BLEACH: The Gotei 13 Captains | Complete Analysis

[Music] [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] this final video will be focusing on the leader of the gote 13 head captain yamamoto after having made videos on all of the other captains it is interesting to see their perspectives of the head captain while researching for this video i was reminded of all of the bonds that he shared with the various different captains like how he had recruited yatri unohana his relationship with kim pachy how he had tried to teach him kendo and lastly how he had recruited seijin komomura even though he wasn't a human these are only a few notable examples of the impact that head captain yamamoto had on his subordinates as this video progresses i want to really go through the legacy of head captain yamamoto how he had impacted the characters within the story and had left a lasting impression on us the reader within anime and manga there's a plethora of really powerful old and wise men in naruto you have the third okay in one piece there's whitebeard within hunter hunter of course isaac netro and even within dragon ball the turtle hermit roshi what is consistent through all of these characters is the experience that they have and the impression that they immediately give off that they are the strongest characters within that particular story with the exception of master roshi all of these old wise men that i have mentioned have left a long lasting legacy where we can really look back and marvel at their strength endurance and abilities and for the most part these elderly characters always sacrifice themselves for the next generation of course we know that head captain yamamoto does exactly this within the thousand-year bloodwa arc the captain commander is one of the oldest and most powerful shinigami and in this video i'm going to be explaining why he is admired by all of the shinigami explaining the relationships that he has with his subordinates as well as why he has a strong sense of duty towards the soul society so let's dive into the analysis of yamamoto gen ryusai shigekune head captain first appears in chapter 81 of the manga and in episode 24 of the anime his appearance as an old man is fitting for his position as the oldest captain within the gote 13. this is because in chapter 511 we learned that he actually founded the 13 court guard squads the first thing that you'll notice about his appearance are his long eyebrows and his long white beard in addition to this yamamoto's body is riddled with scars he has two prominent scars on his head these scars cross above his right eye we learn in a flashback that one of them was given to him by his lieutenant we don't really know the origin of the other scar but some people assumed that he sustained it during his first battle with juha back when the head captain takes part in battle he removes the top half of his clothing revealing a body that has been covered in scars it makes you wonder how many battles the captain commander has taken part in yamamoto has a very strong sense of justice and he has pride for his position as the captain commander of the gotei 13. we learned during the soul society arc that the head captain believes that the justice of the world as a whole supersedes an individual's sense of personal justice this is why he stubbornly sticks to the law and order of the source society not paying any carer consideration towards rookies feelings even going as far as to lie to her just before she is going to be executed we know that her final wish to the head captain was to spare her friends who had come to rescue her the head captain agrees not to kill ichigo and the others but we learned through unohana's monologue to a lieutenant that these were only comforting words the head captain still had every intention to capture and kill ichigo and the others at the point that we are introduced to the head captain within the story he had been leading the goatee 13 for over a thousand years because of his dedication towards the soul society he follows the laws and regulations of it very closely he expects his subordinates to do the same he demonstrates his intolerance towards insubordination when he expresses his anger towards shunswe and ukitake who go against the law and order of the soul society in order to rescue rukia due to his immense power and experience he refers to those that he battles against as children or youngsters understandably very confident in his own abilities he doesn't expect much out of his opponents and this leads to him referring to any battles that he takes part in as beatings or punishment literally like an elder disciplining or teaching a lesson to a naive youngster i emphasize his loyalty towards the soul society because the hand captain takes his duties extremely seriously and he expects nothing less from his subordinates and the other captains of the gote 13. his sense of loyalty is so much so that he would even give his life for the preservation of the gotei 13. he of course demonstrates this during the fake karakuri town arc and ultimately does so during the thousand-year blood war arc he also expects this from his subordinates that if indeed a situation would arise where the existence of the gote 13 and the soul society were to be in danger then they too should offer up their lives in order to stop such a threat after all this is their duty as members of the gote 13. in contrast to this the head captain does not like to accept help from people who are not members of the goatee 13. this is of course in reference to ichigo and his friends he does not like to involve the humans in matters of the soul society like i mentioned just now the members of the gotee 13 have a duty to give up their lives in order to protect the soul society but he doesn't believe that ichigo and the others have this same duty he demonstrates this during the fake karakuri town arc where in chapter 393 he uses his ability ennetsujigoku literally translating to flames of hell this ability can incinerate an area which is much larger than karakura town and it is for this reason that he tells ichigo to get back he does not have to share in the fate of the other members of the gotei 13. ichigo and his friends being humans have no business in matters involving the soul society so yes the head captain may allow them to assist in battle but by no means is he relying on them or asking for the help so with this brief explanation of his character let's now dive into the head captain's backstory i want to go through all of the mentions of the captain commander's past within the manga this involves flashbacks which occur from the soul society arc all the way up until the thousand-year blood war arc let's try to understand more about the individual who had founded the goatee 13 and what kind of a person he was in the past during the soul society arc in chapter 155 you get the first mention of the head captain's past during his battle with chun sui and ukitake willing that 2100 years ago he had founded the shinigami academy some time after this he had also founded the gotei 13. one of his earliest acts as the captain commander was to recruit yacharu unohana dubbed the most diabolical criminal of the soul society he had wanted her to join as one of the founding captains of the gotei 13. during this time he had also been teaching ugitake and chansui at the shinigami academy when they were children due to this long lasting connection that he has with them he refers to them as his own sons during chapter 504 we get a flashback of when the head captain was a instructor in his academy we learned that his current lieutenant chojiro sasakibe used to visit him regularly referring to him with the nickname ijisai because of the scar on his head which resembles the japanese character e during this chapter the captain commander has a much younger appearance with fewer wrinkles and black hair yamamoto was not fond of the nickname that chojiro used to refer to him as but he continued to stubbornly refer to him as egypsai we learned during this chapter that chojira wanted to be the right-hand man of the head captain even going as far as to learn bangkai to see whether if he is worthy of the position of his right-hand man yamamoto tells him to try and take him down with his bankai after demonstrating it yamamoto said that it was incredible but it wasn't enough to take him down chojiro's bankai had left a permanent scar on his forehead once the scar was fully formed the two of his scars looked like the character's jew so people began calling him jujisai but his lieutenant chojiro did not like this he continued to call the head captain aegissai claiming that the scar that he had created on the head captain's forehead should not change his name so head captain yamamoto for the sake of chojiro began calling himself gen ryusai so that others would stop referring to him as jujisai he did this for the sake of his lieutenant in chapter 394 we learned that yamamoto had become the head captain over a thousand years ago and it was around about this time that he had failed to kill juha buck during the first quincy blood war in chapter 511 we see a young sunswee sneak into the head captain's office a painting on yamamoto's wall had caught his attention out of curiosity he asks yamamoto what the painting is of as it appears the painting is depicting a god of fire he explains to sunsweet that this is a painting of a monster that showed up in the source society a very long time ago he states that the soul society was going through a very rough time and when that god of fire appeared it only made things worse yamamoto reassures sunsweet that this monster will never show up again but if it ever does then yamamoto fears that that may be the last day of his life this flashback and the exchange that he has with sunswee reveals that he was ashamed of his past he refers to a painting of himself as a monster believing that this form of a fire of god that he had adopted led to the soul society experiencing even more turmoil during a already very difficult time we can assume that yamamoto had adopted this form of a monster a thousand years ago during his battle against yuhabak during the rematch that they have in the thousand-year budwar arc yuhaba refers to the past yamamoto as a demon stating that in the past he would go through any means necessary in order to defeat his opponents going as far as to hold very little regard for humans in the real world or even his own subordinates treating them as easily replaceable pawns it was only after the quincy threat was defeated 1 000 years ago and after attaining peace that the head captain had decided to live with honor and justice this is what led to his character changing and i will talk more about the change that his character undergoes later on in the video as the person that he grew to become is called into question by you habakkuk quite some time after this we learn in chapter 138 that the head captain had allowed sejen komomura into the gotei 13. he had accepted him when nobody else would and shortly after this kimpatchi was also enlisted as a captain of the gote 13 after killing the prior captain of the 11th division because yet attained the captain rank with no formal training the head captain seemed it fitting to teach him swordsmanship however after only one lesson he became concerned with the destructive power that kimpachi had possessed along with the central 46 he decided to cease kimpachi's training deeming him to be too dangerous to learn kendo aside from his minor involvement during the 10 back the pendulum arc this now brings us up to speed to the captain commander's first chronological appearance within the bleach manga in chapter 82 we get our first real impression of the captain commander as well as the other captains of the gotei 13. yamamoto summons a meeting with the other captains to discuss the failure of guinea chumaru to kill ichigo and his friends his first act is to reprimand mayuri and kimpachi who begin arguing with gin as the leader of this very powerful newly introduced group of characters we can see that he is very strict and committed to his duty as their leader as well as this you see that he has very little patience as he immediately demands an explanation from gin as to why he allowed his targets to get away on top of this he is very quick to judge guinea chumaru's actions on whether if they are worthy of his rank as a captain of the gotei 13. the meeting abruptly ends after ichigo and his friends break into the soul society concluding with the head captain deciding that guinea chumaru's punishment will be decided later along with the execution of rukio we can see that the seoul society is very unforgiving along with biakia's first appearance within the story the captain commander's introduction is our first look at a real authoritative figure within the soul society you rarely fear for ichigo and his friends after seeing the captains and their leader and this is credited to kubo's excellent character designs without these individuals even taking part in a single battle you can tell that they are incredibly powerful the design of head captain yamamoto is no exception to this after the defeat of ranji in chapter 99 the head captain declares that the situation has become an emergency in order to deal with ichigo and his friends the captain commander enlists the help of the best individuals for the task he grants full wartime powers to the 13 court guard squads allowing them to even use bankai if necessary yamamoto takes no chances by declaring all that war against the intruders we don't really see the head captain again until chapter 150 at rukia's execution he describes how the sokkyaku will carry out the execution of rukia he looks on as ichigo appears and rescues rukia he sends his lieutenant to deal with ichigo while he confronts shinsui anukitake after they destroy the sokyoku he orders them not to move in chapter 153 he notes the severity of their actions stating that ugitake and shunswe have dishonored their rank as captains the two of them try to escape but the head captain demonstrates his incredible speed because after they gain some distance on him he appears in front of them we now see just how much monstrous power the captain commander possesses he is determined to punish the two of them for their actions in chapter 155 we see the head captain releases riatsu for the first time stun sui's lieutenant nanao is overwhelmed by the released riatsu the head captain notices that nanao is on the battlefield and refers to her as an infant and tells her to leave through nanao's response you can see how powerful the head captain is her eyes begin to water and her mouth forms of course nanao's expression is censored within the anime but the manga really exaggerates and emphasizes yamamoto's incredible power through nanao's expression after she is taken away from the battlefield the head captain describes sunsweet and ugitake when they were younger he states that he was proud of them as if they were his own sons it adds to the disappointment that he feels as he had hoped that the two of them stayed on the same path that he has where upholding the rules of the soul society supersedes any personal justice that they are seeking of course in this context they have gone against the rules of the soul society in order to protect rukia as they believe that executing rukia is an excessive form of justice the two of them tried to talk it out with the head captain but he states that there is nothing left to discuss as he draws out his zampakdo suggesting that the two of them do the same as the head captain he cannot be seen to be wavering in his resolve he is the embodiment of the soul society if he does not uphold and preserve the law and order of the soul society then nobody else will this is why the head captain does not want to talk with shun sui and okitake despite his close bond with them he needs to discipline them for breaking the rules a battle begins immediately between the three of them but unfortunately it is off-screen this doesn't really give us much of a chance to see the head captain's abilities on full display but thankfully at the end of chapter 155 we see the head captain releases zombocto as is shikai ryujin jakka is unveiled you may have assumed that the head captain is a frail old man but his appearance now that he has removed his captain's coat is that of a muscular old man whose body is covered in multiple scars like i mentioned earlier ugitake perfectly describes the hand captain's appearance here as he feels fear and the weight of his spiritual pressure comparing it to the weight of the deep sea describing that the head captain's shikai has transcendent spiritual pressure it can even be stated that it is more powerful than some individual's bankai the heat that is emanating from his zambocto is scorching the heavens and consuming even the clouds ukitake describes rujin jakka as a zampato that can turn everything that it touches into ash the captain commander possesses one of the most terrible oldest and greatest zombocto when challenged by such a powerful opponent the two captains have no other choice but to release their own shikai after activating their shikai the head captain does marvel at their zombocto as he comments that shunsui and ukitake zampakto are the only dual-bladed zambocto within the entire history of the soul society the three of them finally clash and an explosion erupts as we cut away from the scene after releasing this video i've broken down this encounter from three different perspectives of course we see here the perspective of the disappointed head captain in my sweet character analysis we see the cool calm and collected perspective whereas in my ukitake video i go over how he was feeling anxiousness or apprehension how kubo drew the expressions on the faces of shinsui and ukitake very differently to match their own personalities i really love this encounter between three of the most powerful shinigami within the soul society students battling against their master the differing reactions between shun sui and okitake the seriousness of the head captain and ultimately the three of them not holding back as the new generation clashes with the old sunsweet and ukitake cannot recall the last time that they had seen the head captain in this state we can infer that they know full well the monstrous power of the head captain as they have seen him in battle however many years ago of course this is merely a glimpse into the true monster that the head captain is the very monster that he resorts to transforming to in order to battle against juha buck during the thousand-year blood war arc and the very monster that he described to a younger chunky when he was intrigued by the painting within the head captain's office in hindsight coming back to this battle i would have loved if we actually got to see it but i think there is still some beauty in the way that kubo had executed this by teasing the abilities and powers of ukitake shinsui and the hand captain it gave us something to look forward to in the future because when it comes to the hand captain we do get to see a lot of his abilities throughout the story i was surprised at how many powers and abilities he had actually demonstrated when i was researching for this video so when we finally do get to see the hand captain a power it feels satisfactory because we have been looking forward to it ever since chapter 156 where we cut away from the battle between the three powerful shinigami their battle does eventually stop after the news that eisen has betrayed the soul society is shared by isane kotatsu so that wraps up the head captain's involvement within the soul society arc he does have some minor appearances between now and defeat karakura town arc including where he orders the shinigami to prepare for war against eisen and he refuses to give ichigo and the others permission to go and rescue orihime as he believes that going to huikomundo is suicidal after all he believes that orihime had willingly gone to wacomundo of her own choice and it is for this reason that he justifies not going to save her later he orders the creation of fake karakura towns so that the captains could battle at full strength against the ispada and of course eisen after arriving in fake karakura town his first act is to use an ability called jogaku enjo to trap eisen tozen and gin so that he and the other shinigami can focus on eliminating the ispada in chapter 329 the head captain declares that the battle between the shinigami and the espada has finally begun he orders to defend the soul society with their lives and to not allow the enemy to step foot onto the soul society in chapter 337 the lieutenants are struggling against harry bell's fraccion who have combined into a beast called ion he is forced to intervene into the battle as he injures the hollow by leaving a hole in his chest the captain commander states that the lieutenants should be ashamed of themselves for forcing the head captain out onto the battlefield after ion survives the attack the head captain states that he will have to punish it some more it transforms and starts to grow larger in size it charges towards yamamoto as we finally get to see the head captain engage in battle he releases his zombocto and uses an ability to easily cut down aeon the hollow is cut clean in half but it is still moving this is where the head captain begins to have pity for his opponent as he says that he doesn't enjoy attacking stupid beasts with ease the head captain incinerates half of the hollow by activating his chikai when aion is defeated haribal's frashion attempt to attack the head captain he admires their spirit and decides to lightly burn them so that they fall unconscious deciding not to completely kill them this is surprisingly different to the impression that we have of the head captain especially when you compare actions like this to how sunsweet and ukitake remember the head captain as clearly he isn't the same monster as he was in the past this is proven by how he didn't kill haribel's fraccione clearly he doesn't kill opponents unless it is absolutely necessary in chapter 365 the head captain is surprised to learn that the vizzards are still alive this is one of the first times where you really get an emotive expression out of the head captain the captain commander ends up having a discussion with shinji wondering if they have arrived to seek revenge but shinji states that they want revenge against eisen not the gote 13. the head captain asks shinji if they can consider them their allies but he tells them that they are not the allies of the gote 13 they merely have a common enemy if they are allies of anybody then they are ichigo's allies in chapter 393 after sufficiently preparing the head captain challenges eisen eisen taunts him by saying that if he fails then the gotai 13 are essentially finished when eisen ends up impaling the head captain he grabs him by the arm eisen questions the head captain whether if the arm that he is holding is indeed his but yamamoto isn't relying solely on his eyes or what he's feeling with his hands he knows eisen's spiritual energy after being cut by a zombocto there is no mistaking whose arm he's holding we learn here that the head captain was preparing an ability called ennetsujigoku walls of fire suddenly erupt from the ground surrounding eisen and this is where the head captain tells ichigo to get away because the fallout from this attack is devastating it will lead to everybody within fake karakora town being eliminated including the captains and lieutenants of the gotei 13 that are present yamamoto is willing to go through such extreme lengths in order to take down eisen but because ichigo is not a member of the gote 13 he cannot allow him to die here also when eisen questions him whether if he is ok with the other members of the gote 13 to fall victim to his attack the head captain states that they are prepared for this like i mentioned at the start of the video the head captain believes that it is the duty of the members of the gote 13 to die to eliminate great evil he believes that this is the true purpose of the gote 13 that he had founded however his plans are thwarted with the arrival of wonderwise who appears behind the head captain the flames of his zombucto appear to be dying out as eisen explains that wonderwise is the first modified iranka of its kind he had sacrificed all of its other abilities in order to focus on one particular strength this particular power is his resurrection which is named the flame extinguishing prince eisen had created an iranka for the sole purpose of containing the flames of yamamoto zombocto and it is with this that isim bits farewell to the head captain confident that he has defeated his opponent without being able to use a zambocto the head captain resorts to hand-to-hand combat he delivers a devastating punch to wonderwise which sends him flying he explains to eisen that he will not be defeated just because he cannot use his ryujin jakka describing eisen as naive he asks him why is it that there has been nobody else who has been the captain commander of the gotei 13 for over a thousand years he explains that in all of this time not a single shinigami has been born that has been stronger than him using shimpo he appears in front of eisen about to punch him but its attack is blocked by wonderwise who protects eisen the head captain blocks wonderwise's attacks and even rips off one of his arms but several different arms grow from his back and begin to attack the head captain wonderwise then restrains yamamoto by grabbing onto his arms with the head captain now unable to move several more arms grow and they begin to punch yamamoto simultaneously but this is why the head captain demonstrates how much of a badass he is despite having just been punched over a hundred times he stands there unfazed asking wonder-wise if he is finished he tears off the arms that are restraining him and states that he is glad that wonderwise no longer looks like a child because he can now beat it to death without feeling any guilt he then uses a hakuda technique called sokkotsu an incredibly powerful two-fisted punch this attack completely destroys wonderwise after defeating wunderwise yamamoto feels some remorse for his opponent describing it as a poor creature thanks to eisen's cruel actions it was robbed of its emotions eisen reminds the head captain that he stated that wonderwise's ability was to contain the flames of ryu jinjaka he reveals that the flames from his ability and that tsujigoku were contained within wonderwise's body the head captain is aware that if this energy is released then it will cause devastating destruction destroying the pillars around fake karakora town and causing destruction to the real world the head captain rushes to contain the explosion which erupts and causes devastating damage to the head captain the incredibly smug eisen thanks the head captain for saving the world if he hadn't used his body as a barrier then karakora town would have been destroyed the head captain then collapses while eisen approaches him eisen states that he will not spare the head captain since he is the living embodiment of the soul society's history he is everything that the soul society stands for just before eisen can strike yamamoto he grabs his leg he ends up using a sacrificial ability numbered harder number 96 ito castle he sacrifices his left arm in order to deal one final attack to eisen before he collapses and this is the head captain's final attack as he continued to fight until he fell unconscious and as we know the rest of the battle continues with ichigo now facing off against eisen the head captain is seen again in chapter 423 ten days after the defeat of eisen we see him telling off shinsby byakuya and kim party for losing their captain's coats yamamoto's injuries appear to have been healed apart from his left arm which he has lost ugitake who is listening in is glad that the head captain has returned to his former self he is grateful that nothing had happened to him during the battle with eisen as he states that no shinigami within the soul society could take his place the head captain has a minor appearance during the four bring arc in chapter 461 we see a meeting of the captains where urahara requests the head captain to restore ichigo's powers the captain commander agrees to restoring ichigo's powers since they were saved by ichigo and now it is their turn to save him by doing this he is going against the customs of the soul society but he believes that it is justified he says that it would be shameful if they did not assist ichigo who they owe so much to he orders all of the captains and their lieutenants to place their riatsu into the sword that pierces ichigo and eventually restores his powers it is evident that the character of head captain yamamoto has changed since his first appearance you would not imagine him breaking the customs of the soul society during the first arc that he appears in ever since ichigo and his friends have appeared and started to assist the soul society his character has become a lot more accepting defeating eisen certainly left an impression on the head captain because of this i believe that the head captain now has a lot of respect for ichigo it is ironic that he now has respect for an individual who he had ordered to kill during the saw society arc this now brings us up to the thousand-year budwell arc where the head captain is only around for 32 chapters we see the captain commander in chapter 482 where he is confronted by seven masked men they take out a messenger who is reporting to the head captain i love how the thousand year budwar arc begins how the enemy decides to fearlessly confront the head of the gote 13. they tell yamamoto that they are here to declare war against the soul society with residents of rukongai in hollows disappearing you wonder what on earth is going on but everything becomes clear once the head captain is confronted by the enemy themselves the intruders note how easy it was to infiltrate into the head captain's office they advised that he should pay more attention towards his security but in one of his most coolest moments he states that he has nothing to fear after all he is here and there is no greater security than that i love the way that kubo has drawn the head captain here he looks incredibly menacing and somebody you wouldn't want to take lightly when we cut back to this confrontation we see the head captain's lieutenant chojiro being thrown across his office his body being propelled through the air by a large arrow that has impaled his body yamamoto calls out to his lieutenant but the masked men advise him not to mourn for him because his lieutenant had died a pointless death by noticing the quincy crosses we can tell that the enemy that is threatening the soul society are quinces the masked men tell the head captain that five days from now the soul society will be annihilated by the evandern reich the invisible empire of the quincy the masked men don't reveal their identities to the hand captain but they allow him to guess who they are the intruders bit the head captain farewell as they escape into the shadows yamamoto promptly releases his zombucto unleashing flames upon the area where they were stood after these smoke clears we see that the intruders have already escaped his attention now tends to his lieutenant who with his dying breath is trying to relay something to him he tries to tell yamamoto that the enemy can do something with their bankai but he is unable to complete a sentence before he dies in chapter 486 we have the cremation of chojiro we learned that he was a man who swore his loyalty to the head captain for as long as had captain yamamoto was alive he swore to be by his side we learned that he was an incredibly powerful shinigami who had used his bankai for the first time in battle against the enemy but it had still resulted in his death biakea who is also present at the cremation states that the grief that the head captain must be feeling is beyond the imagination of any of the present captains who have such little experience and knowledge when compared to yamamoto during this chapter for the first time in the entire series we see a somber expression on the face of the head captain mourning the death of his lieutenant he looks to the floor and gives the order to light the fire so that the cremation can begin we get a panel drawn by kubo which shows us the expression from the head captain's eye you can see the sadness and the grief in his eyes and you can only imagine the pain that he must be feeling the thousand-year blood or arc has one of the best introductions to any arc that i have ever seen by killing the head captain's lieutenant they have incurred his wrath you can only imagine what on earth he will do when he sees the quincy again during chapter 488 we finally get a response from the head captain during a captain's meeting the soul society's research and development institute filled the captains in on everything that has been going on as well as the identity of the army that has declared war upon the soul society of course the head captain already knows this but the army is made up of quincy's after mayuri divulges more information as well as chojiro sasakibe's dying words which were that the enemy conceal and neutralize an individual's bankai the head captain then interrupts mairie and tells him that this is enough information for now all he wants to know is where is the enemy's base of operations but unfortunately mary does not know where it is located so with no way of counter-attacking the enemy the head captain orders all of the other captains to prepare for battle telling them that the enemy stated that they would be back in five days but there is no point in trusting their words he orders them to prepare for battle immediately with conviction he tells his captains not to allow the enemy to gain the upper hand again finally after mourning the fierce head captain that we know has returned you can see that after the introduction of the enemy and the death of his lieutenant he is gradually having to become that monster again the monster that he transformed into in order to battle juha back a personality so fierce that he had to cast it aside as it was a detriment to the soul society in chapter 489 mairie and the head captain have a discussion why mairie reveals to the head captain that he foresaw all of this happening the moment that he saw uryu invade the soul society right at the beginning of the series it was the head captain who ignored mairi's warnings but mairie goes on to say that the main cause of this situation is the head captain himself because he had failed to kill the leader of the quincy army yuhabak a thousand years ago when the quincy return as promised the head captain steps out leaving his third seated officer in charge in chapter 503 we see the stan written driscoll bersie he is battling against shuhei hisagi we learned that this is the stern ritter that had killed chojuro sasakibe just as he is about to deliver the final blow to hisagi the head captain intervenes deflecting the same arrowhead that was used to kill his lieutenant the head captain appears protecting hisagi the sternut is delighted to see yamamoto after all his intention was to end the life of the head captain by using the stolen bangkai of his lieutenant the stern ritter tons the head captain as he states that chojiro hadn't used his bankai in over 2 000 years he tells the head captain that it must bring back memories for him to see his lieutenants bankai again it is here where we have that flashback that i spoke about right at the beginning of the video with a younger yamamoto and chojiro referring to him as egypsai his lieutenant had demonstrated his newly formed bangkai which had scared yamamoto's forehead we cut back to the present day where the stonewater attempts to use this very same bangkai against the head captain yamamoto is attacked at point-blank range by the stolen bangkai he remains silent as he takes the attack at full force he eventually speaks and he says that chojiro would be so humiliated that a stern ritter is using his bankai that he had honed and generating such weak attacks with it the head captain is angered by how the legacy of his lieutenant is being disrespected his bankai was not this weak with anger he burns the stern ritter with a shikai immediately killing him the head captain was finally able to avenge the death of his lieutenant this is a yamamoto that we have not seen before he incinerates the stone ritter burning away his flesh the flames even end up devouring his bones hisagi is shocked as he watches on the head captain reassures him not to worry because he will personally defeat each and every stan ritter including their leader yuhabak we see the fearsomeness of head captain yamamoto as he charges ahead the other captains can tell that he is furious the spiritual pressure of odman yamamoto is resonating throughout the soul society it increases the morale of all of the other shinigami at the end of chapter 505 he appears before yoohabak who is holding kim party's lifeless body by the throat at the end of this chapter the head captain finally arrives to confront yuho back they meet again after 1 000 years he tells him that this time he has come to take his life the stern writers as not nanana and basbi attack the head captain from above but he incinerates them with his shikai you are back has no sympathy for the three stern ritters as he states that they are fools for trying to interfere with his battle yuha tells yamamoto that he has grown old but he notes that seeing the head captain's anger overwhelm him reminds him of his younger days and it is here that we see this glimpse of head captain yamamoto during their first battle with yuhabak and it is really unfortunate that we don't get to see a fully fleshed out battle from a thousand years ago but kubo teases us through these subtle glimpses into the past the head captain strikes first but juha buck evades the attack he then draws his own sword made up of reishi it appears that the head captain was waiting for juha to draw his sword he was anticipating it so that he could crush his flash blood and his sword suddenly the flames from yamamoto zambakdo yujin jakka disappear chapter 506 concludes with the painful cliffhanger of the head captain saying bankai zankanotachi yuhabak advises hashwat not to take the bankai of yamamoto lightly as everything it cuts is burnt by an explosive flame his zambakdo literally embodies the fires from hell we learned that yuhabak had seen the head captain's bankai a thousand years ago he wonders if it is still the same as before after the head captain activates his bankai the entire atmosphere of the soul society changes across the cerete various different individuals react to the warmth that is generated from his bankai ukitake's throat begins to dry up shunsui's lips begin to crack onahana notices that the water from avars has evaporated even hiyorimaru which is being used by the standard kangdo begins to evaporate all of the moisture within the source society is disappearing gradually ukitake and shinsui are well aware that the head captain has activated his bankai yamamoto immediately strikes yuha but he is confused as to where the flames from his zombucto have gone but he soon learns that the flames are emitted from the tip of the zombucto during this battle against yuhabak we learned that the head captain's bankai has four different sections east west south and then lastly north zankanotachi east concentrates all of the heat of his zampato into the tip of the blade neither does it burn nor does it emanate any flames it just blows away everything that it touches without a trace it is so powerful not even the quincy's defensive ability blutveen can stand up to it yuha naively states that all he has to do is defeat the head captain without being cut by his blade but yamamoto reveals to him that if his zombucto has an east there is also a west he activates zankanotachi west immediately heat begins to emanate which reaches 15 million degrees now yuha will be unable to even lay a finger on the head captain he has literally become the sun itself with his zompak door and his body being surrounded by burning flames the head captain says that it is time to end this if he does not conclude this battle soon then himself along with the entire soul society will burn to the ground thanks to the heat generated from yamamoto's bankai yuha feels like he is burning if it wasn't for his bluetv defense then he would be reduced to ashes even at this distance the head captain questions if he is just going to stand there and watch after all yuha's sword was broken moments ago he tells him that he won't blame him if he decides to run away but yamamoto is determined to catch up to him and kill him he then begins to fire arrows towards yamamoto while yamamoto charges towards him yuha activates an ability called churchsong sanctuary praise it appears to be the quincy's ultimate offensive and defensive chant he warns the captain commander that if he steps into this then his body will be torn apart by god's light but odman yamamoto retaliates by stating that he cannot harm him yamamoto then activates zankanotachi south as it appears that he is reviving the dead who are died by the flames of his zombucto several skeletal corpses rise from the ground ready to attack yuhobak yuha insults yamamoto by telling him that he is a disgrace to the shinigami by bringing back the dead to life he tries to break through the pile of corpses that are restraining him but he realizes that these are the faces of his dead comrades his subordinates that the head captain had killed a thousand years ago he recognizes the faces of several of his men that are now restraining him now that juha buck has been successfully restrained the head captain begins to make some distance between them he questions if juha is regretting not having stolen his bankai earlier but the head captain states that it's not that they chose not to steal this bankai it's that they couldn't steal it the captain commander assumes that the quincy can only steal bankai once they understand the full power of a bankai and since the head captain hasn't shown the true form of his bankai they are unable to steal it it appears that juha buck is going to be defeated as his emotions are overwhelming him but the head captain doesn't hesitate in the slightest as he avenges the deaths of all of the shinigami that the quincy have killed he activates zankanotachi north which is a single swift strike of concentrated fire and heat which incinerates and burns everything out of existence that it touches and this is what exactly happens when it makes contact with yuhaba's body his ominous torso is completely erased as he collapses to the ground yamamoto then undoes his bangkai as he looks on at the body of his defeated opponent but what is strange is that he notices that yohabak is apologizing and asking for forgiveness from lord youhabak but this is when yamamoto realizes that he wasn't facing off against yuhobak but instead an imitating stinerator called lloyd royd he turns around to see an explosion from his first company barracks realizing that his third seated officer okikiba has been caught up in the explosion he shouts out his name but this is when the real youhabbach appears behind yamamoto we learned that while yamamoto was facing off against a doppelganger yohabak had gone to see eisen in the central underground great prison he had attempted to recruit him but his offer was declined yamamoto attempts to activate his bangkai in retaliation to yohabak but his bangkai is stolen by the leader of the quincy he reveals that it's not that they couldn't see this bankai it's just that nobody else but yuha could control the immense power of his bankai yohabak then waves his sword across the air and a large reishi sword falls from the ground gripping this blade he bids farewell to the head captain as he strikes him across his body the next chapter 511 begins with that flashback that i mentioned earlier on in the video of the painting of the monster that the head captain had turned into with the words of the head captain resonating in our minds that if that monster was to show the soul society again then that will mean the end of yamamoto's life we see the face of a beaten and tired yamamoto still stood on his feet after being striked by yuhabak his body is then cut in two from the shoulder to the waist in this devastating chapter we see his sons shun sui and nukitake react immediately chapter 511 is titled die standing yuha insults the head captain stating that he may have been the head of the soul society but his defeat was pitiful with his final ounce of strength the head captain as if to say that he is still fighting grabs on to juha's cloak this is incredibly brutal as the leader of the quincy cuts off his arm juha steps on the head of the captain commander referring to him as a halfwit he explains why yamamoto wasn't listed as one of the war potentials that he had wanted to recruit he questions the corpse of the captain commander why is it that he didn't heal his left arm after the battle with eisen he could have done so but he was too stubborn to accept assistance from a human like orohime he didn't want to have any assistance or to exploit humans he was even reluctant to have each go involved in the battle against eisen during his battle against juha buck the head captain wasn't only fighting for the soul society but he was also shouldering the burden of the world of the living despite bearing such a heavy burden the head captain was ultimately killed juha states that yamamoto had gotten weak he was different from a thousand years ago the original gotee 13 that the head captain had founded were a group of cold-hearted killers they were only guardians of the soul society by name but in actuality they were ruthless uh back states that it is for this reason that they were to be greatly feared and it was head captain yamamoto who had kept them in line with his zampakto ryujin jakka he was a monster that nobody would challenge he would use anything and everything in order to defeat his opponents he would have even cast aside the life of his subordinates if it meant victory for him but yuhobak states that yamamoto had changed once the quincy were killed once the shinigami had experienced peace they began to protect and to love more because of their sense of justice and pride they became hesitant he describes this new iteration of the gote 13 as a bunch of gutless foolish individuals yuhobak's final words to the corpse of yamamoto are that he died not realizing that the soul society is about to die the true gote 13 died a thousand years ago with the death of the quincy the new grote 13 are nothing more than poor imitators according to yuhabak with this he destroys the body of the head captain where the only thing remaining is his zampato and this is how the story and legacy of head captain yamamoto ends he dies not knowing the fate of his soul society or his subordinates having been defeated by an enemy that he failed to defeat a thousand years ago the death of the head captain was merciless he had no solace in his final moments no hope that the situation would get better he died not knowing the fate of the gotei 13 that he had founded unaware the legacy of the shinigami would end and if he would be even remembered at all by anybody i find the beginning of chapter 511 to be very poetic as we have this brief glimpse into the past the head captain foreshadowing his own death by stating that if that monster would appear again then that would mean that he would not return again there was truth to these almost prophetic words the head captain died standing on his feet which is an excellent callback from his poem from volume 45 kubo writes don't leave bowing down die standing up and this is on the volume where head captain yamamoto features on the cover this volume was written years before the actual death of head captain yamamoto the head captain also features on the cover of the volume where these chapters occur on the cover of volume 58 the poem on this volume states the heart burns even though rain falls we can infer that the burning is the legacy of head captain yamamoto as his body lays on the ground in the rain he grabs onto the cloak of yuho back clearly his heart's still burning now that he has died the remaining members of the gotei 13 remain upholding his legacy this was quite a lengthy video but i feel that it was necessary to explain the legacy of the head captain i think this video does a good job of explaining why the head captain is such a well-written character and how kobo fully fleshed out the abilities of head captain yamamoto he tied together all of his story and wrapped up all of the loose ends the only issue that i genuinely have is that we didn't get to see the first battle against yamamoto versus yuhabak a thousand years ago i mentioned it so many times in this video but i would have loved to have actually seen it occur in the manga after seeing the events of chapter 511 the poem from volume 45 makes a lot more sense similar to whitebeard from one piece whoa died standing on his feet during the marine ford arc the head captain also stands on his feet until his body is cut down and the poem from volume 45 foreshadows this precisely prior to making this video i didn't really have much consideration or care for even the lieutenant i've had captain yamamoto but after researching for this video and analyzing the relationship between chojiro sasakibe and the head captain i have a lot more appreciation for him and it really helped me to understand the emotions that the head captain must have been feeling after the death of his lieutenant this week i'm analyzing siphon's character my first impressions of a character were not really that positive i just couldn't get myself to really like her that much but after analyzing and studying her character for this video i now understand her motives a lot better and she isn't as bossy aggressive and annoying as i thought that she was so in this video i want to analyze and explain why soy phone's character is very well written as well as going into the different quirks of her personality as well as this i'll be going into the dynamics of the relationships that she forms with the various different cast members of bleach so let's break down and analyze why soyphone's character behaves and acts in the way that she does and what experiences from her past have heavily impacted her character saifon first appears in chapter 81 and in episode 24 of the anime the petite shorthead captain of the second division is not to be underestimated as she is also the chief commander of the unmet sceeto which is the soul society stealth force she has grey eyes and notably black hair with two long braids which are tied together by a white cloth soy phone is very outspoken and she doesn't hesitate to share her opinions she is very loyal to the soul society and to the on meat sceeto in addition to this she is very loyal to the previous commander of the unmitsukido and the prior captain of the second division yuroichi shihon in the past yurichi used to be saifon's mentor because of this she had always looked up to her and decided to be as strong as her one day sofon's character shared an incredibly strong bond with yurichi and this is why it leaves her utterly shocked and confused when yurichi abandons the soul society after the exile of kisuke urahara and it is also for this reason that she has a dislike for urahara as she believes that he made urichi choose him over the soul society and her nobility and high ranking positions within the soul society this anger and confusion eventually manifests itself into determination when saifon decides to surpass a mentor and to prove that she is a better and more worthy successor than yurichi as we know through her incredible hard work saifon was able to attain all of the titles that yurichi had held because of the departure of a mentor her personality and character changes a lot there is a notable change from the siphon that we get to see during the 10 back the pendulum arc and the character that we see as a captain of the igote13 in the past she was naive and very dependent upon yurichi but when that bond was ripped away from her she was left on her own this caused her to harbor feelings of resentment and anger saifon feels like yurichi had betrayed the entire soul society including her in my opinion i believe that this is the trigger that causes sofon to become more cold-hearted so let's start to understand more about a character by going through her backstory and then analyzing her various different chronological appearances within the bleach story with paying particular attention to how her relationship with yurichi changes over time in chapter 159 we get a flashback during siphon's battle against yurichi we learned that saifon is a member of a lower ranking noble family that is linked to the shihomei noble family she was the youngest of her six siblings while she was a child she was told about yurichi being the princess of the shihon family and that she was the head of the unmitsukido soy phone was told that a duty is to serve yoruichi she is to be her arms and her legs and if it is required of her then saifun should be able to give a life for yurichi she describes the feelings that she felt when she first laid her eyes upon her she describes yurichi as a goddess in the flesh the family that saifon had belonged to were known throughout their generations to be executioners or assassins the individuals who are born into the fun family are destined to serve and give their lives for the unmitsukido to soifon's family strength meant everything individuals who were unfit to join the unmitsuki were disowned soifon happened to be the 9th generation member of her family when she was born she was given the name shaolin fan but upon joining the unmitsukido she had taken up the name siphon after her great grandmother she had joined a division of the unmitsukido called the force it is a remote secret squad it is the highest ranking squad of the five found within the unmet sceeto the function of the force is to get rid of comrades who have broken the law and to act as scouts who can detect hollows before everybody else to be a member of the force is very taxing and this is proven to be true as all five of saifon's brothers were killed on various different missions she had felt sadness for losing them but more so than sadness she had felt ashamed of their lack of strength saifon had admired yurichi as she was the 22nd head of the shihoen family and she was the first female to rule saifon admired yurichi skill in hand-to-hand combat as it was unparalleled to anybody else she had felt that yurichi was noble elegant and frighteningly strong she was everything that saifon had wanted to become you have to understand that saifon's feelings of admiration were incredibly strong and eventually instead of being in awe of her she had began to worship her after working incredibly hard for seven years she joins the division which reports directly to yurichi siphon is very formal and uptight as she refers to uruichi as commander but in a very laid-back and relaxed tone she tells saifon to just call her by her name yuri ichi doesn't like these stiff and rigid formalities she eventually settles to allow soifon to address her as miss yurichi urichi explains to saifon that she had promoted her because she admires her skills and that she is expecting great things from saifon for siphon to hear this from somebody that she not only admired but worshipped is very significant she wasn't now admiring from afar instead she was working alongside yorishi this led her to feel incredible happiness even during battle or on a mission she was just happy to accompany yurichi she would have died for her repeatedly she had sworn this to herself and we see that the bond that the two of them shared went beyond a student and a mentor yurichi was very playful with saifon despite her trying to maintain her formalities while saifon was dependent on yurichi being around in addition to this she was very bright-eyed and naive as it was like yuri ichi was an entire world and nothing existed beyond it and this is why it comes as a heart-wrenching shock to her to realize that yurichi had left without any warning or without even saying goodbye to anybody she had disappeared from everybody's lives and it wasn't until the next day where saifon had learnt about these circumstances related to yurichi's disappearance it is revealed in chapter 159 that yurichi had decided to help urohara to escape from the soul society and the two of them evaded being arrested because of her actions yurichi is no longer the commander of the onmitsukito her behavior was dubbed as a betrayal at such a young and impressionable age what was so fun to think the person that she had worshiped as a god had betrayed everything that she stood for this led to her losing all respect for the person that she admired she hated yuri ichi and she cursed out her very existence because of yurichi's actions saifon had desired to become stronger than her and to find and capture yuriji herself her feelings of resentment grew so strong that she is unwilling to forgive her i'm going to cover more about how yurichi had betrayed soifon's respect and trust when i discussed the battle between the two of them during the soul society arc but for now let's cover more of a past that is revealed to us during the 10 back the pendulum arc and even the bleach character data book souls during the 10 back the pendulum arc we see siphon working under yurichi in the secret remote squad yurichi is informed that urohara has gone to maggot's nest without permission but she appears to be quite laid back in her response as she says that it is fine allowing him to go wherever he wants this causes siphon to speak out but yurichi reassures her and tells her that it is fine since they know urohara won't be up to no good through the ten back the pendulum arc we learned that the unmitsukido was not initially tied to the gote 13 second division we learned that the sheikhoun family which yurichi belongs to is one of the four great noble families of the soul society they possess shinigami powers and have served as the directors of the unmitsukido for generations if the director of the unmitsukido is appointed as a captain of the gotei 13 then the two groups become closely tied this is exactly what happens when yurichi becomes the director of the unmitsukido and the captain of the gotei 13. now the second division is linked to the unmitsquido this means that the five divisions of the unmitsukido are now leaded by the seated officers of the second division this is important to know because after urichi had abandoned the soul society all of these organizations which were working together under her had become separated so soifon worked incredibly hard in order to unify all of these groups once again we learn about this from the bleach character data book souls i am aware that we get some additional filler material from bleach episode 206 which focuses on siphon spying on urahara trying to prove to yuri ichi that he is lazy but because this is filler and not really mentioned within the manga i don't think that it is important to go into the first time that we get to properly see soyphone's character is within chapter 138 of the soul society arc where she is questioned whether if it is right or wrong to carry out rukia's execution she states that she doesn't care whether if it is right or wrong all she cares about is her honor and a duty as a captain of the gote 13 she believes that anybody who gets in a way is an enemy and she has a firm belief that enemies must be killed and it's a impactful introduction to a character as we see this no-nonsense young lady she even goes as far as he won her own lieutenant omada that if he would get in her way then she would consider him to be her enemy also saifon is among the captains who are present for the execution of rukia she expresses shock and anger as she witnesses ichigo rescue rukia and ukitake and shinsui destroy the sokyoku within an instance she recognizes fellow captains and other members of the soul society as enemies we see this in chapter 153 when isane is knocked out we see her sister kyone runter aid but soifon appears behind her she throws kyone to the ground and pins her down with her foot referring to her as a dog she describes her actions as dishonorable to the gote 13. just as she is about to kill a member of the gotei 13 she is taken away by a masked figure who grabs her and takes it away from kyonei by using shampoo we immediately learned that this masked figure is of course yuriji who tells it to calm down while also stating that soifon's temperament has not improved since the last time she had seen her saifon's expression after seeing yurichi after so many years is of shock it's quite a contrast and it highlights the difference between the prior captain of the second division and the current captain of the second division they briefly battle each other while yurichi notes that saifon has lost a touch there is a exchange of playful banter saifon states that because yurichi had helped the invaders of the soul society the shihoen family may be banished from the four great noble families but yurichi ignores these taunts and questions why she is so talkative is she excited to see her mentor after all of these years or is she unloading all of the resentment that she holds for yuriji yuriji asks saifon if her shoes were too big for saijuan to fill but saifon replies by stating that she controls both the secret remote squad and the punishment force and that it was only a matter of time before she had encountered yuroichi and a time to receive justice for abandoning the soul society has come when saifon draws on zampakdo and stabs it into the tree yurichi is immediately surrounded by members of the punishment force saifon states that when the commander of the punishment force draws their zombucto then it signifies an execution once again she arrogantly states that anybody who opposes her will be killed and this includes the former captain of the second division and the former commander of the unmitsukido saifun explains to her that these measures are justified because yurichi had abandoned her position there is nowhere for her to run but yoichi proves that she is a master in the skill of shampoo as she takes out every member of the punishment force within the space of a minute you can see that throughout this exchange your ichi remains confident and very composed she is her carefree self while saifon appears to be getting visibly frustrated by yurichi soifon takes off her captain's rope as it appears that the true battle between the two of them is about to begin yurichi may be carefree and relaxed but she is not underestimating her former student and you can see this through her serious expression in chapter 154 after she sees saifon preparing to get serious she asks yoichi which one of them is the better warrior as they begin to fight siphon exchanges multiple kicks with yurichi as she blocks and defends against all of them it appears that the two of them have landed a strike on each other as it appears that they are evenly matched scifon then appears behind yuriji and reveals hashikai which manifests itself as a bladed tip on her finger it is named after a hornet presumably because of its resemblance to the stinger of a hornet yoruichi is able to escape from her by using shampoo but saifon is able to keep up with the speed and land an attack on her once again she tells yurichi that she is better than her saifon declares that she has not been going easy against yuroichi and that she is the stronger one out of the two she criticizes yurichi for being away from the battlefield for over 100 years and she will pay the price for her actions with her life in chapter 158 saifon begins to explain the ability of a shikai as a bee crested flower appears on yurichi's abdomen where she was striked by saifon she tells her that this is a death crest which is carved onto its target's body during the time when yurichi had left the soul society this ability was incomplete but soifon has had a hundred years to perfect it she states that if an individual is striked in the same spot twice then there is nothing that that person can do to survive it is a fatal attack two strikes in the same spot this is the highly lethal shikai ability of a zombocto it appears that yurichi is genuinely surprised and taken aback as saifon confidently tries to get the second strike yoruichi appears to be running away from siphon as saifon takes the opportunity to strike yuroichi while her back is 10 to her urichi attempts a counter-attack but it appears that saifon is best at her as it appears that yurichi is defeated as she has multiple crested flowers on her body saifon once again declares that she is better than her and that this is the end of their battle she then confidently states that she is going to defeat yurichi with an ability that she had just perfected a few days ago this fighting style combines hakuda and kido she arrogantly states that yurichi has not seen this ability before it is so new that she has not even developed a name for it but yurichi corrects her and states that this ability does indeed have a name and it is called shenko yaroichi explains that the outfit for the punishment force that saifon is wearing is exposed on the back and shoulders because of this ability when shunkawa is perfected a dense keto envelops the user's back and shoulders this energy is then drawn to the individual's arms and legs from which it explodes outwards she tells her that the moment that chunko is activated any fabric on the back and shoulders is blown off it appears that the person that was truly holding back was yuri ichi and it was soyfun who was conceited this whole time she tells her that it is a shame because she did not want to use this ability against saifon she directs her shunko towards saifon and she tells her to beware because she has not fully grasped control of it yet she fires a blast of keto towards her as the area is enveloped in a explosion yoruichi proving that she is still stronger and more experienced than saifon asks her why is it that she never showed this ability to her before saifon is left speechless she doesn't know what to say as yurichi tells her that she didn't tell her about chunko because it was too dangerous explaining that she is not ready for this ability yet siphon tries to strike yuriji still believing that she's superior but yuri ichi stops her attack she does so by neutralizing her keto soifon is angered by how easily yuri ichi was able to do this she begins to struggle with accepting that yoruiji is stronger allowing her emotions to overwhelm her she continues to strike her stating that she should have surpassed her she assumes that for a hundred years yurichi would have been isolated and not trained this would have weakened her and in that time soifon was training for those 100 years she is baffled by how yuri ichi can stand before her still stronger how is she able to so confidently outclassed saifon who had been working incredibly hard to surpass her former mentor for the past 100 years after urichi had left the soul society saifon had lost all respect for her she had sworn to surpass her she charges at yurichi stating that she betrayed her respect and her trust but once again yurichi is able to neutralize her attack by using a punch which is powered by shunko her fist falls slightly short of punching siphon as she sees saifon finally breaking down the tough hard exterior finally cracks and we see the naive girl that saifon actually is she succumbs to her tears as she collapses onto her knees questioning why didn't yurichi take her with her you see just how much saifon had actually admired and loved yurichi her feelings of anger and resentment harbored within her for 100 years she was not able to look past feeling betrayed by yurichi she had no idea why somebody that she respected and trusted had abandoned her some say that the relationship between the two of them is romantic i'm not too sure if i can get behind that because yuri ichi never reciprocates these feelings back to her but i do believe that on siphon's part it is a very obsessive relationship she clearly looks up to her and emulates her master but because she was so emotionally invested into this battle she was not able to see that yuriji was stronger than her this entire time she was so blinded by these feelings that she says that she is stronger than her multiple times you can see that yurichi entertains saifon for a while that is until her student is about to use a technique that she deems to be too dangerous for her to use an ability that she thinks saifon cannot control after she finally accepts that she has not surpassed yurichi she gives in to her emotions proving that she doesn't entirely hate yurichi and she hasn't lost all respect for her as her attachment to yuroichi is still incredibly strong and her feelings of betrayal are still as fresh as they were 100 years ago showing that she has not moved on in the slightest despite attaining all of these ranks and these positions they are meaningless because she wasn't able to surpass uroichi the person that didn't live up to the expectations that saifon had of them and for this reason she had sworn to become stronger than yuriiji but she was not able to at the end of their battle a vulnerable side of a character is finally shown as we see her character regress from the commander of the unmet sceeto and the captain of the second division back to a student of yurichi who is never really able to get over yuroichi abandoning her throughout the entirety of bleach this is probably the lowest point of soifun's character but aside from this she retains her dominant stature for the rest of the series as she demonstrates that she is no longer dependent upon yuriji that she is a strong independent woman who doesn't need to rely on anyone for support and it is for this reason that i believe that saifon is portrayed as one of the strongest personalities within bleach as she is very aggressive and self-reliant her strong character and opinionated nature often gets her into arguments with the other captains but this is just who sophone's character is and frankly it's a refreshing breath of fresh air to remember that she is still human and under that strong character is a naive and innocent girl somebody who had felt the raw emotions of betrayal and was never really able to get over them we see all of this in chapter 159 and it's so easy to forget about all of this especially when we see her later appearances so when i look back at this moment it really makes me appreciate a character a lot more after the battle between yoruichi and saifon they are able to reconcile their differences and this happens fairly quickly as they learn about the betrayal of eisen both of them immediately arrive at sokkyoku hill and try to apprehend eisen but ultimately they are not able to detain him as eisengin and tozen all escape from the soul society the next time that we properly get to see sofian's character is during the fake karakura town arc she battles against the iranka geovega the espada barragan and even teams up with the other shinigami to group attack eisen during her battle with the iranka geovega she allows the iranka to have the upper hand in order to study the iranka's released form this information will prove invaluable for when soifon is inevitably going to be fighting against one of the espada she knows that her opponent is weaker than her so is taking the opportunity to study the enemy she scolds her lieutenant omada for stepping in and trying to protect her because he didn't realize that saifon was holding back during the fight she tells him that she has never told him to come to her aid she has always taught him that the loss of a comrade is an opportunity reminding him that the way of the unmet skiro is not to get in the middle of two people fighting but rather to stab the enemy from behind in chapter 333 saifon decides to defeat the iran car but she does so by demonstrating a method of assassination demonstrating the true difference in power between the two of them she activates her shikai and strikes the iranka twice but immediately after the iranka is defeated she finds herself facing off against the espada barragan during a battle against the espada she tries to buy herself as much time as she can in order to understand the sparta's abilities because every time she tries to attack barragan there's a change in space and time as everything starts to move slowly this is when barrigan tells her in chapter 356 that each of the espada embody an aspect of death and barrigan's aspect of death is old age which allows him to manipulate time itself he demonstrates his ability by touching soyfun's shoulder and causing the bones in the arm to grow old immediately this results in an arm being broken at the end of chapter 356 barragan activates his resurrection he then activates an ability called respira which translates to breath of death this ability causes everything that it touches to decay the ability ends up grazing against soifon's hand as her arm starts to decay this understandably causes her to panic before the rotting spreads to the rest of her body she demands that a lieutenant cuts off her arm as we see that the flesh and muscle deteriorates leaving only bones behind of her severed arm in that brief moment where soyphon was panicking barrigan was able to see the fear of death within saifon she is truly being tested here as she is facing off against the second ranked espada she tries to devise a strategy by asking a lieutenant to be a decoy and to draw the enemy closer to them in chapter 359 sophomore's plan is revealed as she has wrapped a cloth around the building several times that is attached to her we then excitedly see her activate her bankai in contrast to her shikai her bankai is far from discreet sofon did say that she had tried to end the battle without using the bangkai because she feels like her bankai is not discreet enough it violates her policies within the onmitskido it would be virtually impossible to conceal something as large as a bangkai and it is far too heavy to move around in and the attack that is unleashed from the bankai is far from subtle something that is not suited for an assassin who would much rather prefer to discreetly take out an opponent it is definitely a interesting contrast against a shikai it is very subtle it requires two shots within the same spot in order to take out an opponent but a bankai is best described in my opinion as aggressive and outspoken a little bit similar to sofon's own personality her bankai definitely represents her hot-headed nature while her shikai represents her lifetime of training as an assassin so these are two completely opposing aspects of her personality which are manifested with inner abilities using a bankai she fires a shot at varagon which results in a huge explosion both siphon and amida are repelled by the force of the blast momentarily it appears that they have taken out barragan but in chapter 364 we see the ispada emerge from the cloud of dust appearing to have not been affected by her bankai in chapter 368 the vaisard hachi joins the battle and assists soifon but she is reluctant to accept his help and even refuses to recognize him despite knowing who he is saifon doesn't want to accept any help from anyone who is associated to urohara the thing is hachi needs saifon's assistance in order to defeat barragan barrigan creates a force field to contain the ispada the only reason why barragan had survived the attack from sofon's bankai was because he had used his aging ability he had reversed the time so that the projectile fired from syphon's bankai would explode further away from him saifon only agrees to help if hachi is willing to seal kisuke orahara in a force field for a month as a punishment hachi explains that if saifon's bankai is fired directly at baragon while he is trapped within this forcefield at a close range where the force field that hachi has made will contain the blast and barrigan's abilities will not be able to protect him leaving him exposed as a sitting duck waiting to receive the full force of sofon's attack after firing this attack saifon is understandably exhausted she states that normally she is only able to fire her bankai once every three days but the fact that she has done it twice in one day it was very taxing on her but then she is shocked to discover that barrigan had survived the attack both her and a lieutenant escaped to safety while hachi defeats barragan by using his own ability raspira against him in chapter 389 after ichigo arrives in fake karakura town she tells him to focus because he will only have one chance to attack eisen and if he is continuing to be anxious or hesitant then he is going to squander his opportunity she reassures him that they are not fighting a lost battle nobody is attacking eisen with the intention of giving their life she tells him that they are fighting to live they are fighting to save themselves to save the lives of everybody including ichigo she tells him to not fall behind and to keep up with their pace in chapter 391 saifon along with hitsugaya and shinsby launched a counter-attack against eisen in order to successfully impale eisen from behind but of course eisen had tricked them into attacking momo instead of himself eisen then takes the opportunity to knock out siphon and the other shinigami and they are pretty much out of commission for the rest of the ark until eisen is defeated the next time that we see saifon is in chapter 479 at the end of the fulbright arc where we see that the arm that was severed during her battle against barrigan has been restored now during the first invasion of the quincy within the thousand-year budwar arc soifon arrives on the battlefield in chapter 496 to battle against the sten ritter bg-9 along with biakya hitsugaya and kamomura saifon is one of the four captains to have their bankai stolen from them during the aftermath of the first quincy invasion where the captains are dealing with the death of the head captain saifon is the first to break down she shouts at a messenger who has arrived to tell them about the status of biakya and kimpachi eventually komomura and shunswe calm her down and bring her back to her senses in chapter 539 after having lost at bankai we see siphon training on top of a mountain in seclusion she is undergoing intense physical training to make up for her lack of bankai in chapter 549 soifon appears to assist her lieutenant who is being attacked by the stan ritter bg9 she arrives having perfected her shankar despite this the stan writer still has the upper hand as he has learned enough information on saifon's shenko after taking a pill developed by urahara to holify her bankai she is able to turn the tables and defeat bg9 after she reacquires her bankai she fires a shot towards the sten ritter after she is healed of her injuries she doesn't really have any major appearances within the rest of the story she is just there in the background and doesn't really take part in any major battles so when it comes to my thoughts on sofon's character i did mention at the start of the video that i didn't really like a character too much but after studying and analyzing a character and in particular focusing on her past i do have more appreciation for her she is a great addition to the goatee 13 captains that we have helping to bring more variety to the various different personalities within the soul society as we know our character is closely linked to yurichi and it allows us to compare and contrast the two of them as they both have a very different approach when it comes to their duties within the soul society and the onmitsukito it's quite easy to think of siphon as a hot-headed sunderer but there is more to her character than just this outward appearance and we get to appreciate this alternative side through learning about her past and the rare moments within the story when her outer shell cracks and we get to see what's beneath the surface one of these moments which i almost forgot to mention occurs within chapter 612 where she meets yurichi's younger brother who thanks her for taking care of her sister she totally blushes and fangirls over him which shows that she still admires and obsesses over yurichi even to this day soifon not only has a very unique appearance she has a very unique personality and i believe that kubo consistently writes her very well despite being stubborn set in a ways and strict when it comes to her duties at the core saifon is still that innocent naive girl who admires and worships yurichi and beyond that stubborn hot-headed exterior there are a lot of redeemable qualities about saifon at least in my opinion so after watching this video and analyzing and studying soifon's character what do you think do you agree with my take on soifon's character are there any points about her that i fail to mention or aspects of a character that you agree with me or disagree with me on i would love to read your thoughts on sophomore's character so please do leave a comment under this video gin ichimaru is the silverhead blue-eyed snake in the grass he is considered to be mysterious and untrustworthy his motives are largely unknown for the majority of his appearances in the series in this video i want to reveal the mystery behind his sinister smile along with understanding his true motives and purpose for defecting from the soul society and joining eisen as his closest ally why did gin betray everyone what was the purpose behind his actions let's analyze his character to understand the sacrifices that he makes and the reason behind why he acts the way he does in the series gin first appears in chapter 65 and in episode 20 of the anime he is condescending and often results to sarcasm to intimidate others this causes him to be difficult to read and understand it also results in others around him feeling uncomfortable through the way that he mocks others while smiling and appearing well-mannered prior to his betrayal he was still not trusted by others within the goti 13. he is fully aware of how he makes others feel often enjoying putting others through discomfort as seen in chapter 145 when he toys with rukia he appears before rukia while she is being escorted to her execution portraying the extent of his twisted mentality gen gives rukia hope by offering to help her stop the execution from going ahead he gives a hope just as she has accepted her fate when he reveals that he was lying i didn't really intend on helping her it is a cruel purposeful act which demonstrates how evil he was prior to his betrayal in one of his early appearances in chapter 75 he greets ichigo and company as they arrive at the gates of the cerete during the saw society arc the gatekeeper jidambo decides to lift the gate to allow the intruders to enter as the gate is opened ichigo sees gin on the other side of the gate as though he was expecting them this whole time convenient appearances like this draw suspicion towards his character and serve as the basis for questioning his every action going into the soul society arc gin defeats jidambo and releases his spiritual pressure to prevent ichigo and the others from entering into the serete he merely deters them instead of killing them which is what he should have done he once again acts purposefully and spares them as though he knows that they will find another way to get into the cerete prior to eisen becoming the main antagonist of the series we were led to believe that he was killed by gin during the soul society arc his evil wide smile and the way that he was written to be consistently unpredictable and hard to read made it a plausible theory to assume that he did indeed kill eisen to understand gin we need to look into his past their reasoning behind his actions are explained during a couple of flashbacks which involve gin and rangiku they explained the reason behind his betrayal of the soul society and his subsequent loyalty to eisen which spanned over 100 years during his childhood gin lived within the rukongai district we learn in chapter 129 that gin first met rangiku who was collapsed and drained of a spiritual pressure he offers their food to replenish her spiritual energy and the two of them become acquainted we learn from a data book called bleach official bootleg karaburi plus which focuses on the gotai 13 that gin and rangiku started living together after their first meeting their relationship is further expanded upon in chapter 415 which shows us a young gin collecting wooden branches from the forest when he sees three shinigami kneeling before a young sasuke isen we can assume that this flashback occurs while gin and rangiku were already living together gin sees the three shinigami hand over an orb to eisen he then recalls that they were the same three shinigami he spotted near to where he first found rangiku drained over spiritual energy he realizes that eisen is their leader and he had instructed them to use the hokyoku to collect the energy from the citizens of rukongai from this single observation he resolves to kill eisen like a snake peering at his prey through the bushes he sets his sights on eisen and patiently waits to strike him at the most opportune moment when he least expects it rangiku tells us in chapter 133 that gin had a bad habit of disappearing without telling her where he was going when they were younger this habit hadn't changed despite him now becoming a captain chapter 416 shows us one such occasion where gin had wandered out without telling her where he was going she followed his footsteps in the snow to find gin wearing a shinigami robe with blood on his face he turns around to tell her that he has decided to become a shinigami so that he may change things he is driven by his desire to no longer see rangiku cry as she is one of the very few people that he truly cares about they both entered into the academy together and trained to become shinigami gin had graduated only a year after being admitted to the academy due to being a prodigy he was assigned a position within the fifth division of which eisen was the lieutenant the rest of gin's past is shown to us during the 10 back the pendulum and everything but the reign flashback arcs during the fourth chapter of the term back the pendulum arc his desire to remain close to eisen results in him killing the shinigami holding the third seated position within squad five eisen witnesses this and is impressed by the young gain choosing to offer again the third seated position while also willing to cover up that he killed shinigami nine years after the beginning of the turn back the pendulum arc we see gin aiding eisen in his holification experiments appearing to have no issue with watching citizens of wukongai undergoing fast holification this including him killing the third seated position of squad 5 is the beginning of gin actively partaking in evil axe and tarnishing his own morality for the sake of gaining eisen's trust the young gin appears alongside eisen during the holification incident which was such an impactful event that it resulted in several members of the gotai 13 becoming vizards who were consequently exiled from the soul society gen is seen often with his eyes squinting along with a sinister smile which evokes feelings of unease and discomfort it is difficult to interpret gin with any ulterior motives as he is a very convincing right-hand man to eisen's plans when urahara and tessai arrive to help their comrades gin is not surprised by their arrival and appears to have been anticipating them after they turn back the pendulum arc we see again in the everything but the rain flashback which spans from chapters 528 to 537. during this flashback we see gin who is now older and appears to have become the captain of squad 3. despite having become a captain he was still a reliable subordinate of eisens following his every command during this time gin was helping eisen to locate the whereabouts of the vaisards while also continuing their holification experiments gen observes ishin battling with the hollow called white that isen had created he comments on how ishin's surprise involvement could disrupt their plans when eisen tozen and gin arrive on the battlefield cloaked and concealed for a closer view of the battle between ishin and white eisen attacks isian from behind guinn notices that ishin has knowledge of another enemy on the battlefield gin tells eisen that ishin is aware that someone other than the hollow has just attacked him questioning if it is safe to just leave him while he has knowledge of this but eisen dismisses gain's concerns chronologically before his first appearance in the series he already aided in horrific acts and in hindsight looking back at these events shows us how much he devoted himself to his desire for revenge he did all of this just so that he could protect rangiku's smile despite now knowing that he had good intentions all along it does help us to understand him but it does not alleviate the air of mystery and discomfort that he brought about whenever he would make an appearance throughout the series this is especially shown through how gin enjoys making others feel uneasy and fearful of his presence now that we know about gin's backstory and his motive for action we can now analyze the additional information that kubo provides about gin through the poems he writes for him as well as explaining the meaning behind the names of his abilities on zombocto guinea chimaru is featured on the cover of two bleach volumes volume 20 and 47 at the beginning of these two volumes there are two poems written about his character which aid in our understanding of his mysterious nature the poem in volume 20 speaks about the beauty and ugliness of love those who do not know what love is liken it to beauty those who claim to know what love is liken it to ugliness interpreting this poem from the perspective of gin's character we can assume that the poem is referencing the relationship between kin and rangiku the first half of the poem speaks about people who seek love purely through an idealistic perspective while love is painless and beautiful the first half is for those who have never experienced love but simply desire to experience it the second half elaborates upon the first by describing the perspective of those who have experienced love and have a better understanding of it than the idealistic dreamers do those who have experienced love liken it to ugliness this is in reference to the lengths that someone would go to for the sake of their love applying this interpretation to gin's character we can understand that he has forsaken his morals his humanity and his beauty all for his feelings of love this poem features at an early point in the series and we can see that it hints at gin's toxic desire for revenge and his love for rangiku how something as pure as love can fuel his actions and result in him aiding eisen through following his orders gin appears as an ugly villainous traitor to us the reader and the characters in the series who are oblivious to his true intentions this is what makes his character feel so well written there are hints dotted in the series regarding his relationship and past with rangiku and we only really have the veil lifted about his true intentions in chapter 414 it is very subtle and the whole love aspect doesn't feel overbearing it is subtly stated and allows for a great motive behind his desire for revenge kubo once again allows us to read between the lines and piece together a deeper understanding of his characters through the nuances that he writes into his manga the poem in volume 47 describes the dilemma that gin faces if you became a snake tomorrow and began devouring people if you roared your love for me with that mouth that you used to devour people could i still say that i love you as i do today this poem symbolizes gin having come to the end of his journey looking into a mirror facing his own reflection as he questions himself he does this through questioning what if the roles were reversed and rangiku had become the snake that devoured people yet with that same mouth she proclaimed her love for him would he be able to say that he loves her too after realizing all of the wrong that she has done through gin trying to see things from rangiku's perspective he is questioning if everything he has done for the sake of his love for her has been worth it the price he has had to pay to protect her smile and ensure she would not cry anymore was it all worthwhile gain is wondering if you could still say that he loves her and be accepted by her after betraying the soul society being involved in killing innocent people and helping eisen this poem explores the predicament that gin has created for himself as he puts herself in her shoes and wonders if he would be able to love rangiku if she did wrong for his sake he tries to understand her feelings for him after having come so far volume 47 features gin's reunion with rangiku which i want to explore in the hopes that it sheds more light upon the dynamics of their relationship prior to leaving the soul society gin tozin and eisen were surrounded by the goti 13. rangiku had grabbed gin holding him captive to prevent him from getting away the three defectors managed to escape but before gin leaves he tells rangiku that he would have liked to have been held captive by her a little while longer he apologizes to her this occurs in chapter 178 she is properly reunited with gin in chapter 411 as she arrives to stop isen and gin who are in the real karakura town in the next chapter 412 we see gin ensuring eisen that he will get rid of his old friend rangiku eisen says that they have plenty of time and allows him to catch up with her gin insists that she is in the way but eisen replies not at all this subtle exchange reveals how aware eisen is of gin's relationship with rangiku and how gin tries to dismiss these assumptions by displaying loyalty to isen by taking out rangiku gin grabs her and gets her out of eyes in sight just as he said she is clearly agitated and understandably mad at him she does not want him to touch her as she demands that he lets her go rangiku reveals that she waited for him to arrive in the real karakura town despite barely being able to stand gin asks her why she would do that while barely having any strength she states it was because she knew that he would be here her desire is to confront gin in order to ask him face to face what made him serve under eisen was the reason worth betraying everybody including his lieutenant izuru kira who trusted him completely gin asks her if she is certain if kira indeed completely trusted him and was betrayed by him or perhaps was it someone else he is referring to rangiku who indeed is the one who completely trusted gin and felt betrayed by his actions the most he comes closer to her and asks her why did she have to come he draws his blade to her and calls it a nuisance as it appears that he has taken it out we see rangiku collapsed on the ground as gin leaves her heading back to eisen when he returns to eisen he has asked what he did with her to which he replies that he killed her eisen confirms that her spiritual energy is no longer present he expresses his surprise as he assumed that gin would have shown her mercy this shows that eisen was well aware of his feelings for her and how she may be a weakness to gin however he dismisses these notions as he reminds eisen about the first time that they met how he referred to himself as a snake this moment is important to understand again as he describes his own character better than anyone else could he states that his skin is cold he has no heart he slithers looking for prey with the tip of his tongue swallowing people that he cares about whole he likened himself to a snake because that is the kind of creature that he is totally detaching himself from the notion of mercy that eisen tried to label him with eisen says that he is ready to leave and desires to kill and hang the bodies of ichigo's friends somewhere visible for everyone to see moments after reminding or should i say warning eisen about his true nature he catches him off guard and pierces him through his chest with his unpacked dough gin reveals that he knows how to escape kyokusugetsu's power he does so by touching eisen zambakdo in its unreleased state he waited for decades to learn how to escape the hypnotic effects of kyokasugitsu just so that he could exploit this weakness at the most opportune time nobody within the gotai 13 knows about this he states that despite not knowing the weakness to eisen zambakdo it was interesting watching the gotai 13 try to defeat eisen eisen trying to remain composed reveals that he was expecting gin to betray him but was curious as to how he would try to take his life guillain leaves a fragment of his zambocto within eisen's chest and it is here that we learn about the true nature of ginseng bhakto it does extend but upon expanding or contracting it disintegrates and within the blade is a deadly poison that has the ability to dissolve cells similar to the fangs of a snake his zambach dough is his fang that he uses to deliver his venom the fragment that ginn left within aizen is inside his heart he advises him to say his last words quickly as he is about to die soon gin activates his bankai and uses his ability called kill kamishini no yari which translates to kill god killing spear this is significant as it shows that gin was destined to kill eisen who strive to achieve a godly status ginsenbakdo is also called shinso which translates to godspear the name of his bankai matches with his true intentions for those willing to look closely into the words that the characters speak the names of their abilities and zombucto as it reveals hints that have been there from the very beginning pointing to events like gin's attempt to take eisen's life the god-killing spear was indeed used against a god as gin tells him that he will finally be able to die now with a hole in his chest saying that this should make him feel happy the hole in his chest is in reference to his obsession with merging hollow and shinigami powers so eisen who is a shinigami now with a hollow hole in his chest is an ironic visual representation of that which he seeked gin retrieves the hokyoku from eisen who seems to have been killed as his body breaks down to a cellular level however eisen survives the attack and despite taking the hokyoku it belongs to eisen and ends up returning to him as he confronts gin and cuts him down you can see the anguish in gin's eyes as everything he sacrificed and live for fades to nothing his efforts are mounted to nothing gin tries reaching for the hokyoku in a final futile attempt to stop eisen but he grabs his wrist and rips his arm off he then impales him through the chest before throwing his body into a nearby building gin recalls back to the moment that he promised rangiku that he would become a shinigami so that he may change things so that she won't have to cry anymore it is incredibly emotional to see gin defeated and on the brink of death as we finally understand his motives realizing just how misunderstood he was up until this point rangiku awakens to sense that gin has been attacked by eisen we learned that he used aikido spell called hakufuku on rengiku which confuses and disorientates his target resulting in them falling unconscious explaining how he non-lethally subdued rangiku before you return to eisen she rushes again when he sees it he feels regret that he could not return to her that which was taken from her he does however feel relief knowing that he had the chance to apologize to her gain sacrificed everything till the very end he made himself appear as a monster to everyone including the one that he loved the most his encounter with rangiku before he attempts to kill eisen answers the poem from volume 47. he realizes that rangiku would not be able to accept a snake who devoured others with the same mouth that he declares his love for her the question posed from the poem is answered through his realization that she would not be able to say that she loves him in return after everything he has done she is crying while holding him in her arms revealing to us how deep of a bond the two of them shared and how tragic it was that he dedicated so much of his time for her happiness in order to prevent her from crying just to see tears in her eyes as he is about to die through his dedication he proved that he would have done anything for her even compromising his sense of right and wrong he is a complex character who really gave us a lot to think about through how he spoke and acted convincing us of his sinister nature when in fact his intentions were good and resulted in him dying for the sake of these intentions in his final moments he looks at dangai ichigo and sees the difference in the expression of his eyes he no longer sees feelings of anxiousness doubt and fear reflected in his eyes they appear stern and fixated he describes them as being stronger upon seeing this he feels relief knowing that he can leave the rest to ichigo now during the battle in fake karakora town in chapter 398 ichigo attacks gin from behind as they battle together for the first time since kin first appeared and cut off jidambo's arm back in the soul society arc the two of them battle each other and exchanged words which helped to shed some light on ichigo's understanding of gin as a character and what gin perceived about ichigo also ichigo reveals that during battle he understands his opponents through their crossing of their blades further describing that he can sense why the person is fighting or whether if his opponent is looking down on him or not he says that he was not able to sense this from gin because during their last encounter gin was not looking at ichigo they begin to battle as gin describes ichigo as a creepy kid and understands why eisen appears to be interested in him this entire battle feels like gin testing ichigo out assessing his strength and his mental fortitude chapter 404 gin takes a break from fighting to talk to ichigo he states that it is inevitable that he and his friends are going to die now that eisen has absorbed the hokyoku he can feel ichigo's resolve being shaken as he manages to catch ichigo's slip and indirectly admit that he will be defeated this further wavers ichigo's resolve he continues to tell ichigo that he is weak and wonders if he was always like this as he tells him that he was scarier back when they first clashed their zombucto in the soul society arc he advises ichigo to just run away as he is disappointed by his lack of resolve gin continues to ridicule ichigo and makes him come to realize how futile his efforts really are he mentally breaks him here as he says that he is not a warrior not a soul reaper not a hollow and not even a human he questions if he can beat eisen who is too much for yurichi ishin and urahara can he really match that level of skill against an opponent as strong as eisen he doubts that ichigo would be a worthy opponent especially in the state that he is in now he tells him to run away once more and that he isn't interested in him anymore even eisen would be disappointed to see him like this he tells ichigo that he knows he is scared because ichigo can sense eisen's true power and how impossible it is to even fathom to defeat him we see ichigo utterly succumbed to gin's onslaught of words which cause ichigo to feel hopelessness as he appears to be in anguish this situation explains why gin is so relieved later when he sees dungai ichigo as the whole purpose of this encounter was to help ichigo to come to terms with his fears and to realize the difference in his power compared to eisens sure enough gin did plan to kill eisen but knowing that ichigo was broken in the hopes that he would rebuild himself to be stronger was a great backup plan which proved to work as ichigo returns with stronger more determined eyes far removed from the fear-induced doubtful eyes ginn had seen before while analyzing gin's character it is difficult not to mention the parallels that he shares with another silver head captain of the goti 13. yes i'm talking about toshiro hitsugaya both of them were gifted youths considered to be prodigies for their ages hitsugaya especially as he was the youngest shinigami to become a captain throughout the whole history of the gotai 13. as well as this isem was involved closely with the two of them in regards to how he manipulated rangiku who gin was close to and momo who hits gaia had grown up with through eisen harming and manipulating them it causes gin and hitsugaya to share a common desire to kill eisen however the two of them fail at this task the similarities however do end here as the two of them take totally different approaches to enact their desire for revenge against eisen for gin wanting to kill eisen came before everything else in his life his desire for revenge was placed above his love for rangiku his honor as a shinigami and his sense of humanity however hitsugaya did not neglect his bond with momo he openly expressed his concern for her and remained within the gortai 13 honouring his commitment as a captain and did not commit any atrocious acts like gin during the battle and fake karakura town hitsugaya had his opportunity to take out eisen but failed gin observed this and later tried to exact his revenge to his own way which too failed after gin had revealed his true intentions his character arc was completed his purpose was fulfilled upon saying kill kamishini no yuri which just so happens to be one of my favorite lines within bleach it is symbolic of the moment that ginn was able to get payback for what eisen did to the one he loved how he enjoyed being loyal for over 100 years to the one who hurt rangiku the patience self-restraint and the sacrifices that he made for his purpose resulted in being one of the most selfless yet selfish characters within bleach selflessly he wanted rangiku to no longer cry while selfishly allowing himself to be absorbed in revenge to bring about his selfless desire the mystery and complexity behind this character is the reason why gin is still remembered to this day as one of the best characters to feature within bleach in this video i'm going to be going over everything that we know about unohana's character including her relationships with her lieutenant and the members of her division as well as how she interacts with the other members of the gote 13 and most importantly i'll be analyzing and breaking down her relationship with kimpachi next to head captain yamamoto she is one of the oldest members of the gotei 13. as far as we know they are the only existing members of the original gotee 13 who are still holding positions as captains upon initial inspection you may think that there is not much to really break down about a character because she appears so little within the anime but thanks to the events that occur within the thousand year blood war arc we get a new sense of appreciation for a character as we start to realize how kubo was subtly foreshadowing a darker more menacing side to her character an alternative personality which was dubbed as the most diabolical criminal to ever exist within the soul society let's find out the difference between una hana retsu and una hana yachuru una hana makes a debut appearance in chapter 81 and in episode 24 of the anime her deceptive youthful appearance would lead you to believe that she is one of the younger captains within the gotei 13 but in actual fact he is one of the oldest and original members of the gotei 13. due to her long tenure as a captain even other well-respected captains like shinsuit and ukitake referred to her as senpai upon seeing a character the first things that you will notice are a blue eyes and a long black hair which is braided to the front in chapter 523 we learned that her braided hair has been covering a scar that she received during her first battle with kimpachi this scar that was on her collarbone was a reminder for her of the joys of battle that she had experienced when she had fought a younger version of kimbachi for the longest while she had become bored of holding a zampato because she had longed for that joy of battle she was bored with fighting the same old opponents and repeatedly winning in the same way this is the curse of being the strongest and this is where we learned that unohana was in actual fact the first captain of the 11th division she was the first shinigami to have been given the title of kimpachi the strongest shinigami but these are aspects of a character that occurred in a distant past as the unohana that we see at the start of the soul society arc is a completely different character when i think of unohana's personality i see two versions of her there is a side that is gentle compassionate and caring an individual who heals others indiscriminately whether if they are allies or enemies during a time in the series we have seen a heal wizards humans around cars and even ichigo and his friends after they had invaded the soul society she is more than willing to heal anybody who needs a help and this is how she leads as the captain of the fourth division who specializes in fulfilling any medical requirements of the gote 13. this is a far cry and a contrast to her previous position as the captain of the 11th division which is known for combat and swordsmanship basically inflicting these very injuries that she is now healing despite having a past which is very combat centric we only see her battle one person within the series as the captain of the fourth division she is very soft-spoken and well-mannered she chooses to address everybody with respect whether if they are her enemies or people who are younger than her or her subordinates as the captain of the fourth division she has a strong sense of duty we see this in chapter 128 when she reprimands honatoro because he assisted the intruders of the soul society which resulted in them causing serious damage to it unhannah tells him that because he is a seated officer within her division his aiding of the intruders could not be overlooked so after covering some basic points about her character let's now look at the past of unohana and then delve into her early involvement into the bleach story as we analyze how kubo foreshadowed an alternative side to her personality one that was very different to the caring and gentle captain that we thought we knew during the thousand year boudoir arc we learned a lot about the past of unhana's character before she had joined the first ever iteration of the gotei 13 she was believed to be one of the most notorious criminals within the soul society she had incredible command over zampakdo and had mastered several different styles and it is for this reason that she had given herself the name yachiru which translates to 8000 styles which is of course in reference to the several different styles of swordsmanship which he had mastered yacharu unohana was personally selected to become a captain by head captain yamamoto among the captains of the first iteration of the gote 13 she was considered to be the best amongst them during this time she was the captain of the 11th division the very squad that kimpachi's iraqi is now leading she had founded the values of ruthlessness and combat that the 11th division are well known for were founded by unohana and it is for this reason that unohana is referred to as the first kimpachi a title which is bestowed upon the strongest shinigami in chapter 517 when the royal guards arrive to take ichigo and the others to the soul king's palace we learn that one of the royal gods tenjiro kurinji had taught unohana everything that she knows about medicinal technique when he meets unohana again he asks her if she has mastered all of the healing arts that he taught her which she replies of course the real reason behind why she had learned medicinal techniques was so that she could heal herself so that she could lengthen her time in battle in chapter 524 we learn about the first encounter that unohana and kimpachi had where a younger himpachi had fought unuhana and had felt fear for the first time and during this battle with unohana yacharu he had also experienced joy while fighting for the first time this early encounter was so impactful for kimpatchi's character that he had started to admire una hana the true extent of the battle that occurred between the two of them is shown to us in chapter 525 we see unohana wandering in the pouring rain around rukongai as one of her subordinates tell her that despite how hard they have tried to look for an opponent they couldn't find anybody who was as strong as her somebody who will truly satisfy her with battle she had been trying to find an individual who would rival her strength under the guise of eradicating vandals on the outskirts of rukongai in order to maintain the peace within the seret her search for a worthy opponent was so extensive that she had made a pile of dead bodies which is a visual representation of the size of a dissatisfaction gradually day by day this pile of bodies grew larger that is until one day a young boy had decided to stand on top of the pile staring at her with his eyes fixated upon unhana he charges at her it was evident that the two of them were bored they were bored of fighting these same old opponents and winning in the same old way they were both wanderers in search for somebody who could satisfy their bloodlust who could satisfy their urge for battle the two of them were drawn to each other and it was inevitable that they would meet one day unahana had no expectations going into this battle against this young boy when he had first appeared upon the pile of dead bodies she had looked at him with the same bod expression she had no idea that he would make her feel the unparalleled joy of battling a worthy adversary the young kimpachi apontinga had immediately attacked unohana on her collarbone the fact that she was able to be cut by such a young boy resulted in her being able to enjoy fighting once more but because of this battle from the past a terrible consequence had occurred her encounter with a younger kimpachi had resulted in kimpachi restricting himself and putting limitations upon his own power during their first battle they had both felt incredible joy unohana makes an assessment of the young kimpatchi as she says that all of his opponents up until that point were all weaker than him he had not encountered an enemy who was able to test his true skills his battle against unohana yachuru was the first time that he had encountered someone who rivaled his own strength unohana admits that against this younger version of kim party she was weaker than him in actual fact despite this fact she was the first person that this young kimpatchi could have truly considered as an enemy kimpachi had become afraid of losing that which she had longed for after encountering countless weak opponents he had decided to fight against someone who could truly challenge him and he had finally encountered unohana if he had killed unohana during their first battle then you would not be able to experience that same level of joy from battle ever again and it is for this reason that he had subconsciously suppressed his powers unahanna reveals that she was disappointed at her own weakness which resulted in kimpachi suppressing his powers if only she was stronger during their first battle he wouldn't have had the need to have suppressed his powers even to this day unohana admits that she is incredibly strong but she is not as strong as kim pachisaraki she feels responsible for weakening kimpachi and she claims that this is her sin ultimately unohana was declared the victor of their first battle but she was well aware that her opponent has succumbed to his own fears his fears of losing una hana a worthy adversary and it's for this reason that she realized that this young boy that she had fought against was more suited to the title of kimpachi it is not revealed if she had immediately resigned from her post as the captain of the 11th division after this battle but some time after this fight she had become the captain of the fourth division you can speculate that after her battle with kimpachi she no longer felt that she was worthy of the title of kimpachi and it's for that reason that she resigned from the 11th division she may have lost interest in combat and swordsmanship after experiencing a battle against a worthy adversary as the captain of the fourth division she focuses her efforts now on medicinal technique as she is now responsible for treating the injured shinigami within the gotei 13. it is ironic because the current 11th division are known to bully and look down upon the fourth division considering them to be a weak medical team despite this most of the members of the 11th division are still afraid of unohana because some of them remember her past we can see from this backstory that unohana feels a heavy burden for causing kimpachi to place mental barriers upon himself which made him suppress his own powers he had done this so that he would not surpass the person that he admires the most it was because of unohana that he was not living up to his full potential and we see the results of kimpatchi stunting his own growth through the various different battles that he has in the series unohana realizes the consequences of a sin as she recalls because kimpachi restrained his own powers he had barely lost to ichigo and this is why he had barely beaten nytera to the outsider it may have appeared that kimpachi had struggled against them because his opponents were incredibly strong but unohana had known the truth she had known that it was because kimbachi was limiting his powers to their very limits chronologically the next time that we see unohana is during the 10 back the pendulum arc where she plays no significant role the next time that we see a character and get to experience this alternative sign to her personality is during the soul society arc what you have to realize is that throughout the entirety of this series this character who is so experienced in combat and is supposed to have learned 8 000 styles of swordsmanship only battles against one person and that battle occurs in the thousand-year blood war arc so who is the character of una hana that we get to see from the soul society arc up until the fulbright arc this is the person that i'm going to now be covering the unohana that we know as the captain of the fourth division in chapter 109 she examines the supposed dead corpse of sasuke eisen she confirms that the body is no longer breathing but she does say something which may be overlooked by a lot of people she says that they are looking into the possibility of a gee guy being used as a disguise but without any investigation for now they can confirm that eisen is dead she reveals this information to tozen and komamura from that one line where she states that they are investigating the use of a possible gee guy you can tell that she has a doubts about the death of eisen looking at this retrospectively you can see the years of experience that unohana has she may appear to be a simple healer to the first time viewer but if you have experienced the entirety of the story you know the kind of character that unohana is it is evident that she had a suspicions about the death of eisen but this doesn't stop her from fulfilling her duties as a captain as she orders one of her subordinates hanatro to be imprisoned for aiding the intruders in chapter 128 in chapter 149 at rukia's execution the head captain tells her that he will pardon the intruders and let them leave the soul society unharmed but unohana's lieutenant isane tells her captain that it is cruel for head captain yamamoto to be telling rukia this because he has no intention of letting them live but the more understanding unohana tells her that the head captain is being compassionate because at least this way rukia will be able to be executed with some peace of mind she won't be worrying about the fate of her friends in her final moments this shows the insight that unohana has and the ability to put herself into other people's shoes as somebody who regularly looks after patients she knows how other people feel and i'm sure if she was in the position of the head captain she would have done the exact same thing in chapter 154 we see unohana releases it is called minazuki and it resembles a manta ray the manta ray has swallowed several different shinigami who have been injured at sokyoku hill after she leaves the injured shinigami to a subordinate south after she asks her lieutenant isane to come with her to the central 46 chambers we can see that her suspicions of eisen faking his death have come to fruition she is well aware of where eisen is and it is for this reason that she is heading to the chambers of decentral 46. we see unohana again in chapter 171 when she calls out eisen as a traitor and refuses to refer to him as a captain anymore her expression is of deep concern she reveals that she was well aware that eisen had gone through extreme lengths to fake his own death she deduces that he had used an elaborate doll to conceal himself eisen corrects her by saying that he didn't use a doll but instead he had been using his zombucto's ability kyokasugetsu to put them under complete hypnosis eisen had lied to them and the other shinigami about the true ability of kyoka suigetsu for this reason and in addition to unohana having seen eisen shikkai she had fallen for eisens kyokasugetsu maybe this is why she puts emphasis upon ichigo not having seen eyes in shikai when they are traveling together from hueco mundo in order to go to fake karakura town she knows the extent of the advantage that eisen has if an individual is under his kyokushi gets to spell because she has experienced it herself and this is where eisen reveals to unohana the extent of his betrayal as he states that kaname tozen is also working alongside with him before eisen leaves to retrieve the hokyoku from rukia he does praise unohana as he states that she had examined his body far more thoroughly than anybody else and this is because she had a hint of suspicion this suspicion still existed even though she was under the complete spell of kyokusuguetsu when you think about it this is an incredible feat and even something that eisen commands if anything it realized her as how much skill and experience unohana truly has after eisen leaves she asks her lieutenant to relay all of the information that they have learned about eisen's betrayal to all of the other shinigami meanwhile she is focused on saving the lives of captain hitsugaya and momo who have been injured by eisen when she returns to sokyaku hill she asks who is left to heal her subordinates tell her that ichigo and biakya are the only people who remain to be healed when she sees arahime healing ichigo she is surprised by the ability that she is using her expression is indicative that arihime has an incredibly powerful healing technique so much so that she is comfortable with leaving ichigo in orihime's hands in chapter 179 when she eventually starts to heal biakia she tells him that he has been reckless she is like the maternal figure of the soul society as she scolds him for pushing himself to his limits she then asks rukia to come to speak to yakya she is present while biakya is speaking to rukia and revealing the reason as to why he had supported her execution at the end of chapter 179 we see unohana on the evening of rukia's execution after all of the events that have occurred that day she seemed to be sat under the moonlit sky this is the first time that we see her hair platted from the back but it is a very brief look so we cannot really see the scar that is present on a collarbone but either way after spending time with unohana's character within the soul society arc it is very difficult to see her as a swordmaster she is far too caring and compassionate and i feel like this is a signature trait of kubo as he likes to surprise his audience by flipping his story or his character's 180 the last person that you would assume to have been in the position of kim party would be unohana i say this because of her actions and her mannerisms and in general how she is a pacifist we have not really seen her angered to the point of drawing her zambocto for combat instead she draws a zombucto in order to heal others during the huweikumundo arc unohana is one of the captains to arrive to assist ichigo and the others in huikumundo she clearly states that a purpose for arriving in huikum window is to heal the wounded and not to get into any fights i assume that the fighting has been reserved for yakira and mairi who have also arrived alongside with her in chapter 299 she tells her lieutenant isane not to pursue the enemy as once again she emphasizes that they have not come here to shed blood she does say something surprising next as she states she's going to heal chad and the pre-round espada who has also been heavily wounded i said this earlier on in the video and this scene clearly proves this that she's indifferent when it comes to the individuals that she heals whether if they are her allies or her enemies in chapter 381 we see unohana accompanying ichigo back to fake karakura town on the way there she asks ichigo how it was like to face off against eisen at sokyoku hill he tells her that he was really strong and that he had beaten him without even using his shikai unohana of course says that this is a good thing while she is listening to ichigo's response her eyes have a subtle change as before she appears to look very concerned but now she has a very cold and stern look to her eyes a look that we get used to on a character while she is facing off against kim pachi in the thousand-year bloodwark with this cold and stern look she tells ichigo that it was a good thing that there was so much of a gap in power between himself and eisen she explains why it is a good thing that ichigo hasn't seen eisenshikai because out of everybody in existence ichigo is the only person who is able to confront eisen now and this is because he has not seen the released form of eisen zampakto kyokasuigetsu so he is not going to be under the influence of eisen's ability unohana informs to ichigo that kyokusugetsu's power can only be activated if eisen's enemy has seen his shikai as we know everybody who is currently involved in the battle in fake karakora town has seen izan's shikai una hana is stressing to ichigo that he is a vital part in their plan to defeat eisen even with ichigo not completely healed unohana detects that his riatsu is comparable to that of a captain's after having read the final arc we know that she is very experienced in battle she assesses that ichigo not having seen eisen shikai is the most important advantage that they will have in this battle and it is of utmost importance that ichigo does not lose this advantage because if he does then the battle to save the world will be lost she sternly looks at ichigo and tells him no matter what happens he cannot look at aizen's shikai looking back at this very brief exchange i see the shift in her personality as we can see when una hana retsu is speaking and when unohana yachuru is speaking and this is even subtly foreshadowed by the way that kubo draws unohana's expressions and in particular her eyes in chapter 382 we see the two of them still traveling he is creating a path using his riatsu for una hana to follow him but the path that he is making is extremely weak and falling apart this forces unohana to politely intimidate ichigo to take the lead we see the scary persona of a character here as ichigo is scared into submission when she takes the lead the path that she creates is sturdy and very different to the path that each girl was making ichigo assumes that it must be because she is a captain but unohana tells him that isn't the case because they have similar levels of rayatsu una hana assumes that both ichigo's riatsu and his wounds have completely healed and maybe ichigo isn't cut out for tasks that require refinement of one's riatsu but ichigo disagrees with her and states that he could have created a better path if only his reaction was completely restored unohana is confident in the assessment of ichigo's riatsu but ichigo emphasizes to her that when he activates his bunker his clothing changes he tells unohana that his shinigami shihakusho while he is in his bankai form is a visual representation of his riyatsu and since less than half of his shinigami shihakashu remains that means he has less than half of his spiritual energy right now he tells her that orihime's healing ability is really good at healing wounds but it is very slow at restoring a person's riatsu this completely surprises unohana she is shocked that even at less than half of his spiritual energy it is comparable to a captain's spiritual energy unohana is completely taken aback by this fact she now suggests that she will restore ichigo's reaction back to its maximum capacity she thinks to herself if ichigo's reaction is only at half of its maximum capacity then he may well be the savior that the sole society needs right now she does a part by healing the rest of ichigo's riatsu and ensures that he is ready to face off against eisen thanks to orihime healing ichiko's physical injuries it made it easier for unohana to restore ichigo's riatsu in chapter 389 we see that unohana has also arrived in fake karakura town as she is lending her assistance and healing any of the wounded we don't really get to see una hana again until chapter 422 which is after the defeat of eisen we see her helping hurry and the other wizards after she has done her job shinji thanks her but una hana questions him as to why he is thanking her it isn't necessary because she considers the wizards as her friends and she doesn't need to be thanked for healing them you can see that she is very accepting even to the vizard's apprehension they feel shamed that they have been merged with hollows and they hold a grudge against the soul society for everything that had happened so many years ago but unohana reminds them of their past when she refers to them as her friends this statement even leaves shinji looking on with a very somber expression during the fullbrink arc in chapter 461 una hana expresses surprise at the head captain that he is willing to agree to kisuke urahara's plan which is to break the rules and the traditions of the seoul society in order to return ichigo's shinigami powers back to him unohana as we know is very strict when it comes to following her duties and this is why she is surprised as to the head captain agreeing to break the rules of the soul society the head captain orders all of the gotei 13 lieutenants and captains to share their riyatsu with ichigo in order to restore his shinigami powers during the thousand yearbook arc in chapter 497 when una hana learns about the steinwater's ability to steal bangkai she can sense from these spiritual pressures that the captains of the second sixth and seventh division have all had their bankai stolen from them in chapter 507 the captains noticed that yamamoto has arrived on the battlefield and he has activated his bankai when isane tells unohana that her skin and her lips are feeling dry all of a sudden unohana lightens the tension by saying that that is awfully ladylike of her while she feels the bankai of the head captain she hopes that the battle ends quickly before he destroys the entirety of the soul society after the first quincy invasion unohana and her squad are trying to help as many casualties as they can isane questions why the fat squad remained within their barracks isane is saying this because they could have helped more people but unohana reminds her not to be so short-sighted because she is letting her emotions overwhelm her isane is well aware that unohana would have wanted to go onto the battlefield to heal the wounded more than anyone she didn't because head captain yamamoto's final orders were not to leave the squad for barracks despite how badly she had wanted to help her comrades she was compelled to listen to the orders of the head captain the last thing that had captain yamamoto would have wanted was for the sole society's medical team to have been destroyed so his final order to unhana was to save the medical assistants until after the invasion was over so that squad 4 would not be suffering from any casualties so that they can maximize their efforts in order to help their comrades in chapter 517 when the royal guards arrive and they try to take renji biakia and rukya to the royal palace unohana objects as she says that they are in no condition to leave the serete but her former teacher who had taught her how to heal tenjiro cringy tells her that it is for this very reason that they are taking them he tells her that under her card they will never return to their previous selves and this is especially the case when it comes to biakya who's been severely wounded in the battle if he does not receive urgent medical care from the royal guards then he will die tanjiro karingi bluntly tells una hana that she cannot get the job done and he will personally heal them in this exchange he also says something very fascinating to her and it is the first time that we get a direct mention to the alternative sign to her personality as a former teacher tells her that what she needs to focus on right now isn't healing after hearing this we can see unohana look to the ground with a somber expression and in the next panel we can see the newly appointed head captain since we look over at her like he is fully aware of what unohana must do now in chapter 520 we see shunswe speaking with the central 46 as he tells them that kim party's time has come and they must train him in order to get stronger while discussing the matter with the central 46 he invites in unohana and he tells her that he wants her to handle the business with kimpachi he refers to her as captain unohana but then corrects himself and refers to her as the first kimpachi called yachuru unohana and we see that same cold heartless expression in her eyes that we have seen earlier in the series in various different moments the foreshadowing by kubo has finally paid off as we get to learn about the alternative side to unohana before leaving to train kimpatchi she leaves a letter behind for isane who we see is crying and this is the first hint that we get that unohana may not return after this encounter in chapter 523 we see that kimpatchi and unohana have arrived at the seoul society central underground great prison they are at its lowest level called muken the space within muken is infinitely large and it is completely closed off from the rest of the world shinsui and the central 46 had decided that there was no better place for the two of them to swing their swords freely in chapter 523 we see this menacing look to unohana one that is so far removed from the character that we have seen up until this point if anything in highlights kubo skill is a masterful illustrator as he conveys sinister malice emanating from a character who he had assumed was the maternal figure of the soul society it is evident that this is no more the caring and compassionate una hana retsu this is indeed una hana yachuru after the two of them continue to converse unahana notes that he is awfully talkative she tells him that every time he speaks it causes the skarner collarbone to ache the same scar that kimpatchi had given to her as a young boy finally the battle between the two of them that has been building up for centuries begins while una hana is training kimpatchi we see shunswe who apologizes for referring to kimpachi's training as a lesson in swordsmanship because he knows that once hana and kimpachi cross swords only one of them would survive at the beginning of their encounter unohana clearly has the upper hand as we see her fighting for the very first time in the series we see her elegantly evade kimpachi strikes she takes advantage of any openings to kimpati's stance and precisely strikes him without mercy all the while she retains the same expression on her face she does commend kimpachi for arriving to the battle without his eye patch but she says that with his eye patch removed his full capacity is evident we can see that she is not impressed and she is relaying this to kimpatchi by taking advantage of his weakness and striking him repeatedly she even calls him weak una hana uses a dagger with her free hand to land an attack on kimpachi and she criticizes him as she tells him for somebody who swings his sword around with one arm she is disappointed that he is not using his other arm for any other reason she questions if he is even enjoying the battle but kimpatchi refers to her dagger as a cheap trick he tells her that she has changed from the person that he had admired which angers una hana as we see her shouting for the first time she scored kimpachi for admiring the enemy while in battle unohana states that she hasn't changed at all since their first battle which implies that kimpachi has instead become weaker he asks if he is going to die in this battle without ever having beaten her what ends up happening here is that kimpachi starts to feel fear for the first time in a long while the last time that he had ever felt fear in battle was against unohana when he was a young boy the feeling of fear is so potent that kimpachi feels like unohana's blade has just pierced his throat and kubo illustrates this sense of fear that kim patchy is feeding masterfully as that battle continues una hana tells herself that kim pachu will not die here instead he will go stronger because he does grow stronger after every battle that he survives but she says that this is the flaw that he has put upon himself but this is also her sin and as we know from unohana's flashback that first fight had caused kimbachi to subconsciously restrain his power and unohana feels responsible for this so in this battle she is going to remedy a sin by restoring him pachi to his full strength but she is all too aware that the price that she must pay for the sin that she committed is to give her own life while continuing to strike him party she admits that she is stronger than anybody except for kimpachi and this is exactly the reason why she will try to kill kimpachi as many times as he has to and she will hear them repeatedly bringing him back from the brink of death and she says that she will do this until kimpachi returns to his original form back when he was a young boy why he wasn't suppressing his power the same individual that she saw so much potential within who she had even dubbed as the new generation of kimpachi una hana lives up to her word and repays for her sin as she brings kimpachi close to death hundreds or if not thousands of times and after every time she heals him back to his normal state and she does so until kimpachi has completely surpassed her in power in chapter 526 we see unohana use her bangkai as she calls upon her zambokto minazuki the name of a shikai and bankai is exactly the same when she activates it we see blood pouring from her surroundings and even a clothing it visually represents the level of bloodlust that she has after activating her bankai as she still retains that same sinister cold expression in her eyes she charges towards kimpachi as he begins to feel incredible joy from the battle so much so that he can feel himself melting away in ecstasy thanks to unohana kimpatchi was once more able to feel the true essence and joy of battle something that he had not felt for centuries he had been desiring to experience the same level of joy that he had felt when he had fought unohana as a young boy throughout his various different encounters in the series he was chasing after this thrill of battle but it just wasn't the same we understand the dynamic between the two characters here as the two of them love to fight kimpachi on one hand had learned to restrain himself in order to enjoy the thrill of battle for a longer period of time while unohana had learned to heal herself in order to fight for longer but in her final moments she is convinced that the power she had gained to heal was for this particular moment it was destined to be used to heal kimpachi from the brink of death repeatedly until he had returned to his original self and it is for this reason that there can only be one kimpachi that can only be one shinigami who can be named the strongest unohana says that when the strongest shinigami finds their successor then they can no longer use their zambocto to protect themselves she says that the tip of the sword should either be pointed towards killing the next strongest or to even nurture them we know that una hana did not use a zambocto to battle anybody and she had only drawn a zambocto when it came to fighting against kimpachi we clearly know the option that she had chosen she had chosen to nurture kimpachi as a successor she had decided this when kimpachi was a young boy she looks at him and says that this child is worthy of the name kimpachi and from that moment onward she had refused to use a sword to protect herself instead vowing to only use assault to nurture him pachi saraki in chapter 526 we see kimpatchi finally restore to his full strength as the fear that caused him to suppress his power is actualized his incredible strength results in him killing the person who had made him feel joy unohana accepts her death and relinquishes her title to kimpachi he is her worthy successor after this exchange we learned that the character of una hanaretsu the medicinal healer was born from unohana relinquishing using gazambakdo for herself in chapter 527 in her dying breath she congratulates kimpachi she tells him that there is nothing for him to be upset about she tells him that he is not that young boy who is going to feel boredom after regaining his strength because right now he has worthy opponents to fight against and he has strong allies which can rival him and most importantly una hana reveals to kimpachi that his zombocto has been activated after their exchange before dying she says that everything that she has gained until now she has given to kimpachi she no longer has anything even the title of kimpachi that she could not properly pass down to him back then she is now handed over to him unani dies after passing on a legacy to the next generation she dies with her purpose fulfilled this moment and in fact this character dynamic has always reminded me of a dynamic that i found in one of my favorite games i am referring to metal gear solid 3. if you are aware of the game then you can probably compare the similarities between kimpachi and una hana and the boss and naked snake as both the boss and unanimous had given and taught everything to their successors the boss says that there is nothing left for me to teach you while unanimous states that everything that i've gained until now are given to you they are both killed by somebody who admires them naked snake admires the boss as his teacher while kimpachi admires unohana for being the only person to make him experience the true joy of battle you may be able to feel the parallels between this comparison through this short clip that my editor has put together there is nothing more for me to give you all that's left for you to take is my life by your own hand one must die and one must live no victory no defeat the survivor will carry on the fight it is our destiny [Music] the one who survives will inherit the title of boss for fans of mgs 3 i hope that didn't make you too upset when it comes to unohana's character she was central to the development of kimpachi and she had the largest influence on him out of all of the cast of bleach she definitely has a dual personality and i still stunned by the fact that i would not have assumed that she would be the first kimpachi if i hadn't read the final arc of the series there were subtle foreshadowings of a character having an alternative side but they weren't enough to rob me from the surprise that i felt when i learned that she is indeed the first kimpachi after having fought the young kimpatchi she had completely changed the character it was like she was reborn she relinquished her old self so that she could nurture the next generation the only time that she drew her sword was to nurture kimpachi all of this had begun when the two of them had laid eyes upon each other with kim party standing on top of the pile of dead bodies which represented her disappointment he charges at her and leaves a scar in her collarbone and through that same scar which unohana had as a constant reminder of her successor kimpachi pierces through it in order to regain his power and to maximize his full potential and after doing so unhana feels content as she can die after having accomplished her life's purpose so is the case with every bleach character video that i do i didn't intend for it to be this long but there is just so much to discuss and talk about when it comes to the characters that kubo has written and the subtle nuances that he sprinkles throughout his story betrayal deceit and dreams of becoming a god sasuke eisen is a very nuanced character and one that really pushed me to my limits of analysis before we can delve deep into his character let's draw some attention towards how he is introduced to us and what we begin to perceive about him eisen makes his debut appearance in chapter 79 of the manga and in episode 23 of the anime we understand that he is a very well-mannered intelligent and soft-spoken individual he used to be a well-respected member of the gotai 13 holding the honorable position of our captain prior to his defection he is incredibly kind and compassionate having many of his underlings admire him including his former lieutenant momohinimori however lying beneath this facade is an incredibly manipulative and cunning mastermind he is someone who appears to care so much for his underlings but in actual fact he couldn't care less about them whether if this is his subordinates within the soul society or the irancars in his army he regards everyone around him to be either disposable or a small pawn in his carefully constructed plan to fulfill his ambitions for the sake of these ambitions he does not think twice before manipulating a loved one or even killing others as long as it progresses its plans forward what exactly did eisen desire which led him to construct a plan of events which spanned over 100 years this century-long plan was made to fulfill his ultimate desire to dethrone the soul king after learning the truth about the current system of reality he adamantly disagreed with it refusing to blindly serve the soul king and growing to hate the soul society for reinforcing and protecting the system set in place to protect the soul king his plan leads him to defect from the soul society so that he may stand at the top of the world himself as its rightful ruler his own hubris and feelings of superiority drive his ambition as he refuses to accept a world with a vacant king who acts without power to rule the sulking exists to mainly maintain the order of reality he is an absent ruler and it's this that disgusts eisen who deems himself to be far too intellectually superior to be ruled by such a pitiful excuse of a king this is backed up in chapter 421 when he is being sealed by urahara he yells that he despises him telling him with a mind as brilliant as his why does he accept the soul king and the nature of reality he asks how he can keep obeying that thing urahara tells him that without the sulking the soul society would become divided it is the soul king who binds them together urahara accepts the way that the world is but eisen is enraged by this mentality he tells him that his logic is that of a loser eisen's last words before he is sealed by urahara reveal a lot about his mentality he is so frustrated and for once overcome with emotion he blurts out the logic that underpinned his entire plan it states that a victor does not ask how the world is but rather how it should be this one quote should be enough to understand eisen's obsession with changing the status quo in his first appearance we see eisen speaking with renji he begins his manipulation very early on if we analyze this first appearance retrospectively we can see that he is planting seeds of doubt into renji's mind about the circumstances of rukia's execution he discreetly asks for his opinion if he thinks that rukia deserves to die detailing how the punishment is excessive for the crime that was committed the time until the execution being shortened from 35 to 25 days and lastly the use of the sokyoku to execute her as typically it is reserved for captain ranked soul reapers eisen who already knows who is behind all of this begins to make renji doubt what is happening he reveals that he thinks someone else is behind all of this renji is surprised to learn of a possible conspiracy this subtle manipulation is enough for him to question the event and eventually begin to conspire against the execution of rukia after he is defeated by ichigo eisen manipulated the entire soul society and even us the reader into trusting him and feeling sorry for him after we are led to believe that he was killed all of this effort all for the purpose of changing the status quo through acquiring the hokyoku after this brief look at his psychology and motives for his actions i now want to delve into the subtleties of his behaviors pulling back his deceptive mask that he puts on so that we can reveal the truth behind his lies it is all about motive and there is plenty of motive when it comes to eisen to understand eisen we need to see how he behaved and the consequences of his actions during the different points of the story i'll be focusing on three key moments within the story firstly before his betrayal secondly after his betrayal and lastly how he acts after his defeat naturally we begin the story prior to eisen announcing his betrayal to everyone from his appearance to his actions everything about him during the soul society arc is so unassuming i don't know about anyone else but i grew to develop a respect for eisen especially after seeing his caring nature that he shows towards his lieutenant momo her respect and faith in her captain is incredibly infectious leading you to suspect nothing when we discover that he has died he fools everyone including us his manipulations extend beyond the pages of the manga i remember the shock that i felt when i learned that eisen had been killed and especially in the manner that he was murdered seeing him pinned against a wall with blood running down it a brutal murder on display for everyone to see how could someone so calm and well-respected deserve to be killed in such a dishonorable way these are the types of questions i remember asking myself prior to his betrayal i stated earlier how eisen began his manipulations with renji his deceitful lies lead everyone to believe in a conspiracy which causes factions to form within the soul society who are either in favor of or opposed to the execution of rukia the key component of eisen executing his plan to acquire the hokyoku was the removal of the central 46. in chapter 168 we learned that the central 46 have all been murdered they represent the highest court in the soul society the decisions that they make are absolute it is apparent that they were killed a long time ago and the orders that the soul society were receiving were false and from another party which of course is eisen he orders for the date of rookie's execution to be moved up and deliberately plans for her to be killed by the sokyoku so that her body may be destroyed while the hokyoku within her remains intact he also deceived everyone into believing he was killed making it appear as though it was gin who killed him he even manipulates his lieutenant momo to believe that he was killed by hitsugaya who she has known since her childhood momo is incredibly loyal to eisen that is because he says that himself in chapter 173 he trained her so that she could not live without him in chapter 169 momo meets eisen after his supposed death she is relieved beyond belief to know that he hasn't died we see how he speaks to her softly places his hand on her head like a paternal figure these subtle behaviors deeply affect momo she is too caught up with his deceit to even question why he faked his death so he's just happy to know that he is alive he apologizes for making her worry and thanks her for all the time that they spent together he literally butters it up and lowers her defenses makes her feel comfort and happiness before we experience his treachery for the first time he bids her farewell by impaling her through the chest with his zombuc doe he just looks at her lifeless body with no remorse a psychotic act which demonstrates his lack of conscience it is the way that he casually charms his victims with his lies lures them in and uses them for whatever purpose he requires before discarding them like trash there is no empathy or moral qualm with the extent that he has to go to to fulfill his ambition witnessing this treachery after mourning for his death reveals how terrifying it is to be manipulated into believing a certain truth when it couldn't be further from the truth he takes advantage of people's ability to trust blindly believing without questioning and their tendency to live by the status quo not willing to leave their carefully constructed comfort zones for momo it would be too much to expect her to doubt her captain despite him always having been this way when he reveals himself to be a traitor he states that he had always been like this there is no change of personality or motives nobody realized his true nature and he took advantage of that like the opportunist that he is he orchestrated all of this just so he could acquire the hokyoku which is sealed within rukia's body all for his ambition which is revealed to us in chapter 178 as eisen is ascending ukitaki asks him why eisen reveals he did all of this in the pursuit of greater heights but ukitake asks him if he has allowed himself to fall so low from his respected position eisen tells him not to kid himself as he leaves while revealing his true ambition stating that nobody has ever stood on top of the heavens before not even the gods this vacant spot is now reserved for him as he declares the vacancy to now end from now on he himself will stand at the top as the ruler this is the point where his betrayal is known and his carefully constructed plan is executed however what occurred during the century-long buildup leading up to this point we learn more about eisen schemes and experiments via two flashbangs the first is the turn back the pendulum arc and the second is everything but the rain we need to explore the purpose of each of these events in relation to eisen's ambition and how they are a part of his carefully constructed plan to overthrow the soul king the turn back the pendulum arc occurs 100 years before the present day the truth behind the mask of the vizards is revealed during this arc as well as the holification experiments that eisen had been conducting during this flashback eisen was the lieutenant of squad 5 under the care of captain shinji harako eisen had been studying to create a hokyoku of his own a device that blurs the boundaries between a hollow and a shinigami the hokyoku allows the individuals of one race to attain the powers of the other it also has the ability to sense the desires of those around it and brings to reality what their heart wishes for despite eisen presenting the souls of hundreds of shinigami to it his hokyoku was still incomplete he had learned that the hokiaku that urahara had created was also incomplete after learning this he desired to steal urohara's hokyoku and fuse it with his own this ties in with the 10 back the pendulum arc because 101 years ago eisen conducted a twisted experiment which is known as the holification incident through testing out the true limits of his hokyoku he forced shinji and several other captains and lieutenants to undergo holification eisen framed urohara into being accused of conducting the experiments on his friends and peers this accusation forces him to flee to the human world along with the shinigami who had been experimented upon the shinigami eventually gained control of their hollow powers and formed a group called the vizards and hold a bitter grudge against eisen for what he did to them the turn back the pendulum arc is the earliest chronological version of eisen that we see at this point he is already conspiring against the soul society conducting experiments and furthering his ambition we don't really get to see when he had the eureka moment of realizing the truth behind reality and thus going against the soul king and everything that he stands for but it doesn't matter as his motive is strong and backed up by the flashbacks we see and his consistent actions throughout the series which serve to forward his ambition the pendulum arc introduces us to the concept of the hokyoku as well as explaining why urohara created his own hokyoku as he decided to find a way to strengthen shinigami through using hollow powers we then see how eisen uses his hokyoku through the everlasting trauma that eisen inflicts onto his peers and comrades before the soul society arc he had already ruined and sacrificed the lives of multiple people in pursuit of his selfish desires we once again see the devastation that eisen leaves behind in his wake causing urohara to lose everything and he exiled and the wizards who ended up being involuntary subjects to his inhumane experiment this results in them being treated no different to hollows and were ordered to be killed by the head captain urahara was forced to pick up the pieces left by eisen having lost everything he desired to destroy the hokyoku that he had created but it was not possible to do so he deactivated it and placed it into the soul of rukia he gave her a giga which would convert her soul into a normal human forever his plan was for the hokyoku to lay dormant within her however he did not know that it was eisen who deployed rukia to oversee karakura town and deliberately led to the events which caused urohara to place the hokyoku within her not only this eisen also had a deliberate hand to play in orchestrating ichigo's development after he had learned about the special circumstances of his birth once ichigo became a shinigami he caused several events to occur which put ichigo's powers to the test we see this revealed to ichigo in chapter 397 we learned that he deliberately hastened his development he does so by sending the hollow fischer d to attack his family or causing orihime's brother to become a hollow making it menos grande appear after uryu had used the holobait and also being behind the capture and execution of rukia and finally along with setting up all of the encounters that ichigo had with his opponents throughout the series he literally treated the protagonist of the story as his own little research experiment fans of the series really reacted unfavorably to this revelation that all of the events that we experienced within the story had played out in the palm of eisen's hands it is difficult to just accept this out of the blue but once we had the events of everything but the rain occur this is explained well and we really get to understand what eisen meant by describing ichigo as being the best subject for his research when he reveals this to him it causes ichigo to ask him at what moment he was convinced that he was a perfect test subject eisen replies from the very beginning the moment that he was born he knew that ichigo was special because he was born a human and a the answer to this interrupted sentence is given to us in everything but the rain another flashback where eisen once again ruins the lives of unassuming individuals to forward his own selfish ambition sometime after the holification incident eisen becomes the captain of squad 5. during this time ichigo's father ishin is also a captain who is leading the 10th division eisen is still conducting experiments which involve hollows he is also trying to locate where the wizards have been hiding eisen creates a hollow called white while ishin investigates a city called naruki where the station shinigami there had died in an accident along with recent reports of two further casualties in the area at the time ishin left alone to find the cause of the deaths hitsugaya and rangiku who are his underlings are aware that he went alone to investigate as he did not want to get them involved because the possible threats seem to be above their current level of strength eisen has been working closely with tozen and ginn who at this point are captains as well they continue their twisted holification research while also tracking down shinji and his group they have equipped hollows with the ability to holify their targets but the souls of ordinary people and even the souls of shinigami seem to be unable to handle the holification process ishin lures out eisen's hollow creation white he does so by elevating his own spiritual pressure he notes that the hollow is black and has an incredibly sinister mask along with a deathly shriek before he charges at the captain as it locks in on its next target eisen and the others watch ishin battle their creation from a distance realizing this could really affect their plans eisen feels like it is a great opportunity to get closer to the action or witness it firsthand using rayatsu concealing cloaks they sneak behind ishin just as he activates his shikai to get rid of white eisen attacks him from behind it appears that there is no shortage of people that isen won't backstab in order to progress with his plan he smirks after he thanks urahara for providing him with the inspiration to create the riyatsu concealing cloak after he used a similar cloak to try and surprise attack aizen at the end of the pendulum arc tozen reveals that white was one of the many hollows that isen had created but the difference with this hollow which made it special is that it was created from the soul of a shinigami they leave ishin to battle white confident that in his current state he won't be able to activate his bankai and deem white to be another failed prototype not caring if it is destroyed by the captain before eisen can leave he sees masaki join the battle as she arrives to protect ishin tozen states that he will kill her but eisen being the cunningly perceptive type wishes to see what will happen now that a quincy has joined the battle it is safe to assume he wants to see what will happen if white locks onto masaki as its target and attempts to hollify her a quincy being qualified is indeed a rare side not to be missed sure enough masaki allows white to charge at her and bite her while she fires at point-blank range a quincy arrow right through its head killing the hollow white eisen is very surprised by this turn of events as before white died it self-destructed once eisen tozen and gin leave we learned through tozen's rant that white was successful in qualifying its target masaki as it advanced from the target holification phase to the final metastasize phase what is surprising is that it advanced to the next stage on a quincy tozen deems this experiment to be a failure the plan had been for white to holify ishinigami not a quincy but eisen being optimistic states that white indeed strayed away from their initial goal but it ended up exceeding their expectations an unexpected situation occurs this is the holification of a quincy this is a situation that they did not predict would occur this excites eisen as white was created from a dead shinigami it then chose a quincy as its target for hollification eisen is intrigued to monitor what happens next this explains why eisen had been closely watching ishin and masaki and knew about ichigo from the moment that he was born from the very beginning he knew the significance of his birth being the first born to a shinigami and a quincy who had an attempted holification this explains why eisen planned for certain circumstances to occur in ichigo's life along with testing him through making him battle several different opponents chosen especially by eisen in order to develop ichigo's strength he stationed rukia in karakura town and was behind fishbone d attacking his family this chain of events led to ichigo becoming a substitute shinigami and from here on out he was just another piece of isen's plan he monitored each girl closely to understand how a shinigami's powers can be amplified by hollow powers he does this alongside orchestrating rukia's execution which would let him acquire urahara's hokyoku we learn eventually that the hollow white was transferred to ichigo eisen is impressed by ichigo's growth during the battle with byakuya this is why he asks ukiara to assess if ichigo continues to develop at his current pace would he become an obstacle to his plans further down the line i feel now that we have an understanding of eisen's past and his history with the protagonist explained we can now better understand why he behaves the way that he does after his betrayal let's now look into what leads up to eisen being defeated by ichigo also commenting on his ambition to become a god in an attempt to ascend new heights how this ironically leads to him being banished to the deepest depths of prison far removed from the heights of the salking that he was so determined to take the place of after departing from the soul society eisen forms his espada he is very manipulative even with his own men this is demonstrated in chapter 213 when tozen brings the disobedient grim jio to him so that he can be disciplined for going to the human world without permission tozin demands that grimjao apologizes to eisen for disrupting his peace but eisen states that he isn't angry at grimjao and considers his actions to be an overzealous display of loyalty in the manga we see eisen glaring at grimjao asking him if he is wrong to describe his actions as such grimshaw says that he isn't eisen knows that tozin will not be satisfied by this alone he lets this scrap between his men unfold before his eyes knowing full well that tozen will want to seek some form of justice for grimjao's actions he indirectly allows for grimjao's arm to be severed and then prevents grimjar from retaliating it is entertaining to see eisen behave as a villainous ruler maintaining order amongst his group of arrogant and egotistical subordinates after grimjal leaves gin is revealed to have been eavesdropping he sarcastically remarks that he is cruel for playing with his men like that confirming that he knew how tozen would have reacted after what eisen had said about grimjao's overzealous display of loyalty this also acts as a foreshadowing to eisen showing little to no care when his underlings are killed in fake harakura town and how he disrespects harry bell by attacking her when he begins to lose his patience and shows his true colours eisen is very intuitive and can predict how his opponents will react to his actions this is demonstrated first hand when he requests for ukiyara to kidnap orihime and has planned to use her as bait to load the goti 13 to hueco mundo to separate their fighting power in order to launch a counter-attack against them in fake karakura town when eisen arrives in karakora town he is not the least bit affected by the gotai 13 replacing the real karakura town with a replica he is also not phased by head captain yamamoto sealing him gin and tozen with his ability jogaku anjo he isn't worried as he expects his espada to be able to defeat the gotha 13 without their help he calmly waited for his subordinates and planned to go to the soul society and create the ocean there eisen remains relaxed consistently when his plans are altered and unaccounted for obstacles appear before him we see this when he doesn't expect ishin to be fighting against white when he didn't expect sunsweet and ukitake to destroy the senkaimon in the soul society arc and even now not expecting karakura town to be replaced with a replica one aspect of eisen's story that i find intriguing is his relationship with momo and how hitsugaya develops a hatred for eisen because of how he betrays her trust in him in chapter 334 she appears on the battlefield to confront eisen after she was stabbed by him in chapter 169 in the source society arc hitsugaya discovers that eisen is still alive after questioning him he learns of his true nature when he looks to the floor in chapter 170 he sees his childhood friend momo bloodied and impaled appearing to have been killed eisen apologizes to him for the way that he discovered her and suggests that he should have chopped up her body into pieces and hidden them instead a sickening thought that he thinks about someone who he tricked into trusting him the very person who respected him greatly hitsugaya understandably becomes overcome with his emotions which is something that eisen loves to do to others he loves making them feel blinded by rage and when they act based on emotion he tactfully takes them down by remaining calm and composed what i smoke bastard as he casually answers hitsugai's questions revealing that he has been conspiring against the soul society from the very beginning since he became a captain he dispatched momo without any care as he didn't consider anyone but ginn to be his true lieutenant realizes that this whole time he was deceiving them all to which eisen smiles we learned that momo only joined the gotai 13 because she desired to serve beside eisen she worked incredibly hard for this singular purpose eisen heartlessly responds by saying that this is exactly what made her so easy to manipulate he purposefully requested for momo to serve under his division hitagaya is made to feel betrayal through eisen turning his back on them then learns about momo's condition and on top of that he sees no remorse in his enemy like a pressure cooker steadily building up heat hitsugai erupts and attacks out of anger wasting little time by activating his bankai he declares that he will kill eisen himself but the ever so smoke eisen smiles and advises he shouldn't make rash threats as it reveals his weak nature he takes advantage of hitsugai's overly emotional state and swiftly takes him down with ease all the while smiling as he does so eisen quickly becomes a detestable character from the very beginning of his betrayal so how does he react upon seeing momo after so long he is surprised to see her alive as she looks at him nervously yet holding a zombacto determined to battle hitsugaya is concerned for her after seeing her appear on the battlefield momo states that she is not here as captain eisen's lieutenant but rather as a shinigami ready to battle against him rangiku notes how she referred to eisen as captain eisen and advises her to be careful this reveals how deep-rooted isin's manipulation is and how subtle kubo is with his use of one word to demonstrate a character's emotional instability this also validates hitugaya and rangiku's concerns for her arrival on the battlefield later eisen tricks hitsugaya into attacking momo by using his kyokusuigetsu and switching places with her he once again is overcome with anger and tries to attack eisen but it results in him and his comrades being cut down he really is a master of manipulation predicting the actions of his opponents through distressing them emotionally so that they act without thinking leaving themselves wide open for attack iza knows precisely how to take advantage of the weak minded nature of his former comrades after disrespecting all of his prior comrades eisen displays the very same lack of empathy and manipulative behaviors towards his current subordinates after eisen sees stark's defeat he interrupts haribel's battle by attacking her stating that she is not strong enough to fight on his side he treats her subordinates with such little respect and consideration not caring for their deaths and surprisingly even attacking and defeating one of them himself he disrespects the espada by telling haribel that he alone is more powerful than all of them this angers haribel who falls victim to eisen's taunting she charges at him but is swiftly taken down by eisen he knows that once his opponents have become emotionally affected by his words he has already won the battle when his former captain hirako shinji confronts eisen he shows disgust towards how he treats his underlings by not trusting in their abilities we learn here that eisen thinks that relying on others is a sign of weakness shinji is puzzled as to how he can say this when he gathered the espada to serve under him surely he must have relied upon them and asked them to trust in him however eisen reveals he never told them to trust in him he simply invited them to come with him and advise them to not trust in anyone including himself eisen states that you would have to be incredibly strong to only trust in yourself and your own ability there are very few capable of such a feat eisen tells shinji that ultimately people want to put their faith in something bigger and better than themselves he states here that he will become a god and force everyone to believe in him looking back at all of eisen's underlings throughout his history his relationship with guinea chumaru is the most intriguing it helps us to learn more about eisen as a character through observing their interactions and analyzing gin's final act before he is defeated gin is able to see past eisen's lies and his manipulations he frighteningly is always around the corner listening in on his boss and seems to know more about eisen than anyone else in the series he comments on how cruel eisen is to toy with his underlings in the huracan window arg or how he was enjoying watching ichigo and his friends progress through los noches in chapter 255 and how he noticed eisen was surprised to see momo was still alive in chapter 334. these subtle observations seem to remind eisen that he is being watched and his every behavior is being analyzed it would seem that gin was doing this in order to learn everything he could about eisen so that he could exploit a singular weakness to take him down eisen is about to draw his blade to kill ichigo's friends but gin casually places his hand on his zambakdo offering to go after them himself but he surprises eisen as gin zombocto extends and impales him through the chest gin reveals that the only way to be free from eisen's complete hypnosis is to touch his zampakdo kyokusugetsu while it is in his unreleased state and gid remained with him patiently for decades just to learn this information from him when did gin his most loyal subordinate decide to betray eisen in chapter 415 we see a flashback where ginn observes eisen from afar as a child as he watches him obtain the hokyoku from three shinigami gin notices that these three shinigami who were reporting to eisen were behind rangiku's collapse when he first met her as you remember seeing them leaving the area where he found her this flashback of rangiku and gin meeting is first shown to us in chapter 129 and in chapter 415 we understand that eisen fed pieces of souls from hundreds of shinigami and rukongai citizens who had potential to the hokyoku in an attempt to complete it thus explaining why gin found rangiku collapsed when they first met gin declares that he will kill eisen when he witnesses that he is the one who was ordering the three shinigami to take pieces from the souls of rukongai citizens learning that it was eisen who was responsible for rangiku's weakened state ginn as a child resolved to rangiku that he would become a shinigami and change things so that she won't have to cry anymore he pretended to be loyal to eisen so that he could return to rangiku that piece of a soul that was taken from her back in the present eisen who is wounded states that he expected gin to betray him gin then reveals that he lie to eisen and his zampakto's true ability is a poison that breaks down cells he activates this ability and takes the hokyoku from eisen and manages to get away however eisen transforms into a new winged form and hunts down gin telling him that the hokyoku has already accepted him as its owner as it disappears from gin's hand and back into izan's chest gin remained close to eisen and was able to enjoy being in his company eisen is someone who wanted to become a god ginn due to revenge desire to defeat this false god but ultimately failed eisen attacks gin and thanks him for reminding him of the feeling of fear stating how this is necessary for evolution as progress is made when you realize the fear of being killed at any moment thanks to gin he now has surpassed both shinigami and hollow acquiring a form of existence far above them this realization of fear contrasts with the end villain of the series you watch and i will later go into the differences between these two antagonists and how they both had differing ambitions and ideologies now after covering eisen's path to becoming a god he has now arrived at the edge of reason and is confronted by ichigo his special research subject appears before him eisen is disappointed as he states that he doesn't feel any spiritual pressure from ichigo however gin who is about to die looks up at ichigo and is reassured just by looking at ichigo's eyes saying that he appears to be stronger than before he dies after feeling like he can leave the rest to ichigo now a man on the verge of death is able to see what eisen is so oblivious to this first act of arrogance foreshadows eisen's downfall let's now look at the final battle between ichigo and eisen when ichigo first arrived in fake karakura town to challenge eisen he was very vulnerable to eisens taunting but on this occasion after having learnt the final getagatencho now it is eisen who is baffled by who stands before him in chapter 417 ichigo silences eisen by forcibly escorting him away from a densely populated area so that they can fight without any casualties eisen after evolving and becoming incredibly egotistical is speechless when ichigo man handles him he then proceeds to declare that he will end this battle quickly by defeating eisen eisen soon understands that ichigo has also evolved however his evolution is very different to his own he admits that they both are at their peak evolutionary states in chapter 418 eisen states that he can destroy ichigo's blade with a single blow when he attacks ichigo stops his attack with his hand which is a great callback to eisen stopping ichigo's attack with his finger during the soul society arc in chapter 174 ichigo proves to have the upper hand taunting eisen who then transforms into a new form but his efforts are futile ichigo decides to end their battle with the final gets katencho eisen still cannot feel any spiritual pressure from ichigo he begins to think that ichigo may have surpassed him to which his ego has a difficult time to accept as he states that it is impossible ichigo uses his technique mugetsu which severely wounds eisen allowing urahara to intervene to finally seal eisen resulting in his defeat we have so far covered eisen's rise and fall over the course of the series let's now further analyze eisen's monologues his desire to evolve and transcend and ultimately how and why he tried to become a god and failed bleach is riddled with references to religion and philosophy eisen's character is expanded upon further when we begin to explore these references and their meanings let's begin with the very device which propelled his ambitions and allowed him to manifest his heart's desire the whole concept of the hokyoku is really underappreciated for the most part it is perceived to be essential to the immediate plot and motivation of the characters but considered in the grand scale of the story to be insignificant comparisons of the hokyoku to what screenwriters would call a magoffin are common i don't think that the hokoku is an unexplored tool made just to drive the plot of bleach the core principles behind it stem from the hindu and buddhist interpretations of the philosopher's stone called the chintamani jewel similar to the hokyoku the chintamani jewel has an ability to fulfill wishes at some point in the story both eisen and urahara realize the origin of their reality and the truth behind the sulking the truth behind the current state of existence in bleach is explained by the original sin which is revealed to us in the can't view your own world nobles published after the serialization of bleach the original sin is an event from the past which changed and shaped the world but because of its morally questionable nature any mention of it is purposefully erased from history the fall of eisen genjio's grudge against the soul society and the 1000 year quincy blood war these conflicts are linked to the original sin for the purposes of this video we need to know that in the beginning the world was complete and death didn't exist then the shinigami separated the world into different realms hueco mundo soul society the dungai and the human world the god of the previous reality had his powers and body parts separated via a special ritual he was then sealed forever inside a crystal prison and was now referred to as the soul king a lifeless corpse who hasn't exactly died but isn't alive either the new realms that the shinigami created were unstable so they placed the soul king as the linchpin to maintain the balance of the world before death existed there was eternal existence but the shinigami introduced the concept of death through the changes that they made to reality the consequences of the original sin include shinigami ruling the order of the world and the existence of hollows since the very beginning of bleach the main conflict has always been between shinigami and hollows a self-inflicted feud caused by the shinigami's original sin they introduced death to reality and thus led to the creation of hollows in abrahamic religions the original sin is described as man being banished from the garden of eden comparatively the shinigami's original sin was to create the current fake world and turn god into a lifeless corpse but why would they do this this is answered by the buddhist belief that without suffering you cannot make progress and evolve the shinigami desire to create an imperfect world believing that too much happiness would lead to ignorance and will prevent enlightenment which a buddhist believes is the only way to attain nirvana and escape the cycle of reincarnation the approach of the shinigami is devoid of god similar to buddhism whereas the original state of reality had a god and was overseeing a perfect world a like to the abrahamic interpretation of reality prior to the banishment from the garden of eden bleach volume 48 is titled god is dead this is in reference to the truth behind the soul king and thus introduces us to the conflicting philosophies behind urohara and eisen's worldview after they learnt the truth about their reality the greek philosopher plato believed that the world of the living didn't matter as it was not eternal he accepted that reality was imperfect due to the concept of death however he states that the pursuit of true wisdom and knowledge was the everlasting world of the gods he elaborates upon this by stating that it is philosophers who stand above men to gaze into the world of wisdom and to return with knowledge which will improve the human world both eisen and urahara can be likened to the fundamentals of plato's philosophers in terms of the desire to comprehend beyond their sense of perception we live in a world of visible and intelligible things our five senses form our visible world thus it is subject to change and uncertainty however the intelligible world is made up of unchanging rules of reason like mathematics and abstract definitions thus the intelligible world will always describe the eternal form of things for example a human will always take up the form which applies to all humans despite the variations of skin color sizes and gender the physical form has an abstract definition the human form will always be what it is now the individual human like yourself is however a physical object which is subject to the uncertainty of the visible world if a human is dropped from a skyscraper then it ceases to fit that intelligible eternal human form plato imagines that the visible and intelligible world are divided in the middle the lower half consists of the visible world and the upper half is the intelligible world he states that each half represents a type of knowledge the visible world representing opinion and the intelligible world representing true knowledge and the word of god the big reveal within bleach is that the world of god plato's intelligible world has been altered and changed because of the original sin orchestrated by the shinigami the catalyst that causes urahara and isen to take action is learning that the intelligible eternal form of god and the nature of reality is riddled with uncertainty and subject to change both of them realizing the truth of the world consequently undertook differing philosophies to deal with the truths presented to them urahara accepts the way that the world has come to be and adopts the approach of the german philosopher friedrich nietzsche like the title of bleach volume 48 god is dead the soul king is a corpse not in control he exists merely to maintain the balance of the world through learning that the shinigami killed god it grants us freedom from subservience but urahara also comes to accept we must now undergo struggle to make progress nietzsche stated god is dead upon the advent of scientific knowledge in defiance to christian beliefs he states that humans killed god through finding meaning and understanding of reality from science as opposed to religion through our own hand we kill the murderer of all murderers an approach which some consider to be nihilistic but objectively offers a realistic outlook on reality which puts the power into the hands of individuals instead of an all-powerful deity eisen however refuses to accept things just as they are falling in line with plato's views he desires to attain greatness and become god himself to return intelligibility to the world like a true philosopher of plato he desires to go to the world of the gods so that he may return with wisdom and knowledge which will serve to benefit humanity through progression and enlightenment they both have their own reasons for creating the hokyoku which stems from these very philosophies that i have just gone over initially introduced as a device that blurs the boundaries between shinigami and hollow it is then revealed to fulfill the desire of the possessor's heart eisen's actions were driven by his desire to overthrow the fabricated hypocritical system which is in place considering the shinigami to be a mindless herd who blindly served as soul king eisen's drive can once again be explained by nietzsche who allows us to further analyze the polarity between urohara and eisen's differing ideologies nietzsche introduces to us a hypothetical concept called the ubermensch which literally means the overman this concept represents the ultimate goal that everyone should aspire towards only attained by rejecting the status quo desiring to be more than just a member of the herd free from the constructs of society and its morals the over man quite literally believes in no higher power and fills that void with ambition innovation and desire for true understanding of the world this individual believes that there are no limits to their own possibility consequently they aspire to take down the current flawed system and replace it with a superior system of their own eisen is this over man which explains the lengths that he goes to in order to bring about the systematic collapse of the shinigami he proclaims before he leaves the soul society that nobody has ever stood atop the heavens before not even the gods this once again draws parallels to nietzsche's famous concept of god is dead as eisen states neither them being the shinigami head or himself have ever attained the heights to which he seeks but he will be the one to do so his actions solidify his intense desire for this purpose through his manipulation betrayal and lack of concern for disrupting the status quo the desire to overcome that the overman possesses is defined by nietzsche as the will to power eisen's will to power is the hokyoku which allows him to become more than just a shinigami he transcends into a being superior to shinigami and hollows after he places the hokyoku within himself this wish-granting orb and eisen's will are synced due to the very nature of the hokyoku fulfilling the heart's desire similar to the overman concept nietzsche also mentions the idea of the last man like the over man the last man is aware of the nature of the world and its flaws but cannot bring themselves to change the way of the world choosing acceptance rather than the more arduous task of altering and improving the world the last man is represented by urahara eisen and urahara are very similar in terms of intellect talent and knowledge of the world the difference between the two of them is focused upon in chapter 421 as urahara justifies the existence of the world and the soul king eisen is baffled as to how someone who is as intellectual as urohara can accept being ruled by that thing urahara states that without the soul king the worlds will crumble simply stating this is the way the world works this is what infuriates eisen as he insults urahara and his final words echo his overman philosophy the victor should speak of the way the world should be not the way it is urahara seals eisen but eisen is so blinded by his delusions of grandeur and his superiority complex he fails to notice that he has weakened the seal takes effect as urohara explains that the hokyoku no longer recognizes eisen as its master when dangai ichigo and eisen begin to battle they both have attained transcendence eisen has four forms he goes into a cocoon form then emerges from his cocoon into a second form his third form he grows wings and in his final form he resembles a literal monster the chapters which include the final confrontation with eisen are named after the title de aside which means killing of a god this term is derived from the latin term decidium which is made up from deus god and sidium killing the naming of these chapters foreshadows eisen's downfall we also get to experience the differences between ichigo and eisen's transcendent forms eisen believes that you transcend the norm by breaking the limitations of a shinigami and a hollow thus becoming a mixture of both of the species this explains his obsession with holification experiments a transcendent being possesses spiritual pressure which exceeds the norm ichigo indeed possesses this and it confuses eisen as he cannot feel his spiritual energy he wrongly assumes that ichigo exchanged a spiritual power to elevate his physical power in chapter 418. girl indeed has power that is greater than the transcended eisen who cannot stop gloating about his superior evolved state during their battle eisen is in his third form which has a closed eye placed on his forehead i believe this represents the opposite of the spiritual third eye which is open through enlightenment as it is a spiritual internal eye not a physical eye you can outwardly see on the face the third eye is an esoteric concept which is referenced in several religions and is referred to as the invisible mind's eye the difference with this third eye is that it is inverted it is visible on his forehead and is awakened by rage as eisen infuriated by ichigo's claims of him being stronger than him causes him to transform into his final form which appears to be an outward manifestation of the monster he has internally allowed himself to become as a result of his hubris eisen attained transcendence by the hokyoku as opposed to ichigo who is a hybrid being who literally attained power that was beyond that of a shinigami hollow and even a quincy a natural evolution made through ichigo's willingness to sacrifice contrasted against eisens forced evolution he attains thanks to the will of power generated by the hokyoku in buddhism transcendence is attained through absence of suffering only then can the state of nirvana be achieved it is ichigo's powers which thrust him into the front lines of battle which cause him to feel suffering he chooses to relinquish his powers via learning the final getzkatencho he attains nirvana but like in the buddhist interpretation of transcendence this is temporary and only reserved for mortal beings ichigo returns from his evolved state after he uses the technique mugetsu and eisen is forced to relinquish his godly form once his loneliness overcomes his heart isen became a false god who was consumed by his false sense of enlightenment he was defeated by the self-aware ichigo and banished to the lowest level called muken of the soul society's underground prison it is ironic that he desired to stand on top of heaven reaching heights that not even gods could fathom but instead he is banished like lucifer to the lowest realm of reality after eisen's defeat in chapter 422 ichigo questions urahara he wonders if the hokyoku rejected eisen describing it to be a device that reads the hearts of those around it and makes their wishes come true did eisen ultimately desire to lose his powers ichigo states that he could feel eisen's blade in battle once he became strong enough to challenge him as an equal ichigo states that he felt loneliness emanating from eisen sumbacto he theorizes if indeed he was born with exceptional power he may have just seeked for someone who could see things from his perspective someone who shared his world view during his battle with ichigo he eventually gave up looking for someone who shared his perspective and in the end just desired to become an ordinary shinigami ultimately coming to terms with the world and his own feelings of loneliness this is what causes ichigo to feel remorse towards eisen as his eyes are drawn with sadness urahara notices this and reassures him that he did the right thing by defeating eisen through his battle with ichigo eisen is deeply affected to the extent that his heart desires for normality causing rejection from the hokyoku which is his will to power and thus reverting his godlike form eisen retained his immortality but no longer held the form of a transcended being the idea of eisen being lonely is touched upon by kubo in bleach databook 3. he describes him to be very ambitious someone who never gives up overcoming his loneliness due to his goal preoccupying his mind preventing him from thinking about how lonely he actually is now that he has become this evolved being and is at the cusp of achieving his desire to overthrow the soul king he realizes how lonely it must be to stand at the top with nobody beside him none of his subordinate survived and he has nobody to call upon as an equal possibly urohara but his acceptance of the status quo is in direct conflict with eisen thus causing him to be alone in his pursuit this is why he may have wished to be a normal shinigami in the end like ichigo mentions in chapter 422 thus causing the hokyoku to reject him i mentioned this earlier while eisen was speaking to shinji he states that he believes people place their faith in someone or something which is more powerful than they are leading them to become dependent upon blindly following that thing the recipient of that faith seeks to follow someone who is above their own position so that they can place their faith in them in order to escape the pressure of being blindly followed the recipient of that faith too seeks out someone who is more powerful in order to put their faith in he believes that this hierarchy of faith and power explains the way in which all kings are born and how all gods are born eisen describes here the herd who accept reality without questioning it living within the limited scope of reason in volume 48 the poem at the beginning states people are all imitations of monkeys gods are all imitations of humans this ties into eisen's speech to shinji as the poem expresses his frustrations with the importance the shinigami give to superior beings who are unworthy of it when eisen leaves the dungai to arrive in the real karakura town he states that reason exists solely for those who must cling to it for survival now let us go to the edge of all reason the edge of reason is the limits of existence to push oneself beyond what is thought to be possible in the pursuit of progression to become a superior being worthy of the position eisens the edge of reason quote is a great elaboration to the poem that kubo writes at the beginning of volume 12 which is titled the flower on the precipice we think that the flower on the precipice is beautiful because our fear makes our feet stop at its edge instead of stepping forward into the sky like that flower this poem comments on the fearlessness to exist in a place where no other can reach to challenge you their fears associated with the cliff edge and stepping out into thin air caused them to admire the beauty of the fearless flower from afar to those who have the courage to step forth and overcome their fears only they get to see what lies beyond the precipice of course for eisen his desire to stand on top of heaven to occupy the vacant throne in the sky is his interpretation of fearlessly stepping over the edge of the precipice even after his defeat and imprisonment eisen still desires to not have anyone rule over him remaining true to his view of the way the world should be kubo gives eisen the honor of delivering the final speech on courage eisen like you watch desire to change the norms of society however they had differing reasons you watched desire to rid the concept of death from reality thus stopping the primal fear that we relate to our mortality when eisen is betrayed by gin he thanks him for reminding him of the feeling of fear stating that without fear there can be no evolution of progress now that he has become immortal he has in some way lost that fear of dying only he could comment on you watch his desire to rid the world of death as his immortality has allowed him to consider the consequences of forming a world without this fear eyes and thanksgiving for reminding him of the fear of being killed at any moment and so based on these words you can assume that without the fear of dying there is no progress relating back to the buddhist belief that without suffering you cannot be free from it and thus make progress to accept that suffering exists in life is the first of the four noble truths of buddhism suffering includes the fear we have due to realizations of our own mortality eyes in speech in chapter 686 answers why it is necessary for the fear of death to exist he states that in a world without the fear of death people would not search for hope they will merely exist without purpose the very act of existing while fending off fears is a different and more admirable feat according to eisen he reveals to us that living in such a manner is the very essence of courageousness this final rendition of eisen's character who speaks after his defeat demonstrates to us a character who still holds his views on the way the world should be but has accepted that he could not achieve his desires thus with this failure combined with his desire for progression he is able to show us his growth through his final speech about courage describing in effect the most admirable aspect of the world he wished to alter the four noble truths of buddhism really helped to bring more insight into the flaws of you watch's ideology like i said the first noble truth is to accept that suffering in life is inevitable during our lifetime we will feel pain through loss sickness injury tiredness and the ultimate suffering which is to die to accept the first noble truth you realize that whatever happiness you try to strive towards it will not last all moments in life come and pass so too will we the second noble truth is to understand that our suffering arises from our attachment to our desires for you watch his suffering which is his fear of death arise from his attachment of life and existence the third noble truth speaks of the end to suffering which will result in ultimate freedom the state of nirvana which translates to freedom from suffering worries and pain this state cannot be comprehended by those who have not attained it the third noble truth speaks of achieving the heightened state of nirvana which explains eisen's thoughts and progression and how he related the fear of dying at any moment to his own progression when he is reminded of his mortality he was made to suffer this ceases once he rids himself from his attachment to life and reaches a heightened state of being through evolving after gin's betrayal suffering stops once we rid ourselves to the attachment to our desires our selfish cravings lead to our ultimate demise which is exactly what happened to you watch eisen merely comments on the necessity of death in relation to making progress and living fearlessly in his final speech on courage eisen's character undergoes change from his first appearance in the story to his last this is pretty evident if you have been following the video up until now in a typical positive change arc a character believes in a lie they then encounter the truth and it is this truth that helps the character to overcome the lie that they believe by finding and accepting the truth eisen's change in the story flips this positive change arc on its head as he undergoes what is known in screenwriting as a negative change character arc in her book creating character arcs cam weiland states that a negative change arc tells the story of a character who ends in a worse place than that in which he started the negative change arc has three types of arcs within it the disillusionment arc the fall arc and the corruption arc i believe that eisen undergoes two of these negative arcs one in the past and one in the present timeline of bleach the disillusionment arc occurs for eisen when he learns the truth about reality the real purpose of the soul king this entire truth he learns is a negative one due to not knowing much about eisen's past it is difficult to pinpoint what other than his innate talent and pursuit of knowledge led him to learn about the truth of the soul king we don't know the initial lie that isen tells himself that leads him to the truth which causes his disillusionment we can infer that some form of dissatisfaction with the world caused him to desire to understand the world which led to him learning the truth of the world in the story the earliest point that we see eisen is after he has learned the truth and begins his holification experiments we observe his negative change arc unfold from this point onwards in the present day eisen undergoes the fall arc after his disillusionment occurs it results in eisen developing his fatal flaw or lie his lie he believes is that he is the only one worthy to rule over others not allowing himself to be ruled by anyone else especially the soul king who he depersonalizes by referring to him as it or that thing instead of overcoming this lie through finding acceptance or another truth to resolve his concerns eisen instead falls further into this lie ultimately resulting in his defeat and imprisonment eisen rejects the truth of the world unlike urohara he cannot accept it like the older man that he is eisen seeks to change the world into how it should be unlike the herd he cannot blindly place his faith in a god that is given power by the people who sorely rely upon reason for existence he realizes the soul king is a powerless linchpin his hubris and superiority complex makes him believe that he himself is worthy of becoming a heightened being deserving of others faith isen clings to his lie and warped belief of how the world should be to such an extent that it causes him to manipulate and betray anyone who ever made the mistake of trusting him this ultimately leads to eisen falling from his well-respected position as a captain and ultimately falling far from his desire to sit at the top he is now bound to a chair powerless and sealed deep underground where his immortality will cause him to lament over his failings for eternity biakyakuchiki belongs to one of the four great noble clans within the seoul society upon his initial introduction into the series we learned that he is the head of the kuchiki clan as well as being the first captain ranked shinigami that we see within the story from his initial introduction to the end of the soul society arc we see a clear change within biyakia's character during the early portions of the story biakia believes in law and order above everything else the obvious reasons for this is that he is a captain with indigota 13 and of course he is the leader of a great noble family but upon deeper inspection this doesn't explain why byakuya is so unwilling to break the rules even if it costs him his sister's life he is the first real threat that is presented to us within the story and the character that ichigo must overcome in order to save rukia during the soul society arc so in this video i'm going to analyze biakia's character as well as explaining the growth that his character undergoes from the beginning to the end of the series so let's analyze how he transforms from a character who is so focused on the rules and has difficulty expressing that he cares for his lieutenant renji and even rukia compared to his character by the end of the series who clearly values the lives of his comrades and rukia more than the rules and law and order biakia first appears in chapter 51 of the manga and in episode 15 of the anime his most distinctive feature is his long black hair and his gray eyes as well as the white headpieces that he wears on his head which symbolize that he is the head of the kuchiki clan he also wears a white scarf which makes his captain's uniform more distinctive than the other captains we learned that this scarf is indeed a family heirloom which is passed down from generation to generation as it is given to the head of the kuchiki clan in addition to coming from nobility he is the captain of the sixth division he is the type of person who is very stubborn in his beliefs and he doesn't care about other people's opinions like in chapter 99 when momo and kira find renji's body after his battle with ichigo momo volunteers to get renji immediate medical attention but yakira arrives and says that it isn't necessary instead he tells them to throw renji into a cell and to let him rot there the reason for this is that renji went to fight ichigo on his own and the only outcome that biakia was willing to accept was if renji defeated ichigo that of course wasn't the case because renji was defeated byakio refers to his own lieutenant as a fool he completely disregards mormo's suggestion of getting renji medical help and he further ridicules his lieutenant by telling momo and kira to get this beaten fool out of his sight biakia's appearances after the soul society arc are such a contrast to this early version of himself after his battle with ichigo we do see a drastic change in biakia's character and his attitude the most notable change is the way that he interacts with his underlings he is more empathetic and caring towards them earlier on biakis pride was very self-centered whether if it was pride in his own strength and power or pride in his status and his nobility even in chapter 162 ichigo asks biakria if his pride has anything to do with allowing rukia's execution to go ahead it does appear to be true as biakia's pride has been affected by rukia breaking the rules after all it was him who adopted rukia and brought her into nobility his decision to adopt someone from the slums is being caught into question this is of course hurting his pride the only way that he can hold his head up high and keep his pride intact is if he goes along with rukia's execution after his battle with ichigo biakya's pride is no longer about himself instead his subordinates become an extension of his own pride and this is seen firsthand in chapter 302. during his battle with zomari byakuya makes a distinction which helps to clarify his motive behind killing the espada he says that he doesn't intend to defeat him because he's fulfilling his duties as a shinigami but instead he's going to defeat him because zumari pointed his sword at byakuya's pride and obviously he is referring to rukia as his pride in this moment this one encounter shows the stark difference between vyakhya during the soul society arc and his subsequent appearances and it's fascinating how kubo can write a character to be so dislikable in one arc but then reform his character to easily make him one of the most beloved characters to feature within bleach from the time that rukia was adopted into the kuchiki family until her death sentence biakia's personality and mannerisms made rukia believe that he didn't care about her her feelings of not being cared about are further reinforced when you learn that biakia didn't look in a direction once after she was adopted despite how he may outwardly appear to others yakira still cares for and protects those who are close to him before i discuss what causes a change in biakia's character and his beliefs of law and order we need to first try to understand how these beliefs were formed from the few scattered pieces of information that we learned about biakea's past i'm going to first go over all of the history that we learned before his first appearance in the anime the earliest chronological appearance of biakya occurs during the turnback the pendulum arc we are introduced to a teenage version of biakya who is training endlessly in the presence of his grandfather he is preparing to take over the leadership role of the kuchiki family on one such occasion while he is training he is visited by yuroichi who would often come and visit the kuchiki mansion even as a teenager it appears that byakuya still retains a lot of his personality he appears to be focused with his training duties and his responsibilities he doesn't have time to entertain yuriji who has taken advantage of byakuya's nature to take life way too seriously she tells him that she made the effort to come all of the way just so that they could play games together he tells her as the future head of the kuchiki family he has no time to be playing games it is a very playful encounter as yurichi steals the hair string that is holding bjakia's hair in place this playful little exchange is an excellent callback to the soul society arc when yurichi arrives and stops ichigo from fighting byakuya primachari in chapter 118 when she tries to leave with ichigo vyakhya tells her that she cannot get away from him but yurichi taunts him by referencing these playful encounters that we see during the turn back the pendulum arc by asking him if biakia has ever beaten her in a game of tag before just like in the past yurichi proves that a shampoo is faster than byakuya's through yakiya and yurichi conversing with each other so early on in the series we learned that these two characters who both come from nobility had a shared history with each other this brief encounter during the soul society arc is remembered by kubo and is expanded upon during the 10 back the pendulum arc in my opinion examples like this make the character interactions feel real and add depth to them this next piece of information which i'm going to cover from biakea's past helps to explain why he was so opposed to breaking the rules of the soul society we learned that 55 years ago from the present timeline biakian married a woman called hisana kuchki she was the older sister of rukiyakuchi five years after their marriage hisana had fallen ill and was on her deathbed her final request to her husband was to find and adopt her younger sister who she had abandoned years ago a year after hisano had passed away byakiyah located rukia and had adopted her into the kuchiki family byakuya broke the laws of his noble family by marrying a commoner from the rukongai district despite the opposition of several of his family members he insisted and married hisano and he had broken the rules once more by fulfilling the wish of his dying wife by adopting rukia into a noble family he had broken the rules of the kuchiki family once more after he had taken rukia in he swore at the graves of his parents that he would never break the law and order of the kuchiki family or the soul society from that moment on to uphold the honor of his parents he swore that from that moment on he would uphold the rules at whatever the cost after making this oath to his parents this causes beyakir to be very conflicted on one hand there is his promise to his parents which would cause him to uphold the law and order of the soul society by allowing rukia's execution to go ahead and on the other hand there is this promise that he made to hasana to protect her younger sister after her passing away throughout the soul society arc we quickly learned that biakiya has favored honoring the oath that he made to his parents but after his battle with ichigo he quickly learns the error of his ways so now that we know enough about his past and the beliefs that he adopts before his first appearance in the series let's analyze how he tries to justify rukia's execution and has his mind ultimately changed by ichigo at the beginning of the series he and his lieutenant renji abbari are tasked by the source society to capture and return ruki akuchi during his introduction we quickly see that he has a very silent yet overbearing demeanor during ichigo's battle with renji when he begins to have the upper hand against him biakia interrupts by breaking ichiko's zampakto in half before he can deliver the final blow byakuya is the first captain ranked shinigami that we see through howie swiftly takes down ichigo we see the level of difference between ichigo's current state of power compared to a captain ranked shinigami the two strikes that biakya delivers to ichigo are enough to fatally wound him and even if ichigo were to survive beyakya intentionally striked ichigo so that his powers would be no more during this first encounter he comes across as overly arrogant and even shameless in his later appearances during the soul society arc as he appears to be perfectly fine with his sister being executed at this early point in the story the way that biakiya uses his speed and power to swiftly take down ichigo illustrates the wall of difference between the two of them and if ichigo is to indeed save rukia that he must overcome biakya who seems like an impossible opponent to defeat right now at the beginning of chapter 65 biakiya informs rukia that she is going to be executed for her crimes this sentence shocks renji as it appears to be far too severe for the crime that was committed but in a very cold manner biyakia relays the information to rukia and shows no remorse he tells her that 25 days from now she's going to be executed and that is the source society's final decision you would not be able to tell that biakia really cares about her through these early interactions as he says to it that he will not see her again until the day of the execution like i mentioned before he is upholding the law and order of the soul society and by doing so he is honoring the oath that he made to his parents biakiya's heartlessness is further emphasized in chapter 134 when captain ukitake frantically arrives and informs pyakiya that rukia's execution date has been moved up the execution is now going to be taking place the next day and it appears that bayakiya doesn't care in the slightest okitaki wants a response out of him to show that he has some compassion for his younger sister but he simply says that he accepts the decision to move the execution to tomorrow he even refers to this as a trivial matter as he scolds ukitake for troubling him with this understandably ukitake is frustrated by biakya's lack of concern doesn't the fact that rukia is going to be executed mean anything to him if we didn't know about his past and the oath that he made to his parents it would be so confusing as to why he hasn't opposed this severe punishment for the crime that was committed on top of this rukia's execution date is being moved sooner and sooner all the while biakia is not opposed to the decisions that are being made by the higher-ups in regards to his sister he tells ukitake that rukia is none of his concern as she is a member of his family whether if she lives or dies it's none of his business on the morning of rukia's execution in chapter 138 biakya is seen praying at the shrine of his wife he is informed that the execution is about to commence he says goodbye to the picture of his wife before making his way over to sokkyoku hill but before he arrives he encounters renji who has escaped from prison and has fought his way through several shinigami in order to save rukia after learning that renji intends to save rukia he tells him that he cannot this encounter helps to show how dysfunctional the relationship that biakea shares with his own lieutenant and this is simply because biakia holds his feelings too close to himself and he is not expressive at all and this ultimately robs biakya from forming meaningful connections with the people that surround themselves around him for the sake of saving rukia renji summons the courage to oppose his own captain it is revealed that renji had dreamed of surpassing biakya long before he had joined the gotai 13. he feels confident that he can now surpass him after having learnt bankai biakya expresses to renji that he was unaware that he had attained bankai renji's response reveals a lot about byakuya's arrogant nature as he says that how could biakia have noticed since he pays no attention to anyone who he considers beneath him during the soul society arc he is far from humble and his pride as a member of a noble family i think gets to his head the consequences of yaki are not being very expressive with his emotions impact rukia and both renji rukia is impacted through how she feels like she has no connection with her older brother and renji through how he is made to feel insignificant no matter how much progress he makes he will never earn the acknowledgement of yakira his captain rukia and renji obviously both respect yakira a great deal there are several examples of biakia actively showing that he cares for them after the soul society arc but prior to rukia's execution biakya is like an emotionless brick even if it pains him to know that rukia is going to be executed he is not willing to do anything to oppose the law and order of the soul society and the decisions that they make the frustration that we feel towards rukia's older brother is channeled through the different characters who challenged biakia during this arc whether if it was ukitake earlier or renji now it is satisfying to see byakuya's approval of rookie's execution being challenged by so many different characters vyakur defeats renji after determining that he is not ready to use his bankai in battle to show the overwhelming difference between their power bayakiya activates his own bankai and easily defeats renji at the end of this very brief battle with renji biakia proves that he has a superiority complex to the final words that he tells renji before leaving for sokyoku hill he tells them that a class difference exists between them no matter how hard renji will try his fangs will never reach byakuya he uses an analogy to explain their difference in class likening it to the tail of the monkey and the moon in this example the moon represents biakya and the monkey represents renji he says that the moonlight that is seen in the eyes of the monkey is not the actual moon but rather the moon's reflection on the water he says that renji just like the monkey may desperately try to capture the moon but he will always be out of reach and will instead sink to the bottom and this poetically describes how renji will always be beneath byakuya before eisen is introduced as the main antagonist of the series biakya's mindset and his ideology is frustrating enough for us to want to see him be defeated all of this talk about him being superior and how he looks down upon others and even classes them as being beneath him it helps to build the anticipation for his final battle with ichigo all of these aspects of yakira's character according to question while he's battling ichigo but prior to being defeated he has some very toxic personality traits i mean the difference is later on in the story he directs these personality traits to his opponents but during the soul society arc he doesn't distinguish between friend or foe i keep saying this but it is vital to understand before her execution he did not acknowledge rookie at once and even with renji he made no effort to form a relationship with his lieutenant we can try to understand this behavior as being a consequence of his oath that he made to his parents there is no easy way to explain him deeming others to be beneath him especially his own comrades but these flaws that exist within biakea's character are the basis for his fundamental growth and the change which he undergoes which ultimately leads to him sacrificing himself and apologizing to rukia and renji and leaving the rest to ichigo during the thousand-year blood war arc but i will talk about this more later i want to now go over byakuya's highly anticipated rematch with ichigo and how it serves to reform his character the battle between the two of them begins in chapter 152 after ichigo effortlessly takes down three lieutenants he is attacked by yakia he asks ichigo why is he insisting on trying to save rukia but he responds with a question of his own wondering why rukia's brother isn't trying to save her himself biakea's resolve is not easily wavered as he tells ichigo there is nothing to discuss the only option that he has left is to eliminate ichigo himself and to kill rukia by his own hand the only thing standing in his way is ichigo's opposing resolve each girl decides to protect her and to prevent her death and ultimately this rematch is a battle of two resolves ichigo resolves to break the rules in order to save the life of his friend while biakya is trying to make an example out of rukia it's like he went from one extreme to the other he opposed the rules in order to marry hisana and he opposed the rules when it came to adopting rukia but now he has so much conviction within law and order he is even willing to take it into his own hands and this is especially true when you see him declare that he will kill rukia himself now that the sokkyoku is no longer functional biakya has a lot of conviction in his resolve to enact the law and order of the soul society but he is opposed by ichigo who matches biakhia's level of resolve i've always thought of this battle as ichigo slowly bringing out the emotion within vyakhya allowing his character to open up a little bit so he's not concealing his emotions or hiding behind this belief that law and order is absolute let's now find out how ichigo's resolve to save rukia changes bayaki's character for the better from the very beginning of their battle yakira says that he won't need to use his bankai to defeat ichigo as well as this he admits that ichigo will never be able to change his mind he has made up his mind that he's going to kill both ichigo and rukia both of their fates are sealed despite biakea's stubborn conviction in his own words both of these statements are proven wrong by ichigo as he does eventually force bayakir to use his bankai and in addition to this ichigo's death and rukia's death are both prevented the first time that we see visible shock on byakuya's face is when he activates his shikai but ichigo counters it with a getzkatencho he realizes he is no longer the same boy who we swiftly took down in the world of the living ichigo is more confident and he has the strength and power to back up his resolve after repeatedly taunting biakyati uses bankai against him he finally activates his bankai zembonzakura kagayoshi his bankai attacks ichigo from all directions as he is overwhelmed by millions of blades his bankai is highly effective against ichigo shikai it leaves ichigo really badly wounded as he's on his knees but when he starts to hint that he has a bankai of his own it once again surprises biakya up until ichigo activating his bankai biakya has been underestimating him while he watches ichigo activate his bangkai biyakia looks unpuzzled he is in disbelief as he says it is impossible for ichigo to have attained bankai his reasoning is that only the most experienced shinigami can perform bankai even within the four great noble families who are born with high spiritual pressure one in several generations will only attain bankai and those who have attained this form are etched into the history of the soul society he is once again left speechless as he wonders how a ordinary human who had borrowed shinigami powers could attain this legendary bankai form for all the bangkai that we have seen up until this point they're all grandiose spectacles but ichigo's bankai despite visually looking cool is very underwhelming as even his sawdust shrunk in size yakiya considers ichigo's multiple actions as an insult to the honor of the soul society firstly he disrespected the execution ceremony and now he is disrespecting the concept of bangkai by challenging him with an ordinary zompoc dough ichigo tells him that it is because of yakia's honor that he is insisting on killing rukia and he says that it was for this reason that he decided to step on byakir's honor and it was the driving factor which caused him to attain bangkai indeed after transforming ichigo's speed surprises byakuya it is an excellent contrast to the speed that byakuya used to take down ichigo early on in the series the speed of ichigo's bankai is making it difficult for biakea to keep up with him in chapter 163 ichigo finally repays the favor and appears behind byakuya surprising him and he pierces him from behind the battle of two resolves continues as pyakiya activates an ability called senke it surrounds the two of them with thousands of columns of blades this is an ability that biakia reserves to use against those who he has decided to kill by his own hand in chapter 165 the tide of battle turns in biakia's favor as ichigo starts to slow down biakia even tells him that it appears that he has reached his limit he is impressed by the progress that ichigo has made he says that he defeated captain class lieutenants he survived a attack from zembonzakura and ultimately he did well to last this long against biakya just as biakya is about to deliver the final strike to defeat ichigo his hollow takes over his body and i'm starting to now lose counter the number of times that ichigo shocks biakia as his involuntary transformation startles him after his hollow takes over he strikes biakya across his body the speed ferocity and the way that he is utilizing ichigo's bankai is overwhelming when ichigo rips off his huddle mask and refuses the assistance of his inner hollow he gains the respect of yakiya he apologizes to him for the interruption byakia realizes that ichigo doesn't want to defeat him through using an external power which isn't his own towards the end of their battle bjakia starts to open up a little bit as he admits that neither of them have much strength left before they clash for one final time ichigo insists on asking why isn't he trying to save rukia unexpectedly he tells ichigo that if he can defeat him then he will reveal to him the answer to his question after their final clash in chapter 167 biakiah finally reveals the reason as to why he didn't try to say rukia he says that those who break the law must face justice they need to understandably face the consequences of their crimes that is of course the meaning behind the law but ichigo asks just for the sake of the law he is going to kill his own sister but biyakian makes an important and mature distinction he says that the bonds of his family mean nothing in the face of the law he says that he is not going to give in to sentimental emotions even if the law is opposing one of his own family members he says that the kuchiki family is one of the four great noble families and as its leader they need to set an example for all shinigami if the kuchiki family don't uphold the law of the soul society then who will ichigo finds it difficult to relate to biakia's perspective as he says that if he was in his shoes then he would fight against the law in order to protect his own sister these words caused byakia to be reminded of kaine shiba rukiya's former lieutenant who had passed away he realizes that the enemy that ichigo was fighting against was not biakia himself this wasn't a personal battle ichigo has been fighting against the laws of the soul society in order to protect rukia this realization causes biaker to admit that ichigo's persistence and his ferocity has won him the battle he will no longer pursue rukia as he humbly admits defeat against ichigo it doesn't take long for us to see a reformed version of biakya's character as at the end of this soul society arc in chapter 176 he saves rukia's life by preventing gin from killing her at the end of the arc he opens up his emotions to rukia and reveals to her the truth about why she was adopted into the kuchiki family he speaks about the conflict which i mentioned earlier after hearing that rukia was going to be executed he had difficulty choosing between the oath that he made to his parents or the promise that he made to hasano to protect rukiya he came to realize that supporting rukia's execution was not the right thing to do and he thanks ichigo for making him come to this realization during this early portion of the series biakea's character facilitated ichigo's growth and it forced ichigo to push himself to become stronger so that he may defeat biakya biakea's character also motivates renji's character to become stronger for the very same reason during this arc both of them pushed themselves to their limits and ultimately it was thanks to biakea's character who pushed both of them to become stronger and acquire bankai by the end of this arc he no longer feels pride for himself instead everybody around him becomes an extension of his pride he is proud of both rukia and renji and thankful to ichigo another notable change that occurs at the end of this arc is the respect that he begins to have for ichigo this is proven during his battle with tsukishima in the four brink arc in chapter 473 he says that tsukushima is ichigo's enemy and for that reason he will not hesitate in the slightest to kill him at the beginning of his battle with tsukushima he says that he despises the way that he fights he makes people forget the bonds and the relationships that they share with others and he toys with his opponents torturing them fukushima does all of this from a distance he doesn't even engage in battle he believes that this is a cowards where you're fighting and it is for this reason biaker believes that the only punishment suitable for tsukushima is death tsukushima's battle with byakuya is an excellent pairing as the two of them share a very similar demeanor the two characters are both very calm and collected as well as this they do share somewhat of a resemblance with each other in chapter 468 tsukushima cuts biakea zambakdo and inserts himself into his sword's memory after having done this he knows all of biakir's abilities and his techniques now that he is able to alter the past of his zombucto he will no longer be able to be cut by it he also lends the weakness to bjakir zambakdo once he has scattered his blade petals there is a protective area surrounding its user this is the safe zone where the flower petals cannot breach this prevents the caster of zembon zakura from being injured by the blade petals this weakness exists within byakiya's shikai and his bankai and now that he has kurt byakiya none of his techniques will be able to work against tsukushima as he says that he has studied all of yakya's techniques and none of them will be effective against him so senkai and gokai are being rendered useless despite tsukushima having this overwhelming advantage over byakuya it doesn't seem to faze him he activates his bankai and reduces the range of his safe zone he takes this opportunity to hold some of zembon zakra's blades within his own hand when tsukushima is caught off guard he uses these blade petals to pee a fukushima through his chest during these 17 months since the defeat of aizen biakya had been training but all of the abilities and new techniques that he had acquired were useless against fukushima having to rely on his initiative he comes up with an excellent method to take down fukushima biakia is among one of the shinigami who placed their riyatsu into the sword that was prepared by urahara the one that rukia used to restore ichiko's powers during the fulbright arc he assists ichigo through helping to retain his powers and by defeating one of the fullbringers the same boy that he wanted to kill back in the saw society arc he is now assisting and fighting alongside in chapter 380 when vyakhia and kimpachi arrive in huikum window to help ichigo fight against yami biyakia tells ichigo to stay back he tells ichigo that there is nothing for him to do here in huikum window and he tells him to go back to the world of the living where he is needed when ichigo insists that he needs to stay to help yaki and kimpatchi and if all three of them work together it would be easier to defeat the espada biakya reminds him of his duty he reminds him that assisting the captains of the gotai 13 is not his duty they do not require help from a substitute shinigami instead byakuya tells him that his duty is to defend karakura town for he is the substitute shinigami of karakura town it isn't his job to clean up the messenger mundo that is the job of the soul society and the captains of the gotai 13 and it is this moment that i always think back to whenever i go and read the thousand-year blood war arc and in particular when i read chapter 512 when the soul society is ambushed and attacked by the quincy biakea faces off against the sternuto asnot in this heartbreaking encounter he has his bankai stolen by the stern ritter and for the first time in a long while he makes piakia feel the sensation of fear aznot ultimately uses biakia's bankai against him and he brings forth the flower petals from zamboan zakara kagayoshi and he uses his own ability to tear apart yakira's body he reminds biakiya that there is nothing that he can do he is not able to overcome his own bankai with justice shikai alone in an attempt to protect renji who is angered by aznaz disrespecting biakiya's bankai he diverts his attention away from renji but is once again attacked by his own blade petals he is attacked by an endless storm of blade petals repeatedly the attack is so overwhelming that it crashes biakia's body into a wall forming a crater after this devastating attack he apologizes to both rukia and renji before passing out when ichigo finally arrives in the soul society in chapter 512 the first person that he meets is biakya in what seems like his dying breath he asks ichigo if rukia and renji are still alive to which ichigo replies that they are he is relieved to know that they are okay and he tells ichigo that he doesn't feel like he's going to last much longer biakia is a character who gives a lot of importance to responsibility and duty because throughout his life he upholded the responsibility of a captain of the gotai 13. he realized to ichigo his embarrassment that he could not take out those who attacked the cerete and he admits that he brought a lot of sorrow and suffering to all of the shinigami that he led to their death during this invasion he feels incredible shame that he is not able to avenge their deaths and he is deeply embarrassed because at the end of all of this he has to rely on a human he tells ichigo that this isn't his fight to be involved in unrightfully it is not ichigo's duty to be here in the first place back in the fake karakura town arc he tells ichigo that his duty was to protect karakura town but now humbly asking for ichiko's forgiveness for what he is about to ask of him he requests that he please save the soul society in my opinion this was a really great send off to bjakkia's character and if you did die here then i would have had no problems with it everything comes full circle in a kind of perfect way the first major antagonist of the series who even wanted to kill ichigo himself now has to rely upon him in order to save the soul society that he cherishes so much if you want more of a detailed conversation on whether or not piakian should have died during the thousand-year bloodwa archinaut then check out a video from my friend called clyde who discusses why he thinks bayakiya should have died it's a great watch and i agree with a lot of the points that he makes and i highly recommend it after this video after the first quincy invasion it is reported that biakya has narrowly escaped death but he is in a comatose state and the only way that he can recover is if he is taken with the royal guards to their palace along with rukia renji and ichigo he is taken to the royal palace where his injuries are healed if he had not been taken there then he would have died in chapter 545 byakuya is finally healed as he takes the longest to recover from his injuries after being completely healed he spends his time training with the royal guard his desire is to reach a level where he can justify the pride that he felt prior to being defeated in chapter 568 he rejoins the battle against the quincy's as he arrives to save rukia while she is being overwhelmed by asnot's ability causing her to feel fear he cuts through aznot's wall of fear-inducing eyes he stand right here mocks bjayakya for his prior defeat thanks to asnot stealing his bankai biakya was able to re-evaluate his abilities he was put in a position where he was forced to reassess his unbukdho his power has increased to such a level that his shikai now resembles his bankai during this encounter biyakia's relationship with rukia is expanded upon he says that on his way to a sister he had been feeling her spiritual pressure and he could tell that rukia had become stronger this acknowledgement from her brother means a lot to her she had always looked up to him but he didn't acknowledge her you can clearly see the growth in biakia's character he is able to freely express his emotions without holding back and this has a positive effect on the relationships that he has with others and in this case him sharing his emotions has deeply impacted rukia he tells her that fear is born through the insecurities that we hold within our hearts so he asks her if she still has any fears within her heart and rukia replies that she doesn't he tells her that she will be the one who will defeat aznat he reassures rukia that she is not the one who is afraid instead it is asnot who is the one who is fearful his encouragement leads to the revelation that rukia has attained bankai by utilizing gabankai she is able to defeat asnot and the two of them go on to assist the other shinigami and protect the seoul society during the latter portion of the thousand year budwar arc biakya arrives in the royal palace that has been taken over by the quincy he teams up with captain hitsugai and together they battled the standard gerard i always compare this power-up to biakea teaming up with kimpachi in the fake karakora town arc when he was paired up with kim parshi the two of them had a lot of disagreements despite them having a dysfunctional relationship they were still able to defeat the espada that challenged them in huikamundo it doesn't take long for kimpatchi to arrive to assist hitsugai and byakuya against gerard in chapter 674 rookie and renji try to assist byakuya but he tells them that they need to go to where ichigo is he tells them that they need to help him because he has already started his confrontation with you habakkuk the help is not needed to fight against gerard after they leave hitagaya speaks to him he tells hitagaya that he chose his words carefully so that rukia and renji would understand the underlying meaning behind them upon first inspection his words may seem really harsh but the underlying meaning is that he wants them to go and help their friend and hitagaya affirms this as he tells bayakiya that this is what they learnt in the shinigami academy he says that shinigami are not taught to fight for their superiors or for their families the true purpose of a shinigami is to die protecting their friends and to give their life for the humans they agree that ichigo is only a comrade to them but turukia and renji ichigo is their friend this emphasizes that byakuya made the right decision to send rukia and renji to go and assist ichigo this moment that occurs right at the end of the manga shows how far bayakia has come as a character we see a clear change in his opinion of ichigo and his relationship with rukia and renji has improved considerably initially he considered ichigo an enemy of the soul society and its law and order but now he considers ichigo as a true ally this boy that he initially desired to kill eventually overwhelms him with his own power and opens his eyes making him realize that he was in the wrong for supporting the execution of his sister after that battle ichigo's resolve impacts biakia's character and as we have seen throughout this video biakia's opinion of ichigo is incredibly high he holds a lot of respect for him it is because of this respect that he has for ichigo he is able to embarrassingly ask him to save the soul society on his behalf he feels incredible shame to ask ichigo but he has confidence in his abilities he entrusts the soul society to someone who he prior thought was disrespecting the soul society when ichigo disrupted rukia's execution and opposed the decision of the sole society to execute her biakia is a very well written character and he is one of my favorite characters within bleach i have really enjoyed reading through all of the moments that he appears in during the manga it is incredibly fun to read through all of his battles as his abilities are very unique and interesting as well as this seeing his transformation from someone who holds his emotions to himself becoming more open and understanding is very rewarding what are your thoughts on the head of the kuchiki family do you agree with me that he is one of the best characters within bleach do you think that he should have been killed during the thousand year blood war arc i would love to hear your thoughts on this character in the comments down below a character who knows all too well how it feels like to be ridiculed for their appearance is sajin komamura he is one of the more unique characters within bleach not only because of his appearance but the way that he is throughout the course of the story we learn a lot about komomura through the relationships that he has with several different characters in particular his friendship for tozen and his respect and admiration that he has for head captain yamamoto through these bonds that he has formed with these different characters komamura grows as a character to the point where he no longer hides his appearance he has a strong sense of duty and even loyalty to the head captain due to the respect that he has for him outwardly komomura appears very aggressive and stoic as well as appearing to be somebody that you wouldn't want to get on the bad side of but in actuality komomura is very compassionate and he has a great deal of consideration for his subordinates and his friends and it is these qualities which make him very suited to being a captain of the gotei 13. due to his strong sense of duty he is one of the more formidable captains within the goatee 13 prepared to defend the honor of the soul society at a moment's notice komomura is true to his word and it is for this reason that he leads his life with morals and principles it is because of these morals and principles that he questions tozen when he betrays the soul society but i'll speak more about this as i go into his character but for now let's delve deep into the history of komomura's character as well as going over the early appearances of his character within the soul society arc and what our first impressions of komumura are komomura first appears in chapter 81 of the manga and in episode 24 of the anime aside from his large stature the first thing that you will notice about his appearance is the way that he has concealed his face with a helmet in a similar fashion he conceals the rest of his body with various different shoulder pads or armor we are not aware of this initially but this is because he is ashamed of his appearance it's either that or he isn't confident enough to show who he really is underneath the helmet it is only after tozen betrays the soul society that he actually removes his helmet despite his appearance being very intimidating he is very kind-hearted and when it comes to the intentions of his character they are the most pure out of all of the other captains he doesn't mix his words or bite his tongue he says how he feels in any given situation what is right is right to komomura and what is wrong is just plainly wrong this degree of decisiveness that he possesses makes him a ruthless combatant it is like there are two sides to his character one when he is interacting with others and another when he begins fighting with someone and in either occasion it's all or nothing when it comes to komora's character either he is kind-hearted and he cares about you or he is ruthless and he wants to defeat you there are two instances which really affect komomura's character and which shape is growth the first of course being kaname tozen's betrayal and subsequent defection from the soul society while the second is the death of the head captain within the thousand-year blood war arc both of these instances serve to push komomura's character to places that he has never been before these situations ultimately lead to komomura making the ultimate sacrifice within the thousand-year bloodwa arc and i'll speak more about this when i talk about his involvement during that arc komomura originates from a clan of werewolves hence why he looks like a wolf with human characteristics not only is he the tallest captain of the gotei 13 but his appearance also makes it difficult to miss him in a crowd of people because he stands out so much because he looks so different to those around him he decides to conceal himself so that unnecessary attention isn't drawn towards him you can tell that he has been ridiculed in the past for his appearance despite all of the hardship that he has gone through he demonstrates his kind-hearted nature to those around him like his subordinates within the division that he leads or his friendship with kaname tozen who is the only person who didn't judge him for his appearance and decided to offer him support through a friendship that they formed with each other as well as head captain yamamoto who he feels incredibly grateful for the head captain had allowed komomura to seek refuge within the gote 13. despite the fact that he wasn't a human he gave komomura a home to go to when everybody else rejected him including his own people we don't know much about kamomore's past but let's go through all of the instances within the manga where his backstory is mentioned in chapter 539 we learned some key pieces of information which revealed to us why komomura had left his family when he was younger in a conversation that komomura has with his great-grandfather we learned the reason behind why he had abandoned his family he grew tired of his clan choosing to live within the shadows his great-grandfather explains that the werewolf clan has no business with meddling with the affairs of the outside world no matter what happens or who decides to rule the world they will continue to live within the shadows whereas komomura desire to live freely for the sake of their children and their grandchildren he feels that their clan should not be feeling ashamed and hiding themselves from the world as we know initially when komamura had abandoned his clan he had been posing as a human by concealing his face under a helmet he tells his great-grandfather that he stopped doing this because he learned that the world was becoming more accepting of him he believes that the world is changing and it is becoming more tolerant and it is for this reason that he tries to persuade his great grandfather here that his clan no longer needs to live within the shadows if they only chose to they could live freely and they would not be ridiculed or made to feel ashamed of their appearance this conversation that komomura has with his great-grandfather is very insightful we get to learn about why komomura had abandoned his clan and why his thoughts don't align with the thoughts of her other clan members in particular the elders like his great grandfather who prefers that their clan just mind their own business and don't get involved in the matters of the outside world we also learn how komamura was invited into the gotei 13 in chapter 138 he tells his lieutenant in this chapter that he has a great deal of gratitude for the head captain and he owes a debt to him he describes how because of his appearance he was shunned by the outside world but head captain yamamoto had accepted him and allowed him entry into the gote 13 and it is for this reason that komomura is indebted to the kindness of the head captain and he would go as far as to even sacrifice his own life for him in chapter 176 we see the first time that komomura and tozen meet tozin apologizes for having bumped into him but komomura tells him that he is speaking in the wrong direction this results in tozen complimenting komomura stating that he has an exceptional ability to hide his presence of course because tozen is blind his ability to sense the presence of others is heightened but despite this he didn't sense komomura this encounter was prior to komomura joining the goatee 13. from what we can gather from this encounter we can see that komomura was hiding himself and minding his own business it became a force of habit for him to conceal his presence so that he wouldn't be bothered by others it appears that he is actually surprised that somebody is actually speaking to him and treating him as an equal and you can only know this through the subtlety of the expressions that kubo draws in these panels like the surprise in komomura's eyes or the anguish that is drawn into his eyes when he states that it is a force of habit for him to conceal his presence from others tozen and komomuro would meet again when they discovered that both of them have joined the gotei 13. we see the two of them stood at the grave of tozen's friend who had passed away he asks komomuro why is it that he became a shinigami komomura affirms that his reason for joining the goatee 13 is to repay a debt of gratitude to the person that had saved his life of course we are well aware that the debt that he owes is to the head captain a strong friendship formed between komamura and tozen primarily because tozin didn't treat him like an outcast or didn't judge him based on his appearance after all how could he because he was blind himself so a friendship formed between the two of them irrespective of this superficiality of outward appearance during the soul society arc in chapter 138 komomura solidifies his stance and states that he is against all of those who are seeking to sabotage the execution of rukia he has no doubts in the decisions made by the head captain and remains loyal to him what is also quite notable in this chapter is that tozen feels the same way as komomura and even states that the two of them follow the same path which happens to be the path of least bloodshed later during the same chapter komomura tozen and their lieutenant stopped kimpachi and his men from assisting the intruders of the soul society while their lieutenants decide to fight with each other tozen and kamomura begin their battle with kimpachi with kamomuro being the first one to uncheat his zambakdo and immediately activate his shikai tozen follows suit and activates his shikai and attacks kimpachi but it appears that both of their attacks were ineffective against the maniacal captain komomura is surprised that kim pachi had survived his shikai attack he has no idea how he is still able to stand as their battle continues kim party taunts them to use their bankai komomura refuses to show his bankai to a traitor like himpachi but instead tozin uses his bankai kimpachi ends up defeating tozen but komomura interferes preventing kimpatchi from keeping his friend he stops kim party's attack by using his left arm and his helmet this results in komomura's helmet breaking into pieces which reveals his true appearance he asks why kimpatchi isn't surprised by the way he looks but he tells him that looks count for very little in battle it doesn't matter if you appear to look like a beast the only thing that matters is if you can fight like a beast in order to satisfy kim parche's lust for battle and to shut him up komomura activates his own bankai a giant figure appears behind komomura and it seems to be copying his movements it appears that the strength of this large being that he has summoned far exceeds his own through it he is able to inflict large amounts of damage to his opponents because of its large size you would assume that komomura's bankai is very slow but in actual fact it is anything but slow this giant is able to mimic komomura's movement's instantaneously meaning that despite its large size it moves incredibly fast his battle with kimpati is interrupted after he senses that head captain yamamoto has activated his shikai he leaves kim party in order to rush to his aid while rushing to sokkyoku hill he hears the message which reveals that eisen and tozen have betrayed the soul society at the end of chapter 175 komomura suddenly appears and attacks eisen with his shikai isen effortlessly stops his attack with one hand komomura is furious that eisen is so smug that he is grinning after he has betrayed and deceived everybody he even states that tozen will pay for his betrayal he apologizes to his friend before activating his bankai but eisen uses his complete hypnosis to get close to komomura he uses a level 90 kido spell on komomura which easily defeats him and this highlights the vast difference in power between komomura and eisen both of them should be captain class but they are unequal in strength in chapter 178 when the defectors are leaving the soul society komomura demands tozen to come back questioning if he remembers the reason behind why he became a shinigami wasn't it for the sake of his friend that had died what happened to his desire to uphold justice he demands to know where tozen's sense of justice has gone tozen responds by saying that he follows the path which is least soaked in blood he believes that justice will always be found following that path and it is for this reason that tozem believes that his actions are backed by the ideals of justice after they leave in chapter 180 we see komomura stood at the grave of tozen's late friend he wonders what tozen's friend would have said to him in order to stop him he is then interrupted by tozen's lieutenant hisagi he asks if tozen will ever come back to which komomora replies that he has no doubt that he will he affirms to his sagi that they will bring tozen back even if it's by force in order to open his eyes to the false sense of justice that he appears to have adopted he is deeply affected by the betrayal of tozen and it is for this reason that after the defectors lead the soul society komomura request to be alone for a while and like i mentioned earlier on in the video komamura decides to no longer wear a helmet after the betrayal of tozen finally showing his true appearance to the rest of the soul society the next time that komomura is really involved in this story is during the fake karakura town arc where he along with the other gote 13 captains arrive in fake karakura town in order to stop eisen gin and tozen in chapter 326 he assists ikaku who appears to have been defeated by one of barrigan's frashion he manages to catch the aranka pole off guard by punching him into the side of a building the iranka survives the attack and challenges komomura in terms of heightened size he is larger than the captain he returns the favor by punching komomura back which sends him flying the iranka then releases his zampakdo which results in him growing even larger in size komomura then reappears and prevents po from attacking his lieutenant and ikaku he proves himself as a captain as he is able to manhandle and throw the oversized aranka onto the ground after this komomuro reminds his lieutenant to never run away which is what he was planning on doing after assuming that komomuro was defeated by the iranka when paul recovers he attempts to fire a cerro but the captain then unleashes his bankai and for the second time in the story we get to see komomura's bankai in action this time we see how it effortlessly blocks the iran castero kamamura then formally introduces himself to po as he states that he is sajin komomura captain of the 7th division in the anime this portion of the battle is extended slightly but in the manga komomura swiftly kills the iran car with one strike in chapter 328 komomura's lieutenant tetsu zaimon reprimands ikaku for not using his bankai the two lieutenants briefly argue with each other but tetsu zaimon reminds ikaku to put his duty before his pride ikaku doesn't want the others to know that he has learned bangkai so he tells tatsu zaimon not to tell his captain but it appears that komomura was standing behind his lieutenant the whole time and if you remember this is a subtle nod to komomura's ability to conceal his presence of course he had overheard the conversation between the two of them and is well aware now that ikaku has attained bankai but knowing that he wants to keep this a secret he tells them not to worry as he reassures ikaku by saying that his hearing isn't as good today he chooses to respect ikaku's privacy and not to share the news that he has attained bankai with others this is an example of the compassion that kamumura has for his subordinates his compassion is once more highlighted in chapter 364 where he decides to stay with the injured lieutenants protecting them but kira pleads with komomura to go and protect the other shinigami his involvement in the battle against eisen is essential in order to defeat him and kira knows this this is why he tells him that it is no point in protecting the lieutenant if everybody else gets killed after hearing this komomura decides to join the battle the fateful reunion of komomura and tozen occurs in chapter 367 as komamura protects shinji from an attack from tozen shinji is surprised that komora has decided to help him as he describes himself as a oddball but he notes that komomura appears to be quite odd in appearance also the captain affirms his reason for assisting the wizard by stating that shinji and the other wizards didn't hesitate to attack the menos grande and it is for that reason that he is assisting him due to the fact that they have a common enemy before them it is for this reason that he has decided to fight alongside shinji refusing to hear any objections that the vizard may have in response shinji describes komomura as being rather rigid and stiff here saying that he has a hard time dealing with such people regardless of this exchange komomura's eyesight appears to be fixated on tozen his former ally and friend it appears that the rules have been reversed in the past komomura had protected tozen from kimpachi's attack but this time he is protecting somebody else from tozen's attack komomuro would never have guessed that he would have had to block tozen zombakdo from attacking somebody tozun responds in a very cold manner as he states that he knew that this day would come in a very small panel kubo draws the expression that is seen through komomura's eye as you can see that he feels sadness after hearing tozen's remark it appears the battle between komomura and tozen is about to begin and it's going to be a fight to the death that is until tozen's former lieutenant hisagi interrupts and requests permission from komomura to also be allowed to join this fight after seeing that eisen has also joined the battle on the front line tozen is now compelled to face off against komomura with his true power he assumes that tozen is speaking about bangkai but he tells komomura that he will not be relying on bangkai because eisen has given him a power that is far greater than bangkai komomura's shocked expression leads him to wonder if tozin has allowed himself to become qualified this angus komomura as he yells that tozen has allowed himself to fall so far indeed after the dust settles tozen appears with a hollow mask on his face he then proceeds to cut down his former lieutenant hisagi komomura then strikes tozen from behind but his attack is blocked from this block he feels the immense power that tozen now possesses he kicks komomuro to the ground and finds it funny that the shinigami accept ichigo as their comrade despite the fact that he has the ability to qualify also why is it that they have disdained for tozen now that he has the same power komomura remarks that ichigo had no choice in the matter he didn't choose to become horrified whereas tozen did what bothers the others and komomura in particular is that tozin had strayed away from the righteous path despite the fact that he was a remarkable shinigami he abandoned all of this in the pursuit of his warped idea of justice which led to him hollifying himself which komomura describes as being depraved tozen questions whether if he is depraved for allowing himself to become hollified he remarks that komomura is judging him on the basis that all hollows are bad and all shinigami are good but an emotional komomura replies that he is depraved for having betrayed the soul society and all of his friends all for the pursuit of more power the allies of the defectors of the soul society were heavily impacted by their betrayal you can see this through the sadness that komomura feels and the confusion that hisagi feels both of them have not been able to come to terms with the fact that tozen has betrayed them the fact of the matter is tozen had portrayed himself as somebody else to them but in actuality he was somebody totally different one of the key characteristics of komomura is his unwavering loyalty he had showed his loyalty for tozen by protecting him and fighting alongside with him against kimpachi during the soul society arc he developed this loyalty after receiving acceptance and friendship from tozen after tozen impales his former lieutenant and proves that he is beyond redemption komomura activates his bankai tozen assumes that komomura is underestimating his new abilities does he really think that his bankai is enough to defeat the holified tozen they both charge towards each other and are successful at landing an attack when komamura strikes with his bankai the destruction is devastating but i don't think he ever assumed somebody would survive an attack from his bankai tozen's left arm is crushed by komomura's bankai but despite this he was still able to land an attack thanks to his hollified abilities tozen is able to use super fast regeneration to heal this arm once more komomura's eyes are used to convey disappointment he further affirms that tozen is no longer a shinigami after all they have an exchange which leads to komomura asking tozen why did he become a shinigami twitch tozen reveals that he did so seeking revenge he tells komomura that didn't he find it strange that tozen would join the same organization that murdered his dearest friend he wonders how komomura did not find this strange but he tells him that he always assumed that tozen was fighting for justice komamura was well aware that tozen's late friend had a great deal of passion for justice and he felt that by joining the soul society tozen would follow in her footsteps and would honor her it appears that komomura had misunderstood tozen's motive his definition of justice differs from komomuras he doesn't believe that it is just for him to forgive the people who murdered his friend while he admits it would be virtuous but he doesn't believe that justice is found through virtue komomura didn't realize that tozen didn't want to live in peace without avenging his friend the peace that he found within the soul society and the friendships that he formed he describes them as vices things that were ultimately holding tozen back from his goal of revenge in a way you could say that komomuro was also blinded by his ideal image of tozen this image that fit komomura's definition of justice you could say that he selfishly clung onto his friendship with tozen because he was one of the first people to look beyond komomura's appearance and accept him for who he is after tozen reveals how he truly felt komomura admits that he misunderstood his motives if tozen was conceding these emotions and this is how he truly felt then they were destined to collide one day tozen questions whether if it is right for komomura to kill him just because they don't see eye to eye is that his definition of justice he answers by agreeing that this is indeed justice he bluntly states that if they cannot find any common ground between their differing motives then it is pointless trying to persuade tozen the only thing left for komomuro to do is to honor the head captain by fulfilling his duty as a shinigami his motives and his ideals for justice have left komomuro with no choice but to slay tozen he admits this regrettably and he says that it will not bring him any joy komo mura honorably states that he is glad that he learned about tozen's true feelings before coming to this conclusion despite the pain that he felt and the other shinigami after learning about tozen's betrayal he tells him that his heart has already forgiven him and i feel like this moment perfectly embodies the character of komomura somebody who is righteous and unwavering his loyalty to the soul society is not clouded by the fact that he has to now face off against a former friend he finds closure from tozen admitting how he truly felt after learning that tozen was seeking revenge against the soul society this entire time komomura strengthens his resolve and you can see this through the determined look in his eyes sadly he has no choice but to defeat his friend in these videos i always credit kubo's art style and i find it fascinating how he is able to give so much emotion to an anthropomorphic character and it's not just surface level emotions like anger kubo is able to subtly convey how komomora is feeling if you pay attention to a lot of the paneling of the pages where komomura is engaged in conversation you can see that kubo purposefully draws his eyes and it's like i've been mentioning in this video through his eyes we get to understand komomoro's emotions from my perspective paying attention to this detail helped me to appreciate his character a lot more and this method of conveying emotion is not exclusive to komomura alone there are various different instances or characters within bleach who convey emotions through the subtle expressions of their eyes i feel like this is just one of kubo's techniques and it works very effectively if you're one of those people who are not very forthcoming with how you feel but your emotions are always written on your face then you may be able to resonate with the way that kubo conveys emotions from his characters and i love that it isn't spoon fed to you it's very nuanced and you have to look for it and this is precisely the reason why whenever i go back and look at all chapters of bleach i always pick up on subtle details that i missed on my first or second read-through so at the end of chapter 385 tozen activates his resurrection will komomura still be able to forgive him after he witnesses his new transformation after tozen transforms he is finally able to see he marvels at the beauty of the world but when he looks upon komomura he describes him as being uglier than he had imagined komomura is beyond disappointed by this insult you can feel the hurt that he must be feeling he recalls a earlier memory when he is accompanied by tozen and visits the grave of his friend he describes how his friend had loved the world she had become a shinigami in order to maintain peace and to uphold justice chozin had confided in komomura that he didn't want her sense of justice to disappear so he continued with her heart's desire he makes it clear that he wanted to continue upholding justice for the sake of his friend after recalling this memory komomura has an internal dialogue as he notes that tozun was hiding a lie within his words he remembers that tozen would continuously speak about the world that his friend had loved but he never spoke about the world that tozen himself had loved this led komamuro to conclude that maybe it's because tozen hates the world in fact it is understandable after all anyone who loses a loved one in the way that tozen did would understandably feel the same way komomura was glad that tozin didn't portray himself as a saint or a perfect person somebody who despite going through all of this hardship would lie to everybody and claim to still love the world and it is for this reason that komomura had decided to befriend tozen he wasn't pretending to love the world that took his friend away from him through this friendship komomura offered his wholehearted loyalty resolving to embrace tozen whenever he would feel sad if tozen were to feel joy then he wanted to share in his happiness if he were to go astray then he would bring him back in the right path if he made a mistake komomuro resolved to forgive him even if the world had rejected him and he had nowhere to go then komomura resolved to be his refuge the reason behind why he did this is one of the most revealing insights into komomura's character he formed a friendship with this man who could no longer love the world he did so hoping that tozen may learn to love the world again tozen easily defeats komomura's bankai just as he is about to deliver the final blow he is striked by hisagi from behind after his defeat komomura shares his feelings with tozen telling him that he agreed with him that one day their swords would eventually clash he describes that the friendship that they had prior to tozen's betrayal was superficial and it is for this reason that they were destined to fight one day and this was so that they could truly get to know each other komomura has one request for tozen he doesn't want him to stop hating him or the soul society or to even put his grudge aside he just requests that tozen does not get consumed by his quest for revenge he does not want tozen to change the person that he is komomura admits that tozen is irreplaceable and he would not want to lose him the same way that tozen's friend was irreplaceable to him komomura's very understanding words bring tears to tozen's eyes but he is enraged after eisen decides to strike tozen effectively killing him this angus komomura as his feelings overwhelm him he yells out eisen's name and is about to strike him until ichigo joins the battle and charges towards eisen from behind thankfully ichigo's appearance calms komomura down otherwise he would have irrationally charged towards eisen and been taken out easily when eisen tries to shake ichigo's resolve by taunting him komomura intervenes he advises ichigo not to let eisen intimidate him and this is hands down my favorite moment involving komomura's character it gave me chills the first time that i read it and it still gives me chills reading it now he tells ichigo that eisen's taunts are his speciality he advises him to remain focused otherwise it will cost him his life he reassures ichigo by telling him that he knows why the captains within huikamundo sent him to fake karakura town of course as we know it's because ichigo hasn't seen eisen's shikai komomura tells ichigo that they will not allow this fact to change everybody including the vizards and the captains will fight to protect ichigo we don't see much more of komomura's character within the fake karakora town arc after chapter 390 since he is cut down by eisen but the next time that his character has a significant role within the story is during the thousand-year blood war arc during the first quincy invasion komomuro faces off against bambiata he expresses his surprise that the quincy army have recruited a little girl like her she is equally surprised that the soul society have hired a wolf adding that they must be low on numbers in chapter 496 komomura activates his bankai but it is stolen by the stonewriter in chapter 505 komamura senses that the head captain has joined the battlefield this causes him to yell at his subordinates to stand back up describing it to be shameful that they are lying on the ground while the head captain is fighting on his feet after the quincy leave the saw society is in terrible shape all of the captains are distraught especially after learning about the head captain's death during the aftermath the captains gather in order to man the death of head captain yamamoto we learned that the head captain's body was never discovered we can only assume that the quincy's destroyed the remains of his body when the captains are informed about the current critical condition of kimpatchi and byakuya saifon breaks down she steps out of line when she says that the other captains are calm because they resented the head captain this leads komamura to interrupt and tell her to stop he questions her if she really thinks that she's the only person who wants to scream in this moment understandably all of the captains are devastated but they have to maintain their composure before the situation is escalated shin sweet interrupts them directing their attention towards the future and protection of the soul society reminding them of the purpose of the gote 13 which is to protect the soul society in chapter 538 we see komomura travel to a cave outside of the serete he is accompanied by his lieutenant he leaves him stood outside of the gate while he walks inside he is met by a large oversized wolf who he refers to as his great elder after recognizing komomura he tells him that he has some nerve to return here after being asked what he wants komomuro reveals his intentions stating that he wants to learn the secrets of his clan we learn that this giant wolf is indeed komamura's great grandfather he laughs in komomora's phrase after learning his true intentions earlier in the video i mentioned that his great-grandfather was disappointed that komomura had been conceding himself pretending to be a human of course komomura is no longer doing this but his great-grandfather is not willing to forgive him his great-grandfather doesn't want to assist the outside world he isn't bothered if the leadership of the seoul society changes from the shinigami to the quincy it won't affect the way that they live their lives the world will still continue to exist whoever wants to rule it doesn't make a difference to them since they live in the shadows but komomura doesn't agree with this stance he wants freedom for his children and his grandchildren the great elder threatens komomura not to disturb the tranquility of their life if he can't do this then the great elder will crush komomura himself we see komomura strengthen his resolve and engage in battle with the great elder in chapter 556 we learn about the outcome of their battle komomura learns of their family secret it is an ability called humanification komomura's werewolf clan were sent to hell for the sins that they had committed during their lifetime but this punishment wasn't enough so they were returned to the soul society the great elder reveals by temporarily severing the chain of sins that binds them they gain tremendous power as the members of the werewolf clan return to their original forms before they receive the punishment of the beast so this reveals that the werewolf clan were originally people and they were transformed into this beastly form because of a punishment to undergo humanification the defeated great elder reveals that komomura must offer his heart he must tear out his heart with his own hands and to offer it to the great elder only under these circumstances will the great elder teach him disability understandably the thought of ripping out his heart causes komomura to pause the great elder assumes that he is not able to do it stating that he has no obligation to throw his life away for the shinigami but komomura states that he does he reveals that he was unable to continue hiding and for this reason he had abandoned his clan the head captain had taken him in when nobody else would he owes head captain yamamoto his life and it is for this reason that he decides to avenge his death komomura clays up the shame that he felt from his clan he offers up his heart to the great elder and learns the humanification ability in this same chapter 556 he challenges bambiata for a rematch at this point in the story he has already regained his bankai he appears to be wearing a new armor which bambiata immediately destroys so that she can see what he is hiding under it after the dust settles we are surprised to see komomura in his human form bambiata is also shocked to see that he no longer has the face of a wolf in this new form komomura immediately activates his bankai in the past every other moment komomura's bankai was revealed it was cladded in armor but this bankai transformation reveals what form was hiding underneath that armor bambieta is surprised that it isn't something that looks like a dog komomura reveals that this new form that his bankai has taken exposes all of his spiritual pressure it cannot be defeated by bambiata's tricks bambieta had assumed that she knows these secrets of komumura's bankai after having stolen it but because komomura had offered up his heart his bankai was undressed of its life and it is for that reason that bambiata cannot use her ability to fire her spiritual pressure at it and turn it into bombs komomur's body has now become a shell it is merely a vessel as we see a close-up of his chest there is a hole where his heart should be we learned that this transformation into a human is temporary while he is in this human form he cannot die it appears that komomura had sacrificed his life in order to defeat bambieta but he didn't throw his life away as he states there is no reason for him to not put his life on the line when the head captain had done exactly the same for his subordinates in order to honor the head captain komomura sacrificed his life in his final act he ultimately proves his loyalty in chapter 558 we see the great elder comment on komomura stating that he has proven himself and he really is a member of their clan in this moment the great elder feels incredibly proud of komomura after bambieta is defeated komomura's bankai begins to dissipate he is clinging on to his life as he resolves to defeat yuhabak and this is where the subtlety and the genius of kubo's writing is employed in his final moments komomura is reminded of the emotion that he is feeling right now what he is feeling right now is revenge it is precisely what he told tozen not to do if you remember he told tozen not to throw his life away for the sake of revenge the great elder states that revenge is the true form of their clan the sin that their clan had committed was for revenge and it is for this reason that they were punished and turned into wolves by taking part in humanification komomura has returned to his clan his life as a human has ended this is the price that he must pay he is transformed into a beast of revenge the great elder condemns him to be furious to curse himself to live with his desire for revenge until his very final moments he effectively sawed his soul for revenge if only he had taken his own advice if only he had listened to the words that he had said to tozen he now takes the form of a wolf as a consequence of using the humanification technique through this revelation we learned that the werewolf clan that komomura belongs to was born from revenge the sacrifice of offering up his blood and his heart onto a plate for the great elder will result in him living longer this will prolong his life while he is sipping on the blood of resentment and revenge the animal that komomura transforms into is picked up by his lieutenant as he reassures his captain that he has done nothing wrong he tells him that they will continue fighting until they have defeated yohabak for the head captain's sake in this new form kubo draws a final shot of komomura's eye here to me they give us a feeling of emptiness or concern the final time that we see komomura in the story is within chapter 612 urahara had tried to summon all of the captains and lieutenants in order to go to the seoul king's palace but komomura and his lieutenant had declined the reason for this being komomura's injuries they'd also declined any medical help maybe it's because komomura didn't want the other shinigami to see him in this new form at the point of making this video i've not read the khan for your on world light novels so i don't know what the outcome for komomura's character ultimately is is he still able to speak in this new form or has he just transformed into an ordinary wolf during these final chapters where komomura appears and we learn about the secrets of his clan we can draw a contrast to yurichi she is able to freely transform into a cat and back into a human as many times as she wants but komomura only had one opportunity to transform into a human before he was permanently transformed into a wolf the theme of revenge is perfectly introduced into his character through the betrayal of tozen and then everything comes full circle as komomura falls for revenge in his final act after making this video i've concluded that komomura was not only unique because of his memorable appearance but he also had a lot of character qualities which made him very admirable despite everything that tozen had done he was quick to forgive him in his final moments he accepted tozen for the person that he was despite him having resentment for the soul society which komomura has a lot of loyalty towards it was really enjoyable to study and analyze this character and all of his appearances within the story the perfect way to wrap up this video is to tell you about kubo's description of komomura from the official bleach character data book called souls he described komora in a short phrase unshakable stable loyalty and i think this perfectly sums up who komomora is if you want to learn more about komomura's friendship with tozen and to see it from tozen's perspective then definitely go and check out my chosen character analysis video now like you do with all of these videos i want to hand over the discussion to you guys i personally love komomura a lot and if you don't like him then i don't think we can get along what are your thoughts on his character did you enjoy this video and learned something that you didn't know about him or there things that i missed out and forgot to mention be sure to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on this character this week i will be analyzing shinsuke kyoraku a character that has been highly requested to analyze by all of you the laid-back captain does not take things too seriously he prefers not to battle but if he is requested to fight he does not turn down the offer out of politeness i personally love his calm and relaxed nature and he is a breath of fresh air in a series that has its fair share of egotistical hotheads shouting at the top of their lungs about how powerful and unbeatable they are there are very little videos discussing shunswee's character so in this video i will be going in depth into analyzing his personality powers backstory and the overall journey that his character goes through shantui first appears in chapter 81 and in episode 24 of the anime the tall grey-eyed brown-haired shinigami is the captain of the eighth squad he notably wears a pink flowered kimono along with his signature straw hat he is one of the strongest captains amongst his peers but he does not let this get to his head not allowing himself to become egotistical just because of his strength shansui shows integrity through the principles that he lives by as we see in chapter 329 he refuses to battle with a woman or in the presence of a child shun sweet generally doesn't like to fight and he demonstrates this during his conversation with love in chapter 375 he says that someone may owe you or you may owe someone but the moment you start a war you're both evil you can assume from these words that he deems both participants in a battle to be wrong in some form this shows that if he can avoid fighting then he will try his best to as who likes to be wrong escalating a conflict to the point of fighting is clearly not shunswi's style this character trait is demonstrated when he agrees with stark that he would prefer not to fight with him but under certain circumstances he will fight when he is duty-bound to do so he refuses stark's offer to pretend to fight while letting the others do the real fighting thanks to shungsui's calm and level-headed approach he does not allow his emotions to overcome himself in chapter 108 he defeats chad and learns from his lieutenant that eisen has been murdered nanao offers to kill chad assuming that he may have been the one to kill eisen but not only does shunsui deem this not to be a job for a young lady he also does not think it is right to kill chad based on a assumption through some of the descriptions and examples that i have given we can see that he is a peaceful soft-spoken man he is also well-mannered and respectful to his superiors and his underlings shenshui is tested through responsibility when he is pushed into a position where he must shoulder the burden of the soul society during the thousand-year blood war arc his resolve and determination is put to the test and he is forced to step up into a position of leadership no longer can you wait on the sidelines for the dust to settle he is put into the forefront of the action and leads the soul society against the quincy's during their second invasion i want to now look at the past of shansui seeing what information we can learn about his roots through his backstory trying to understand how his past may have influenced his behaviors and his actions the most information about the origin and backstory of shunswe is revealed between chapters 651-653 the key information that we learn is that shuntsui had an older brother who he did not get along with he was the second son born into the kyoraku family who are considered to be a noble family within the soul society his relationship with his brother began to improve after he married a lady from the ise family shinsui remarks how his older brother had mellowed out ever since he got married his brother does not seem to think so but says if he has had any change than it is because of his wife's kindness that may have had an effect on him he began to visit his brother more and found it more comfortable to be in his presence after his marriage sunsweet is present when his sister-in-law gifts his brother with a hairpin from a pair that she has saying that she has the other one and would feel comfortable knowing if he had the same thing as her while he was out fighting hollows shan sweet is later entrusted with these hairpins after the death of his brother and his sister-in-law it is revealed that shunsui's brother had married nanao's mother after his brother passed away his sister-in-law trusted him with a zambocto belonging to the ise family it was believed to have been a cursed sword as all the men who married into the issei family had died early due to the isse family curse the family bloodline is continued by the women as on record there have only been women born into the family they adopt sons into their family to marry their daughters in order to continue their lineage however nanao's mother attempted to break the family curse by marrying out of her family into the noble kyoraku family her attempt to break the isse bloodline failed however as her husband too had died noble families tend to cut their bond with the widow after their sons die so she was ordered to return back to the issei family after her husband's death despite her best efforts she could not escape her family even after she decided to never return to them after her marriage she admits that an ise woman cannot escape her family's curse after all she believes it may be due to a zombucto the curse may also be contained within this sampucto the ise family is one of priests they don't individually own zombucto so only one sword exists and it is inherited from one head of the family to the next the blade is believed to have the power to challenge gods shuntsui was given this sword to hide in the hopes that nana would not be burdened with the curse of the ise family he was the only person that she could trust outside of the family during his time at the shinigami academy he is told by a younger ukitake that his sister-in-law was executed for misplacing a treasured family item the tragedy of shinsui's past is that he feels responsible for her death in an inner monologue he says that it is his fault that she was killed because he was given the responsibility to hide that treasured family item even before his brother passed away he gave him his hairpin to look after he questions why is it that the people dear to him pass away and entrust to him their most treasured possessions he wonders if they are aware that he is not comfortable with shouldering responsibilities i feel a lot of sympathy for sunsweet he does not complain or question being given additional responsibility but rather he accepts it in order to ease the worries of others he is a good man and demonstrates he is more than just a laid-back lazy captain here despite trying to live an easy going life he is pushed into situations where he is burdened with the worries and problems of others we see this firsthand during the thousand-year blood war arc and i will cover this later on in the video in chapter 155 when shunswe and ukitake are confronted by head captain yamamoto he describes the two of them during their younger years as being in a class of their own he says that shuntsui may have had a weakness of chasing girls but he was wise and ahead of his time for his age describing him as being very thoughtful during his formative years he further comments on ukitake and sunsui's skill in battle saying that the two of them were unmatched and incredibly gifted shinigami they were the first shinigami to graduate and become captains from the shinigami academy that head captain yamamoto had founded they reached this level through spending endless hours training and honing their skills fueled by ambitious attitudes they were able to make the head captain proud of them as if they were his own sons during his time at the shinigami academy he befriended ukitake their friendship results in the team up of two of the strongest captains in the gotai 13 facing off against their mentor head captain yamamoto during the soul society arc now that i have covered what we know of its past to the best of my ability and we can see what kind of character shinsuit is and how his personality was formed i feel now it is time to look at specific events during the series which develop and grow his character and challenge him to take up responsibility in one of shinsui's early appearances in chapter 106 he appears before chad comically with his lieutenant dropping flower petals above him to ensure he makes a memorable first impression we see he is light-hearted and enjoys our laugh even with his opponents chad determines that shunswe does not seem like a bad guy and wouldn't prefer not to fight with him the two of them share their desire not to fight but their duty prevents either of them from stepping down ashuntsui says he cannot let him pass and requests for him to retreat in order to prevent that encounter from escalating further but chad refuses this moment perfectly demonstrates how he battles as a final resort and genuinely means it when he says that he does not want to fight staying consistent with his laid-back attitude even after chad refuses to back down shuntsweet gives him a second chance to take a seat with him over some sake stating that it won't be too long before his comrades are subdued by the other captains shuntsui once again would rather that others worked hard while he barely has to lift a finger trying to persuade his opponent to give up in order to sit and drink with him while his friends are battling chad refuses his peace offerings and requests that he moves out of the way before he makes him move chad makes the first move and attacks which leaves sunsui unscathed we get a glimpse of how outmatched chad is here ashuntwi is not taking his opponent seriously at all chad even understands through his shocked expression he realizes that his attack was taken head-on and deflected with one hand by the captain all of his subsequent attacks miss his target from shunsui's facial expressions here we can see that he is bored and effortlessly evading their attacks despite chad's attacks being powerful and quick for a human they are no match for a captain rank shunswe once again tells him to give up and go home he is persistent with his desire to subdue his enemy with words rather than by force is he being compassionate or just lazy it is hard to tell but either way he would prefer not to hit the outmatched invader and at the same time desire not to exert too much effort shin sweet only draws his two zombacto after he ascertains the reasoning behind chad's resolve and his desire to not give up upon being questioned chad says that his purpose is to save rukia shumsui says that he can't have known her for that long and questions if she is really worth risking his life over he has the patience to question the inexperienced opposition and understand why he is continuing to get up despite being so outmatched chad affirms his resolve by saying that he has accompanied ichigo who desires to save rukia he states that if he is willing to risk his life then so will he shun tsui now knows that chad has not come due to fickle reasoning and respects his opponent enough to no longer try to talk him out of his decision he makes chad back up his words through his actions by not disrespecting his opponent and through honouring their resolve after chad charges towards shunswe he predictably avoids the attack and takes him down and he even apologizes after defeating him this brief encounter shows a battle between two opponents who are on the opposite ends of strength and experience shun sui whose level of strength at this point is unknown and shrouded with a veil of mystery yet we assume he is far superior to the inexperienced young chad this battle is great to demonstrate shinsui's level of restraint and his laid-back personality he doesn't take the fight too seriously yet he pays enough attention to his opponent giving him the respect that he deserves despite being vastly stronger he doesn't boast about this and patiently allows chad to charge at him eventually subduing him gracefully with little effort i love that he honored the naive fighter's determination and didn't brush him aside like a waste of his time shinsui has little to no ego and this makes him really likable once again i will describe his appearances like a breath of fresh air in a series that spends a lot of time focusing on the clashing of characters egos a great contrast to this battle is sunsweet and ukitake taking on the head captain chapter 138 foreshadows his battle against the head captain by saying that he will be scolded by old manyama as it appears that he has sided with the intruders who are opposed to the execution of rukia his motives are affirmed as he and ukitake destroy the sokyoku chonsui decides that battling the head captain far away from the others is the best decision as he does not want anyone to be hurt through their exchange expecting that their encounter will be incredibly destructive their father figure who taught them and felt pride at their every success feels betrayed by the actions of ukitake and shuntsui this entire encounter is symbolic of the clashing ideals of the old and new generation the strict conservative head captain against the liberal captains were against the wrongful execution of their underling in his battle against chad he was up against a newcomer however this is the polar opposite scenario we see sunsweet up against the most experienced shinigami both situations helped shine a light on his character revealing how he respects the weak and does not underestimate the strong at the beginning of chapter 155 we see shin sweet characteristically smiling as he always does uncontrastingly we see his close friend ukitake seriously looking on both of their expressions are drawn by kubo with a hint of nervousness that his art style succeeds in conveying to us their behavior leaves the head captain with nothing to say to them as he demands that they draw their swords and face the consequences of their actions the head captain condescendingly questions why they think that they can battle against him without releasing their zombocto shunswee smiles asking if there is really no other way to resolve their disagreement once again he lazily tries to resolve the conflict with words but the old and stubborn head captain refuses to listen to any of it shunswe justifies his support for ichigo and the others by saying that it was the head captain who taught him to always fight for justice as he believes that saving rukia was the right thing to do and is worthwhile to fight for the head captain demonstrates his conviction to the rules and orders of the soul society by activating his zambocto's shikai release which visibly leaves sunsweet and ukitake stunned in chapter 156 we see shinsby activate his shikai release alongside okitake we learned that the two friends are the only known wielders of two bladed zombocto before they clash with the head captain they both shared the same somber series expression as kubo only shows us one clash which leads to a large explosion during their brief battle in chapter 172 we cut back to that battle as it is revealed that eisen is a traitor we are shown okitake and chunsui's faces with blood running down them and clearly looking like they have exerted a lot of power during their short battle shunswee characteristically advises that they shouldn't be fighting after all considering what they have just learnt he initially tried to talk his way out of the battle but stopped after one attempt however against chad he tried several times to stop their fight he only agreed when he respected and wanted chad to follow through with his resolve he respects the head captain enough to not test his patience more than once after all in this encounter he knows that he is the one who is disadvantaged against his old mentor so far we have studied how shuntsui reacts when he faces off against a strong opponent and a weak opponent how does he react when he battles against someone who is similar to himself sunspeak faces off against stark in chapter 329 it is established from the beginning that the two of them are very alike not only in appearance but in attitude also stark suggests to sunsweet that they should just play around and not fight at their best saying he would rather pretend to fight and let the others do the real fighting okitake is surprised by this but these words resonate with sunsweet to the point that he exclaims that he likes it however as we know his sense of duty compels him to take the bout seriously and not talk his way out of this jewel like he typically would have done in the past we can see the seriousness of sunsweet earlier in chapter 316 as he asks okitake who the strongest espada is he appears to have come to fake karakura town prepared to fight and not hold back this time it is his opponent who is trying to talk his way out of fighting it is really ironic and enjoyable to read but shunswe is literally battling against himself in a sense here he asks stark if he will take that fight seriously if he draws both of his swords however he is told that he is strong enough with one blade shunswi wastes little time by drawing his second blade much to the displeasure of stark who really does not want to exert any effort during this battle when stark asks sweet if his bankai is stronger than hitsugayas he replies by praising kitsagaya and saying that he is very gifted even saying that in a hundred years his bankai will surpass his own he wasn't boastful and arrogant he humbly gave his opinion and complimented hitsugaya stating his belief in his future potential admitting that he will surpass him one day stark finally gets serious and activates his resurrection trying to prompt shuntwood to show his bankai while shuntsby responds by releasing his shikai he is persistent in his desire to see shunsui's bankai but he refuses to show him since he is just using seros which he can deal with without the use of his bankai when ukitake intervenes he says that he helped as it doesn't look like sunspeed was going to activate his bankai but he admits he was going to but then ukitake talks him out of it and tells him that he shouldn't use it in a place where everyone can see it this just makes you wonder how powerful his bankai truly is especially since it was teased so much during this entire battle during this fight schunsby uses dirty tactics while trying to kill his opponent like trying to attack him while he is caught off guard attacking him while he is in the middle of talking stabbing him from behind while he was hiding in his shadow or in chapter 374 when he throws his captain's court at him to disorientate him helping him to land the final attack which defeats him shonsby displays the true tactics of a samurai here we can compare his actions to the real-life legendary samurai miyamoto musashi who often used tactics that would confuse his opponents in order to create an opening so that he could take advantage of his disorientated enemy and kill them the true samurai way demonstrated by miyamoto musashi emphasized the importance of winning under any circumstance it is those who win in battle who get to live notions of honor only hold you back and limit your abilities while you are in a life or death situation this is why stark tries to pull up chun sui on his underhanded tactics but he clearly is focused on surviving the encounter by defeating his enemy as swiftly as possible after defeating stark shun sweet tells love and rose that the moment you start a war you're both evil he says this after love tells him that he has no manners when he came to help them and involved himself in their fight against dark sunsweet then speaks of the samurai philosophy i just spoke about he says that losers spend too much time focusing on means and lose sight of the real purpose of a war which is to win the means that shouldn't be used are certainly considered to be dirty but what does it matter when you are in a war where both participants are inherently evil in a matter of life and death any tactic which will leave an opening for attack will lead to survival this is the mentality of a true warrior who doesn't wait around for their enemy to attack first i talk more about shunswee's battle with stark in my stark character analysis so check that out if you want to know more about their encounter from stark's perspective so far we have seen shuntsui battle as a captain with little to no responsibility but how does he change his approach to battle once he has the burden of the soul society on his shoulders shun sweet is one of the characters who has the most development and growth during the thousand-year blood war arc i mentioned earlier that shuntsui was forced to step up during this arc and take up the leadership of the gotai 13. i want to now go into his growth during this arc and see how he deals with the threat of the quincy's shinsuit is one of the first captains to encounter the invading quincy he meets his opponent readied with his shikai once again the opponent he is up against is a gun wielder called robert akitron who shoots his hat off and then shoots his right eye he for the first time admits he felt as though he was calm but it appears that he is flustered during this encounter explaining how he lost his right eye in chapter 505 when he feels the head captain's spiritual pressure rise as he joins the battle he says that it feels like old man yamamoto is scoring him as though he is questioning if you raised him to be a coward who has difficulty with an enemy of this low level after sunsweet senses the death of the head captain he is overcome with emotion and yells out his name causing him to be caught off guard and shot multiple times by robert after the first quincy invasion shuntsui wears an eye patch covering his right eye that he lost against robert he immediately tries to reign in control of the gotai 13 who appear to be arguing with each other he spends little to no time mourning over the death of the head captain who he was in a way raised by he immediately begins to take up the responsibility of calming the other captains after a distressing invasion where so many of their comrades and underlings were killed and left in critical condition shunswe rightfully reminds the others that the gotai 13 does not exist to mourn or cry about the damage inflicted upon the soul society it exists to protect the soul society he advises the others to look ahead and move on in order to fulfill their responsibility to the soul society in chapter 520 shunswe opens a letter where it reveals that he has been assigned as the successor to odman yamamoto and is now the head captain and the captain of squad one he reacts in the way that he normally does by expressing his dissatisfaction for this new promotion which will only give him more work and responsibility that he cannot avoid shun sweet later meets with the central 46 where he begins to accept his duty as the head captain by immediately assigning himself with two lieutenants who will fulfill all the duties of assisting him in his first task as the head captain he orders that kempachi's rocky will be taught sanjutsu his justification for this order seems to be as a backup in case biakia and the others in the royal palace do not return safely under these circumstances shangsui believes that unleashing kampachi's full potential is critical he cannot be left the way that he is the central 46 object to this order believing that if kempachi is allowed to get any stronger then they will not be able to stop him if he opposes them in the past head captain yamamoto had tried to teach kimbachi and stopped only after one day despite their disapproval chanswee stays firm in his decision he simply tells them if they were to be invaded once more by the quincy then the source society would not be able to withstand the attack it is not the central 46 who will be able to protect the source society it is the gortai 13. so shun sweet deems it necessary to make this risky and rash decision for the sake of their survival he appoints unohana to oversee kimpachi's training as he reveals her to be the first kimpachi the weight of this decision is immense for sunsui he is aware of the cost of having kenpachi train with unohana knowing that one of them would die as a result of them crossing their blades in chapter 523 we see his somber expression as he is settled on contemplating the outcome of his first order as the head captain in chapter 545 shunsui appears in the world of the living to speak to ichigo's friends something head captain yamamoto would not have done himself his purpose for speaking to them is regarding a farewell to ichigo when keigo puts the blame on the soul society for mixing ichigo up in their affairs shunswe humbly admits he is right they once again must rely on his powers to protect the sore society the concern is that the new powers that he may acquire in the royal palace may affect the world of living if you were to return to it if that is the case shunswe bluntly tells them that they cannot allow ichigo to return to the world of the living however the possibility of this occurring is one in ten thousand the growth of shinsuke's character is so evident here something with such low odds of occurring causes him to feel compelled to inform ichigo's friends he says that it would be wrong to keep his friends in the dark about this even if the chances are low stating that by telling them he is doing right by ichigo and honouring his efforts he has no obligation to do anything for ichigo's friends but he gives them soul tickets to come and visit ichigo in the soul society whenever they like he reassures them and does what any great leader would do and gives them hope by saying that they will see ichigo again he promises that he will ask ichigo to come back after his training to spend some time in the world of the living before the second battle with the quincy's his actions on orders so early in this time as the head cap to improve how well he has adapted to his new role and his acceptance of his responsibility over the soul society losing odman yamamoto and then being given the position without time to mon places a huge burden on chunsui however his decisions and actions demonstrate how well he has coped with the loss and honored head captain yamamoto by continuing his work to protect the soul society when shunswe returns he quickly witnesses the total invasion of the soul society by the quinces he is met by hush world who lays out their plans to quickly exterminate the shinigami later he meets with the central 46 for a mysterious reason we learn in chapter 616 chonsui visits eisen in the underground prison he has a set of keys and is allowed to undo three of the several seals placed on eisen he uses one to undo the seal placed on eisen's mouth but shockingly he removes the other seals and walks towards shun sui azen asks him that he has two more seals he can use to which he immediately uses them to free eisen's ankles and his left eye this moment is significant as it shows the extent that this new head captain is willing to go to in order to defeat the quincy threat he does not hesitate to undo the three seals that are placed on eisen he did however take a precaution or was forced to before entering muken to free eisen he hid the key to the prison within his heart so if eisen kills him then the gates to muken would be permanently closed this was the condition that the central 46 imposed onto shunswe to allow him to recruit eisen to battle alongside them he persuasively tries to convince eisen by asking him wouldn't he want to breathe the heir up in the soul society he is not even asking him to help the soul society because he knows that aigen shares this similar interest in not wanting you watch the rule over all of reality there is a relaxing error about the way that shinsuit is persuading eisen from his several appearances we know that he is not confrontational and prefers not to escalate matters he takes the necessary precautions and persuades eisen through teasing him with thoughts of breathing fresh air or being under the light of the sky despite their history they share a common enemy at the moment he asks for his help not for the sake of the soul society but rather for the sake of eisen's own ideals he must agree that you watch taking over reality is not what he would desire even if his own plans to rule over the soul king had failed when eisen reaches the surface he is met with shock and anger from the other shinigami who immediately asked who would lift his sentence shun sui steps up and takes full responsibility for recruiting eisen stating that they need his powers renji rookie shuhei and several other shining army all disagree with this decision asking sunsweet if he has lost his mind and how he could be okay with this the wounds that isen left are still very fresh and his actions are understandably irredeemable to the others the new head captain distinguishes himself from odman yamamoto who relied heavily on principles by saying that their principles may not allow them to accept eisen being there but the soul society will not be protected by principles alone shuntsui says that he does not consider it to be evil if he uses one evil to defeat another his expression is stern and unmoving not doubting the decision that he has made later he is approached by byakiya who tells him that freeing eisen is an insult to them nobody speaks up to silence biakiya who is being very frank to his superior sunsweet knows his decision is affecting the others but he tells them that they can let their anger out on him later once they have saved the soul society head captain yamamoto would not have relied on anyone else let alone eisen to protect the soul society but we saw how his self-reliant principle-led approach resulted in his death during the first invasion shonsby who reluctantly takes up the head captain role shows us the lengths that he will go to in order to succeed something others would deem to be unthinkable he does not overlook as he does not care for principles or past history when it comes to winning i spoke about this way of thinking before after shunswee's battle with stark his words to love and rose echoed this ideology the moment that you start a war you're both evil he adds to this when he tells the other shinigami that he does not think evil defeating evil is wrong in the past nobody would challenge head captain yamamoto the way that shunswe was challenged for his decision here this is because old man yamamoto would not have done any of the things that shinsui has decided since becoming the head captain making kempachi learn chikai in bangkai going to the world of the living to comfort ichigo's friends and family deciding to ask for eisen's help all of these things he does after careful consideration which is commendable as the threat of the impending invasion and the current state of the source society don't stop him from calmly making decisions he is clearly a new head captain for a new era of the soul society however for this new era to be brought about they must first win against the quincy shinsuke who has demonstrated he follows the samurai way knows all too well about the lengths one may stoop to in order to ensure victory and thus survival who cares if you stab someone from behind or kill your opponent while they are travelling to your agreed place of battle this is the philosophy of the legendary samurai miyamoto musashi who i am reminded of when i see shunsui serious and determined to take down the enemy in chapter 623 sunsweet agrees to basby assisting them he wants to kill you watch for abandoning them this is once again another decision that chun sui makes which the prior head captain would not have entertained sunsweet later battles the stern ritter lil barrow the third gun wielder that he goes up against in the series he confidently states that he is the captain of the gotai 13 during their battle affirming his acceptance of the newly appointed role his opponent knows everything about him and his abilities yet he knows nothing about him shuntsui however begins his battle by confusing his opponent with after images of himself the ability of shun sui zambakdo is to manifest children's games into reality he praises his own abilities describing them to be scary as you do not know when a game is about to begin giving his powers an error of unpredictability when now reaches the others to inform them that shunswe is battling the enemy they want to go and help him but shinji likens shinsui to ordman yamamoto by saying that if he was still alive and had to stay behind to fight then he would want the others to go on without him because to give your life for your underlings is the duty of the head captain these are incredibly powerful words as we cut back to shun sui smiling as usual while facing off against the stern retail little thankfully he uses his abilities to attack from the shadows and pierces his opponent through the chest but the stern with his abilities save him as it is revealed that shunsway's opponent was the last quincy that you watch gave powers to he is considered to be a masterpiece the best amongst the stern ritters this is a great callback to shunswee's prior encounter with the best espada stark when lil activates his holy form shun sweet is frozen in place and shot multiple times he retreats and is chased down but once he knows that the other shinigami have gone on further than him he finally activates his bankai for the first time in the series everyone in the surroundings can sense a chilling spiritual pressure that overwhelms their senses the first act of his bankai causes any wounds that are inflicted on himself to appear on his opponent also the second act takes place after lille begins to regret attacking sunsweet this causes an incurable disease to occur it is manifested with several black spots all over lill's body the third act drowns the two of them underwater forced to stay there until one of their spiritual pressures is exhausted when lil desperately tries to swim to the surface shuntsui is reunited with his zombuc doe spirit who we learn is rather dismissive of him and his silver tongue lastly using his final act he cuts bill's throat appearing to have killed him shunswi returns to speak to his zombucto but surprisingly his body is pierced through by a blast from lil who refuses to allow a shinigami's bankai to kill him after seeking refuge his zombucto spirit advises him to run away requesting for him to rest while she carries him away stating that nobody would fault him for running away after he fought as hard as he did he closes his eyes and then is awakened by his lieutenant nanao who reveals that she is aware that her zombocto is being hidden by shuntsui as he is still keeping his promise to her mother to this day he then returns her zombacto to her with little argument and now accepts that she will have to live with their family curse but she is okay with it being this way together they defeat the stone ritter as shunswi reassures nanao giving her the resolve to defeat lil with her family's holy sword which was made to defeat gods thus after this fight he is freed from the burden of hiding the issei family blade and keeping his word to nanal's mother this battle shows us how he was willing to give his life as the head captain as well as some flaws in his character when he does not object to his zombucto telling him to run away it is nice to see that he has not totally reformed and still has his old laid-back nature within himself as this gives him still some room to grow it would be strange to see sunsweet needlessly giving his final breath on the battlefield as he is the type of character to give it is all and if it does not work then he'll hold his hands up and admit that he did all he could do during this arc shuntsui made very unpredictable decisions but ultimately he did what had to be done to prevent a repeat of the first invasion i said this before he remained calm through each pivotal moment of this arc even down to the invasion of the enemy's fortress after exhausting all options and his bankai failed to kill his opponent he continued to smile as he always does he put up a solid fight against lille and proved that he was the right choice to take over odman yamamoto as the head captain of the gotai 13. he is open-minded and not as emotional or stubborn as the prior head captain in chapter 685 we see him sitting at ukitake's grave filling him in on the recent developments regarding the soul society and its restoration he is interrupted by duties that await him as he has to appoint rukia as the new captain into the gortai 13. he says that he still cannot get used to how busy a head captain can be appreciating odman yamamoto's workload and everything that he did in the past the people that he encounters and grows close to eventually pass away leaving him behind with responsibility we see this with his older brother his sister-in-law oduman yamamoto una hana and then lastly his dear friend ukitake after they die he has little time to mourn their passing as he has handed down responsibility by his loved ones these responsibilities push him into situations he would have otherwise avoided he takes the hairpin from his brother he hides the isai family sword for his sister-in-law taking up the role of the head captain after the death of his mentor for the sake of honoring the dead he forsakes his laid-back nature he had many tragedies that occurred in his life through losing those dear to him including a tragedy i have not mentioned which is the regret he must feel after sending his former lieutenant lisa to the mission that goddard hollified during the 10 back the pendulum arc he suffers and goes through grief and regret but he never shows this to anyone he didn't get overcome by his sadness even though he has every reason to he instead remained smiling cheerful calm and kind to those around him despite many believing him to be laid back and uncaring he is one of the most considerate characters to feature within bleach the final arc of the series did his character a lot of justice also after studying him for this video he has become one of my favorite bleach characters he is the final member from his generation to survive now the oldest member of the soul society he continues to smile and joke around while leading the soul society on to a new era i didn't think that this video was going to be as long as it turned out to be so if you enjoyed it definitely let me know by leaving a comment and let me know your thoughts on sweet as a character there is a lot to discuss about tozen's character as this betrayal put him in odds with several members of the soul society his morals and ideals that he lives his life by were called into question so in this video i want to analyze tozen's character trying to understand his past and how it correlates to his motives and traitorous acts as well as this i really want to explain how conflicted tozin became and how his actions raised questions about his ideals as his behavior makes him come across as a hypocrite causing his former friends to be puzzled by the decisions that he makes so let's break down and analyze tozen via his many appearances within bleach tolzin first appears in chapter 81 and in episode 24 of the anime he has braided hair and wears goggles or a visor over his eyes which stylishly gives us something to look at as opposed to his closed eyelids as he was born blind in both eyes he also wears an iconic orange scarf around his neck which he changes to an orange rope after he leaves the soul society before his defection from the soul society he was the captain of the 9th division with shuhei hisagi serving as his lieutenant in chapter 178 after seeing tozen's betrayal komomura yells at him where has his sense of justice gone he replies that he follows the path least soaked in blood stating that there is always justice in the path with their least bloodshed to tozen that is the path of justice this is his way of life contrary to this he has taken part in killing members of his own division during the turn back the pendulum arc while he was the fifth seat of the ninth division he even helped to qualify his former captain kensei shortly after tozen is judgmental and forms opinions about other captains while he was in the gotai 13 and the iranka's after he leaves the source society one such example is his opinion of kempachi in chapter 146 we see tozen mention he formed his opinion of kempachi after he killed the captain of squad 11 and took his place he describes him as a monster who spreads carnage and he has a thirst for blood describing that he is not a normal man he goes on to say that if kampachi is allowed to live then he will eventually destroy the peace of the gothic 13. he also concludes that grim jio 2 shares the same lust for blood judging that his way of life would lead to more bloodshed tozen does not have eyesight so for this reason he develops his other senses to the point that it is rare that he cannot sense someone else in his presence after he releases his resurrection during the battle in fake karakura town he can finally see the world this however causes him to become arrogant and neglect the other senses of his body which he had fine-tuned to compensate for his lack of eyesight tozen is one of the most nuanced characters to be written by kubo his motives sense of morality in past all left a lasting impression on me to now understand why tozen adopts the ideals that he does i feel it is important to go through his backstory luckily out of the trio defectors we learned the most about tozen's past his backstory is revealed to us in chapter 148 during his battle against kenpachi we see a younger tozen sat with a young woman watching the night sky she describes to tozen how the sky is covered in darkness but there are spots of light in the sky she feels sadness that the clouds try to cover the stars she tells tozen that she desires to clear the clouds away so that not a single star is covered by them we learned that tozen was comforted by her and enjoyed her company he found beauty not through how she looked but rather through her voice he particularly loved how she would say his name repeatedly it was for this reason he could not bring himself to tell her that he liked the clouds and did not want them to disappear one day she tells tozen that she is going to get married to a shinigami she shares more good news that she has been accepted into the academy to become a shinigami also we learned that she desired to become a shinigami in order to bring peace to the world before she leaves she tells him to stay the way that he is and that she would return from time to time to share her stories with him that was the last time that he heard her voice as we learned that the young woman who gave comfort to tozen was killed by her husband in disbelief he wonders why someone who desired for peace and justice had to meet such a fate this tragedy forms his desire for power so that he may use it to impose justice he states that if the world lacks justice then he will become justice itself and rid the evil from the world he vows that he will carry on her desire in the name of justice in chapter 387 we see that tozen desperately tried to get an audience with the central 46. he wanted to know why the man who killed his friend was not sentenced to death prior to the death of his friend tozen was happy and lived a carefree existence enjoying the brief moments that he would speak to his friend and hearing her say his name after her passing he became somber and turned inward as he decided to embody justice the same justice that was not given to his friend why is it that someone who desired to bring peace into the world was killed so cruelly over something so petty tozen says that she longed for peace more than anyone and a sense of justice was strong because her life was robbed from her she never had an opportunity to fight for what she believed in he doesn't receive any closure after her death which fuels his desire for justice which he wants to impose onto the world during a funeral he holds her zambach dough and feels the loss of his friend how she could not wield this blade to enact any change onto the world her dreams of peace left unfulfilled it is powerful seeing him clench her zambocto and solemnly swear to rid evil in the name of justice we see tozen early in the series demonstrate his sense of justice establishing his ideals from his first appearance in chapter 138 we learned through a brief meeting with captain komomura that the path that tozen follows is the one with least bloodshed he says that he shares the same way of thinking as komomura in this regard revealing the similarities between the two of them which explains that close bond in chapter 109 after tozen learns of eisen's supposed death he says that he will join the battle to stop the intruders who are being blamed for the death of eisen we learn more about tozen through his words here as he says that typically it is best to avoid battles but due to the death of a captain there is no alternative he reiterates his idealistic perspective by saying that if people didn't let themselves be deceived by ugly emotions then there would be no need for battle as a result many tragedies could be avoided when he subdues uryu in chapter 126 he says that he must do this in order to maintain the peace he uses his shikai release to stop uru and apologizes to him saying that the pointless battles are over now and that his struggles will soon be over two tozen takes part in several conflicts most notably during the battle in fake karakura town i want to now cover his various encounters in the series and see what they reveal about his character and what challenges he has to face by taking part in the act of battling which he deems to be pointless toes in battles with kimpachi after realizing that he has teamed up with the side aiding the intruders their battle begins in chapter 139 as he tells kimpachi that he has lost his honor for helping the intruders and his sanity for thinking he can single-handedly defeat tozen komomura and their lieutenants kimpachi lives up to his boastful claims by taking on tozen and komomura two against one tozen is frustrated by his taunting and we see his bankai for the first time in chapter 146 he reveals that ever since he learned that kempachi became a captain by killing the prior captain of the eleventh squad he had a feeling that he would eventually destroy the gotai 13 with his carnage his suspicions have been proven to be correct as kenpachi is indeed helping the intruders to stop rukia's execution and in effect disrupting the peace of the gortai 13 tozen assumes that he is helping them because of his bloodlust he is not willing to admit that he hates kimpachi he simply states that he is beyond redemption for his actions because of his behavior he has indeed broken the peace of the gothi 13. we see first-hand chosen sense of justice as he burdens himself with the duty to eliminate kimpachi in order to restore peace once more his bankai prevents kimpachi from seeing hearing smelling and feeling spiritual pressure he has been placed into an area without light or sound tozen relies on the assumption that kimpachi will feel fear upon being placed into a situation where his senses are rendered useless and he is surrounded by darkness typical of kimpachi he does not feel any fear as he strikes tozen who claims that he is indeed a monster tozen is stunned despite being placed into a black hell kimpatchi did not feel fear for even a moment kimpatchi effortlessly evades his attacks despite not being able to see hear or detect spiritual pressure tozen judges kimpachi for smiling and still desiring to fight despite being handicapped he sees him as a threat that cannot be allowed to live after kenpachi allows himself to be cut by tozen he grabs him and instead makes tozen feel fear in the one place where he can see and hear and his opponent cannot the only sense kimpachi was not deprived of was touch and he takes advantage of this to defeat tozen kimpachi's senses are restored while he is hoarding toes in zampato and he sadistically offers to continue saying that next time he will stop him before his sword has the chance to penetrate his skin indeed tozen is eventually defeated by the fearless kimpatchi as his bankai shatters and their surroundings return back to normal tozen tries desperately to continue fighting as his sense of honor won't allow him to accept defeat yet he is driven by his sense of justice he says that he must stop kimpachi in the name of justice kimpachi is annoyed by his talks of morality and he is about to kill him until komomura saves his friend's life he receives treatment for his injuries and we learn soon after in chapter 171 that tozen has been working for eisen this whole time tozen's first actions during the battle in fit karakura town involve him defending eisen from an attack by shinji before tozen has a chance to attack shinji once more he is stopped by komomura as the two of them are reunited after tozen's betrayal komomura comments on how previously he prevented kampachi from killing him and now he defends an attack from tozen emphasizing the polarity between the different circumstances he states that he never thought that he would be blocking his sword to protect someone else tozen finds himself battling his former friend komomura to the death his former lieutenant hisagi also joins the battle he thanks him for all of his teachings hisagi desires to use everything that he was taught in order to figuratively open his former captain's eyes so that he may return to the soul society in chapter 384 we shockingly learned that tozen has undergone hollow vacation as he is donning a holo mask they are stunned and puzzled and asked why but tozen attacks his hisagi without any remorse for his former lieutenant he asks them why is it that they despise him for undergoing qualification he compares himself to ichigo and says that he has hollow abilities too why is it that they don't despise him komomura tells him that ichigo had no choice in the matter as he was born with hollow abilities but tozen however strayed off on the right path he had great potential as a shinigami but he allowed himself to fall so low by undergoing qualification komomura is sickened by what tozen has become he calls him depraved for betraying his comrades to gain that power confronting tozen is incredibly personal for hisagi and komomura their relationship with him led them to believe that he would not betray them they assumed he would stand firm in his sense of morality and justice and protect the soul society alongside them after recovering from his attack hisagi uses his zambok dough to pull tozen away from komomura and pins him to the ground tozen says that he did not attack him with enough force but isagi says that he evaded the attack by sidestepping just like he had taught him in the past you can see the desperation on hisagi's face as he remembers tozen fondly he is still in disbelief that his captain will betray everyone we are then shown a touching flashback when hisagi reminds tozen how he convinced him to remain as his seated officer in the past we learned that isagi had called tozen requesting him to dismiss him because of a mistake that he made in the training drill the day before tozen tells him that mistakes happen from time to time but isagi cuts him off and reveals it wasn't his carelessness which led to the mistake but rather he was scared which made him feel hesitant during battle his reason for being afraid in battle is explained as prior to this hisagi was wounded during a training drill in the world of the living ever since that day he always takes a step back emotionally whenever he faces an enemy in battle hisagi has a very relatable fear as he tells tozen that he is afraid to fight in this flashback it is noteworthy to analyze how tozen reassures his sagi in his moment of weakness and vulnerability he tells a seated officer that he should not be dismissed because power is not the most valuable quality to have as a warrior instead having a fear of battle is more important tozen continues by saying that due to having a fear of battle it will allow a warrior to wield their blade and fight for those who too fear battle he believes that those who do not fear the power of the sword that they wield are not worthy of wielding it he wisely reassures hisagi that if he is afraid of fighting then he has already gained something very valuable as a warrior remembering moments like this caused hisagi to feel frustration and confusion as he questions why tozen discarded everything he cared for in the pursuit of following eisen for more power he asks his former captain what he fears now that he has abandoned everyone tozin tells him that the thing he has feared for close to 100 years is becoming a shinigami and being regarded as one of them fearing that he will die as a complacent shinigami after komomura unleashes his bankai he realizes how far tozen has strayed from shinigami as this fast regeneration heals his arm after an attack here we learn more about tozen's logic he questions the use of the word depraved that komomura had called him earlier he asks what is worse deceiving his comrades to acquire more power or to join an organization for the purpose of revenge and losing sight of this purpose and becoming complacent with a new life he asks wouldn't the latter be more depraved according to tozen losing sight of one's purpose is worse than betrayal and deception we understand tozen more when he tells us that he became a shinigami in order to get revenge he questions komomura asking him if he ever thought about why tozen would join the same organization that the murderer of his dearest friend was a member of didn't he find it strange that he became a shinigami the very organization responsible for the murder of his friend komomura answers that he assumed he became a shinigami for the sake of justice he believed that tozen wanted to honor his late friend by continuing her passion for peace and justice he agrees that he did become a shinigami for justice but we finally begin to understand why tozen defected as he lays out his true purpose that he had hidden behind his claims of justice he says that forgiving the murderer of his friend is indeed a virtuous deed even describing the act of forgiveness to be blindly beautiful however he says that virtue is not justice we learned that tozen came to believe that living in peace without avenging the dead is immoral this revelation is a surprise to us and even komomura who realizes that he misunderstood tozen's motives from the very beginning saying if that is how he had been feeling like all along then they were destined to clash blades as they had very differing interpretations of justice this exchange that occurs between the two of them reveals the most about tozen's character and allows us to truly understand how he coped with the death of his friend and why he really became a shinigami what he felt about living in peace and his true feelings regarding the shinigami tozen eventually has enough with komomura and reveals that he has a resurrection he releases it to challenge komomura's bankai he transforms into a large moth-like creature thanks to this new form he is able to see for the first time he laughs maniacally he becomes arrogant it can be said that having eyesight seems to have validated his desire to acquire more power through holification he sees the sky for the first time blood for the first time he can see the world now when he sees komomura for the first time he demonstrates how much gaining eyesight has figuratively blinded him as he says that his former comrade is even uglier than he had imagined these actions are all justice according to tozen his friend loved the world she became a shinigami for two reasons for the world she loved and for the sake of justice like i said before tozen became a shinigami because he did not want her sense of justice to disappear from the world he continued her heart's desire this is what we the reader and komomura are led to believe but komomura notices a falsehood in tozen's reasoning he thinks to himself that tozen always spoke of the world that she loved but he never himself stated that he loved the world komomura assumed it was because tozen had come to hate the world he understood why he would come to this conclusion if you had lost someone dear to you in the way that tozen did and received no justice for her murder then you two would come to hate the world komomura was glad he did not try to be a saint and pretend to love the world after he had lost his friend it was for this reason that he decided to be a true friend to tozen stating that he wanted to be there for him through his sadness and happiness even if he went astray he would bring him back if he made a mistake he would forgive him and if he had nowhere to go to then he would offer him refuge he would go through these lengths for the hope that tozen who hated the world would come to love it once more their friendship is impactful and tears at your heartstrings komomura's kindness was discarded like it was nothing tozen is incredibly ungrateful and his justification for his actions are confused and muddled with notions that it was for the greater good just as tozen is about to deliver the finishing attack to komomura he is caught off guard by hisagi and impilled through his head hisagi comments on how tozen had become a monster and is no longer like his prior self even with blindness the chosen of the past would have evaded an attack like this but it appears that his newfound powers have led to his downfall as tozun lays on the ground after his defeat komomura admits that their relationship had been superficial up until now the fact is they were destined to battle considering their clashing beliefs he advises tozen to no longer allow his desire for revenge to consume him in his final moments tozen thanks komomura as his words leave him with tears in his eyes his final request is to see hisagi's face but before you can see him he is killed by eisen tozen's view of the world like i mentioned earlier had a lot of confusion between right and wrong but ultimately it is a sense of justice which leads him to follow the path that he does he does not realize how much pain he causes komomura and the others to feel with his betrayal he misleads everyone up until his betrayal with his choice of wording and purposeful untruths that he states in his final moments the blind tozen could finally see as well as this his views of justice and the world were given enlightenment through komomura's words he was blinded by revenge he became a shinigami but could not allow himself to live a peaceful life he considered it to be wrong to live in peace having forgotten his purpose which was to avenge the death of his friend i want to now further look into his justification for betraying the soul society and how he convinces himself that leaving with eisen was the right thing to do when thousand reprimands grimjal for leaving quicker mundo with five iran cars without permission we get a glimpse towards his justification for betraying the soul society he condemns grimgel's actions to go on battle senselessly in karakura town by saying that he disrupted eisen's peace further saying that grimgel's actions lacked a cause or a purpose he just went to scrap with ichigo and the others for no apparent reason once again his sense of morality and justice is reinforced into our minds as he says that killing without purpose is just murder but killing with a definitive purpose is justice we can infer that tozen's purpose is to maintain the peace he aims to do so via the path with least bloodshed so even if lives are lost while following eisen he deems them to be for the greater good it is confusing and it makes you question how somebody who desires peace and justice could form an alliance with a man like eisen i think that the two poems that kubo writes for tozen help to explain the reasoning behind his betrayal and his mental gymnastics that he uses to justify his actions the first poem that kubo writes for tozen's character is featured within bleach volume 39 to er is human to kill is evil this poem reminds me of the flashback we are taught with hisagi as he tells him about the fear of battle that it is human to make mistakes but to kill without purpose or having no fear for the consequences of battle isn't just according to tozen this idea of wrongful killing is once again reinforced by his opinions of grimjar's actions in chapter 213 he tells grimjal that killing without a purpose is murder and killing with a purpose is justice we can link this back to his poem saying that making mistakes is human but to do something as grandiosis killing without a real purpose this is evil this poem is also a commentary on the passing of his late friend how she was killed without a purpose it was a huge waste of life according to tozen especially if you consider her unfulfilled dreams and desires she longed for peace and justice where she was killed and no justice was given to her after her death the second poem about tozen is featured within bleach vol 44. people are evil in order to falsely believe yourself to be just you must inevitably falsely believe that someone else is more evil than you in this poem an assumption is made that people are all evil based on tozen's experiences it is understandable to come to this conclusion if tozen truly believes this statement then he must admit that even he has evil within himself how he deals with this is by believing in a falsehood for tozen this is his own sense of absolute justice which is the only right in his world to convince himself that this is the best course of action he believes that there is an evil greater than himself this is the justification he uses to follow through with his actions the evil that he considers to be greater than himself stems from the unjust murder of his friend she was killed by a husband who is a shinigami so does he consider the shinigami to be more evil than himself while in chapter 385 we learned that tozen became a shinigami out of revenge this confirms that he deems the shinigami to all be more evil than himself he wrongfully allows the depraved actions of one man to form his opinion of the entirety of the shinigami his actions are fueled by revenge and he justified this through his warped sense of justice he could not accept living with an evil he considered to be greater than himself he did not want to lose sight of his desire for revenge through leading the life of a complacent captain living peacefully ultimately the death of his friend impacts tozen and forms his motivation to conspire against the shinigami thus explaining his alliance with eisen on his betrayal originally i wasn't going to include this into the video but i posted that i was uploading a chosen analysis on the community tab of my channel and so many of you requested that i mentioned the config your own world novels i wasn't planning on mentioning them but since all of you want me to talk about them i'll try my best to cover what new pieces of information we learn by the novels about tozen bear in mind i have not read all of the novels but for this video i have gone through the mentions of tozen and what we learned about him through the additional material a lot of you share the sentiment that you began to see tozen in a different light after reading the novels confit your own world reveals more information about tozen's friend who's murdered we learned that her name was kakyo she married a shinigami called tokinada sunayashiro who is the main antagonist of the can't view your own world novels tokinada is from the sunoyashiro family they are one of the great noble families we learned that tozen's friend kakio became a shinigami and his zampakto was the same one that he uses throughout the series we see that he took her zanbakdo in the manga and resolved to carry on her purpose while clenching it but in the novels it is clarified that tozen began to wield hazombakdo after her death now interestingly we learned that tokinada did indeed kill his wife kakyo when tozen tried to get justice for her and urged the public to arrest him he was ignored tokinada cunningly shifted the blame of a murder onto someone else and thus gets away with this crime this better explains tozen's feelings of hatred and resentment towards nobility the shinigami and the system that they fight to protect kakio received no justice after her murder this causes tozen to believe that the system of the shinigami is corrupt we also learned through the novels that it was during this very vulnerable and sensitive time that tozen was recruited by izan to aid him with his plans he took advantage of tozen's anger for the shinigami and helped to reinforce his newfound sense of justice after making this video up until this point i was puzzled as to why eisen suddenly killed tozen just as he requested to see hisagi's face thankfully we receive an answer from the novels it seems that eisen cared for tozen and decided to kill him after his battle with komomura as a show of mercy he knew that if tozen survived the battle after being healed by either unohana or orahime then he would fall into despair because the realization of his actions would begin to overcome his mind through these novels we learned that tozen was the only person that eisen somewhat cared for and considered as a friend he considered tozen to have a strong resolve describing it as beautiful he could not bear for him to survive and continue living in despair so in his own words he bestowed upon his most loyal subordinate a merciful death in a later flashback we learned that tozen asked eisen to kill him if his resolve started to waver and he started to side with the shinigami this would cause him to regret the path that he had chosen he believed that the world that ison would have ruled over as a replacement of the soul king would have been just he had decided to kill himself after eisen had accomplished his goal as he found it unfitting for someone who desired for revenge to exist in a world of pure justice that eisen would have created this was a last minute addition to the video so if i've missed anything from the novels regarding tozen then let me know by leaving a comment under this video i read all of the comments and would love to know if there's anything that i've missed if there are any other revelations about tozen that we get from the novels so with this segment done i'm going to cut back to the conclusion of the video while he was blind he could see more than most however after gaining eyesight he became blinded with arrogance the one who followed the path of justice ended up being deceived by it and led astray to commit atrocious acts all for this false sense of justice his entire character is riddled with inversions which complement the complexity of his motives and desires tozun was a fascinating and nuanced character to break down and analyze he may be one of the youngest members of the gothic 13 but he is not to be underestimated he is incredibly talented and very intellectual this young white head prodigy became the captain of the 10th division in a very short span of time so let's analyze how toshiro hitsugaya comes across as being very mature and serious despite him having a very short stature which makes people not taken too seriously the primary aim of this video is to analyze the relationships that hitsugai forms primarily with his lieutenant rangiku his childhood friend momohinimori and the shinigami who betray the soul society and belittled toshirohitsugaya and played with his emotions sasuke eisen through understanding the relationships that he forms and the backstory that we get from the manga we can hopefully understand the growth that hitsugaya's character goes through from the beginning to the end of the series hitsugaya makes his debut appearance in chapter 81 and in episode 24 of the anime the most noteworthy aspect of his appearance is his incredibly short height along with his very noticeable turquoise eyes which complement the chilling abilities of a zombucto his distinctive white spiky hair leads to people who are close to him referring to him as shiro-chan which translates into snowy which is a nice nod to the cold abilities that he utilizes he is ridiculed by the other shinigami within the soul society and even by his enemies when it comes to his height he does sometimes get annoyed with these jokes but when it comes to his enemies he gladly proves them wrong for underestimating him despite his position as a captain within the goti 13 he is looked down upon the first reason like i said before is because of his height and the second reason is because he is so young i didn't call hitsugai a prodigy for nothing he is one of the youngest shinigami to have ever become a captain of the gotai 13. he is incredibly talented but his young appearance does make his enemies think that he is inexperienced to be challenging them he is far from reaching his full potential and we see this when shuntsui compliments him during the fake karakura town arc he says within 100 years which isn't really a long time in the span of the soul society hitsugaya will indeed surpass him and his abilities when you put this into perspective shunswi the future head captain of the gotai 13 will be surpassed by hitsugaya in a relatively short period of time thus highlighting the untapped potential that hitsugaya has he has a very serious and no-nonsense approach when it comes to doing his missions and carrying out the orders of the soul society this is contrasted with his laid-back and easy-going lieutenant rangiku despite their obvious differences in their personalities and their approaches towards their work they both appear to have moved up in the ranks of this whole society together and because of this they seem to have a mutual understanding with each other and a strong bond has formed between the two of them because of his intellect and his sense of intuition he is one of the few shinigami who suspects that something is wrong after hearing the news of rukia's execution he is one of the first people to suspect guinea chumaru to be behind the circumstances which are unfolding but he is surprised to learn that it was eisen who's behind all of this the man who is the captain to his childhood friend momo hinomori hitsugaya has an incredibly close bond with momo this is because they were raced together and they come from the same area of rukongai to now further understand the dynamics of hitsugai's character it is vital that i go over some of the past that is revealed to us throughout the bleach manga unlike the other characters of bleach hitsugaya has a special chapter which was dedicated to him which reveals a lot about his past in volume 32 of bleach we learn from kubo's author comments that he wrote a short story in this volume about hitsugaya this was done after he watched the second bleach movie he says that the story that he had written is different to the movie because they exist within two different canon universes during this special chapter we get a glimpse of hitsugai's past the chapter that this is featured within is referred to as chapter -16 or chapter 286.5 it is titled death on the ice field this chapter features a young hitsugaya who is living with his grandmother it's a short yet revealing insight into hitsugaya's character showing us how he is going to deal with his childhood friend momo leaving to attend the shinigami academy we also learn about the true potential of hitsugaya through the dreams that he has at night and how his latent abilities make him a perfect choice to also attend the shinigami academy during this glimpse into hitsugai's past we also learn how rangiku was introduced into his life and how she helps hits a guy to come out of his comfort zone and stop worrying about abandoning his grandmother he holds back his own development because he is afraid of leaving his grandmother alone the chapter begins with him having a dream of an icy field during this stream he feels that the ice that he steps upon has a presence and along with his presence he feels like he is a voice it is like this voice begins to surround him and almost crush him it's an overwhelming sensation that seems to rumble in the distance like thunder before his dream can continue he is awoken by momo who is incredibly excited about attending the shinigami academy much like his current self this young version of hitsugaya seems to be very easily annoyed he also has this very uninterested expression on his face after waking up when momo leaves to attend the shinigami academy she says that she'll be back on her holidays but hitsugaya conceals his emotions in front of his grandmother by acting tough he tells momo not to come back and he calls her a bedwater his grandmother consoles the young boy and asks if he's going to miss her but he continues to stay strong and says that she'll be back over the holidays so it's not that much of a big deal after momo leaves an internal dialogue occurs where hitsuko reveals to us a lot about the environment that he was brought up in which shaped his thoughts and his beliefs we learned that while he was young a lot of people were afraid of him even momo's friends he had never done anything to them but still they were afraid of him the only people who weren't fearful of hitsugaya was momo and his grandmother he wonders if it's possibly because he looks different because he has silver hair and green eyes but he also wonders if they are fearful because of his cold personality he was well aware that everybody had likened him to ice but because his grandma never associated him with having a cold personality or relating him to the ice he was incredibly fond of her after this we get a five year time skip which reveals to us that momo has grown a lot and has moved on from her prior life living with hitsugaya and his grandmother she doesn't spend much time with him anymore because she is focused with her goal that she has it appears that everything has changed but hitsukaya has stayed the same during this time he hasn't even grown an inch in height further emphasizing the stagnation within hitsugai's life at the moment how he is being left behind also during these five years his grandmother who he is incredibly attached to becomes more frail as she is losing more weight i always complement this ability of kubo to convey emotions without any dialogue we see the frustration on hitsugaya who is feeling stagnant and we see the guilt of his grandmother who feels like she is holding him back through the visual imagery that kubo portrays we can see that hitsugaya is a very compassionate and kind young boy his attachment to his grandmother is preventing him from moving on with his life the dreams that he has at night beckoned him to awaken his latent potential but all the while he feels too much guilt to leave his grandmother behind and go on to form dreams and goals like momo has he first meets rangiku after he is shot changed by a shop owner she tells him to stick up for himself and scolds the shop owner for stealing his money during this appearance we can see that she is already a shining army once again during that night he has another dream where he can hear a voice and he can hear the rumbling of thunder this time in his dream he sees the manifestation of his zampakdo spirit hiromaru but just like before he is awoken from his dream but this time by rangiku who advises him to lower his spiritual pressure it appears that in his sleep involuntarily he has been freezing his grandmother she tells him that a child who is as powerful as he is needs to learn how to control his powers she advises him to become a soul reaper because if he stays here he's going to end up killing his grandmother the only way that he will find out where that voice is coming from in his dreams is if he becomes a shinigami when he seeks permission from his grandmother to go ahead and become a shinigami she is aware that he was holding himself back and he was afraid of leaving her alone she is happy for him and gives him her blessing the chapter concludes with hitsugai moving forward aiming to control his powers and to seek out the voice that he can hear he resolves to progress with this life even if it means that he will die on this icy field that he dreams of upon entering the shinigami academy he graduates earlier than he is supposed to because of his innate talent and his potential during the everything but the rain flashback we learned that hitsugaya has been assigned the rank of the third seat of the 10th division just under rangiku his captain is ichigo's father ishin shiba shortly after ishan leaves the soul society he becomes the youngest shinigami to have ever become a captain within the gortai 13. now that we know about his past and the origins of his character we can now understand the role that his character plays during the soul society arc and how he is affected by the manipulation of momo his childhood friend someone that he has a strong familial bond with and because of this strong connection that he shares with her he wants it in chapter 99 to be wary of the third division and in particular of their captain ginichimaru because of this warning it causes momo to immediately suspect gin as the culprit behind eisen's supposed death her overwhelming emotions cause her to attack gin and his lieutenant kira their battle is prevented from escalating when hitsagaya gets in between them and demands that they stop after the two of them are taken away hitsugaya has some alone time with gin during this short but brief exchange which occurs very early on in the series we learned that hitskaya is not the type to mix his words when it comes to the safety and well-being of the people that he cares about he becomes incredibly serious he questions gin as he immediately suspects that he was about to kill momo if he didn't intervene gin tries to behave oblivious but hitakaya gives him a immediate warning hitsugaya says that if he makes momo bleed then he will kill gin himself in chapter 130 he confronts gin again after he releases his lieutenant from his cell his suspicions that the two of them are behind the death of eisen is credited to hitsugai's sharp sense of intuition and their suspicious behavior just before he is able to battle with kin he is interrupted by momo who points her sword at hitsugaya it appears that not only has she been manipulated by eisen to be infatuated with him she is also being manipulated by him through the letters that he left behind after his supposed death in these letters it reveals that hitsugaya is behind the execution of rukia so that he may steal the sokyoku in order to destroy the serete and the entire soul society thanks to these letters which appear as eisens dying words momo is convinced that hitsugaya is the true enemy at this point neither momo nor hits gaia know about eisen's true intentions he begins to think that gin had forged the letter so that he and momo would eventually kill each other here it may appear that these two characters are bitter enemies but they have more in common than meets the eye the two silver head captains we learn later on in the series share a common hatred for eisen hitsugaya later develops his hatred for eisen after he learns that he was behind the manipulation of momo while ginn had already been working under eisen for a century pretending to be his closest accomplice of course this is revealed much later on in the fake karakuri town arc but looking at these events retrospectively and the two of them facing off here reveals to us the events that guinea chimaro's character went through in order to prove himself to eisen he continues eisen's manipulation of momo and he pits her against hitsgaia he allows hitsugaya to believe that he was behind the killing of eisen he does nothing to stop momo from acting irrationally and watches as the two childhood friends face off against each other hits a guy who is understandably angered and frustrated begins to charge towards gin but he is interrupted by momo who he is forced to swiftly take down gin begins to taunt the captain and says that he didn't have to incapacitate her with that much force he is confused and has no idea what's going on he doesn't know what gin is up to he firmly believes that gin was behind the killing of eisen and he says that even eisen wasn't enough and he had to make momo suffer too gin's taunting and his smug attitude has gone too far as momo was gripping onto her sword with so much force that she began to bleed from her hands if you remember earlier hitskaya promised that he would kill gin if momo shed a single drop of blood during this battle we learned that hitsugaya controls a water and ice dragon which is created from his overflowing spiritual pressure his incredible zampakdo can control the weather through manipulating water and ice he freezes gin's left arm hitsugaya has the upper hand but gin tries to kill momo as a distraction rangiku interferes and protects momo which causes gin to retreat hitsugaya and rangiku both learn that the date of rookie's execution has been brought forward and she will be executed 29 hours from now hits guys frame her mind right now is that he firmly believes that eisen has been killed and the letter that eisen had left behind that momo had read was fabricated he believes that this fabrication was done by gin he believes that if the execution is allowed to go ahead and the sokyoku is released then guinea maru will use the sokyoku as a part of his plan and this is the logic and the reasoning behind why hitsugaia wants to stop rukia's execution in order to appeal the execution of rukia hitsugaya goes to the central 46 but when he arrives that he discovers that all of the 46 members have been killed his persistence and constant questioning has started to unravel eisen's plan of course he had his suspicions from the very beginning since the decision to execute rukia was a very harsh punishment but on top of this he is personally invested in finding out what on earth is going on with the soul society since his childhood friend momo has been dragged into this entire situation initially having suspicions that gin is up to something and he is behind the death of eisen now that he has discovered that all of the members of the central 46 have been killed he immediately deduces that someone else has been issuing orders in their place in chapter 170 hitskaya learns of eisen's betrayal and discovers the bloodied body of momo who was just attacked by eisen through his facial expressions you can see the shock and disbelief that hitsagaya must be feeling when he discovers momo's body laying lifelessly on the floor his emotions turn from confusion into anger he asks gin and eisen how long they have been conspiring against the soul society eisen tells him that he had concealed his true intentions ever since he first became a captain and the only person that he had considered his closest ally was had played the role of the caring and compassionate captain so convincingly it leaves hitskaya feeling speechless as he comes to realize that this whole time eisen has been betraying everybody his lieutenant momo himself and all of the other shinigami due to the childhood connection that momo and hitsugaya shared it appears that eisens division and hits guys division were closely connected and it appears that the two divisions also spent time together outside of their work duties the betrayal that hitsugai must be feeling is further emphasized when we study a side chapter that kubo had written this side chapter is numbered minus 12.5 it was published in volume 20 right at the beginning before chapter 169 this side chapter tells us a story about hitsugaya's birthday hitsugaya is invited to a rooftop where eisen momo and rangiku are sitting he is surprised to see momo and eisen there as he plays it cool and tries to forget that it's his own birthday they sit and watch fireworks together as we see a very rare interaction between eisen and hitsugaya before eisen's betrayal eisen wishes him happy birthday but he replies that birthdays don't mean anything to him he explains how people who are born in rukongai don't really remember the day that they were born and are considered to all be the same birthdays are a novelty for citizens of rokongai and are considered to be important for those who are born into nobility hitsugai's logic is that he doesn't see the point in celebrating a birthday if you don't even know the day that you were born but eisen tells him that it doesn't matter if the day is true or not because celebrating one's birthday makes that person happy and that's all that matters according to him it's a very wholesome moment as they all sit together celebrating hitsugai's birthday this special side chapter was published just before eisen revealed that he was still alive i believe that it helps to add some more context into the emotions that hitsugai must be feeling through this one side chapter we see one of possibly many experiences that hitsgaya may have had with eisen all of these wholesome interactions were all a lie eisen had faked his whole character he feels that sense of betrayal for himself and the other shinigami but most importantly he feels a sense of betrayal for momo he is fully aware of the extent that she trusted him and he knows how highly she thought of him i spoke of a goal that momo was working towards during hitsugai's backstory after learning the truth he speaks of momo's goal that he knew that eisen was aware of he says that it was because of eisen that momo had worked so hard her goal was to serve alongside him she wanted to be his lieutenant despite knowing this hitskaya is left to wonder how he could be so cruel eisen continues to shatter this image of a heartwarming and kind captain he says that because of momo's devotion to him it made it very easy to manipulate her and it was for this reason that he had requested for her to work under him on momo's behalf hitagaya is personally now affected by aizan's actions this is the beginning of the anger and the resentment that hitskaya begins to feel for eisen his betrayal has now directly impacted hitsugaya consequently he activates his bankai and resolves to kill eisen himself he attempts to attack eisen but his efforts are in vain he realizes that he was targeting an illusion from izan's shikai after falling for his kyokusui getsu the young captain is swiftly taken down by eisen following eisen's departure from the soul society hitsugaya recovers from his injuries in chapter 180 we see him visiting momo who is still critically injured hitsugai is deeply impacted and is distressed by the events that have unfolded during the source society arc at the end of this arc his character has every reason to want to kill eisen his conviction to kill eisen was formed through the way that his character was personally affected by eisen's actions it is these feelings that he carries forward into the iranka arc and the fake karakura town arc i have spoken a lot about momo's character and this is to emphasize the history that he shares with her they share a close connection because of the childhood that they shared together and this is exactly why he cares about her well-being to the extent that he does and it explains why he is deeply impacted by momo being hurt we see this firsthand when he confronted gin and questioned why he was about to kill her and we see him once again emotionally impacted after he discovers momo's body and learns that eisen had been manipulating her and deceiving everybody the pain and the suffering that momo's character endures results in hitsguya forming a lot of resentment towards eisen during the following arcs we see how he deals with these emotions and how he channels his anger during the fake karakura town arc to challenge eisen himself so let's now analyze what his character goes through before eisen's defeat and how it impacts him after eisen is defeated during the iranka arc hitsugaya leads a group of shinigami to help ichigo defend karakura town and to study as much as they can about the iran cars before their upcoming battle when grimhaw and his frasion attack he battles against the irancar xiaolong he struggles with the iran car until the gente kaijo seal is released which was limiting his power this results in a five times power increase giving hitsugai the power to easily take down his opponent in chapter 224 while hitagaya is speaking with the head captain who is debriefing him on eisen's plans and his true intentions the head captain allows momo to speak to him presumably this is the first time that they are speaking since she was attacked by eisen she looks visibly exhausted but she apologizes to hitsugai for doubting him but he doesn't seem to care and is more concerned with how she is feeling he advises her that she needs to continue resting they playfully tease each other like their childhood days their playful banter ends with hitsugai reassuring her that he is not toshiro anymore he is captain hitsugaya this seems to put a smile on her face but unfortunately just when things appear to be going back to normal hitsugaya is surprised to hear momo question if he is going to fight eisen she continues to ask if he is going to kill eisen but then she immediately begins to plead with him not to kill eisen she still seems to have faith in him eisen's manipulation was very effective she even begins to convince herself that maybe it was gin who was convincing eisen to do all of these wrong things the head captain prevents her from saying anything else but you can see the visible frustration and the anger on hitsugai's face you can see that he feels incredibly helpless in regards to momo's current condition this is especially apparent through the imagery that kubo draws of him clenching his fist eisen has moved on with his ambitions and his plans but hitsugaya has been deeply impacted by his manipulation of momo scenes like this further add to the building frustration that hitsugai must be feeling the emotions and the anticipation is building until he finally faces eisen again during the fake karakura town arc in chapter 234 during the iranka's second attack hitsugaya faces off against the new sixth espada loopy during this battle we learn more about the way that hitsugai zambakdo functions he calls it the ultimate ice weapon because even if it shatters as long as there is water around it then his abilities will always reform what makes his bunkai so effective is that it can utilize all of the water within the atmosphere during the fake karakura town arc these abilities are excellently utilized against the third ranked espada tia haribel the primary ability of a zombucto is water manipulation while she is in a resurrection she is able to create and manipulate water and this water is generated through the gill markings on her blade to prevent hitsugaia from manipulating and controlling her own water that she is creating she turns it into a boiling stream this way hitsugaya can no longer manipulate it and it also serves to melt the ice that hits gaia is forming during the end of their battle they both appear to be waiting for the atmosphere to fill up with more moisture he assumes that haribal is waiting for the opportunity to defeat itsugaya with one final attack but it's gaia grows tired and he reveals that his zampakdo is able to control all of the water around him and this is including the entire sky which is under his control after haribal is defeated by aizen hitsugaya teams up with the other shinigami to collectively attack eisen in chapter 389 hitsugaia is the first shinigami to attack him hitsugai speaks to him about the difference between swinging a sword out of duty which is what a captain does as opposed to swinging a sword out of hatred which is just violence through this example he deems isaac not to be worthy of being a captain eisen taunts him as he ironically says that it is hitsugaya who in fact feels hatred towards eisen he asks hitzgaya if he has forgotten his feelings of hatred just because momo has appeared on the battlefield for the healed hitsugaio once again appears to be overwhelmed by his emotions as he immediately activates his bankai he admits that eisen was right there is indeed hatred within his zombucto hitsugaya didn't come here to just fight eisen he came here to violently kill him based on his prior statement that a shinigami who has hatred within their sword isn't worthy of being a captain hitsuke admits that if it means that he can kill eisen then he will gladly give up his rank as a captain all of the anger and the frustration that he's been building up has been for this one moment and the hits guy declares that he's not going to show eisen any mercy at all after eisen is trapped in his eyes hitsgaya rushes towards him but eisen thinks to himself that ritsugaya is so young it is his naivety which causes him to not think his attacks through as he is attacking him at the first opportunity that he has he states that this is hitagaya's greatest weakness but thanks to shinji hirako's shikai it causes its gaia to not attack from the front but instead to attack from behind it appears that hitsugai successfully stabbed eisen through the chest but in chapter 392 ichigo who hasn't seen eisen's shikai reveals that hitsugaya has instead attacked momo even after all of this time hitsugaia was once again fooled by eisen and you can see the despair on his face when momo questions and asks why hitsugaya stabbed her he understandably loses his logic and his reasoning and he gives in to his emotions he's feeling a mixture of desperation anger and regret he wanted to help momo but instead eisen manipulated him into attacking her despite being a captain his inexperience and his young age is telling as he charges eisen without any care or consideration for how open he is to receiving an attack himself predictably eisen takes advantage of hitsugai's rage and cuts him down he falls to the city blow where he can helplessly watch on as eisen continues his plan in chapter 423 ten days after eisen's defeat we learned that hitsugaya has fully recovered from his injuries and he has started to regularly train in a cave he is trying to push himself to his limits the cause of this is because of his inability to protect momo through eisen's actions and his manipulation he realizes that he has to be able to control his bankai more effectively and it is for this reason that he resolves to get stronger in chapter 538 we learned that during the 17 months after eisen's defeat hitsagaya put all of his effort into mastering his bankai he refined his bankai to the point that it could be called a true bankai during the thousand-year blood war arc his bankai was taken from him he tries to forget about that which he has lost as the soul society doesn't have time to let him lament over the loss of his abilities instead he characteristically decides to move forward he proves that rank means nothing to him as he humbly asks other shinigami to train him he willingly decides to restart his training from the very basics but prior to losing his bankai he does help ichigo to regain his powers during the four bring arc and he faces off against one of the fullbringers called yukio we see the fruits of hitagaya's training as he easily takes down yukio and forces him to disable his fullbring at the end of the full bring arc hitsugai says that he was glad that ichigo became the next substitute shinigami after genjiokugo he didn't side with genjo and turned against the soul society it appears that he is glad that the soul society has somewhat changed after coming into contact with ichigo now during the thousand-year bloodwork hitsuga's character is challenged by various enemies and like i mentioned before his banker is stolen from him and he's forced to come to terms with this and move forward from it the most significant change that i see in hitskaya's character after the defeat of eisen is his level of maturity and his control of his own emotions of course during this arc nobody close to hitsugai is being personally targeted like how eisen was personally targeting momo in the previous ox during the second quincy invasion hitsgaya and rangiku are beaten by kung do and basbee that is until urahara utilizes a method to return this stolen bankai to their respective users his bankai slowly returns to him and begins to speak to him as hitagaya says that he hasn't heard the voice of isambakdo in a long time urahara hollified their bankai so that they would return to them because of this hitagaya's iced armor appears different than normal hiyori maru also appears to have manifested itself in a darker manner as a result of the bangkai holification after his battle with kung do hitagaya collapses onto the ground and we don't see him again until chapter 591 when he returns as a zombified version of himself he and rangiku have been turned into zombies by the scenerater giselle mayuri does indeed help them and returns them back to normal but at the cost of shortening their lifespan after recovering they make their way over to the seoul king's palace to help the other shinigami with battling these stern ritters in chapter 658 he begins battling the sten ritter gerard during this battle he teams up with biakya and kimpachi and we get to see some very interesting character interactions for the most part he teams up with byakkiya and works alongside with him but kimpachi interferes and ruins their teamwork when hitsugai begins to reach his limit the ice petals around his bangkai begin to break in chapter 670 biakia advises him to release his bangkai but hitsugaya surprisingly reveals that once all of the ice petals of his bankai break then the complete form of his banker is activated he transforms into a adult version of himself he tells biakea that his power isn't fully developed enough to have full command of his zombuc dough and this is probably the reason why he grows older once his bankai activates into its complete form in this new form hitsugaia is able to freeze anything within 4 seconds his final battle in the series concludes when yuhabak uses ashwalen to kill gerard 10 years after the defeat of the quincy we see rangiku and hitsugaya going to attend a ceremony where rukia is going to be promoted into the captain of the 13th squad hits gaia notes happily that during these last 10 years they've had nothing but peace through covering hitsguya's character and all of his appearances in the series i've come to realize how unappreciated he truly is i think that he is one of the most consistently well-written characters within bleach it is true that he does have great potential but it is because of his age that we don't really see him actualize all of his full power because he is a prodigy and he was made a captain at such a young age we don't really have the opportunity to see him at his best if the series had continued and we got a really lengthy time skip then i'm sure that hitzgaya would have been one of the strongest characters within the series but this doesn't take away from the fact that he is still one of the most memorable characters to feature within the series and his role during the soul society arc was pivotal because instead of challenging ichigo and the other intruders he was instead performing his own investigation his sharp sense of intuition leads him to suspect that there is something wrong with indigo tai 13. his suspicions of gain lead to him being the first person to find out eisen's true colors if you've seen the video up until this point then you know that his character was made to endure a lot of suffering because of eisen's manipulation i do find it sad that he never truly got to get payback against eisen but it is his actions after eisen's defeat which have always impressed me how he committed to training and improving his bankai he let go of what happened and he moved forward instead and this is exactly the same way that he deals with losing his bankai he doesn't let issues which reside within the past bother him we truly see how far his character has come through how eisen took advantage of his feelings of hatred and made him act on his impulsive emotions to the final arc of the series where we see a more composed and calm hitsugaia who shows truly how much he has matured from the beginning to the end of the series another point about his character that isn't spoken about enough is his relationship with his lieutenant rangiku despite arguing and disagreeing with each other they are incredibly close prior to making this video i didn't know that rangiku had first met hitsugaya when he was a young boy and it was her who prompted him to join the shinigami academy despite their differences they do care and have respect for each other and this is the reason why we never really see them apart from each other his opponents may not take him seriously but he is not to be underestimated just because he looks like a child hitsugaya is far from immature and weak he doesn't take his position within the soul society for granted and is very self-aware that he must continue to work hard despite having already achieved so much and this is why we always see him so bloodied and battered after his fights during each encounter he tries his hardest and fights with his life on the line for the sake of the soul society what are your thoughts on hitsugai's character have you learned anything from this video that you didn't know before have you always loved this character or do you think that he is cocky and overconfident kimpachi zaraki is the instinctive monster who appears to want nothing more than to rip apart his opponents as he enjoys the thrill of battle over anything else it is not an exaggeration to suggest that kimpachi lives to battle strong opponents he takes pleasure in being wounded by a worthy adversary and finds it incredibly enjoyable to inflict pain onto others some would say that he isn't the deepest character to feature within bleach and he doesn't really have much growth throughout the series i believe some of these criticisms are true but in this video i want to convey what makes kim party so appealing as a character as this fan base of loyal supporters have continuously pestered me to analyze this character well here is my in-depth look into kimpachi zaraki so be sure to watch until the very end in order to understand what makes him one of the strongest characters in bleach kimpachi first appears in chapter 65 of the manga and in episode 20 of the anime it is difficult to miss kimpachi as he has a very unique character design which i feel makes him very memorable and a little bit more distinctive than the other captains yes mayuri may have makeup all over his face but he doesn't have wild spiky hair that has bells attached to the ends of each spike the tall and muscular captain of the 11th division has a scar which runs down the left side of his face and he dons a black eye patch over his right eye which serves to seal his true power kimpatchi loves fighting to the extent that he purposefully wears accessories which help him to experience a satisfactory battle what fun would it be if kimpatchi were to battle an opponent and the fight would end within mere seconds to avoid this his eye patch seals the bulk of his power and the bells on the tips of his spikes are purposefully there to give his opponents the advantage we learn in chapter 109 when he battles ichigo the sound of the bells can only be heard by opponents who are concentrating their reaction while battling him kimpachi describes these self-imposed handicaps as elements which make a fight more interesting he can quickly gauge if an opponent is worthy or not by examining how well they exploit the bell and the eye patch against him his desire to enjoy a good fight leads to him disregarding any injuries that he receives he even feels enjoyment out of getting hurt his masochistic nature terrifies his opponents who realize that their attacks are only exciting kimpachi and motivating him to counter-attack he is chaotic and frightening appearing unmerciful but he has no interest in killing an opponent who is too weak to continue fighting we see this in chapter 312 when he battles neutral who is severely wounded and unfit to battle kimpachi is uninterested in continuing their fight and bids him farewell but neutral insists that they continue kimpatchi loses interest because he is not under any obligation to kill him their battle ended after his last devastating attack when the enjoyment derived from battle is lost this is the cue for kimpachi to leave even during his battle with tozen in chapter 148 he leaves tozen severely wounded but tozin still desires to fight to his dying breath kimpatchi does not entertain his sacrificial attitude because he has no desire to battle a weakling who is already half dead his reasoning is that there is no fun in dying he cannot be cut by a dead opponent from these interactions it's like kimpachi prefers to spare his opponents in the hopes that they train and grow stronger hoping for them to challenge him once more he must want them to be fueled by the resentment that they feel towards him after they are embarrassingly schooled by him kimpachi desires to fight incredibly strong opponents and in order to enjoy the thrill of battle he prolongs these fights by concealing his full power his battle with ichigo was a perfect display of his character traits as well as highlighting some of the areas for growth that we see kimpachi go through till the end of the series his character was heavily focused upon during the thousand-year blood war arc where we learn about his past and his connection to captain unohana she is the first person to hold the title of kimpachi this title is given to the strongest shinigami of that generation it is reserved for the one who has killed the most enemies and won the most battles let's now look at the past of kim pachi so that we can understand his nameless origin as a young boy wandering rukongai how does he end up becoming a captain and holding the title of the strongest shinigami kimpachi's past begins to be told to us in chapter 525 during his training with unohana when she first meets kim pachi as a young boy in the outskirts of rukangai she notices him standing on top of a pile of corpses in chapter 529 we learned that kimpachi acquired a blank zampak doll from a dead shinigami he came across he shaped the zambocto into his own he was not given a name so he took upon the surname zaraki which was the name of the district that he was raised in saraki is known as the most lawless region within rukangai and it is populated by criminals when unohana remembers the first time she met kampachi she recalls that they were both bored with fighting which led to them both wandering in search for a worthy adversary while she was the captain of the 11th division she was led to the young kimpachi their blades crossing was the first time in a long while she had felt the thrill of battle this too was a defining moment for kimpatch's character it led to him imposing restrictions onto his own power during that battle they both felt excitement unohana was the first opponent in camparche's life who rivaled his own strength this was the first time that he was battling someone he did not look down upon she was able to truly test his skills but at that time when she battled the young kimpachi she was weaker than him we learned that he felt hesitation during his encounter with unohana she was the only person worthy of being his enemy but he came to think if he killed her then he would never be able to enjoy a battle like this ever again at this early point in his life he began to unconsciously suppress and seal away his powers he initially did this to match his powers to unohana during their first battle she ends up feeling responsible as it was her weakness which led to kimpachi seeding away his powers this battle was the first time that kimpachi felt fear in his life as well as true enjoyment to prolong this feeling he sealed his powers away which led to his defeat after their fight he began to admire unohana and wanted to fight like her i will come back to their relationship and look further into their rematch while discussing kim patty's growth during the thousand year blood war arc later on in this video continuing on with another fundamental moment from kimpatchi's past we learn how he met his lieutenant yachuru and the origin of his name in chapter 114 he meets her while he is under the shade of a tree covered in blood surrounded by the corpses of his enemies her lack of fear towards kim pachi's weapon as well as neither of them having a name results in him taking her under his wing when he reflects upon his battle with ichigo he is reminded of the pain that he felt when he wandered aimlessly without a name he had no identity of his own he gave yachuru her name when he decided to name her after yacharu unohana the only person that he ever admired this is an aspect of his character revealed to us in chapter 114 but this is explained in chapter 525 this is a subtle detail about him that foreshadows the unique bond that he shares with unohana at the same time he also decides to name himself kimpachi which as we know is the title that is given to the strongest shinigami of that generation in chapter 206 we see another moment for kimpachi's past but from the perspective of his subordinate ikaku madarame after he is beaten by kimpachi he demands that he stops walking away and returns to finish him off like i mentioned earlier kimpachi quickly loses interest in his opponents who lose their strength he is under no obligation to end his enemy suffering ikaku persists that he must be killed after losing he is in no position to be making demands since he is bloodied and beaten but he is trying to honor the outcome of the battle by forsaking his own life over this encounter kimpachi tells him if he loves fighting so much then he should stop begging to be killed he should only admit defeat after he has died for now he advises ikaku to consider himself lucky to be alive he should devote his life to killing the one who let him live kimpatchi earns his respect when he tells him to live and to kill him another day after this battle we learned through the second bleach character data book kimpachi killed the captain of the 11th division taking his position and officially acquiring the title of kimpachi he is the 11th person to acquire this title in chapter 520 we are told that kimpachi began to train with head captain yamamoto in order to learn proper saw technique since he was able to shortcut his way into the gotai 13. after only one day of training the head captain was forced to stop training him as the central 46 became concerned that he would soon realize his full potential and would become a threat to the soul society if he decided to rebel against them during his battle with neutral kimpatchi does admit that he hates using the kendo techniques that he learnt as his battles would end far too quickly for his liking he only resorts to using his kendo when his life is on the line his refusal to adopt new learning methods and utilizing effective strategies in battle adds to this notion that he was limiting himself and was in this instance intentionally holding himself back despite being called kimpachi he was not living up to his full potential as well as the title of the strongest that he had been assigned he did not truly become the strongest shinigami worthy of that title until his rematch with unohana in the final arc the newly appointed captain of squad 11 eventually becomes the strongest kimpachi in history he does so despite having a nameless zampakdo and overcoming his limitations he was able to command the respect of his subordinates even ikaku who despite having attained bankai refuses to accept a promotion to a captain rank just so that he may serve under and die for the man who earned his respect now that we know the origin of his character let's now see where kim party's bloodlust leads him as we will now analyze his early appearances within the bleach manga paying particular attention to his growth and development after each encounter how every battle that we see leading up to his rematch with unohana served to unlock some of his power enabling him to leave a battle stronger than when he entered it let's now analyze how kimpachi restored his full potential and removed his subconscious limitations returning to how he was when he first battled una hana as a young boy kimpachi battles ichigo after he searches for the strongest amongst the invaders in chapter 103 he makes himself known by releasing his incredible riatsu which also helps him to identify ichigo who appears to be withstanding his spiritual pressure better than ganju and hanataro during this terrifying first impression ichigo comes face to face with the personification of battle his aura of murderous intent results in him experiencing a sensation of being stabbed before kimpachi even draws his sambok dough his desire to battle the strongest invader coupled with his expectations of ichigo to provide a thrilling battle leads to kimpachi becoming incredibly excited from the onset of battle he makes his intentions known he is here to either kill ichigo or die trying to he is confident that each girl does not stand a chance he offers him to attack first but ichigo refuses to attack him pachi while he is unarmed just to remind you this is the first time that we see kimpachi in battle we quickly understand that he selfishly wants to enjoy a long drawn-out battle with a worthy adversary he feels as though ichigo is not taking advantage of his generous offer to attack first he doesn't realize that he is playing by kampachi's rules which are kill or be killed ichigo is unable to cut kimpachi because his spiritual pressure while he is attacking is weaker than kimpachi's unconscious release of spiritual pressure while he is standing around doing nothing the first half of their battle ichigo is running away and frankly overwhelmed by kimpagi's brute force and desire for battle at the end of chapter 108 ichigo finally manages to cut kimpachi after remembering his resolve this affirms kimpachi's suspicions that he would indeed enjoy his battle with the young intruder despite being cut across his chest he is smiling and even giving advice to ichigo reminding him to stay alert and to not relax just yet he reassures ichigo right before he counter attacks for the first time i have always loved how kubo can show us everything that we need to know about a character through the way he depicts them while in battle kimpachi in chapter 109 grabs ichigo's zombacto with his bare hand so that he may pull ichigo towards him in order to pierce him with his own samba dough we quickly learned that he has no fear in battle it is like every injury he receives increases his strength kimpatchi grabbing ichigo's numbukdo without any second thoughts is enough to demonstrate how crazy he is the lengths that he will go to in order to satisfy his thirst for battle is fascinating as he reassures ichigo to continue to defend concentrate and attack the first half of their battle ends with kim pachu revealing that he does not know the name of his son bhakto because of this his sword is always in a released state his power was never sealed so it does not need to release through shikai or bankai just like himpachi himself his blade is the literal manifestation of raw power eventually ichigo relaxes and forgets to stay focused and keep his spiritual pressure elevated to prevent kimpachi's blade from piercing him there is understandable disappointment from kimpachi as that was a lot of promise to ichigo he was able to cut kimpachi he was focused enough to hear his bells an opponent with this level of promise clearly did not come by often the second half of their battle begins once ichigo learns to understand and call upon his zombucto by its name in chapter 112 the title battle turns as ichigo truly lives up to kimpachi's expectations he manages to cut kenpachi a further two more times and in doing so overpowers him which excites and pleases the sadistic captain ichigo desires to end the battle quickly so that he may save rukia but kimpachi desires to prolong their encounter his character is written during this battle to really give off their sense that he has been deprived from the thrill of battle for so long you can understand why kim pachi is behaving the way that he is he simply wants to feel enjoyment through battling someone who has the potential to kill him i personally love how kimpachi seems to be fueled by injury it confuses ichigo who must be wondering how he can inflict so much damage to him but he still won't back down he calls him crazy asking if he enjoys battling more than being afraid of getting cut or even killed kimpachi simply tells him that he is crazy as he wonders how ichigo cannot love fighting to the extent that he does despite him being so strong pain and death are the rewards of battle according to kimpachi this explains why he is not afraid of being killed and he enjoys feeling pain through battle both ichigo and kampachi during their battle were evenly matched this leads to kimpachi taking his eye patch off removing the seal to his full power he cannot remember the last time that he felt such joy and understandably wants to finally fight with all of his might a key difference between the two of them reveals to us a limitation to kimpachi's power ichigo is able to hear and understand his own sambacto he can even hear the cries of kim party's blade this is because he is fighting alongside his own zampato he understands his blade and this is something that kimpatchi who only trusts in his own strength is unable to comprehend this battle with ichigo serves to teach kimpachi the importance of understanding his blade kimpatchi up until the end of this battle believes that the zambocto is a weapon and nothing more he judges ichigo for borrowing the strength of zangetsu stating that he is unable to fight on his own that's why he relies upon an external source of power after the two of them clash one last time ichigo collapses apologizing to his comrades but kimpachi declares him the victor as he too collapses to the ground in chapter 114 kimpachi remembers the pain of not having a name during his younger years he holds his zombucto admitting that he ignored it for the longest time however he wonders if it is too late to hear its name sadly hizambakdo doesn't reply to him the way that kubo draws kim party's outstretched arm holding his numbakdo to the sky awaiting for a response from it is impactful you can almost hear the silence emanating from his blade when you look at this moment in the manga kimpachi at the end of this fight affirms that he wants to be stronger in a moment of frustrating enlightenment he realizes that he has a lot of room to grow in order to truly honor the title of the strongest shinigami that he holds this battle serves to free kim party from one of his several shackles that are limiting his full potential his battle with ichigo is a character defining encounter which serves as a stepping stone to his next major battle in the series which i will now go over so now let's examine his battle with neutra an espada who shares a lot of similarity with kimbachi but differs when it comes to what he gives importance to this is seen firsthand through how he despises neliel a woman who is ranked above him as he believes that she does not deserve her ranking and status within the spada as opposed to kimpachi who admires una hana the woman who at the time defeated him and instilled within him a belief that the only thing that matters is the thrill of battle he was taught this by a woman who was stronger than him and he grew to admire her while neutral grew to despise the woman who was ranked above him kimpachi as we know has incredible raw power but he subconsciously suppresses it especially after his battle with unohana as well as this he intentionally suppresses it via his eyepatch he was born as an anomaly a truly gifted warrior without knowing it he relinquished his power so that he may maintain his connection with unohana who gave him his first true glimpse of enjoyment through battle he felt that she was stronger than him when in actual fact kim pachi was stronger than her he did not envy her instead he admired her for her power this contrasts well with neutral who was born weak which leads to him feeling envious of those with power he desires to be powerful but cannot accept someone who he deems unworthy of power to be stronger than himself nitrile looks down at his opponents and belittles them as he is consumed by his own pride and he has a need to constantly prove himself in comparison to kim pachi who continues to look up desiring enjoyment through battle by fighting the strongest opponents he casts aside his pride focusing solely on his desire to feel alive through experiencing pain and fear while facing an adversary who has the power to take his life neutral skin is as hard as steel he claims that it cannot be cut by a shinigami like kimpachi in chapter 307 mairie describes kimparchi as a wolf while he is on the battlefield once he smells the scent of his victim's blood it is foolish to try and stop him if you get in kimpatchi's way he will devour you like a beast he says it is best to leave kimbachi to battle neutral on his own when renji suggests to assist him neutral has claimed that his skin cannot be cut does not detect himachi in the slightest their fight is a very memorable one that is really fun to go back and read through both of them smiling and enjoying every clash of their zambukto not allowing either one to fight cautiously from a distance kimpatchi pulls nitride towards him fearlessly he is ready to pierce his steel skin with his blade neutral gloats and underestimates his opponent he tries to convince him that he has met his match but kimpachi laughs in his face because now he knows that if he is able to cut him then it means that he can indeed die he is aware that this is a glaring vulnerability for nytera all kimpachi really needs to do is increase the spiritual pressure in order to pierce his skin unlike other opponents who could enjoy being cut he knows that neutral would not be able to last as soon as kimpachi draws blood from his steel skin moments after this he does indeed cut neutral's forearm drawing blood from it and it is just as mairie described the wolf has smelt the blood of his prey the beast cannot be reasoned with now until he devours that which is in his sight indeed once kimpagi gets used to the toughness of his skin neutral is no longer a match for him even stopping his sorrow with his bare hands this is all before he even takes off his eye patch no matter how many times noitra attacks him he only appears to be stronger after each injury he is willingly fighting with an open stance to give his opponent the illusion that he is slowing down kimpachi kimpachi despite being incredibly powerful still struggles to sustain his crazy fighting style he even says that he will in fact die if he continues to be cut by neutral how was the strongest shinigami struggling with ichigo during the soul society arc and how is he now having difficulty to enjoy the attacks of the fifth strongest spada the answer to this comes from his relationship with unohana we need to analyze his growth and development during the thousand-year blood war arc to truly understand the path that his character was on in order to live up to his name kimpachi makes his debut during the final arc by confronting yuhabak with the bodies of three sten ritters hanging off of his shoulders single-handedly one of the most badass kimpachi moments he shrugs off hashwath who tries to defend his leader but kimpachi cuts to the chase by attacking yuha who blocks his zombucto with his arm in chapter 505 kimpachi is easily beaten off-screen he is saved from being killed by the head captain during the aftermath of the quincy's attack we learned that kimpatchi barely escaped death as he is in a comatose state there is doubt if he will ever regain consciousness and be able to fulfill his duties as a captain once more in chapter 523 we see that kimpachi has thankfully recovered and is being escorted to the lowest level of the great underground prison by unohana she has been ordered by the new head captain shinsui to train kim pachi it is fitting as we learn that she is indeed the first person to have inherited the title of kimpathi the first generation strongest shinigami yachiru unohana the entire video has been building up to this moment this highly anticipated rematch explains how juan kipachi passes down her legacy to her successor we are about to learn why unohana feels guilt when she thinks of kimparchi's progress and his current level of ability why she feels responsible for having held him back the two of them enter muken the infinitely large underground prison where they may freely swing their swords without any hesitation kimpachi's excitement cannot be contained as he is overly talkative like a child presented with a long sought after gift that can only be one kimpachi per generation this is not training as much as it is a do or die situation where only one person will emerge with their life intact as their battle commences kimpachi is clearly being bested and finds himself defending unohana's graceful offensive style she notes how he began the battle without his eye patch but is disappointed by the capacity his power reaches even without it unohana scolds kimpachi like a disappointed teacher as she questions if he is even enjoying their battle considering he is holding back by not using both of his arms he too expresses a similar sentiment of disappointment by commenting on her use of cheap tricks which is unlike the person he thought of and had admired for so long ever since the past he grew feelings of admiration for her after their first fight he even wanted to fight like her he saw himself short after imagining unohana as being stronger than him he felt she was a goal he had to strive to reach when in actual fact his raw talent and innate ability blessed him with the power to surpass her even as a young boy unohana realized this and was able to understand quickly that she was battling the heir to the title of kimpachi the purpose behind unohana training kimpachi is revealed when she affirms that it is not him who will die after this battle is over he will survive the fight and grow stronger from it as we have come to realize each encounter that kimpachi survives he reappears stronger than before like every injury he sustains removes a seal that is holding his untapped potential at bay unohana describes the subconscious seal that kimpachi placed on his own power as a flaw that he put upon himself she also takes responsibility for it by referring to it as the sin that she committed he is being one-sided by unohana continuing to lose consciousness however he is healed repeatedly by unohana he loses count of how many times he was healed but it does not stop him from rushing back to clash blades with her again he is unaware that every time he is being healed he is reborn as a stronger version of himself as each time a seal on his power is being released he is able to respond to her attacks through his reflexes as opposed to reacting to them finally he is returning to his former self in chapter 525 it is explained how kimpachi had been restraining his powers during battle it explains why he just barely lost to ichigo why he had barely defeated nitra it wasn't necessarily because these opponents were strong but rather because he was restraining his powers to their very limit when he first fought unohana he had experienced the pleasure of fighting on the edge an experience far removed from his deadly encounters with weaklings she was the first person that he encountered who was at a caliber that could rival his own he didn't want to kill her because that would mean he would never be able to feel this level of joy ever again he sealed his own power deep within himself just so that he could match her level this disappointed unohana but after each battle that he experiences throughout the series she began to realize that kimpatchi was consciously removing these limits to his power we see this at the end of his battle with ichigo when he decided to learn the name of his zombocto how he utilized his kendo training with neutral and now after being defeated by the quincy's he is willingly training with unohana in the pursuit for more power unohana is indeed the ruthless first kimpachi the first one to be titled the strongest shinigami but she admits that she is not stronger than kimpachi of zaraki the 11th kimpachi who stands before her today she desires to kill him and heal him as many times as it will take so that he may return to who he truly is despite activating her bankai kimpachi is unable to restrain himself after removing the limits to his power he finally defeats unahannah taking her life and acquiring the title of the strongest he proved himself worthy to be the kimpachi of this era he may have lost the one person he had ever felt the most enjoyment battling with but he had to let her go in order to surpass his limits for now there are plenty of distractions to keep him occupied he has powerful opponents the quincy who he needs to fight and he has powerful allies who are as strong as he is to aid him in battle kimpachi can now let go of his attachment to unohana and grow as a character who the soul society can rely upon to protect them at this moment his sword is finally able to speak to him we can hear his zombucto telling him that it has always been beside him in battle watching him and remaining loyal to him it introduces itself as nozorashi the zambakdo he thought had no name finally answers him after all of this time utilizing his newly acquired powers he battles against the stan ritter grammy during the quincy second attack once again he battles an opponent who claims that they cannot be cut by a zombocto grammy has the ability to bring into reality anything that he can imagine he is the self-proclaimed strongest stan ritter it is natural that he would end up fighting the strongest shinigami grammy arrogantly says that he will not need to use any of his fingers to defeat kimpachi he will simply defeat him by using his mind however his tactics have little effect on the new and improved kimpatchi grammy had always felt like the strongest so he never had any desire to defeat anyone because he felt that he had nothing to prove but kimpachi is bringing his bloodlust out of him he now desires to crush kimpachi wanting to prove his claim that he is indeed the strongest cern writter despite using his imagination kimpachi cuts him in chapter 576 proving that there is indeed nothing that he cannot cut grammy delays in realizing that he was cut which leads to him being slower to react to kim party's next move he takes advantage of the stern ritter being preoccupied with thinking about healing himself to land another attack on him himpachi repeatedly attacks him and even funnily asks if he has started to imagine himself losing but his words cause grammy to regain his focus gremie creates a doppelganger of himself and reveals that now the power of his imagination has been doubled kimpachi during this battle literally uses his zambocto nozorashi to release his shikai so that he can destroy a meteorite that grammy summons to destroy the serete this singular moment brings into perspective just how powerful he has become after his training with una hana we see his zombucto during its shikai form and it is a sight far removed from the weathered and beaten blade he had been carrying throughout the series nozorashi's appearance complements kim party's power and attitude his blade is more than just a tool he is fighting alongside it now and he has been rewarded for realizing this grammy does eventually cause damage to kimpachi by imagining him being in a void of space which causes his bodily fluids to evaporate out of his eyes but despite this he takes advantage of grammy for getting to harden himself and cuts his doppelganger in half despite him imagining to be stronger than kimpachi he is unable to transform into such a form his muscles and tendons tear apart as they grow far too quickly for his body to adjust alongside and contain imagining a form required to defeat the monstrous kim party is what ultimately ended grammy's life kimpachi even says that his downfall was to imagine him as a monster he tried becoming a monster like kimpachi which ironically was too much for him to handle after the conclusion of this battle his lieutenant yachiru has disappeared we can assume it is because she has merged with kimbachi zambocto she was always an aspect of his power that was waiting to be awakened the next significant encounter which serves to reveal more information about kimpachi is his final battle in the series with the standard gerard he arrives to assist hitsugaya and biyakia and wastes little time by cutting off gerard's forearm however the stern ritter has an ability called miracle which allows him to turn people's wishes into reality despite this kimpatchi is relentless and battles trying to close the gap between their power in chapter 668 he is overwhelmed and swatted to the ground but he is awoken by yachiru she reappears to encourage him to get up and continue fighting saying that if he uses it properly then there is nobody that he cannot cut this moment does indeed suggest that yachuru has indeed been a zampakdo spirit all along affirming the notion that she fused with a zombocto she suggests that kimpati uses his bankai which is incredibly unexpected after kimpachi finally activates his bankai his skin turns into a red color and the shape of his zombucto changes he appears to have transformed into a monster and he has lost all of his sense of reason he looks like a demon in this form especially with the two horns on his head kimpachi then begins to attack gerard completely cutting off his arm what yachuru said to him earlier appears to be true in his bankai form there is nothing that he cannot cut this is a theme which is constantly brought up throughout most of his battles his opponents arrogantly gloat about having steel skin that cannot be cut only for kimpachi to prove them wrong after cutting gerard in half he activates his quincy hoodie form kimpachi attempts to resume the battle but his right arm suddenly tears apart as we learned that yachuru released too much of his power resulting in his body not being able to handle it this highlights how untapped kimbachi's power is he is caught off guard and attacked by gerard and this reverts him back to his normal form after hitsugayo weakens gerrard we see him parchi persistently assist him by sweeping gerard off of his feet after the war with the quincy ends we see kim pachu pretend to his life as the captain of the 11th division the only difference is that his lieutenant yachuru is no longer beside him after having read through every moment that kimpachi appears within the manga it is difficult to dispute that he is a really well-written character he had several elements to his character which were introduced early on which foreshadowed his end goal of him defeating unohana as well as acquiring the true power of isambakdo his power knows no limits as we learn from his battle with grammy it is thanks to kimpachi's body that he is able to store so much power within it however against gerard he learns that he is prone to overloading on his own power which has painful consequences on his body causing his body to tear apart in a similar way to how grammy's body was torn apart trying to contain such raw limitless power through kimpachi the soul society has a powerful protector who by the end of the series earns the right to be called the strongest shinigami the nameless wanderer ended up calling himself the kimpachi of zaraki he was bored until he fought against the woman who taught him how to enjoy fighting she was the only person he ever admired but he had to kill her in order to realize the true extent of his power his lieutenant who stayed beside him while he carried a nameless zombucto ended up being the spirit to his zombucto she later assisted him to awaken the bloodthirsty demon that lay dormant within through activating his bankai kimpachi is indeed a monster to be feared a character that you either love or hate but one thing is for certain you won't ever forget the way that he sadistically smiles while excitedly feasting upon his prey what do you think about kimpachi zaraki has this video helped you to understand his character better i would love to hear your thoughts on his progression throughout the series and if he left a memorable impression on you too cruel sadistic and even somewhat psychotic these words describe the character that i'm analyzing this week mairi kurosochi is the mad scientist of the gotai 13. his character design is incredibly unique and distinctive as well as his personality being one of a kind he plays the role of a researcher who desires to capture and examine as many specimens as he can because of this desire and the way that his character is he cares very little for the lives of others he is also very apathetic and this is shown through his relationship with nemu who is the closest person to him having spent the most time with him after all she has his own creation he regularly insults her and goes as far as hitting her during the soul society arc despite having this disregard and lack of care for life his dream is to create life mairie's crazy dream is to create a shinigami i will discuss more about this later on in the video but for now let's see how mairie's character changes from his initial introduction in the soul society arc to his invaluable involvement during the thousand year blood war arc let's see how his crazy personality fits into the dynamics of the gortai 13 as well as this i want to go into the relationships that he has especially with characters like urohara namu and even the other captains of the gothai 13. mayuri first appears in chapter 81 and in episode 24 of the anime during his first appearance we see him gathered with the other captains as they question why guinea chumaru is behaving suspiciously they are asking him why he let ichigo and his friends get away gin replies by saying that he assumed that they were dead but mairi who is very specific with details says that captain class shinigami should be able to sense the disappearance of a being in his first lines in the series he questions guinea chimaru's negligence when ginn wonders if mayri is proposing that he let the intruders get away on purpose myri replies that this is exactly what he is thinking through this very early interaction we learn that he isn't afraid to speak his mind as well as this the most striking aspect of his character is his very distinctive appearance through some character data books we learned that mairie covers the entirety of his body with black and white paint he removes all of this makeup before going to bed and every morning he has to spend several hours to reapply all of it credited to kubo's ability to draw incredibly unique and distinctive character designs his appearance changes during every arc most notably the design of the face paint that he applies is always altered and the golden accessories which frame his face are also changed you always know that a new arc has started whenever you see mairie who appears completely different to the last time that you saw him through myrie's character we are introduced to a lot of the corrupt aspects of the soul society during the soul society arc they try to impose what is right and wrong onto rookia but they turn a blind eye to myri's blatant disregard for life and his cruel actions especially towards his subordinates like in chapter 121 we see him blow up one of his own underlings at the beginning of this chapter we learned that this individual had dreams of his own myri had promised him and a group of other shinigami that he would consider promoting them if they were to help assist him in this assignment he wanted them to get as close as possible to the invaders in an attempt to try to bring them back to the squad 12 barracks he lied and he promised his underlings that this wouldn't be a dangerous mission myrie's blatant disregard for life is shown in this chapter when he blows up one of his own men kubo emphasizes the emotionless impact of mayri's actions through this no-name shinigami who works for mayri he had dreams of his own and he designed this promotion so that he could fulfill his own goal but his whole life was tossed aside like it was nothing as soon as mairie presses the self-destruct button mairy has a very limited sense of humanity as he sees people as research subjects instead of living beings we see this in chapter 121 when orihime uses a shield to protect uryu mayuri instantly becomes fascinated with orihime and her abilities he starts to negotiate with orihime whether if she would like to be his research subject the terms that he offers are a restricted deadly drug regime to eight doses and only five hours of biomechanical experiments he thinks that by feeding her through the mouth and giving her clothes while she sleeps are good terms for a research subject he even offers not to modify her body to the extent that it might kill her moments like this give us an insightful look into mairie's character now to further break down his character i want to look at the backstory that we learn about mayuri as well as the various different opponents that he faces off against during the series hopefully through going over all of his appearances we can see the transformation from a sadistic cruel character who you care very little about into someone who is very dependable and helps a soul society during a war in the final arc of the series hopefully by the end of the video you will have an appreciation for myrie's character and why he is one of the most well-written and memorable characters to feature within bleach very little is known about mairie prior to his detainment within maggot's nest 110 years prior to the current events of the series myrie was a prisoner we learned about this during the turn back the pendulum arc he was considered to be a very dangerous individual and it was for this reason that he was confined within a prison cell of his own as well as being confined within a cell he was also chained to the wall his life is turned around when he is approached by urahara who offers him to become the second in command of the newly founded shinigami research and development institute he initially did decline the offer but urohara who knows him well teases him by saying that he has nothing to play with down here within this confined cell he also proposes to him that he would inherit everything that urahara has if something would happen to urohara this obviously explains how mairie went from being imprisoned into the captain of the 12th division and the leader of the shinigami research and development institute after urohara's exile also within the 10 back the pendulum arc we see mairie studying about the left arm and the right arm of the soul king this is excellent for shadowing as he ends up fighting the left hand of the soul king during the thousand year blood war arc but i'll talk more about this later on a flashback in chapter 642 features his creation nemu and it reveals more about mayuri's character and his past during this chapter we learned that mairie had begun developing the nemouri project through this project he modified his unbakdo and once his abilities and his powers were significantly enhanced he was able to succeed urahara as the captain of the 12th division the nimuri project was devised as a way for mayuri to fulfill his dream of creating a shinigami before the creation of the nemu that we see during the series there were six others they had all died due to various different circumstances but when their seventh iteration of nemu outlived the lifespan of all the previous nemus mairie was incredibly pleased nemou is mayuri's successful attempt at creating an artificial soul she is his masterpiece and this is why he changes her surname from nanago to kurosuchi this indicates the pride that he has in his accomplishment it also reveals that he does feel strongly about nemu but rarely if ever shows these emotions to her in chapter 123 we learned that at some point in the past mairie had experimented on a large number of quincy one of them was uryu's grandfather sokan ishida as of making this video this is everything that we can gather about mayuri's past from the manga now i'll be covering some of his most iconic appearances and battles during the soul society arc mairi's aim is to capture the intruders he desires to use them as research subjects in chapter 120 myri encounters uryu and orihime and like i mentioned before he detonates his own men in order to capture orihime and uryu the first person that mayuri battles within the series is uryu and during this encounter he is surprised that uryu doesn't know who he is he judges them for invading the soul society without doing any background research stating that the bare minimum they should have known is the names of all of the captains this reveals that mairie isn't the time to go unprepared to any situation we see this firsthand before he arrives in hueco mundo he studies the iran cars and only challenges them once he has sufficient knowledge about the weaknesses of the ispada and this is also the case during the thousand year budwar arc when he and nemu locked themselves in their study to research about methods to defeat yuhabakuni's invading army as well as coming up with methods to assist the soul society like devising a way to travel from the serete to the saul king's palace through his riatsu amplifier device during his battle with uryu he is perfectly fine with not capturing him as a research subject as he says that he has sufficient knowledge about the quincy despite them being a rare species he resolves to kill uryu during their encounter but he remains very persistent about capturing and researching on orihime in chapter 122 mairie activates his shikai but before uryu can fire one of his arrows at him nemu gets in the way she holds on to him distracting him which allows mayuri to attack both of them from what we've seen of his character it was pretty obvious before that he doesn't care about his subordinates but what he does to nemu here is very sickening he attacks her for letting go of uryu and his logic is that he taught her to never let go even if her arms were ripped off she begs him for forgiveness but mairie just appears to be disappointed in her in chapter 123 mayuri is angered by nemu once more after the attack she's panting and she is in incredible pain she requests for a captain to give her flesh healing medicine it appears that myri's attack has damaged her lungs she is concerned that very quickly she is not going to be able to breathe what happens next is very revealing to the depraved and twisted nature of myrie's character as he begins to stamp on his lieutenant she is in agony and in pain and is worried about her survival these things anger myri because it is like she is insulting his work nemu is his creation because she was created by him he doesn't think that she would be killed this easily even when uryu expresses concern and tells him to stop attacking his own lieutenant he even considers these words as an insult to him these concerns about nemu's safety are interpreted by maori as they're mocking him nemu is his daughter and he declares that he doesn't need anyone telling him how to treat her not too long after this we learn about the ability that mayuri shikai possesses whatever his blade pierces or cuts it becomes instantly immobilized we discover this through uru's arm which is paralyzed he goes on to explain that his zampakdo prevents the nerves involved in movement from functioning properly but the nerves that are associated with experiencing pain are still fully functional here we can see that he enjoys hearing the screams and the suffering of others with an ability like this it is evident that he gains pleasure from seeing others in pain he says that the screams of a man lack the charm that a woman's screams have he expresses his disdain for hearing him scream and he orders nemu to get up and kill him but he soon realizes that she too was paralyzed by a shiikai and he begins to stamp on her body once again after uryu continues to be persistent and tells him to stop attacking nemu he turns his attention over to him because he is apathetic he doesn't understand why uru is showing concern for one of his enemies he wonders if uryu is trying to behave honorable because of his quincy pride he knows about this because of the countless quincy that he experimented upon disturbingly he reveals that this is what the quincy always speak about just before they die he assumes that uryu is on the verge of death so he must be behaving honorably for this reason the turning point of this battle is when mairie tells uryu that he has studied thousands of quincy he describes his experiments in detail as he says that he applied different stimuli to their mind and he observed their bodies reacting to them he speaks about torturing their bodies dissecting them drilling holes into their skulls even mentioning that he made parents burn their own children this rare species was thoroughly studied by mairie as someone who is in charge of the soul society's research and development institute his actions reflect very poorly in the whole society as a whole myrie mentions that every single one of the quincy at one point mentioned that quincy honor he speaks about how their quincy honour would prevent them from carrying out some of myri's experiments he was able to overcome their resistance through stabbing them with his zampakdo and forcing them to partake in his twisted experiments during the time that mairie began his research it is made apparent that there were only a few surviving members of the quincy race one of the last quincy that he experimented upon just so happened to be uru's grandfather he shows udu a picture of what was left of him after his research had concluded we can see the photograph reflected in uru's eyes in chapter 123. the image is a pile of flesh and bone it resembles nothing like the grandfather that he used to know his original form has been butchered by mairie his lack of compassion for sharing these details with another quincy as well as the pride that comes off of his character after he says that he thoroughly knows everything about the quincy knowing the inhumane and barbaric acts that he committed it makes mairie very despisable he is oblivious and he expects odu to sit down and just listen to everything without reacting in anger it causes uryu to swear on his pride as a quincy that he is going to kill mayri at this point in the series their battle becomes very interesting because of its extensive knowledge of quincy's he is able to understand all of the abilities that uryu is utilizing and he has full knowledge of them he is aware that uryu is not to be underestimated because he is using abilities that were thought to be lost arts none of the quinces that he had researched exhibit the power or the techniques that uryu is now performing because of this mayuri has now decided not to kill uryu he is excited by the prospect of conducting experiments on him in addition to orohime in order to gain the power to defeat mayuri uryu removes a sanri glove this glove is a powerful quincy tool but once it is removed it momentarily gives the user immense power but this comes at a cost the anger that he feels after learning about myri's experiments has pushed him to make a decision he would kill mayuri even if it meant that he would lose all of his quincy powers in this new form the arrows that he is firing at mayri are too fast for him to dodge in a very satisfactory beatdown mayuri is critically injured after he is attacked by an arrow from above the attack was so powerful that it completely destroys myrie's left arm and injures the left side of his body he is immediately enraged and it is probably because he has been severely wounded by an opponent that he underestimated he made the mistake of gloating about experimenting on quincy feeling proud of his barbaric acts are then showing nora moss by admitting that he is going to continue his research by capturing uryu and orihime angered that his opponent has proven to be stronger than expected he activates his bankai and gets very serious his bankai called konjiki sprays a lethal poison which is made from mairie's blood and it surrounds a 100 mile radius everybody around him is affected by this poison excluding himself mairie aims to take out uryu with his fatal poison while uryu aims to fire an arrow admiring before he's able to release it the two of them attack each other simultaneously the battle concludes after uryu's attack leaves a gaping hole in mayuri's abdomen and it splits his bangkai in two mairi is utterly defeated and its only way of escape is to liquefy himself he returns to his department in order to recover before leaving he admits that uru proved to be more troublesome than he had expected but in the end he will die because mairie's poison is already running through his body and mairie will survive after he has recovered after this battle he is in a liquefied state for a few days in chapter 172 we see mairi again this is immediately after he hears an announcement of eisen's betrayal it would appear that he has recovered after his battle with uryu and this is the first and only time in the series that we see his face without any makeup he is asked by nemu if he wants to get involved and help the other captains battle against eisen but he says that he has no interest in getting involved this brief moment which occurs in the anime and the manga is easily overlooked until i started to break down bleach and really analyze the series and pay more attention to the subtleties within it i had no idea how myrie's face looked like without all of that makeup on it i just assumed that he had modified his body and he became a robotic being but seeing this manga panel in chapter 172 of his face without any makeup on proves the lengths that he will go to in order to maintain this appearance that he has and his passion for research and experimentation as he has even modified his own body mairie isn't really involved in the story again until the huecomundo arc where he faces off against the mad scientist of the espada zai laporo in chapter 298 he arrives to assist ranji and uryu when he sees mayuri again uryu is confused but mairi refers to the quincy as an inferior creature he turns his attention over to the espada he makes his intentions clearly known as he says that he has come to huecomundo to collect research specimens he wants to know the espada's name so that he can correctly label his specimen jar after he has defeated him the battle between the two of them despite being very brief and short-lived is an appropriate match-up it is one mad scientist battling against the other the battle between the two of them commences in chapter 303 xylophora is already using his resurrection and through it he uses a voodoo ability where he creates a doll of myrie initially it appears that the espada has the advantage as mayri is coughing up blood and is injured by his voodoo doll ability he stops pretending to be hurt and reveals that the xylophora's abilities have no effect on him through the voodoo doll he breaks his organs and his tendons he destroys his body but he's confused as to why mairie won't die but like i mentioned before mairi is the type of character to take precautions before entering into battle during his battle with uryu he implanted a surveillance bacterium within his body and it was because of this he was able to watch uryu and renji battle against the espada prior to arriving onto the battlefield he took the precaution to replace all of his tendons and his organs with dummies after the espada takes his lieutenant nemu captive he wastes little time by activating his bankai and attacking the spada he is devoured by mayuri's bankai but he ends up recreating himself inside nemu's body and this is thanks to xylophoto's resurrection he speaks about the concepts of immortality and perfection likening his rebirth to the rebirth of a immortal phoenix despite his bankai having consumed him he found a way to continue his life through implanting himself within his enemy he was reborn zylopodo describes his existence as an endless cycle of death and rebirth because of this he considers himself to be the perfect life-form so it appears that mairie is up against an opponent who cannot be killed and it is for this reason that he declares that it is impossible for mairie to kill him after this monologue ends myrie doesn't appear to be threatened in the slightest he just reacts by saying that it is very interesting he is intrigued by the esparda's abilities and he wonders if this is the extent of his powers he wonders what other abilities that zyodopodo has that he is hiding from him he demands that he shows him all of his hidden powers even though his lieutenant nemu lays that lifeless he's not concerned about her all of the energy has left her body after it was drained by the espada to rebirth himself instead mairie is more intrigued and focused on his opponent's powers because mairie's bankai is a living being after it consumed the ispada's body he was able to control his bankai through its nervous system but mairie who once again proves to be the most prepared captain within the gotai 13 says that he foresaw an event like this occurring he already had countermeasures set in place in case of his bangkai being manipulated by the enemy mayri reveals that he modified his bankai to self-destruct in the event that anyone tried to control it after feeling sufficiently content that the espada has revealed all of the tricks that he has up his sleeve he decides to wrap up their battle the method that he uses to kill xylopotto is incredibly unique the technique that mayri uses is one of my favorite conclusions to a battle within bleach he decides to use the ispada as a test subject for one of his new drugs he reveals that this new drug is already in the ispada's body zylopodo had come into contact with this drug when he was inside nemu's body her body had been planted with a number of drugs ironically he says that this drug that has been implanted within his body will make him a superhuman as we know mayuri isn't the type to enhance others abilities so we can only assume that he is going to inflict an incredible amount of pain onto his opponent this indeed appears to be the case as myrie explains that in certain life or death situations people's senses are heightened to the highest degree and it is because of this that time sometimes appears to slow down for them he uses an example of senses being heightened to the highest degree through describing a battle between two master swordsmen and how their battle appears to be in slow motion due to their sharpened senses myri says that he developed a drug which induces a similar effect when the drug starts to take effect his senses are elevated and because of this everything around him starts to slow down he ironically describes him as a superhuman he says that normal movements are far too slow for his perception because of his senses being heightened his sense of perception has been slowed down to such an extent that a moving bullet would appear to be frozen in air to him there is no point in underestimating myory and the extent of his sadistic behavior as he says that he can amplify this slow motion effect a trillion times he explains how he used an undiluted dose on the espada myori explains that the dose that he used will cause xyloporo to perceive one second as 100 years this is maddening and one of the most unique methods utilized to defeat an opponent mayuri pierces his hand with his zombuc doe and thrusts his blade into his heart he describes that his senses have been heightened to such a degree that his body has been left behind the feeling of mayory zombucto entering into his heart will be felt for an entire century the intense pain that he will experience for over a hundred years will turn his bodily fluids into dust in chapter 306 we see the espada wrinkled and aged as his senses have perceived multiple decades of time having passed he is begging for my resort to finally pierce through his chest and enter into his heart the excruciating feeling of being trapped in one moment and anticipating your death causes xylopodo to lose his mind he begs for the sword to quickly enter into his heart and to end his existence myri comments on the esparda's earlier claim when he described himself as a perfect life-form he says that nothing in this world is perfect and it is for this reason that people yearn for perfection but mayuri questions whether it's perfection really is desirable he reveals that he hates this concept of perfection because perfection is a dead end because once you have made something perfect there is no room for innovation or improvement he feels that there is nothing that you can gain after attaining perfection the philosophy that mayri adopts and what he considers to be a true scientist leads him to liken the concept of perfection to despair he explains his beliefs about perfection to the espada before thrusting his zambocto into his heart finally killing the espada mairie states that the moment that zylopodo mentioned perfection that was the moment that his fate was sealed he had already lost to him like he mentioned before after attaining perfection it prevents you from innovating and improving myri proves himself to be the better scientist through always being one step ahead of his opponent throughout this entire battle through constantly innovating and improving he was able to defeat the espada in a unpredictable manner if xyloporo didn't consider himself to be perfect then he may have been able to keep up with mairy but because of his self-confidence and his belief that he was a perfect life form he was bested by the shinigami and proved that he was indeed the inferior scientist like i mentioned before i love the battle between the two of them and i think that the conclusion is incredibly unique and one of my favorite ends to any battle it is a very cruel and merciless death that xylopath experiences despite all of the wrong that the ispada did in his life it is difficult to say whether if he deserved being a part of myri's drug trial in the end as much as i love this battle i do feel like it was short-lived it is always a pleasure to see myrie on screen but i feel like his battle with xylopolo was cut short because the spider had already spent plenty of time battling against uru and renji so by the time that mairi had involved himself into the battle it was time to wrap things up i just wish that there was more interaction between the two of them as it was really interesting to see two very similar characters pitted against each other the differing ideologies and philosophies and how their differing beliefs caused them to approach their research in their experiments in very differing manners is because of these differences and in particular their beliefs about perfection which ultimately lead to myri defeating the espada after this battle he heals nemu and together with her he goes to xylopod's lab where he retrieves a pair of bodies which foreshadows his usage of these bodies in the thousand-year blood war arc after this he doesn't really appear much in the fake karakura town arc but he does help ichigo by facilitating him with a method to return back to karakura town in chapter 380 ichigo complains that urohara isn't here so there isn't a way for him to return back to karakura town but then mairi appears after scavenging the entirety of huecon mundo for different reset specimens he reveals as hatred or even jealousy for urohara by scoring ichigo for assuming that only urohara can help him in this predicament when unohana decides to accompany ichigo back to karakora town she tells mayri that if his method to return them does not work then urahara will not stop laughing at him despite urara having freedom from his prison you can tell that being compared to him angers mairie even ichigo teases him about this point by calling him the second director of the soul society's research and development institute he compares mayuri to urohara and he says that both of them are kind of similar ichigo's teasing of course angers mayri he even says that when this battle is over he wants to trap him inside the garganta forcing him to experience the depths of true terror mairie doesn't really get himself involved in any more of the fighting when biakya questions why he didn't go to the world of the living myri tells him that he is far too interested in the specimens that he has found in huikamundo he says that once the battle with eisen is one then he will take his time by going to the world of the living and examining all of the corpses he finds there very interestingly biakia pulls up mairie on a assumption that he makes he is assuming that by ichigo going to the word of the living that this battle is going to be resolved biakir bluntly tells him that it sounds like he has belief in ichigo that he will be victorious and he will defeat eisen myrie simply responds to him by telling him that it appears that biakya feels the same way too after the defeat and capture of eisen it is revealed that mairi is spending his time researching within hueco mundo and he doesn't really involve himself into the story again until the thousand-year blood war arc he plays a very pivotal role during this arc without mayuri's help and his assistance the sole society would have been severely disadvantaged against the quincy in chapter 480 right at the beginning of the thousand year budwar arc it is myri who hints that it is the quincy who are behind the large numbers of hollows that are disappearing in chapter 488 mairie along with his lieutenant convey the details of their research to the rest of the captains he tells them the identity of the army who is planning on invading the soul society revealing that this army is made up of quincy's in chapter 489 a very interesting conversation occurs between mairie and the head captain he tells the head captain that he killed 28 000 citizens of rukongai he did this in order to maintain the balance of the souls in the world of the living and within the soul society this was of course because of the quincy who had killed a large number of hollows which disrupted the equilibrium of souls between the soul society and the world of the living he had done this without getting any authorization myria's reason for doing this without getting permission was that it would have taken far too long he was aware that because of the severity of the situation permission would have been granted to him he went ahead and killed these residents of rukongai and was willing to accept responsibility for his actions later but the head captain responds by telling him that this whole situation could have been avoided if only the research and development department had reported about the quincy's much sooner but mairie here questions the head captain directly and he tells him that that simply just isn't true mairie says that he foresaw the impending threat of the quincy's when he first lay eyes upon uryu during the soul society arc he had warned the head captain that it was inevitable that the quincy's would have returned but this information was disregarded the head captain had considered this information to be absurd the head captain had assumed that all of the quincy had been wiped out and they were no longer a threat to the soul society myri sets the captain straight here as he pushes the blame off of his research and development department and instead lays the blame onto the head captain himself he says that he is the main reason as to why the quincy have returned now it was because the head captain did not kill that man from a thousand years ago that man who mairie is referring to is of course yohabak during the first quincy invasion mairie is spending his time analyzing the enemy but he is angered by the other captains who didn't wait for him to finish his research and thus went on to activate their bankai and have them stolen from them in chapter 516 after the quincy's first invasion he is seen to be examining ichigo zambakdo which has been split in two he explains to ichigo that a bankai that has been destroyed can never return to what it once was in chapter 539 we learned that myrie and nemu are in the research and development department and have locked themselves into a room it appears that he hasn't left this room not even once he disabled all of the surveillance cameras within the room because he was conducting an experiment that he didn't want anyone to see his lieutenant akon who luckily had a bug implanted into the room spies on his captain and learns that mairie is reviving in a run car it is here that we see the fruits of mairie's research and a specimen collection within huecomundo coming into fruition in chapter 547 mairie and namu finally emerge they confront the stanwarta askin who has infiltrated the research and development department he explains how the quincy had created another world within the shadows and it is for this reason that he modified his lab to not have any shadows as well as this his clothing is also now free of shadows myrie's preparations caused asking to retreat as it would be too troublesome for him to battle with mayri here in chapter 551 he is contacted by urahara who tells mayuri that he has found a way to recover the stolen bankai urohara arrives in mairi's lab detailing a weakness that he has found with the quincy's which will enable the bangkai to be returned but he needs myri's help it appears that the two of them are now working together for the first time since they turned back the pendulum arc urahara is proposing a method to qualify bankai we learned that urohara came up with his method after he studied why the quincy went stealing the resurrection of the iran cars he was able to deduce that stealing the resurrections would be disadvantageous to the quincy's myri answered urahara's findings by saying that the quincy have a fundamental fear of that which endangers their life that which they fear is hollows through qualifying a bunkhead the bankai will become poisonous to the quinces in chapter 589 maori returns to the battlefield and faces off against the sten rita giselle he appears to be interested in her ability to turn her opponents into zombies when the standard has summoned zombified shinigami to attack mayri he says that he himself cannot battle with them because he is a captain of the gotai 13 and he is familiar with them he sarcastically says that he has too much love within him to fight against people that he knows continuing with this sarcasm he says that he is left with no other choice but to ask the irankas that he has revived to battle against the zombified chinegami he is impressed by how they've turned out and he says that it was worth taking them from xylipodo's lab when gisele summons a zombified hitsugaia to battle against mayuri he is left with no choice but to subdue him because he doesn't want to hit zagaya to take out all of his test subjects funnily enough he doesn't like cruel things happening to his test subjects without his consent he doesn't want this zombified hitsugaya to beat them up or make them experience pain because he would rather be the one who is inflicting the pain onto them mairie ends up deciding that for the sake of the serietae he is going to try out many different drugs onto hitsagaya he immobilizes hitsugaya and the other shinigami who had been zombified he then defeats the steinway to giselle thanks to the help of kensei and rose myrie reveals that he is able to take control over zombies he orders the two zombified captains to stab her through the heart he ends up reviving the captains who have been zombified but at the cost of shortening their lifespan he does this as he deems their survival necessary for the sake of the soul society the final opponent that mairie faces off against in this series is the stan ritter pranaida who ends up being the soul king's left hand mairy immediately learns through pronider's encounter with kimpatchi that the sten ritter slips its own nerves into its opponent's body thus allowing it to control their movements he counters the sternwater by exposing its nerves to an acid this is another very interesting battle as mari has countless drugs that he can use for the nervous system some characters are more suited to battle against certain opponents like when kim pachi battled against pernider moments ago you can tell that their pairing wasn't suited and if mairi didn't paralyze kimpachi then he would have continued to battle until this stonewriter would have controlled every limb in his body and crushed him this is not the type of enemy that you can blindly run into battle with mayri is the excellent matchup not only because of his intellect but he isn't the type to rush into battle without thinking things through he purposely let kimpachi attack the enemy so that he could learn more about the stan rooter's abilities after gaining sufficient information he paralyzed kimpachi he tells the stan rita that he must honor the sacrifice of kimpachi he sarcastically remarks that the stonewriter should just give up and hand himself over as an experimental subject when pronida comes out of the cloak that it was hiding behind myri immediately recognizes it as the soul king's left arm he is incredibly curious as to how his opponent is functioning and this definitely appears to motivate maori to battle against the stonewriter the sensation that he is feeling during this battle is of joy because he has discovered a brand new research subject which he knows nothing about and on top of this his opponent continues to exceed its expectations which must fuel his desire to want to study and research the corpse of his opponent the stern router manages to use its nerves to infiltrate myri's arm this causes his arm to explode but mairy quickly stitches it back together in order to prevent the sten ritter from controlling his body through the nervous system he reconfigured the arrangement of his nerves as well as his blood vessels and muscles he is not going to allow his opponent to easily take over his body pranada makes two copies of itself as mayri remembers studying about the soul king's left arm and right arm he recalls that the soul king's right arm controls stillness and the left arm is in control of advancement myri activates his bankai and we learn that he doesn't intend to kill his opponent by using poison but instead he has modified his own bankai his altered bankai is giving birth to a new ashisogi jizo this new version has all of the information that mairie has gathered during his battle with the stern ritter hernandez tries to take control over his bankai but mairi explains that he brought the nerves of his bankai up to their surface and he divided them up into 70 000 layers so every time that pronada tries to take control of his bankai then a leia will simply peel back and it will be ineffective ashisogi jizo tries to devour pranayada and its clones but they burst out of his bankai as the battle continues it appears that pranaya's vocabulary is improving initially he wasn't able to even speak but gradually as the battle has progressed it appears that the stenota has been evolving when the standard begins to fire arrows admiring with nerves attached to them he ends up being saved by nemu he is angered because she is making decisions for herself and she is exhibiting behaviors that weren't taught to her mairie appears to be angered at the thought of losing nemu in his own strange unique way of showing emotion he says that it is going to be incredibly difficult to raise another version of nemu if anything were to happen to her mairie learns that pronida evolves by obtaining information from everything that his nerves are connected to this is what is causing him to speak like himpachi nemu increases the power of a body but at the cost of also increasing the decomposition rate of her body she does so in order to attack pronida she is successful in her attempt as she bursts through the stoneworker blowing it into pieces myrie states that he didn't order nemu to sacrifice herself and do these actions their purpose for her creation was to witness her growth but nemu says that she believes that she can show mayuri her growth by protecting him during this battle mayri is embarrassed several times particularly at the way that he restitched his arm together he says that he was rusty and now he feels humiliation by letting his lieutenant nemu battle in his place he watches his creation in a final moments battle against the steinritter in chapter 643 namu's body is torn apart by peronidus clone right in front of mairie's eyes after nemu's death something fascinating happens mairie begins to see a vision of zeider potter who questions if he is feeling despair he reminds mairie of his words about perfection how he described that perfection was meaningless to a scientist likening perfection to despair he reminds maori about how much he disliked this concept of perfection this vision of xylophoto begins mocking mairie as he states that nemu died because she wasn't perfect and for this very reason there is room for improvement if he was to create another nemu then he could improve it by eliminating all of the aspects which led to this nemou's death this mental image of zai lopotto deduces that mayri thought of nemu as being perfect he mocks mairie for believing that he had created something that was perfect he ridicules him for contradicting his own beliefs about perfection he tells mairie that he should be thanking the stenoritter for shattering mairie's arrogance and how he had allowed himself to become so negligent this vision of xylophoto then begins to instill more despair into mayri stating how he is at the end of his rope he has tried everything but now he is left alone and helpless on top of this his creation nemu that he started to believe was perfect has now been destroyed mairie doesn't give in to despair as he gets rid of this vision of xylophoto he is disappointed in himself that he is reminded of his negligence by someone that he doesn't even consider to be a true scientist ignoring the vision of the espada he instead chooses to smile in the face of pernider he then welcomes the and his clone to consume the remains of nemu he ends up killing pronida's clone after he had replaced nemu's regenerative cells with cells that multiply at incredible speeds he had increased the replication of these cells which causes pronida's clone to grow excessively it grows to the point that it explodes myri walks away from the battle victorious as he holds nemu's brain in his hand he eventually ends up collapsing due to exhaustion at the end of this battle mayri is taken with kompachi to be healed when he arrives to be healed it appears that hitsugaya and rangiku have fully recovered before leaving hitsugaya thanks mairie for helping him after ikaku and yumichika placed mairie into a recovery pod they also thank him for saving kimpachi it is strange to see maori being thanked considering how little he cares for others he even remarks that it feels unpleasant for him to be thanked so much but he doesn't care about that because while he is recovering he's thinking about the evolution that nemu had undergone he begins to think about how he created a soul from nothing that was able to evolve on its own and for this reason he states that he has surpassed urahara it appears that urohara has left a significant impression on mayuri this helps to explain a lot of his actions and his relationship towards nemu she ended up being the creation that allowed him to surpass urahara we then see maori after the 10-year time skip at the end of the series he is accompanied by someone that we have never seen before this appears to be his new assistant called nimuri hachigo she is revealed to be the eighth iteration of nemu she appears to be a child but the difference is she is very outspoken mairie tells her off of being so outspoken and he doesn't know how she's gotten this way but it appears that this eighth iteration of nemu has even more room for evolving and improving unlike the previous version of nemu this version appears to have a personality of its own a fascinating point about mairie's character is xylopolo's reappearance it appears that the speech that mairie had given to him during the huecomundo arc was setting him up to witness nemou's death it was like kubo has set the speech up for xylopolo to reappear later in the series and to throw these words back at mairie's face and questioned his feelings of perfection that he felt towards nemu he reminds mairie of what it means to be a true scientist and reaffirms his feelings of dissatisfaction towards the concept of perfection another aspect which makes maori's character fascinating is the way that he conducts himself within battles he is very sarcastic and witty with his opponents and he doesn't shy away from making fun of himself i would even liken some of his behavior to that of a troll his humorous banter is complemented by the tactics that he utilizes within battle it is always enjoyable to see the creative ways that mairie utilizes his knowledge and his scientific expertise to take down his opponents in addition to all of these likable aspects of his character there is a lot to dislike there is no doubt that his character has committed unspeakable acts what if it was the dissection of numerous quincies including uru's grandfather or even his sickening treatment of nemu his own daughter the thing about mairie's character is his sadistic actions are backed up by this belief that whatever he is doing it is for the sake of the cerete but you have to ask yourself in this case do the ends really justify the means and if they do you really have to question how messed up the soul society really is there is no doubt that myrie's research and his assistance was vital in helping the soul society to battle against the quincy but despite all of this how much of these sickening and messed up things that he does are the sole society truly aware of and how much of it do they turn a blind eye to during the soul society arc the cruelty of his character was focused upon heavily but as the series progresses he becomes more and more likeable and a shift does occur when mayri isn't considered to be an enemy he is a very reliable ally and i've mentioned this several times without his help the soul society would have truly been in trouble during the thousand-year blood war arc his crazy personality and the intelligence that he uses to take down his opponents helps to change our opinion of his character there is a reason why taita kubo considers mairie to be one of his most favorite characters i mean kubo likes this character to such an extent that he posted pictures up on his own twitter of him dressing up as mairie in the end the way that mairi assists the soul society during the huecomundo arc and the thousand-year-old arc helped to redeem his character at least in my eyes alongside with helping the soul society he does still continue his twisted research and his experiments but at least now he is conducting his research and his experiments on characters who really you couldn't care less for like the iran cars that he had collected during the huecomundo arc i feel like ever since ichigo and the others infiltrated the soul society mairie's character was also impacted i do believe that a slight softening of his character has occurred because by the end of the series he is willing to help out the shinigami an example of this is when he actively decides to de-zombify hitsugai and the others i feel like in the past he would have been more selfish and not help them if it didn't benefit him in some way clearly there is a lot to discuss about mairie's character and i didn't expect this video to be 40 minutes long but i do want to continue the discussion in the comments after watching this video what are your thoughts about mairie before watching this video did you not really care about his character or did you already think very highly of him i would love to hear your thoughts about specific elements of myrie's character in particular i want to hear more thoughts on his philosophy of perfection so if you've enjoyed this video and want to contribute to the discussion then let me know by leaving a comment under the video this week i'm analyzing the character of ukitake yushiro alongside shinsui yamamoto and una hana he is one of the oldest captains of the gotei 13. throughout the story of bleach ugitaki was hyped as one of the most strongest shinigami an individual who we had longed to see take part in a battle but unfortunately the way that the story punned out ukitaki's character was negatively affected by a lot of the events that occur in the story in this video i'm going to talk about a lot of the wasted potential that i see for his character in order to do this i need to cover the backstory that we learned about ukitake then following a brief explanation of his past i want to go over all of the events that occur within the story that surround his character i want to thoroughly go through the way that kubo has written ukitaki's character and examine the relationships that he forms within the gotei 13. so if you're of the predisposition to believe that i only praise bleach then this video is going to be proving you wrong i personally thought that ukitaki's character had a lot of potential but i just feel that it wasn't utilized properly so let's begin my analysis so that i can explain my reasoning behind my stance ukitake first appears in chapter 23 of the manga during ichigo's battle with grand fisher while rukia remembers words from her captain preventing her from going to assist cain in order to protect his honor and these events take place in episode 9 of the anime but his formal appearance where we get to see his character occurs in chapter 116 where he is introduced as the captain of the 13th division he is told about the supposed death of eisen and is determined to investigate what is going on later during this arc he arrives to prevent bayakia from killing gandushiba from the exchange between the two captains we can see that ukitake is more easygoing as he tells biyakia has any inflicted enough damage upon ganju you can see the contrast between the two captains as bayakiya remains very stern and serious it is here that we learned that ukitake is the captain of rukia kuchki so we can see that even he has personally invested in the execution of rukia he questions why bjakia has drawn his zampato here as it is forbidden but yakira tells him that they are currently under a wartime exemption where ukitake questions biakia's excessive measures whether if it is necessary for a captain to draw his unbakdo against a weak intruder ugitake is a very kind and forgiving man like hawaii described una hana as the maternal figure of the soul society i feel that ukitake is the paternal figure as he cares a lot about his subordinates and he gives respect to even his underlings and it is his attitude which makes it so easy for other shinigami who are lower ranked than him to come to him to seek his advice at the start of the series his personality is very similar to sasuke eisen as they are both very kind and gentle he is so kind to the extent that you may feel that he is harboring ulterior motives and this is thanks to eisen who is instilled within his trust issues after seeing how kind he was to momo the most notable features of ukitake's appearance are his green eyes and his long white hair you can see that his hair wasn't always white because of his black eyebrows and it is strange for him to have white hair which is commonly associated with old age considering he isn't that old relative to the life spans within the soul society there is a reason why ukitake has white hair and i'll go over this when i talk about his past i have briefly spoken about ukitaki's personality but among the captains of the soul society he is one of the most well respected he has a strong sense of morals and will not let any harm come to his underlings and he follows through with this even if it means breaking the rules of the soul society which he demonstrates firsthand by opposing the execution of rukia and along with shuntsui he orchestrates a plan to destroy the senkaimon in addition to this ugitake is a very good judge of character and we see this through his assessment of ichigo and his friends as he doesn't deem them to be a threat to the soul society and he is able to distinguish the difference between ichigo and genjiokugo the previous substitute shinigami and i'll talk more about this when i speak about the forbring arc and ukitaki's involvement within the story of that ark ukitake also cares a lot about the well-being of his underlings and we see this when rukia is training with orihime in chapter 231 he was perceptive to the fact that rukia had been feeling very lonely but ever since she had began a training with orihime he notices that rukia is no longer feeling this way now one thing most people know about ukitake's character is that he is always ill or party during the entirety of the series there is a very important reason for this we find out about the chronic illness that ukitake was born with during a flashback within the thousand-year blood war arc so let's now begin breaking down and examining his character by starting off with his backstory which is revealed to us in chapter 616 but before i speak about this chapter i want to talk about something that is mentioned about ukitake in the bleach character data book called souls this book was first published in 2005. this is important because we learn important information about ukitaki's character and it reveals that these elements had been planned from the very beginning the character data book states that ukitaki's hair had turned white because of the lung disease that he had contracted when he was a young boy and it is because of his lung disease that he frequently misses captain's meetings because he is typically receiving medical treatment for his condition chapter 616 is titled mimi hagi during this chapter we see a flashback where we see people praying to a shrine calling upon a god called mimi hagi to save their child it is revealed that this child is the three-year-old ukitake at this very young age she had been suffering from symptoms from a serious condition called consumption the hair of a patient turning white is a side effect of this condition his medical condition was so serious that he was supposed to have died when he was three years old mimi hagi was apparently a god that was worshipped on the outskirts of rukangai ukitake tells the others that divine protection is given to those who offer everything to mimi hagi the true identity of mimi hagi is that it is the right arm of the soul king it had fallen from the heavens a long time ago ukitake states that in the past his parents were very superstitious and after the doctors had given up on ukitake they had gone to mumihagi's shrine they prayed to the god to offer up ukitake's lungs so that in exchange ukitake's life could be saved and it is thanks to that prayer that ukitake became well enough to even become a sore reaper and a captain so this explains why ukitake was always coughing up blood or generally sick throughout the entirety of the series mimi hagi had taken over his lungs we get to learn more about the bond between mimi hagi and ukitake during the thousand year blood war arc so in exchange for saving his life ukitake had acquired a whole new illness and this is why he was often bedridden or coughing up blood and even receiving medical care which would disrupt his duties as a captain in chapter 155 while ukitake and chunswee are facing off against the head captain we learned that they were one of the first graduates of the shinigami academy set up by head captain yamamoto they were also among the first people to become captains after graduating during this time head captain yamamoto had taught ukitake personally the head captain described ukitake while he was young as being frail but he was generous and well respected by others this led to him being the center of attention and when it comes to battle both shunswe and ukitake are described as being transcendent and nobody could match either of them ukitaki didn't take his new lease on life for granted he was ambitious and he trained endlessly and it is through his dedication that he had became a captain the head captain even considers ukitake to be one of his own sons through the way that he had nurtured his talent during the ten back the pendulum arc we see ukitake at the sheba residence as he's speaking to cain at the time i'm sure khain was a seated officer and he had been requesting for him to become his lieutenant for a very long time but kain refuses to be his lieutenant because he believes that there are others who deserve the promotion more than him before rukia had to become the lieutenant of the 13th division their position had been filled by kain shiba due to ukitake's illness preventing him from fulfilling his duties as a captain kaine had fulfilled ukitaki's duties under his guidance the bond between ukitake and hanshiba is explained between chapters 134-136 which revealed the circumstances that unfolded which eventually led to the death of kaion ukitake is present when kain learns that his wife who is also the third seated officer of ugitaki's division had been killed her entire unit was killed by a hollow when kaine rushes off to get revenge ukitake stops him and tells him to calm down because they don't know anything about the enemy but cain doesn't want to wait on the combat unit to take out the hollow okitaki reveals that they do know some information about the hollow that the hollow doesn't migrate to other areas as it has set up his nest in a particular location and it hunts for prey from this location and ukitake also knows the location of the hollow so together along with rukia they go to the nest of the hollow cayenne requests to ukitake that he wants to go alone and fight this makes ukitake question to himself why didn't he try to stop him despite looking concerned he agrees to his request kaine appears to have the upper hand until he touches the hollow's tentacle this activates the ability of the hollow which destroys kai and zombokto without the use of his zampakto he battles using his bare hands when it appears that the hollow has the upper hand rukia tries to intervene but ukitake stops her she pleads with the captain that she has to go to save him but the whitehead captain drops one of his most iconic speeches as he tells rukia even if khain is saved what will become of his pride if rukia were to go to save him she would only end up killing his pride and this is where ukitake tells rukia that there are two types of battles that shinigami engage in the first is a battle to protect life and the second the one that kain is engaging in is a battle to defend honor kain is fighting for the fallen chinegami that the hollow had killed and most importantly he is fighting for the honor of his wife that was killed by the hollow for the sake of his own honour and what he holds dear to himself he is fighting against this hollow this is more than just foolish pride despite ukitake feeling exactly the same way as rukia he is restraining himself also as he is allowing kain to fight this battle alone ukitake completely understood why kaina requested to fight the hollow on his own when they arrived at its nest as you know eventually the hollow does possess cayenne when the possessed cain tries to attack rukia okitaki defends her ukitake is trying to buy some time to think above a way to drag the hollow out of kind's body the holo tells okitake unlike a human possession a spiritual entity possessing a spirit causes a fusion of the two which means that the hollow can never be separated from cain's soul he tries to taunt ukitake by saying that he's going to spend the entire night eating kind soul from the inside the experience and maturity of ukitake results in him making a very difficult decision azir decides if their hollow cannot be separated from kind's body then he will kill both of them he decides he would rather kill cayenne than let the hollow have his body while he is fighting ukitaki's illness overwhelms him and this allows the hollow to strike ugitake he tells rukia that she has to kill him telling her that the person that she is facing off against is not kind anymore ukitake watches as kind regains control of his body and impales himself onto rukia zambakdo the compassionate and caring captain watches both rukia and kaion as kain shares his final words with her kain thanks ukitake for allowing him to fight the hollow ukitake is speechless as he witnesses his lieutenant's dying breath this moment that occurs in the past impacts rukia heavily and it is ugitake's words that rukia remembers when ichigo is fighting against the grand fisher early on in the series when you think about it ukitake is a very pivotal character as he is the captain of rukia the one who is responsible for her actions this is what leads to him not being able to stand aside and allow the execution of rukia he is among one of the captains who actually questions what is going on and we even see him question biakya in the soul society arc when he tries to disassociate himself from rukia and shows little to no care about her well-being when ukitake tells biakya that the date of her execution is being moved up he tells bayakiya in chapter 134 and he's surprised to see that biakiya is completely fine with this decision and he tells ukitake to not bother him with such petty matters because of how much he cares for rukia and he is able to put himself in her shoes he calls biakya heartless for his lack of compassion he questions if rukia's execution even means anything to him he tries to convey to bjakir the severity of the situation as he says by tomorrow noon his sister will be killed but through overly exerting himself out of passion his illness once again overwhelms him which results in biakia advising him to look after his own health and not worry about somebody else's even while ukitake is in pain and he is clutching onto his chest he tells bjakia that once you allow one of your own to die then two or three or even more will make no difference he has contempt for the way that biakya is behaving and it is at this moment where ukitake wonders what would kain do if he was in his position and he realizes that cain would have chosen the path of greatest peril and i am sure that it is this train of thought that leads him to oppose the soul society and had captain yamamoto in order to protect his lieutenant in chapter 149 we see the extent of the actions that ukitake is willing to undertake in order to save rukia since the central 46 had ignored him he was left with only one choice we learned that ukitake is in possession of the shihoen clan's shield we learned that he has unsealed it in order to use it as a weapon to destroy the sokkyoku in chapter 151 he arrives at the execution site shortly after ichigo does together with the help of sunsweet the two captains destroy the seokyoku in chapter 153 they face the consequences of their actions as head captain yamamoto confronts the two of them he describes ukitake and shinsui as captains who have dishonored their position shan sui knows that fighting head captain yamamoto is futile so he tries to run away from him as expected the head captain catches up to the two of them he tells ukitake and shuntsui that it is a pity that they have gone against the soul society as the head captain is left with no choice but to eliminate them ukitake tries to reason with the head captain but he tells him that there is nothing left to discuss the only option that is left for both ukitake and chonsui is to draw their zambok dough the head captain is disappointed that the two of them have not released their zambak dough they tried to reason with the head captain but he reminds them that he raised them in order to not disrupt the peace but they replied that it was the head captain who had told them to fight for justice ukitake even mentions that it was the head captain who had urged them to get stronger for the sake of justice much to the frustration of ukitake the head captain is stuck in his stubborn old ways as he states that a personal justice does not supersede the justice of the soul society as a whole this response angers ukitake as you can tell that he isn't the type to just blindly follow the rules what is another interesting point is you can see the contrasting dynamic between shunswe and okitake's character shinsui is still visibly calm and laid back while he is engaging in conversation with the head captain while ukitake is visibly frustrated he is straining himself in order to get his point across you can see this through how he is raising his voice in opposition against the head captain but one thing is for certain when the head captain releases his zampakto both shinsu and ukitake react with shock okitake wonders to himself how long has it been since he had seen the head captain in this battle stance they are left with no choice but to release their own zompakto against the head captain ugitake is the first to release his zambocto as we see his shikai in chapter 156 we learn that there are two elements to his zombucto as he states waves become my shield lightning become my blade having activated his shikhai we see that ugitake is also a dual zambocto wielder we learned that ukitake and shinsui zambakdo are the only dual-bladed zambocto within the entire history of the soul society after all three of them have released their zambocto they once again charge at each other which results in a large scale explosion prior to them clashing you can once again examine the facial expressions of ukitake shin sweet and the head captain the head captain looks stern and stubborn while shun sui visibly looks calm and laid back with his crossed eyebrows ukitake focuses his gaze onto the head captain not underestimating his opponent even for a second this is a battle that occurs between three of the strongest shinigami within the soul society and it is a shame that it happens off-screen as we only cut back to their fight when isaiah reveals to the entirety of the soul society that isen is still alive in chapter 172 like all of you i would have loved to see the three of them showcasing their abilities and in particular ukitake considering that we don't really see him engaged in any other major battles throughout the entirety of the story but i will talk more about this point later on in the video when i explain why i believe that his character had a lot of wasted potential in chapter 178 after eisen has revealed his true intentions and he is escaping ukitaki voices his opposition against him he questions the motive behind his actions how far has he fallen in his pursuit to see greater heights eisen tells him not to kid himself because he intends to dethrone the soul king and to stand atop of the heavens as the new ruler of reality he firmly relays his motive to ukitake and what is interesting now that we have hindsight is that eisen is speaking about dethroning the soul king to ukitake who has a piece of the soul king within himself it is moments like this that make me think that kubo had planned a lot of the story beforehand why is it that ukitake's character is the one who challenges eisen to learn about his motive the one who has a piece of the sulking within himself eisen intends to replace the soul king while ukitake had sacrificed his life in the thousand-year budwell arc to become the new sulking in order to restore balance to reality as yuhabaka just killed the soul king we next see ukitake in chapter 181 in a very brief moment where he hands over to ichigo a substitute shinigami badge ukitake had given it to ichigo and told him to keep it close to him because it will be useful in various different circumstances the badge will allow ichigo to transform into a shinigami without relying on any other means while he is explaining the purpose of the badge uryu is seen to be thinking and he questions whether if he is overthinking this and it is a small detail which hints at the fullbring arc where it is revealed that the substitute shinigami badge is indeed a tracking and surveillance device which the sole society uses to monitor individuals and through this small panel where we see uru contemplating to himself and questioning if he is overthinking it you can see that he is making the logical assumption that it is a tracking or surveillance device and it is even more obvious after you have read the entirety of the story and you come back to read this moment ukitake's involvement in the soul society arc was very refreshing in my opinion when ichigo and the others were encountering various different members of the gotei 13. each one of them was very hostile towards them but it is ukitake who actually stands up and protects hanatoro and ganju against byakuya and we quickly learned that ukitake is actually in opposition to the execution of rukia and it gives us some hope that there are at least some captains within the seoul society that don't agree with rukia's execution after eisen's betrayal we learned that ukitake had been investigating the great archive of the soul society and he made a discovery he discovered that a lot of literature related to the hokyoku had been accessed but he had also found that eisen had accessed documents that were unrelated to the hokyoku as you know eisen had been looking up information about the oaken the key to the soul king's palace in chapter 230 we see ugitake watching orihime and rukia train and he expresses how he is happy for rukia that she has found herself a new friend hisagi who has joined him questions if it is okay that she has become friends with a human but the kind-hearted ukitake tells him not to say that ukitake values the concept of friendship even if it is between individuals who live in completely different worlds he even says something really surprising as he states that ichigo and his friends may one day become shinigami once they reach the source society in chapter 315 we see that ukitake is among the other captains who have arrived at fake karakura town in order to stop izon during this portion of the arc he teams up with shan sui in order to fight against stark and lilinet in chapter 335 ukitake is meditating as he takes a backseat allowing shuntsui to fight stark he has no interest in fighting against lilinette lilianette offers to fight okitake but he refuses this is because he considers her as a child and thinks that she shouldn't even be here even if her actual age exceeds that of a child he just can't bring himself to fight somebody who appears as a child he is slightly condescending to her as he tells her that she should be home playing with her dolls this only aggravates livynet as she now wants to make okitake fight with her lilinet has a very futile attempt at trying to attack ukitake and he disappointingly just blocks her attacks he ends up using a keto spell in order to bind her to which she releases acero the very unamused ukitake says that he has seen hundreds of different seros and in comparison lily cerro is very underdeveloped it is not even comparable to the cerro that is released by a menos through the expression in his eyes you can see that he has concern and compassion even for his enemy as he pleads with lily net just to go home because he cannot stand fighting her anymore ukitake is the only person who would have enough patience to entertain a weak enemy like lilinette he steals a zombocto and repeatedly pushes her back whenever she tries to take it back off of him he even starts to have some fun as he begins to encourage her and push her to put her heart into her attacks and her battlecry it is very funny and entertaining to look at the absolute difference between these two opponents and how ukitake is entertaining her it really demonstrates the kind-hearted nature of ugitake who has no issue with being friendly to even his enemy stark ends up calling back lilinette and merges with her in order to reveal his released form called los lobos ukitake watches on in surprise as he witnesses this transformation in chapter 362 and for the rest of the battle against stark we finally get to see ukitake zambocto and its abilities he activates his shikai and he stands in front of sunsui as he defends him against several different serials that stark fires towards him we learned that ukitake zambakdo is able to mirror an opponent's attack and fire it back at them the mirroring ability of ukitake zambakdo confuses stock as he starts to think that ugitake had justified a cerro towards him he justifies assisting shinsui by saying that his abilities are more effective against an enemy like stark out of curiosity stark fires another cero towards okitake as he wants to know how his abilities work he does this repeatedly as we see okitake zambokto absorb stark's seros and fire them right back at him stark quickly descends how ukitake zambakdo works not only does it absorb and mirror back an individual's attack the five talismans that are hanging from the zampakto adjust the velocity and the pressure of the redirected attack thus making it difficult for the enemy to evade the reflection stark states to ukitake that despite his appearance which i'm guessing is that of a very kind-hearted individual he has a very nasty ability stark then assumes that ukitake zambakdo must have a limit as to how many attacks that it can absorb and fire back but while they are discussing the limits of ugitake zombucto they are interrupted by shinsui who tries to behead stark from behind ukitaka's involvement during the fake karakura town arc is cut shot in chapter 364. after wonder whites arrives on the battlefield the iran car completely impales ukitake from behind he is practically robbed from being involved in any more of the fighting as he falls to the city below and we don't really see him until after eisen has been captured in chapter 423 it is revealed that ukitake is still alive and well as the eavesdrops on the head captains scored in kimpachi byakuya and shinsui for losing their captain's robes during the four bring arc some information about ukitaki's character is revealed in chapter 474 genjio reveals to ichigo the true purpose of the substitute shinigami badge he reminds him that when ichigo was given the badge he was told by ukitake that when a substitute shinigami is deemed to be beneficial to the soul society they are given that badge but genji reveals to him that this is a lie udu follows up from his contemplation that he had been doing so many chapters ago and states that this is what he had assumed when ichigo had first told them about the badge genjo reveals to ichigo that the true purpose of the badge is to monitor and control an individual because of this badge the soul society is able to locate ichigo at any moment in addition to this they have been able to control ichigo's spiritual pressure he further adds that the badge is used as a communication device to the source society it absorbs and analyzes the person's spiritual pressure he tells ichigo that all of the people from the soul society that he had trusted and thought would not deceive him have been lying to him this whole time the soul society had given him that badge so that they could monitor and control him genji reveals that the person who is behind this plan to use the badge as a monitoring device is ukitake he tells ichigo that he was fooled by the person who loves peace more than anybody telling him that the kind-hearted captain lied to him because the aim of the soul society is to monitor and control an individual the substitute shinigami according to genjio are nothing more than pawns ichigo obviously reveals that he was skeptical when he had first received the badge he did indeed question what ukitake had told him but the fact of the matter is ichigo didn't want to be suspicious of ukitake so he just kept his suspicions to the back of his mind but he did ask himself why was he suspicious of fukitake after all the captain is a lot smarter than he is if okitake was really trying to deceive him that he could have done so without ichigo even knowing and this is what leads ichigo to believe that ukitake had given him the substitute shinigami badge for the reasons that he had stated but eventually ichigo had realized that the substitution in gummi badge didn't do the jobs that ukitake had stated it would do ukitake had purposefully misinformed him to allow him to come to this conclusion after all he did tell ichigo to keep the badge close to him at all times he concludes that because ukitake had made him realize this on purpose he allowed ichigo to choose whether if he wanted to become a substitute shinigami in order to protect the people that he loved or turn away from the soul society and his shinigami powers as a whole and of course as we know ichigo's character he had always wanted the strength to protect people and it is for this reason that he had accepted the substitute shinigami badge as more of a token of membership to the source society rather than as a monitoring or surveillance device all of this comes full circle in chapter 479 as we see sunsweet approaching ukitake he tells him that ichigo had left with the substitute shinigami badge shun sui did indeed ask him about it but he reveals to ukitake that ichigo trusts them so he's going to hold on to it ichigo's very mature response leads the two of them to realize how much ichigo has grown as an individual there are different purposes for giving the substitute shingami badge ukitake had realized that genji was a dangerous individual so they had given him the substitution in gami badge in order to monitor him but in terms of the next substitute shinigami ichigo it was a entirely different case ichigo after all risked his life to save rukia okitake had known that he wasn't a bad person so he had given him the substitute shinigami badge as a token of appreciation and this is what ukitake realizes in chapter 479 that ichigo was able to look past genji's deception and realize that the soul society are not against him ichigo is also right ukitake is a very intelligent person and it doesn't suit his kind-hearted nature to deceive ichigo somebody who has been good to him and his lieutenant so when it comes to ukitake's character during the thousand yabudwa arc in chapter 495 we get a glimpse of ukitake facing off against one of these sten ritters we don't really get to see the identity of the quincy that he is facing off against because similar to most of wukitake's battles within the series they are all off screen so during the first quincy invasion the remainder of ukitake's appearances are all reactionary shots whether if it is him sensing the spiritual pressure of the head captain or reacting to various different pieces of information that are being relayed to all of the different shinigami in chapter 547 when the quincy begin their second invasion we see ukitake at a shrine his location is on the outskirts of rukongai and in hindsight when we look at where he is he is at the same shrine that his parents were praying to mimi hagi in order to save his life i feel like ukitaki's final moments in the story are very rushed and they unfortunately fall victim to the fact that kubo could not properly complete the thousand-year budwell arc due to his failing health we next see ugitake in chapter 605. we see ukitake speaking to sun sui as he states that a procedure called kamikake which translates to divine vow was successful and this was something that ukitake had done in anticipation for the quincy second invasion the only hint of kamikake that we get is this mysterious shadow that appears behind ukitake shinsui appears to know exactly what ukitake has done shinsui teases his friend by saying that maybe now he'll be able to push himself to his full potential while in battle in chapter 613 we see ukitake taking care of the casualties because of him constantly receiving medical treatment he had learned a lot about medicine and through using his medical knowledge he was able to assist the shinigami here by treating as many shinigami as he can so that they are fit enough to join the battle again so the big reveal about ukitaki's character takes place in chapter 616 and this is after yohabak has killed the soul king now that the soul king has been killed reality is now unstable and this leads to ukitake stating that he will take the sulking's place the shadow that we had seen earlier now forms behind ukitaki's back he explains that the shadow forming behind him is called mimi hagi he tells mimi hagi that he is forsaking his organs like i mentioned earlier on in the video mimi had taken control of ukitaki's lungs in order to keep him alive and the ritual that he is doing now is allowing mimi hagi to take control of all of his organs and his body this ritual is called kamikake now that ukitake has performed this all of his organs belong to mimihagi ukitake has become the right arm of the soul king ugitake reveals that he had been anticipating this moment from the day that he had found out that he survived okitake is more than content to sacrifice his life for the sake of the got a 13. it is a incredibly noble sacrifice that is until we get to chapter 621 youhabak ends up absorbing mimi hagi and takes all of its power as a result of this ukitaki's body collapses to the ground revealing that he has in fact now died in the end his sacrifice amounted to nothing now obviously i've talked at length about ukitaki's character for almost 30 minutes now so why did i say at the beginning of the video that i feel like his character had a lot of wasted potential as the story continues you can see that ugitake's character was dealt with a shot straw the first example of this is when he teams up with chun sui to battle against the head captain and i mentioned this when i spoke about the soul society arc but all of their battle occurs off screen then during the whole aranka invasion and the huecomundo arc we don't really get any significant involvement from ukitaki's character that is until the fake karakura town arc where he is made to battle against lily net and of course this isn't a serious battle when he eventually does take part in the battle against stock it is really interesting and i wanted it to continue but then out of nowhere wonder-wise appears and ukitake is out of commission until eisen has been defeated i feel like there was a real opportunity to have ukitake showcase more of his abilities against stark i wouldn't have even cared if he was knocked out by one hit from wonderwise but only if we had seen more of him engaging in battle in the very chapter that ukitake was knocked out the vizards appeared at the very end of it so i feel like some characters had to be gotten rid of so that the spotlight could be on the vizards too of course ukitake does have some involvement in the fulbright arc which is really interesting and gives a little bit more backstory but again he wasn't one of the shinigami who had come to the world of the living to fight against one of the fullbringers so during the thousand-year blood war arc i don't think things get any better for his character during the first quincy invasion his entire battle takes place off-screen and we don't really know which quincy he is fighting against and then during the time between the first quincy invasion and the second quincy invasion okitake goes to the shrine in rukanga in order to activate kamikake and we don't really get to see his character for a long stretch of time and of course like i said we get this big reveal about ukitaki's character in chapter 616 but unfortunately even ukitake's final dying breath amounts to nothing he tries to replace the soul king but his efforts are in vain and at the end of bleach what is left of ukitake's character but a gravestone i think that it is unfortunate that we didn't see ugitake take part in a proper battle we only got a glimpse of his shikai and thanks to his battle against stark we actually learnt about the ability of his shikai but as far as his bankai is concerned we never got to see it the strength and full potential of ukitake was hyped during the soul society arc when shuntsui and okitake were fighting against the head captain but none of this potential was actualized there were two routes that the story could have gone by the final arc okitake actually getting better again or the second option his death actually amounting to something okitake was not a small character in my opinion and i feel like his character deserves a lot more justice and it is for this reason that i believe that ugitaki's character will be expanded upon in the anime adaptation of the thousand year blood war arc if anything i would love to have more screen time with this character because most or if not all of his battles occur off screen and whenever the action is about to get going ukitaka's character is just thrown to the side i did say at the start of the video i don't want people to think that i constantly praise bleach without having any criticisms i've mentioned it in the rise of bleach video and the ruined reputation bleach video i do have my personal issues with the series and ukitake's character is one of them bleach is not perfect but what series really is like i said it is unfortunate that his character was dealt a shot straw and that he was frankly missing in the thousand-year budwar arc but the negative aspects aside when it comes to his character there is clearly a lot to discuss i believe that this video has extensively covered the character of ukitake if you feel like i have actually forgotten to mention anything or you disagree with any of my takes then let me know by leaving a comment under this video if you enjoy my content then you can support my channel through patreon for as little as a dollar a month or even through youtube by becoming a channel member you will gain access to exclusive channel perks and a discord server which i frequently use so become a member of my zero division and be the first to know about my upcoming videos and once again thank you for sticking around till the end of the video and whatever you contribute will mean a lot to me [Music] you

Channel: DBZimran

Views: 281,032

Keywords: bleach, bleach anime, bleach manga, bleach 2022, bleach 2022 anime, bleach captains, bleach captains analysis, bleach captains ranked, bleach gotei 13, bleach gotei 13 analysis, bleach complete analysis, bleach gotei 13 character analysis, Yamamoto, Soi-Fon, Gin, Unohana, Aizen, Byakuya, Komamura, Shunsui, Tosen, Hitsugaya, Kenpachi, Mayuri, Ukitake, bleach tybw, bleach hell arc

Id: ntUbqCQ4o0k

Length: 431min 10sec (25870 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 20 2022