(I saw your ask about hitsugaya momo hisagi... being one of the stuff you're super passionate about so) I've been thinking how shinigami who were abandoned rukongai kids value greatly the relationships the make in the seireitei, as if they are family relationships. Like Hisagi and his big loyalty to Kensei and Tosen. Yumichika for the 11th division. Hitsugaya has a very little-brother-like bond with Rangiku. (I'd say Momo with Aizen too, but levels of manipulation were added to that relationship.) While Kira who is soul society born seems more detached and wasn't as affected by Gin's betrayal (he didn't mention trying to open his eyes and bring him back as Momo and Hisagi did)... And so on. What do you think?
Thank you for taking me up on them!!! <33 Hehe, if we're thinking about the same post, it was Hitsugaya, Hinamori, and Matsumoto! Still, it charms me greatly that B3 is also strongly associated with Hisagi--as it should be, because we love him dearly. But I’ll start with Kira, whom I also love dearly, because the first panels your ask reminded me of were these ones:
Bleach 123
Kira is having such intense emotions about his own perceived betrayal (turning his sword on his friend, Hinamori) that he was literally clawing at the walls and furniture. D: There’s blood on the floor, the walls. They put him in a straitjacket.
And he doesn’t even KNOW yet that this day is only going to get worse!!! His captain’s going to fight another captain (and while I'd argue this is mostly Hitsugaya-instigated, it’s surely *not a recipe for a good day*). In short order, he’ll see the Council of 46 dead, he'll somehow be complicit in the plot he just found out about, he’ll mislead and prepare to duel—to the death, if need be—another close friend, he’ll have some indirect hand in actions that leave Hinamori grievously injured—and that’s all before Ichimaru is a public traitor.
Given the emotional state we started in, even before everything else happened, I would imagine all of this was hugely affecting for him, even if we didn’t see it in the same ways we did with Hinamori.
I think a lot about who got to have their reunions/confrontations in the Winter War and who didn’t. Kensei, for instance, never has a chance to interact with Tousen during the Winter War, though Komamura and Hisagi do. It’s Matsumoto, not Kira, who sees Ichimaru die. I don’t think it means the importance of their relationships were less—just that the ways things ended up and the ways the battle logistics fell meant that the Winter War got to suck in different ways for everyone.
I think Kira not having the same zeal for "opening eyes" probably has more to do with his strong understanding of who Ichimaru is as a person--the surprise of his betrayal notwithstanding--than his lack of connection to him.
Our noble families / your feral relations
On the other hand, I am VERY interested in the idea that the Seireitei and/or Rukongai perceive the qualities of each others’ loyalties/relationships split along those lines. Like, I would LOVE to explore how people who grew up in the Seireitei think about their Gotei peers from Rukongai, or relationships amongst konpaku in Rukongai in general. Or maybe how they were taught them and how they experience them are actually very different things.
At this particular moment in time, shinigami from Rukongai seem fairly overrepresented amongst the Gotei’s highest-ranking officers, since I have to believe 1) in the falsehood of the meritocracy principle, and 2) that the requirement of both literacy and reiryoku pushes Academy recruitment somewhat in the Seireitei’s favor. Like, I don’t think the Academy has traditionally done a lot of active recruitment out of Rukongai, though they might do more now. But if you’re in today’s Gotei, you’re probably interacting with a lot more people from Rukongai than you ever would have prior to your enlistment, or if you had some other noble occupation within the city.
Is the Seireitei over there being like, man, those Rukongai people are weirdly intense about their relationships or are they like those wandering ghosts wouldn’t know true attachment if it bit them in the soul chain. Not like these noble family trees that bind us.
Is Rukongai over elsewhere like, man those Seireitei people are tied DEEP or are they like they’ll never know what it means for intimacies to have been forged in existential peril.
Obviously nothing’s so clear-cut and there are plenty of examples in all directions, but I still really love the idea that there are these social narratives floating around, however incomplete.
Die Protecting Friends and Humans
One of my greatest failings as a Hitsugaya and a Byakuya fan is being a lot more neutral about their TYBW team-up than most people who talk about it, but two of the panels that I AM really obsessed with, and which tie into this discussion are:
Bleach 674
I am obsessed with these for multiple reasons. The most relevant to this conversation is the fact that the Academy’s pedagogical mission doesn’t appear to prioritize the Gotei’s own structure.
Hitsugaya says that at the Academy, "I wasn't taught to fight for the sake of superiors or families. All shinigami should protect friends and humans with their lives."
Not being taught to fight for family—sure, okay. That distinguishes it from a martial education internal to noble families. But ‘not superiors’ is an interesting party line for that a training institution that feeds predominantly into a military built on seated hierarchies and which operates with most of the authoritative/authoritarian power concentrated at the top (in the Captains; the Captain Commander; the Council of 46, who are notably anonymous and therefore nobody’s friends).
“Protect humanity” kind of makes sense, in that it’s altruistically mission-forward and speaks to the sense that humanity is at the core of at least some version of a shinigami ethos. I think it’s the version Rukia believes in, whether or not the entire Gotei is on board (e.g. low penalties for vaporizing konpaku by the gross).
But “for friends” is some whole other element. Maybe it stands out because one might not expect a military education to be so relationship-driven, if those relationships are not tied to military hierarchy, or at least the notion of comrades-in-arms.
Because Hitsugaya’s point in that scene is, Renji and Rukia are Ichigo’s FRIENDS, whereas he sees himself and Byakuya as (merely) Ichigo’s comrades.
It’s especially interesting in tandem with the idea of fighting for humanity (or dying to protect humanity), which could be read as almost self-effacing in its intensity. But if you’re being taught to die to protect humanity AND your friends, perhaps there’s a balancing act at play there. For Renji and Rukia in this moment, their friend Ichigo also happens to be human, but in general, shinigami are probably going to have a lot of friends who are shinigami.
(Hitsugaya and Byakuya continue to wax philosophical about things related to this as the scene continues, because this is what having to fight Gerard brings out in people.)
But anyway, to the “humans AND friends” point, it’s your friendship that should drive your decision-making, not your professional status vis-à-vis one another.
Which seems like a pretty radical stance to take for a military academy, and a problem that we actively see everyone in the Gotei struggle with hard when shit hits the fan (see: Kira, because what are you even supposed to do when your superior and your whole friend cohort are all trying to— well, it gets very complicated, doesn’t it).
The notion is superbly interesting for exactly this, because the people we know in the Gotei are all very intensely relationship-driven, even as the structure of the Gotei/their work schedules/aren’t always conducive to maintaining these relationships, all of the time.
-----
NB: Part of me also wondered whether “protect to the death humanity and your friends” is like, an official Student Learning Objective of the Academy or if it’s just something Hitsugaya happened to personally learn while there. In the JP text, Hitsugaya’s statement is more specific to himself than encapsulating a general “us,” but he does say, “At the Spiritual Arts Academy, I wasn’t taught to fight for the sake of superiors or family.” The operative verb is “taught” which makes it seem like it really is part of the curriculum, as written. In the scene, Byakuya confirms that it seems like a very shinigami thing to believe.
(It should be noted that Hitsugaya isn’t the most qualified person to be talking about what the Academy teaches, given he was not even there for a full stint. But he seems like the kind of person to get very metacognitive about what/how he’s learning, so I’d give him this. Also, Hinamori has done technical illustrations for the Academy textbook, and I assume this also means Hitsugaya’s heard a decent amount about whatever curriculum review inspired the need for new illustrations.)
So, to go back to your original question, I am additionally VERY interested in what the Academy’s role is in setting the terms/expectations for how everyone thinks about their various relationships!
In these panels, Hitsugaya's talking about Rukia and Renji going up to meet Ichigo and uses the phrasing "Kurosaki no tokoro" (所、tokoro、meaning "place"). While I'm willing to believe that yes yes, obviously he means "the place where Ichigo is" FINE FINE FINE
--I am also never not thinking about the time during the Bount arc where the anime subs translate Hitsugaya's "Renji no tokoro" as "Renji's place" and then the shot cuts to him and Matsumoto standing in the middle of bumfuck nowhere by a river in Rukongai.
On the subject of "what people call each other" more generally, my favorite Bleach topic, Aizen is also kind of weird about Zaraki. He refers to Renji leaving the 5th for the 11th as Renji being "taken away to Kenpachi's place." Was he. Was he kidnapped. Is Kenpachi's Place a trafficking front.
Referring to Zaraki by title is a Choice, for sure. I don't know if anyone else does that (besides Ichigo), but I can think of many who do not, would never.
Referring to the 11th as "Kenpachi's Place" also feels like a Choice. It makes me think about Renji's question to Ichigo when they first meet:
[Bleach 054]
His meaning of is speech bubble is, "Which [number] Division are you affiliated with?" but the pronunciation is just "Where are you affiliated?" So there's already a sense, I guess, that the geographic question of "where" implies your divisional affiliation, and that divisions are thought of as places. Makes sense, given that all the divisions are meaningful geographic spreads in the Seireitei.
Is it still weird that it's "Kenpachi's Place" and not just idk, "the 11th Division"? I mean, I think it is, but it does speak to the unique tradition of leadership succession the 11th's got going on, and how intense the cult of personality is in the 11th, as a division whose nature is extremely tied to the nature of whoever its leader happens to be.
Aizen also never actually refers to the 11th as the 11th, so in order to make that connection we'd have to remember Zaraki's name and number from when he showed up at Byakuya's Place. Why wouldn’t he? Idk but I enjoy it as character info. (NB: Byakuya is perfectly happy to refer to Tousen purely by number, as "9th Captain" and not by any name at all, so there's a lot of different conventions out and about across the various captains.)
I laughed out lout at this panel, and I keep laughing out lout at it every time I look at it. [wiggle font] WHAT CAN I DO IF HIS CAPTAIN IS HERE? I SHALL RETREAT, FOR NOW. [/wiggle font]
WHO SAYS THAT.
MAYURI, THAT'S WHO.
It's funny because the way he says it implies that this is just Mayuri narrating for himself--he's not actually talking to Zaraki. Which, sure, you can say it's a manga convention because this information has to be conveyed somehow, but I prefer thinking of it as a character trait. Especially since it's a speech bubble, not a thought bubble (and I think works less well/somehow would feel more ridiculous as a thought bubble). Maybe Mayuri's used to taking self-dictation when he's doing experiments.
My Mayuri characterization has not historically come from... Bleach Chapter 93... but I honestly feel like I would revise how I write him based on this chapter. In my mind he's more sedate? Or like, garrulous and performative when he's on a tear about something or actively in that mode, but otherwise DGAF and less inclined to give info away for free (via self-narration, for instance) or to want to be involved. But this kind of makes it seem like the bar for what'll get Mayuri Involved is pretty low, and sure, let's self-narrate when there are other people in the room, who cares!
His self-narration is vaguely polite but extremely conversational. Mayuri uses the phrase "taichou-dono" to refer to Zaraki here, adding an honorific suffix, which in Bleach is mostly used by Rukia re: Kaien, though I think Ichimaru also uses it in reference to Byakuya when he and Byakuya and Zaraki have their weird inter-division conversation. I think it's being used as respectfully here as there, lol. The fact that it's self-narration is emphasized for me when he says "The Captain-dono has come, it can't be helped," because he uses the construction んだ which I feel like in this context conveys that he's explaining/processing something for himself (re: the self-narration; he's obviously not explaining Zaraki's arrival to Zaraki).
This is one of the earliest examples of "Gotei organization" that we get! We know there's captains and VCs and numbered divisions, but here we have Iemura calling these guys the "Unohana Aid Team" in addition to being the 4th, lol. It makes me wonder:
Is this name some kind of Iemura-specific brownnosing situation?
Is it Iemura being old school, like, back in the day, were the divisions more overtly cults of personality? Which isn't to say they aren't now, because every one of these divisions is led by a total weirdo, but no one's running around declaring themselves part of TEAM MUGURUMA nowaways, now are they? Well, maybe the 11th does this. Iemura apparently subscribes to this, too. The SC certainly appears to want to (re?)cultivate that kind of idea, given that they ran a bunch of captain/VC profiles in this, the year 2001, despite the fact that most of these people have held their positions for decades. Maybe Matsumoto told Hisagi that Renji forgot who her captain was...
On this page, "company" corresponds to 隊 (tai), which I feel like fandom usually refers to as squad/division; "crew" is... also 隊 (tai), but with an additional descriptor for "relief/aid"; and "squad," here, corresponds to 班 (han). What English word these things correspond to basically just depends on what size of military group it's trying to draw comparison to, but because the Gotei is the Gotei, and is doing its own thing, imho you can kind of use whatever you want.
But one of the translations for 班 (han) is "fireteam," referring to small military units of four or fewer, who are then collected into a squad/section of two or three of those, so that tracks with what this panel looks like!
Aizen's original line here is: 僕をあまり甘く見ないことだ. Taking the literal imagery into account, a translation might be something like, Don't look upon me too sweetly. While the meaning is technically preserved in that sentence, it's not particularly idiomatic English, especially in conversational dialogue. The phrase 甘く見ない (amaku minai) is usually translated as an entreaty to not underestimate or take something lightly, as in the Viz translation: "You'd be wise not to underestimate me."
But if we know this is not really conversational dialogue--we know it's Aizen and Ichimaru sowing the seeds for the Big Fake, and also, it's a comic--I feel like there's also an opportunity here to go big and get histrionic with this line. In my translation, I really wanted to preserve some of that "sweetness" imagery in the line by drawing on Aizen's "flower on the precipice" motif from the very start. To set the stage, I went with "perceive me as a threat" as a nod to Aizen's perception-warping powers, and added the flowers as a metonym for sweetness: "Perhaps you don't perceive me as a threat, but even flowers have thorns." 🌸
I wouldn't say the resulting line is beautiful. "Even flowers have thorns" feels pretty gauche/trite, because it's such a common analogy; there's no real bite to it because it's just not that fresh a line. (And this is a me problem, but I also can't read it without thinking about that Star Trek episode where Capt. Kirk is admiring roses with a hot alien lady and, when she pricks her finger and says "this one has thorns!" he's just like don't they all LMAOOO.) But I kind of feel like its triteness is the point.
It should be an overdetermined line, because Aizen and Ichimaru are here to lay the performance on THICK; because squiggly-dialogue Aizen would totally use an unassumingly bland metaphor; because Aizen's going to end up impaled on a wall before he gets to uncover Ichimaru's plot, and his threat here is going to appear empty.
The imagery is overdetermined here, because that overdetermination will stand in contrast to the illusiveness of Kyouka Suigetsu, to the "true" poetry, the flower on the precipice poetry, that Aizen means to unfold.
Who do these guys think they are, putting North at the top of their map?!
Also like, where did this map come from? Ikkaku gave Ichigo the directions orally... But Ganju's face is on it. Have they been hiding out in this storage shed with Hanatarou with Ichigo telephoning to Ganju what Ikkaku said, so Ganju can draw it out?! Did Ichigo draw the map while Ganju drew... himself???
I'm so obsessed with this map, too, because Seireitei is written at the top, but the 'sei' is in hiragana, so whoever wrote it didn't know the kanji for the first part of the word? And 'tsumesho' is also written in hiragana, which feels less weird and more of a personal preference for the writer, because it's not just the *one* character in a proper noun, but is still very endearing to me.
I'd also like to point out that Ikkkaku specifically says the tower is at the WEST end of the tsumesho, and whoever drew this map still originally drew the arrow to the east end, before crossing it out. Is that why they had to draw the compass rose out? To double-check east and west? Or for one party to prove to the other which was which.
I love that they took the time to draw this all out, particularly given that in the next few panels Ichigo is literally like, this is the worst map, it doesn't even have roads, why did we do this?? Absolutely stellar.
I thought it was interesting that Akon doesn't refer to Mayuri as his Captain here, but as the Chief/Bureau Director (of SRDI)--he uses 局長 (kyokuchou) instead of 隊長 (taichou). I guess it makes sense, given that he's speaking about Mayuri's scientific capacities rather than his military ones. (Specifically, he calls Rukia's gigai a 作品 (sakuhin), which usually refers to works of art, which gives us a sense of how gigai creation is regarded in Soul Society. I mean, it can get you promoted to Zero Division, after all, but I'm tickled by the artistry of it beside whatever tf is going on with the gikon variations lolol.)
Akon calls Mayuri "Captain" in most other contexts (e.g. when he's shocked about Mayuri making the Glow Suit in TYBW, and when he's looking for Mayuri in the epilogue), which makes me feel like he alternates titles depending on context, which I just think is neat!
Like, how often does he make the switch, and is other codeswitching also involved between Lab Akon and Division Akon? And where, exactly, does he delineate between Division business and SRDI business? Wow, I love it.
It also reminds me of this scene from TBTP, where Mayuri is reinforcing the distinction between the two, and the way the rank hierarchy shifts between contexts:
