters of different ethnic backgrounds in Soul Society, so the logical extension of this (in my mind) was that Soul Society is the de facto Afterworld. Quite possibly with branches/other dimensions around the world, but still distinctly Edo-inspired.
Of course, I do also make a point of stating that any headcanons on character ethnicities are just that, headcanons. Yoruichi is black and Matsumoto blonde because they’re characters in a manga, not because they’re truly not ethnically Japanese; it’s just more fun to theorize about that sort of thing instead of taking it at face value, imo xD
So if we consider BtW as canon, and not just Kubo writing AU fic for kicks, what does this mean about the Bleach universe?
Well, to begin with, I think it’s quite clear that part of my original headcanon stands: the Soul Society we know is still considered Afterlife HQ, as is made obvious by the fact that the London version is called: Soul Society, West Branch. As to why non-ethnically Japanese people ended up there? IT’S A MANGA, CRYS, FFS, LET IT GO If I were to guess given the new information, I’d say it has to do with where a person met their ultimate end. Location, rather than origin, dictates the ‘branch’ they’ll end up in.
The Rukongai boy does mention different places (and is partly why I formed my original headcanon), but he does go on to say that he was from a different, thought still Japanese city than Shibata/Yūichi.
Here’s where things get a bid muddled, though interesting nontheless:
To begin with, METHINKS SOMEONE’S BEEN READING A BIT O’ HARRY POTTER:
No criticism here, I liked that little bit. It’s clear that the whole one-shot is majorly influenced by Harry Potter, but it feels more like a wink to the franchise rather than a ripoff.
So far, this is quite consistent with what we see in the original Bleach world: Hollows are corrupted Plus spirits who can only be seen by a select few. The major difference here, however, is that they can only be seen by the residents of ‘Reverse London’ which seems to imply that all spiritually sensitive people in London reside in their own neighborhood, so to speak, rather than mingle with the muggles non-spiritually sensitive people.
‘Dragons,’ as it becomes clear soon after, is just a name, and not an implication that all such spirits are lizard-like:
And here we come to our second (and third by extension) major difference: harmless Dragons, the equivalent of Plus spirits, are actually part of the hidden society as a whole and not just aimless spirits that need to be sent from the mortal world to the afterlife.
The third difference? These are not humanoid spirits. In Bleach, all plus spirits are quite distinctly humans who have passed. The bestial aspect only comes around once a spirit is corrupted and turns into a Hollow. So is that entirely inconsistent with the original Bleach world? Well... almost, but not quite:
Animals do exist in Soul Society, it’s just never commented on in the series, and we never see Plus spirits of animals anywhere in the mortal world, either. Remember that Shibata the parakeet wasn’t the spiritual body of a parakeet, but rather the spirit of a little boy forrced into the physical body of a parakeet. I do like the implication here, that animals are pure souls that are always sent to Soul Society and can never be corrupted into Hollows.
But again, if we take the BtW world to be canon, then this leads to two conclusions about the spiritually-sensitive people of London:
1) They are not only acknowledged within their society, they’ve actually build a secret world of their own to inhabit, instead of influencing mortal London inadvertently.
2) In their part of the world, plus spirits are not necessarily sent to the Afterlife, but are instead part of that world, presumably indefinitely.
LMAO, talk about lampshading.
In that sense, the BtW world seems to be a far more ‘complete’ and organized universe within a universe than its Japanese version, though I do feel there’s a distinction to be made here:
Aaaand here’s your English Shinō Academy.
In a nutshell, this world seems to function much like Soul Society itself, except it doesn’t exist in another dimension, but rather side-by-side with the mortal world y’know, like Harry Potter.
It’s an interesting concept at any rate, even if not taken as canon, as it implies that though the beginning was made with Edo Soul Society, throughout the course of history, the various branches around the world began to follow their own path.
If anything, this may even lend credence to certain theories that cropped up during the TYBW arc, when it became clear that at a certain point in time, the Quincy at least were not hiding but co-existed with the rest of the world. It could imply that the Japanese Soul Society started out that way as well, but made the conscious decision to move all supernatural affairs to their own dimension to protect humanity.
Hi! I found your fics only a while ago (I'me a hardcore UraYoru shipper who's been away from the bleach fandom for a while, like you), and I just LOVE THEM. Your characterization of both of them is flawless and the settings just perfect. Also TTTB really made me want to see Thailand, ahah. Glad to hear there are more stories coming. Thank you for all the wonderful work!
THANK YOU
I’ve loved these goofs for well over a decade now, and I’ve missed playing in this sandbox terribly.
Hi, I found your fics on AO3, and they are perfect and wonderful. Kisuke/Yoruichi is one of my all time OTPs, and Yoruichi is probably my favorite character ever. Thank you for your effort and time, and thank you for sharing your works. ❤
Awww, thank you so much, anon!
I have so much more to write about those two dorks, stay tuned ;)
bearcat-screms replied to your post: Bleach Brave Souls
Your excitment makes me smile~
I live for those two dorks. My blog is like 87% urayoru, 10% bleach meta, 2% general bleach and 1% other stuff xD I’ve been away from the fandom for many months so finding this lil’ gem was a wonderful surprise
Okay, so this is probably old news to most of you, but while playing catch-up to what’s new in the fandom, I came across some entries re: Bleach Brave Souls that had me SHOOK and sent me into a frenzy of youtubing and redditing.
So now I only have one question:
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS:
WHAT
HOW
WHATTTT (three excellent questions)
SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT, THERE IS AN AU, WHITE DAY KNIGHT!KISUKE, WITH HIS HAIR PULLED BACK IN A PONYTAIL AND SHOJO SPARKLES AND WHITE ROSEPETALS IN HIS SPECIAL????
WHATttTtttTTTTTTfjasdsjdksad
SKGASDAQKJHGS
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ !!!!
1. I’M CRYING THEY’RE KNIGHTS TOGETHER AND HE STILL MANAGES TO PISS HER OFF IN EVERY CONCEIVABLE UNIVERSE ASLKJSDFHAL
2. HE’S STILL SHOWING OFF HIS MAN-BOOBS EVEN IN THIS VERSION I CANNOT
3. he has his hair pulled back that should be illegal in like 47 sovereign states or something
4. WHERE ARE THE AU FICCCCCSSSSSSSS??? (she said, as she tearfully added another folder in her to-write list, knowing it would never truly get written but just sit there, tormenting her forever)
There’s even a Movie 3 Kisuke out, apparently:
AND A KITTY!YORU WITH A SCRATCHED UP HAT AND A SHOTEN BOX OF TOYS, MY HEART
BUT THEN.
THEN, I SAW IT.
AND.
I JUST--
They got the VAs to record lines form the manga. I ACTUALLY GOT TO HEAR MIKI SHINICHIROU SPEAK THE WORD ‘BANKAI’
I’M--
KISUKE ACTUALLY SHOWS UP IN THE ANIMATION FOR HER SPECIAL WITH HIS LIL’ CUE CARD, I DUNNO IF I SHOULD LAUGH OR CRY
AND HE ALSO SPEAKS THE NAME OF HER FINAL SHUNKO FORM OUT LOUD AJKLFGASDFASD
BRB, STUDYING THE GAME’S KANNONBIRAKI TO AMEND MY BANKAI MECHANICS POST
Hello! Have you read the online light novels of Bleach? I haven't read it but I vaguely understood that Yoruichi's back to SS and Urahara's still at his shop. Was there anything else mentioned about them? Should I read it for the sake of UraYoru?
Hey, anon!
I’ve only ever read fan translations, and in the case of the latest (and ongoing, as I understand) one, I’ve read snippets here and there along with summaries.
It was stated early on in WDKALY that Yoruichi was ‘asked’ (the implication was that she was pressured) to ocasionally return to Soul Society to give lectures in the Shino Academy.
As for Kisuke, he’s pretty much where he’s always been: back at his shop, like you said.
AFAIK, there’s not yet any interaction between Kisuke and Yoruichi in the novels, or if there is, it’s minimal. There is plenty of Kisuke in CFYOW as he’s being interviewed by Hisagi to answer certain questions left hanging about the war and the Noble clans, and if memory serves, there’s an earlier chapter where Yoruichi is being taunted during a Noble Clan Council that Kisuke knew more about the Soul King than he ever revealed to her.
That’s all I know, anon. I’ll admit, I found the premise of the second novel to be quite interesting, so I do keep an eye on it’s progress peripherally, as I’m also writing a story that aims to answer these questions and deal with the TYBW fallout. The novel isn’t complete yet, so I’m semi-waiting on a full translation before I sit down and read it, though I’m not sure I will in full; I have my own headcanons about the mysteries of Bleach and I’d rather not be tempted to change anything along the way.
The same tumblr user I linked above is one of the fans also doing translation work for CFYOW, so I’d recommend following their blog if you’d like to catch up on the latest two novels.
bleach ended two years ago and i'm still screaming because i need answers for literally everything--
Same, anon :(
Though I’ve sort of made my peace with the fact that we’re never getting any. Maybe in the future, in a data book or something, but one of the good things about the Bleach ending, aside from the fact that it was in many ways open-ended, is this:
In short, the multiverse theory canonically applies to Bleach. That gives us the freedom to explore our own endings, and even try to answer all those questions that canon never did ;)
