I was part of the evaluation committee for a phd student. great stuff, she did super well, approved as a phd candidate (yay!).
BUT THEN.
me and the other guy evaluating her are big nerds so she felt comfortable in also sharing her Nerd, and turns out she is a huge manga anime fan. And then she tells me that she remembered that I once talked about how great Bleach was at the end of a conference, so she took my advice and she is now a fan.
GIRL YOU SHOULD HAVE LED YOUR ARGUMENT WITH THAT. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS?
So as we know Ichigo is canonically goth punk but i like to think he radicalizes Orihime so they're a super beautiful activists punk couple!!Orihime is kidcore punk and solarpunk🫶🏽
They're t4t autistic4autistic like we agreed and Orihime was overjoyed when she was able to actuallu get pregnant and Ichigo's flirting comes in the most weird yet wholesome ways possible /pos
They both love chocolate + strawberry combo foods.Also their favorite boba flavor is actually brown sugar
Cat cafe,arcade and skatepark dates
He was a time management games boy,she was a roguelike games girl,what more can i say?
hiii 🖤 you know, i love your punk-related insights! i mean, i love all of them in all fandoms by the way, but the punk ones really hit. So: yes to all. Yes to t4t autistic ichihime as always, to overjoyed Orihime (💕) and weird/wholesome Ichigo-trying-to-flirt. Yes to the food and the date places (flustered Ichigo with the cats in the cat cafe and super-excited Orihime at the arcade we love to see), and yes to the games profile, everyday we learn something new.
Now, YES to activist ichihime. I have said this before and I will keep saying: Six Hearts is a major message on resisting different violences. Renruki and poverty and social inequalities, Orihime and gendered violence, Chad and racism, Uryu and genocide, and Ichigo going through all these while learning how to wield his power without becoming anything but himself. He wields his shinigami powers without becoming part of the hierarchical system of Soul Society, he will be a fullbringer and a quincy in his own terms (although lore can be kind of messy on this, but oh well, it's Kubo). And the way Ichihime struggles and overcome the hollow-violence together is so subversive in their authenticity! Arrankar Saga/Hueco Mundo was so explicit in framing Orihime (and all the """fragile""" aspects she would represent) as a weakness, as an embodiment of the qualities that Ichigo ought to abandon to actually perfom as a warrior (as a hollow), and then he relies on this person who shares all these "fragile" qualities I want to uphold so she can help me power-up while still being me: SUBVERSIVE.
and yeeees, the way Ichigo inspires Orihime to become more assertive IS radicalizing. Again, she does so by finding her own way to fight, being true to her values and finding her place: SUBVERSIVE. I know a lot of people think that the final message of Bleach actually denied the characters' agency, but I can't see it that way. For me, the way Ichigo and his friends find their agency within these broader, heavier structures is not only a solid message on the whole discussion of action, self, etc., but it is also a great window for the many possibilities of what being 'radical' means. No one is doing care and protection like they are!
and finaly, yes to kidcore/solarpunk! We see a lot of discussions on alternative and liberating futurisms and social imaginaries/speculative fiction, and these aspects deserve so much more appreciation. A lot of people will brush off Orihime's super active imagination as her being ditzy, but we can appreciate the neurodivergent window, and we can appreciate the fact that this kind of conscious optimism and commitment to fun is super powerful as a social choice to reject dystopia. Orihime sees the world as open-ended: "i just got powers and a talking cat is going to teach me how to use them, no biggie". Her 5 lifetimes speech really hits the place of her recognizing that there are many possibilities, lives to be lived, and all she wishes for is to keep caring. Caring for the person she loves, yes, but also to keep making care happen, choosing care over conflict; and if conflict is necessary, then she will find her own way to do it and she will make it flower-power and everyone gets to eat tasty treats. Pretty radical of you ask me.
again, your punk insights are always so so neat! loved that you send this, thank you 💕🖤
So here I am, struggling with being a mentor/supervisor to late teens/early twenties while still figuring stuff for myself (not a real adult! i'm six kids in a trenchcoat!), and I am appreciating Bleach themes again -- this time, this is about mentorship.
I related so hard to the damaged Lieutenants ensemble in my school and workplace life, dealing with various awful situations, and now I find myself constantly wondering: "ok I am not an Aizen, but geez, how does one not screw this up?!". How do you build trust with someone who depends on you without overstepping? how do you know when to step in, when to step back?
And wow, I am loving Shinji and Momo more than ever
Because you know, Shinji's initial approach to Ichigo was bad - he was also hiding stuff from him, pushing for him to join them and manipulating Ichigo's doubts and struggles to get him to where Shinji (and the Vizards) wanted him to be. But that changes as he realizes Ichigo's not part of them, and Shinji's not going to make up for the damaged Captain-Lieutenant relationship with Aizen by training this new superpowerful kid.
Shinji gets a second chance with Momo and OH do they get it right! I have this feeling that were it not for Momo, Shinji might have not re-joined the Gotei, and were it not for Shinji, maybe Momo wouldn't have been able to fully get back either - Kubo did a wonderful job here. Aizen damaged Shinji, his Captain, and Momo, his Lieutenant: in a cascading and ripple effect that reached most of the Divisions, his betrail severed the very bonds that make the Gotei work, which is the emotional trust (not just hierarchy/discipline) between mentor/mentee, chief and subordinate. Aizen never let himself be mentored (by anyone, I'm assuming), and never mentored. Shinji meets Momo in the worst of the circunstances and he sees the damage in her that mirrors his own, and he chooses to re-builds that bond that has been severed.
We don't know how long it took, but Shinji read Momo, her hardworking self, her talent, her kind and helpful nature, and figured out how to bring the best in her - he was finally mentoring someone. On the other side there is Momo, displaying one of the most phenomenal example of strenght of heart in all worlds, who found it in herself the will to get back on her feet, back to work, and most of all, to trust again, let herself be mentored, and would you look at how amazing it is when it is done right.
Same goes for the healing and rebuilding processes of Rose and Izuru, Kensei and Shuuhei (even though Kensei takes a cof cof different approach), other cases such as Byakuya and Renji, or Yoruichi and Soi Fon, and even Rukia -- who was stripped of the mentee position from Kaien, pushed into a mentor position with Ichigo. But Ichigo is not her subordinate, and she re-teaches herself how to be a supportive friend to both him and Orihime (Rukia stepping up to train her is very important to me so it goes here).
Mentorship is a relationship, is a bond, and even if it has a time frame, it requires equal levels of respect, empathy, dedication, ethic, and trust from both sides -- and I'm talking from the toxic-filled environment of Academia but this goes for all mentor/mentees bondings out there.
