ISSHIN KUROSAKI - Bleach Character ANALYSIS | Secrets of the Father

all right guys it's that time once again it's time for another bleach character analysis video and this time you voted for the winner to be ishin kurosaki the father of the main character himself and to get that spot ishin beat out fellow old timers yamamoto and baragon and while i'd have loved to have talked about any of the three of them i'm actually quite glad to see ishin here is the one you've chosen because for the longest time during bleach's weekly serialization ishin was one of those characters who was a real keeper of some of bleach's most enduring and mystifying secrets and so to look at and talk about this character through a retrospective lens i think is going to be quite enlightening and on that note there will of course be major spoilers for the thousand-year blood war arc of bleach as many of ishin's secrets do come to light so be warned and before we get started with the video if you haven't hit subscribe yet make sure to do that now as you're in the perfect place for bleach content like this every single week don't forget to give the video a thumbs up and show it some love if you enjoyed it as well because it really does help with the exposure on youtube it means this channel gets to more bleach viewers just like yourselves and if you want to help support me a little bit further we have a patreon for this channel as well if you enjoy what i do here you can get videos like this one early and you can support me there for as little as a dollar a month all the names up on screen right now are people who are supporting me on patreon they're helping me do what i love which is bring new bleach content like this on a weekly basis so a massive thank you and an enormous everlasting shout out to all of you thank you so much so ishin is a very strange character to me i think anyway at least he kind of hails from this really shadowy and interesting subset of characters who both kind of act as major characters but also quite you know not necessarily sidelined but almost purposefully sidelined supporting characters who just have a ton of mystery about them i would argue characters they are basically characters who hail from the older generation of shinigami who were then for whatever reason exile from the soul society so we're talking urahara yoruichi and ishii inhales from that as well as do other parental figures like ryuken ishida so many of these characters for so very long in bleach were clearly quite obviously hiding something whether that was the nature of their connection together how they knew each other you know and so much of that went so unrevealed for very long um and i think if because of that issue became a very a real focus point of fascination for the bleach community i honestly i would genuinely say that the truth about ishin basically just that blanket term was up there with the soul king as one of bleach's genuinely most captivating secrets something that fans were so desperate to find out the truth about and i have to hand it to kubo i think he absolutely nailed ishin's character in that regard and really came through for fans at least in regards to ishin's history anyway and the true nature of his character but being the father of ichigo himself ishin's manga lifespan is as you would expect quite a lengthy one originating of course in chapter 1 and then lasting all the way through to chapter 682 and let's look at ishin's character do an overview of ishien on the whole and at the beginning of the of the story you know he's kind of this single parent who's looking after three pretty rambunctious and very different children and it's kind of funny seeing the way he kind of tackles that he's this incredibly goofy very over-the-top dad who seems to clearly be trying to compensate for their lack of a mother especially where kareen and yuzu are concerned by just being so ridiculously over the top seemingly trying to make them laugh all the time and most of the time it fails spectacularly and he just comes off across as this bungling embarrassing dad um and i really i really like ishin i think when you take the start of the series which of course we'll get into soon but you take that early section of bleach and i think ishin is an easy standout character um his he's got real screen presence he completely steals the show i think every time he shows up the way he you know launches into an attack against ichigo is both so incredibly like cruel for a parent but also just kind of hilarious as well for readers it's just so funny seeing him launching himself at h again it's one of those things that's just so intrinsic to early bleach i think and it's just something that's so memorable and always stuck with me and it really helped stand ishii now as well from the crowd but i'll be honest with you i never necessarily suspected that there was more to him than met the eye although of course the trope of parents having secrets and secret lives is very prevalent in fantasy fiction so i really should have realized um but at the start of the story ishin really does just come across as a well-meaning but generally bumbling fool whose kids just find incredibly embarrassing but of course there is another side to ishin which of course we find out as kind of the iran car arc rolls around and you discover that actually he's a shinigami he was an ex-captain as well and there was a slightly more serious nature to his character too but what i always appreciated about ishin was although kubo does kind of give him that serious vibe that warrior vibe when the true nature of his character is revealed he never loses that stupid side to him as well he still pulls off ridiculous jokes every now and then um and i really like that i think ishin adds much-needed levity to some otherwise incredibly serious situations but at the same time he is kind of the same as kisuke i guess but basically the archetypal version of that shonen trope of the goofy of goofy idiot who's actually secretly very powerful very experienced and someone who you know will basically destroy you if they need to and they can basically prove that they can which is exactly what happens when grand fischer shows up in iran karak for instance but ishin's overall appearance as well i've always really liked being one of the human characters you know human characters in the series um he's always kind of had quite an understated look to him you know he obviously shares some traits with karen for instance as far as the kurasaki family goes they both got black hair and that's pretty much where the resemblance ends but it's more of a resemblance he has to most other members of the family anyway but obviously once he gains his shinigami attire i always loved how kubo threaded that mystery he has that really cool shoulder pad um where underneath is his old tattered captain's heyori done in such a way that you could never quite make out what division he was a part of um but that was just so good every every kind of facet of his character design seemed to feed into this air of mystery that he actually had and then when we get into the thousand-year blood war and we learn about his history we see young ishii kubo kind of really amps up the sheba family similarities you know the very long sideburns that kind of go down the side of his face the kind of perpetually perpetually aloof and goofy expression that he has where he can flip to sirius on a dime which is very sheba as well and just overall i think ishin is a really just a really great character in terms of his personality and his appearance both very well done um to make a character who's instantly recognizable but quite grounded as well i think that's important for someone who's supposed to be the father of supposedly a pretty normal family and so if we move into the plot overview then now ishin like i said at the start of this video is both is a weird character in that he's almost a hybrid mix of a main character and very much that sort of sidelined supporting character his role in the plot is not enormous but he kind of shows up at almost some critical junctures basically to to help out so probably his biggest role if not his most important is probably in that agent of the shinigami arc at the very beginning of the series where we you know get introduced to the world of bleach karakura town and ishin and his family and it's kind of weird to look back on it with all the knowledge we have now the fact that ishin has this relationship with urahara kisuke who wouldn't show up until later on the fact that ishii knows all of the secrets of the world that we would yet come to realize um it is it is kind of weird and in many ways a little bit jarring as well that ishin really apparently knows next to nothing to the point where his family would end up in real life or death danger um so like what i mean is you know when fishbone d attacks the house in chapter one ishin is like nearly killed like he's there's blood all over the place his body is just on the ground um and his daughters are put in real harm's way obviously that is the that's the springboard moment for the entire story so it makes complete sense that ichigo would take center stage but it's just looking back at it with that retrospective lens that i mentioned earlier it is a little bit strange the same goes again where grand fischer returns and he attacks carrion and yuzu and ishin is nowhere to be found now of course ishin does not have his shinigami powers back yet however we do find out in everything but the rain much later on he senses both masaki and grand fisher so you know it you have to suspend your disbelief a little bit that ishin would not rush to the aid of his of his precious daughters especially when the murderer of his wife shows up that is a little bit you have to kind of suspend your disbelief a little bit with that but for the most part in this earliest part of the story ishiin like i said before is this kind of just bumbling fool but there is a lovely moment probably the first real crowning moment for ishin which is after ichigo kind of dispatches grand fisher and the hollow leaves ichigo kind of goes to his mother's grave and he finds ish in there smoking you know there's an umbrella over him because it's raining just really really nice scene setting early on in the story and ichigo kind of confronts his father about the fact that he thinks that he's the reason masaki died and uh ishin basically just rebuffs him in every way and you finally get to see a serious side to him where he's like you know when i look at you you know i don't see someone who murdered who got my wife killed i see someone who my wife loved enough to die protecting and then that's what's important to him and there's the there's the really nice symbolism as well of obviously ishin only smoking on the anniversary of her death because masaki once told him that he looked cool smoking and that was the only time she ever said he looked cool or anything like that so all that sort of thing is is really nice and this moment is just a great first real this is the real first impression of ishin we get outside of him being a total goofball so i think this is a really seminal moment for the character and honestly like this moment with ishin by masaki's grave and ichigo arriving is given really a new perspective after the thousand-year blood war when you get to see that burgeoning relationship between ishin and masaki kind of coming to fruition you get to see the early days of their relationship transitioning into their life together um it really it really makes this earlier moment hit home a bit harder as well and i think that's definitely some this definitely example of the thousand-year blood war really bolstering and in many ways improving parts of the earlier story as well and also during that scene at the cemetery as well ishin gets his really kind of legendary quote um where he basically i'm sort of paraphrasing here but he tells ichigo you know to you know live well age well you know go bald well i think he says as well and then he says you know try to die after me um and die if you can with a smile on your face because if not i won't be able to face masaki kind of in the afterlife and then he says something like you know sadness is a really cool thing to shoulder but you're too young for that and i love that because obviously ichigo is you know it's particularly at the start of the story really well known for being you know kind of having a furrowed brow never really smiling being quite mopey is not the right word but quite bleak a lot of the time he is quite in many respects he feels quite human in that regard as a main character he's not always perpetually happy but if sheen kind of acts here as a buffer for that this moment in particular after ichigo has confronted his mother's killer and it's been a very emotionally charged moment ishiin kind of comes in to set the record straight with ichigo and i like it a lot because it's a real kind of acknowledgement of ichigo's place his growth his age where ishin can finally talk to him properly about clearly something that's been haunting ichigo for years now so it's a really really nice moment and a a standout moment particularly early on for ishin's character and then for the rest of this first story arc ishin plays a relatively minor role on the whole obviously this agent of the shinigami arc really revolves around that core karakura gang of ichigo's family and then his expanding group of close friends so it makes sense for ishii to shop every now and then such as when chad arrives ishin being one of the you'd assume few medical practitioners in karakura town he's obviously on hand to help out when a hollow injures someone but towards the end of this arc when ichigo is preparing to go to seoul society um and supposedly no one knows ishiin hands him a talisman which he claims masaki gave him it should look after ichigo and you know obviously ishii knows way more than what's actually what he's actually letting on here and the talisman in particular is a really a really kind of it's a weird one because it sort of feels like kubo forgets about it because it doesn't really do anything at all in the seoul society arc but then it comes back nicely at the start of the iran corrupt so we'll move on to the soul society there's not a lot to say here so ishin basically is not seen at all during the seoul society arc however i did want to bring it up briefly because the soul society arc for this character will become very important later on a key moment occurs during the soul society arc and that is when ichigo's inner hollow you know white the embodiment of his zampakto whatever you want to call it comes forth and awakens properly during the battle against biyakia at the end of the arc and that's a that's a key moment for ishiin and we'll find out more later on and so we arrive at the iran car arc and this is where ishin's character greatly evolves and many of the mysteries around him begin to take root and this is when he becomes a vastly more interesting character it's as simple as that this is when he goes from being just ichigo's bumbling dad to a major supporting member of bleach's cast in regards to the overarching plot as well this is where he goes from being a bystander to actually someone who might have a role to play in the grand scheme of things in what is now a pretty legendary reveal probably one of the best twists in bleach i would say at the very start of the iran car arc gran fisher has returned to karakura town but now he is a monstrous iran car having been granted new power by the now traitorous eisen um and he goes there seeking out ichigo he finds who he thinks is ichigo but it's actually khan in ichigo's body and he tries to kill him only for the talisman to come flying back and and basically blocking his hand and it's at this point we discover ishin kurosaki is actually a shinigami um which is just a crazy crazy it was a huge deal back in the day it was massive um and not only is he a shinigami but like i said he has a tattered captain's heyori flowing from his shoulder now this was during a period of time in the story where kubo was laying major groundwork for many of the kind of plot threads to come many of the mysteries to come it's obviously no coincidence that ishin is revealed to be a shinigami at the exact same time that ryuken is introduced into the story this is the time now where the fathers are going to play a role in their son's destinies and that's always very exciting to me and this moment of bleach this kind of era this subsection of bleach's story is truly one of the most captivating i think that moment where the the dads essentially step out of the shadows and you basically it really helps elevate the sense of scope and scale in the story no longer is it just basically about ichigo and about seoul society it's bleeding into karakura town there are people on earth in the human world whose agendas are now aligning to the upcoming battle and that's a very exciting thing um to think about but of course we still have grand fischer to deal with before that happens and he basically tries to attack ishii with the massive blade but ishin kills him with a single stroke just cutting him straight down the middle there's obviously there's really nice panel work here and this is still one of ishin's coolest moments in the series um you get this great shot of him just swinging his blade and then grand fisher's hollow hole just sort of like splits in into in front of the moon and it's just really really cinematic and well done and of course ishii is just total badass at this point cooper does a great job of conveying not only the strength of his captaincy but also his experience as well where grand fischer was coming at him with all this busted logic about how my zampato is absolutely massive so my spiritual pressure is clearly way beyond yours um but ishin basically turns around him and says you know every captain ranked soldier has learned how to condense their rayatsu into a smaller blade or else we'd all be wielding skyscraper level swords so don't come at me until you've learned at least that much and it's just so it's really really nice moment and i think it got everybody hyped about issuing which is the core thing to take away from that so there are a couple of moments here where kubo's continuing to lay the groundwork a bit and i think you once again have to suspend your disbelief a little bit here i think it's highly likely that kubo had some idea of the role the different factions would all play in the upcoming war but not necessarily who knew who just yet because there are some strain there are some oddities in here that you kind of just have to forget about later on because things obviously get changed i think relationships get changed but basically ishin notes that ichigo has been contacted by the vizard and he calls them something like a criminal gang of ex-shinigami who tried to attain hollow powers now obviously kisuke knows that is absolutely not true and actually it works for ishiin to think this because he is way after their time and that is the that would be the official party line that has been passed down from the central 46. um but you know kisake knows that's not true not only does he know it's not true he was actually you know affected by that um and and also and there's another thing as well about this that does make the scene even weirder is the fact that in everything but the rain when ishin and kisuke meet for the very first time which is really nice to get to see um even mentions that he developed a vaccine for shinigami who were turned into hollow hybrids um which then stabilized them and turned them into perfect vizards and at this point it's very weird that he doesn't say to ishii or by the way it's the former captain of the fifth division and his friends they're here in karakura town so you you just kind of have to brush over that a little bit that it has apparently never told ishii in the true nature of the vizags despite the fact that they really should all be allies but also shinji doesn't recognize ishin's rayatsu now that one does make a lot more sense because ishin has only just got back his shinigami powers so that works but at the same time i still think they would be aware of an ex-captain just living in karakura town in the grand scheme of things though it doesn't really matter that's the minutia the very small details that only really bleach nerds like you and i would really ever pick up on or even care about the fact that certain alliances have haven't been formed despite the fact that realistically they probably would have been and it doesn't really matter what matters is the fact that ishin is very aware of eisen the hogyoku the impending war and that he is seemingly firmly allied with urohara now before we move on from this scene i also want to talk about ishin killing grand fisher because it's a pretty major moment for not just his character but also grand fishers and ichigo's and that trifecta that revolves around masaki and i actually i saw a comment a little while ago now where basically somebody asked me how i felt about ishin killing grand fisher and seemingly robbing ichigo of his chance for revenge against the hollow that killed his mother and these are my two cents on it i i don't i not only don't mind it i actually really like it i think it's really great that ishin gets to finish off grand fisher once and for all um you know yes ichigo lost a mother and yes he he carried a that terrible guilt with him for years but that was kind of dealt with in that memories in the rain subplot that sub story that was happening in the agent of the shinigami arc what we talked about the beginning of this video ichigo has his revenge in that fight grand fischer is an immensely prideful being you know he thinks he's basically the greatest hollow to have ever walked the earth that he brags about killing so many shinigami and how he has this perfect setup and gloating about how ichigo is the weakest most pathetic shinigami he's ever come up against but then ichigo destroys his body to the point where he kind of has to hold himself together and run away the fact that he runs away is incredibly shameful and it's easy to understand it is easy to see this viewpoint where ichigo feels the fight is not finished and now for him in a sense it never will be but it also kind of is it is over grand fischer flees with his tail between his legs his arm hanging beside his body um but crucially as we mentioned before ichigo speaks to ishin and gets the closure he needs and that is really the cap on ichigo's part of that story but you could argue that while ichigo has had that subplot all to himself ishin has not had a chance really to confront masaki's killer and now this is the chance he gets and i i really like this personally i think once again grand fischer is coming at it with this massive ego maniacal viewpoint where he thinks he's amazing and ishin just puts him in his place but this time permanently and considerably more embarrassingly than ichigo did um and it's just it's really good basically grand fisher exists to be the specter of the kurosaki family who is then embarrassed and defeated by both ichigo and ishin and i think that's really really good it works really well but i also like the mature approach ishin takes to this moment as well urohara says something like do you feel better now have you had your revenge and ishin says it was never really about revenge he never really harboured ill will against grand fischer because hollows do what hollows do the only regret he has is that he wasn't able to save masaki that night and so that's why this is quite an important moment because for ishii killing grand fischer was never about vengeance it was just about getting rid of a monster basically and i really like that and i think it works really well and it kind of shows you the mature basically it's there to work as a real juxtaposition of the absolute goofball that ishin actually is and then this real serious side to him who felt great regret and although he's killed the monster who killed his wife you know it was never really about that for him and i think it really works as a scene and i wouldn't have that bit any other way honestly if anything it would have been cool to explore ishin's grief a little bit more than that because thanks to everything but the rain we we really know of the tight-knit bond that he and masaki had and it would have been great to see how he felt even more about it but you know the fact that grand fischer is gone is at least some form of peace again ishin plays very little role in the waco mundo arc although after ichigo uru et cetera leave for waka mundo we get a lovely moment that once again ignited the fires of speculation when it was revealed that ishii knew uru's father ryuken to the point where ryuken even realized that ishin got his shinigami powers back which is also something that there are a harder mention which we'll get into um but it's a great moment it's really great because you you get that the two of them have this history and it just really ignited the fires even more about who really is ishin where has he come from what is his history look like um it's also just a great moment in general new kin is a total badass by the way and i really wish we had seen more of this character and i will be doing a ryuken video as part of my forgotten characters uh series at some point but this is a great moment between them uh where the two of them are just talking about how basically each one is a bad father and uh i really like that i think it's i think it's really nicely done moving on to the fake karakura town arc and ishin arrives during an absolutely pivotal moment of the fighting when it's mostly quietened down basically nearly everyone has been taken out of the fight and ichigo is fighting eisen very briefly um and eisen reveals that he has known about ichigo since the day he was born or since he was before he was born even and again that was another one of these mysteries that was just on every fan's mind for so for so many years ishin was the caretaker of so many of these mysteries um and that's why it's so satisfying to see so many of them come together in the final arc of the story but i like ishin's entrance here it's also kind of funny that he arrives literally exactly when he has to as though he was waiting outside the barrier to make sure he got there just in the nick of time but this is a big moment as well this is a huge huge moment bear in mind it's been like basically 200 chapters since his reveal as a shinigami at this point people were desperate to see ichigo's reaction basically how is he ever going to react to finding out his dad's true nature and ishin arrives on the scene he basically makes sure that ichigo is knocked away from eisen and then he makes some distance between them and they hide their riatsu to have a very quick talk and there's is a lovely moment where they they kind of briefly just look at each other no one says anything and then ishin says you know i don't know what to say but this is real and ichigo's just like yeah well it looks that way and it's a great moment because you really get a sense of ichigo's maturity here and basically ishin says you know i know you've got questions i'll tell you and then ichigo kind of cuts him off and says you know you don't have to tell me anything until you're ready and he basically recounts to him the speech that rukia gave him back in the memories of the reign story arc and i remember being like you know so disappointed not necessarily disappointed but like just terrified that i wasn't going to get the answers i wanted when ichigo shut him down like that i was like no like i'm desperate to hear i've got questions i've got loads of questions don't don't tell him you don't want to hear it um but obviously in the sense of the story it makes it's perfectly acceptable for them not to go into this massive discussion right now considering the main villain is right there so you know it in retrospect it's absolutely fine but certainly back in the day i was like you you have to tell me this you know ichigo is right here this is the perfect opportunity but obviously it wasn't um but it's nice again it shows ichigo's maturity even if she notes that ichigo has grown um and it's really cool that you know ishin has basically just revealed this massive secret to ichigo you know this is really weird um and it does bring up a lot of questions but ichigo's content to basically see the mission through and then just wait until his dad is ready basically because if he didn't say anything until now there was obviously a reason for it and he's happy to wait until he's ready which i think is pretty nice but back in the day i was like you have to tell me these right now so um but yeah so ishin then goes on to face eisen which is a really cool pairing and they don't get a particularly long battle but what we do see is really cool there's an awesome panel of issues bringing down this almighty strike onto eyes and eyes and kind of dodges hits him with the raikou ho anishin also does this really weird move where he just sort of flicks eyes and with his finger and like sends him flying um and i remember thinking back in the day when i read that i was like what like is ishii eisen level or something because you have to remember this is the same guy who just defeated basically the entire goatee 13. so for ishin to arrive lock swords with eisen then just swat him like a fly with a mere finger was really weird um but i think it's just a keto move that's just done kind of just to make it look cool um but regardless you know there is a nice little clash here but this is when eisen's whole hogyoku transformations start activating later on during the big battle against eisen uh ishin actually uses gets a gotencho which i remember again just being a really weird moment and thinking like how is he doing that like arzanpakto hereditary that was the main that was kind of the big question was like are these abilities hereditary do they share as unpacked is it in any way similar and what's actually really weird about that as well is that it does feel like kubo is kind of building to that idea you know ishin can use get to gatencho so can ichigo ishin zanpakto n getsu has the same suffix as ichigo zampakto zangetsu and you're starting to think like there is a familial bond here and then it just turns out that ishin zampakto is just a fire zompak tow which i always thought was really a little bit jarring it felt like something had maybe been cut out there um but regardless it's still pretty cool um then of course as eisen ascends and makes his way into karakura town it becomes very personal especially for those living there and it's down to ichigo and his father to kind of save the day there's a lovely moment where ichigo is really despondent about how powerful eisen has become to the point where he doesn't think that they can win he basically thinks it's game over and ishin just gives him the talking to of a lifetime which is so good so well done as well ishin turns around to me says you're gonna sit there and cry are you gonna sit there and cry about how you couldn't protect someone again are you gonna actually do something about it he basically just just slaps some sense back into his son uh the only the only way a father can i guess um and really just you know tells him to pull himself together uh and you know we need to go into the senkai mon we need to go into the dhan guy and we can stop eisen together and it's at this point we get yet another mystery for ishin however this one i don't think ever really was resolved and that is that ishii knows of the existence of the final gets a goten show the most powerful ability uh available to well ichigo and his father apparently they both seem to know how to activate this power or at least ishin tried to get it out of vengetsu but we don't know if he was ever successful or not we also don't know the circumstances surrounding ishiin trying to learn the final getskatenshow what was the enemy in question why did he need to learn it um but regardless there's a great training scene here where they go into the darn guy it's very very unique time goes differently here and so ishin holds back the current of the dhan guy using these kakyo kote i believe they're called basically daggers that he rams into the side of the dangai current to stop it from moving long enough so that ichigo can train for three months essentially but just going back to that idea of the final get skatentia and how and why does ishii know it i remember in my head anyway my head cannon was that kubo was going to tie gingo kugo into it somehow and that was why gingo was seeking out ishin at the start of the lost agent arc i thought that i don't know some creature attacked karakura town or whatever ishin uses the final gets attention loses his powers but like in that moment transferred some of them to ginjo creating the first substitute shinigami where that that never happens or at least it's no it's never said that it happens anyway and the mystery about ishii knowing this ability is kind of just left hanging which is a bit of a shame really um but what's really important is that ishin helps ichigo learn it and i love as well that he takes ichigo through the motions of learning ginseng all that sort of thing how to properly commune with your zampac toe um that's really cool really nice that at least in one part of the series ish ichigo's mentor is actually his father and at the end of the day aside mini arc of course ichigo arrives from the dangai and possessing the final getsu gotencho and you get to see ishin sporting a pretty full three months worth of a beard um and it's just really nice you know ichigo says you know thanks dad as he puts him down it's just really cool that ishima's you know a strong enough to hold back the current for that amount of time but b played such an integral role in the end of the longest story arc of the series moving on then to the lost agent arc and this is probably the arc where i feel like there was something missing regarding ishin much like the agent of the shinigami arc at the very start of the story this arc focuses on that core karakura group ichigo his close friends to a lesser degree his family although a little bit later on but ishin is nearly constantly missing from events and that's a real that's really weird and a bit of a shame and kubo is building basically suspicion against ishin and urahara for the entire arc he's using gingo to kind of turn ichigo against them a little bit and make ichigo think that something is going on a conspiracy is unfolding but for me this arc does suffer a little bit in the they should just talk to him that's what kind of annoys me the most about this story arc and and when you think about it like that again this is another one you have to suspend your disbelief a little bit i think now a crux of the lost agent arc is miscommunication or a lack of communication the fact that nobody is talking to anyone is a real problem in this arc and it extends further than just ishin as well ichigo and his close friends you know chad purposefully withholds information from ichigo as well uh ryuken only mentions certain information to orihime early on and and it doesn't really get back to ichigo either um and so they are not working cohesively and that's how the bad guys get one up on them in this arc but it is just a little weird that you know ichigo trusts his dad you know the two of them went through all of that in the darn guy he trusts kisuke kisuke came through for them big time at the end of the iran car arc to help seal eisen away and a few choice words from genjo are enough to shatter that trust almost entirely to the point where ichigo at one point entertains the idea of having to fight urohara should he turn out to be an enemy and that's just a little bit weird to me because in behind the scenes the the subplot behind the scenes is that kisuke and ishin are working with rukia and other shinigami to restore ichigo's shinigami powers that's their whole plot line so i don't know why he doesn't just say that like ishin must realize that ichigo is severely depressed in this arc and very very unhappy but not only that he is being taken for a ride by execution as well so it's it is kind of strange that ichigo and the three of them don't just come together and he scan issue like we're gonna get you a sword that will restore your powers so don't worry about it the only thing i can think of that makes this make any sense or it does make ishin look pretty bad i think is that the soul society have already communicated to ishin and urahara that they can't interfere with what is going on between ichigo and genji because they need to make sure that ichigo is actually on side which of course is the big test at the very end of this arc but i do think it does make ishiin look kind of bad so they could always just say to him much earlier in the arc that we're just going to give you your powers back and then they could still let stuff play out with gin joe anyway but regardless it's a lovely and honestly brilliant moment when ishin does kind of come through for ichigo obviously with kisuke and rukia but that moment where ichigo gets stabbed in the back he turns around ishin is there it looks like ishin is the one who has done it it's really nice payoff for that suspicion that has been building throughout the ark some of the best art in the manga as well on pretty much localized on those three four pages is wonderful stuff and ichigo turns around tears in his eyes and he's like you too dad you know even you anishin's like not me you idiot i didn't stab you look at who's holding that blade and so that's really really nice it's a nice kind of culmination of the events of the lost agent arc i do just wonder if maybe they could have just told ichigo anyway and the goatee's plot could have still played out because they could have still seen if ichigo sympathized enough with gingo to turn on them or not anyway so a little bit strange to me but regardless i do love that final moment and the role ishin plays in general in this arc there's a lot of suspicion heaped on him that chapter of spotlight broken by the way was universally beloved by bleach fans when it came out for good reason it's very noir very kind of creepy and eerie and itching plays a big role in that he's you know meeting kisuke in these kind of sinister uh get-togethers in dark alleyways in the middle of the night and ichigo is like watching them like what's going on here the whole thing is done in such a sinister way but they are only looking out for ichigo at the end of the day so you know what regardless i do like the role ishin plays here i just kind of wonder if it could have been handled a little differently and then we get to the final arc of bleach the thousand-year blood war arc and this is where kubo lets loose essentially there was a lot here for him to do and in my opinion he basically delivers on every front and i don't say that lightly i think ishin is one of those characters who kubo just absolutely got totally right in this arc from a perspective of tying up loose ends in terms of ishin's actual present day plot prominence it's not quite so great at the very start of this arc around chapter 518 kukakushiba mentions a mysterious uncle to ganju which of course we find out later to be ishin ishin is a member of the sheba clan which is a pretty enormous deal and actually explains quite a lot it explains the uncanny resemblance of ichigo and cayenne in that they are actually related by blood however i will say it is a little bit strange that this mysterious uncle has only just been mentioned by the shebas as there is a great emphasis placed on the importance of family among this clan so it's a little bit weird that he's only just been brought up now especially if kukaku and gandu etc notice the similarities between ichigo and cayenne relatively early on so that's a little bit weird um but also and unfortunately ishin really plays a very small role in the thousand-year blood war and most of that is exposition about his history but of course that is crucial to so much in the story it answers the question of his true nature what captain he was how did eisen know about ichigo before he was born um it answers why he's in karakura town if he's a shinigami it answers you know it all basically answers the truth about ichigo's powers why he is a an amalgamation of all the races in the series this everything but the rain flashback arc is handled wonderfully in my opinion and of course i want to do a video solely dedicated to this in the future so we're just going to look at the cliff notes version here for ishin uh almost alone in a sense um so we do get to see him in seoul society this is taking place about 20 years prior to the start of the series um ishin is quite youthful looks a lot more like a traditional sheba now and he's the captain of the 10th division his vice captain is matsumoto and his third seat is hitsugaya and what happens here is that ishin travels to naruki city i believe it is because there's reports of a strange hollow murdering shinigami like crazy where he discovers white or you know the the absolute predecessor the basis for ichigo's inner hollow slash shinigami powers hybrid um and white looks amazing he's really really cool looking um and he clashes with ishin and they have this massive fight it's a really cool fight actually where we get to see en getsu but eisen sabotages the battle because he wants to see what white's actually capable of so he slashes ishin from behind meaning ishin can no longer activate ban kai and this is again a little bit of a disappointment the fact that ishin's bankai was so explicitly teased here and then never shown to me at least really feels like it was probably going to be shown at some point and i have i hold out i hope we'll see it in the future anyway um but basically ishin battles this hollow shinigami hybrid um they have a cool fight issuing uses and getsu to it's kind of at least the shiikai's seemingly full capabilities where he can control fire but also seemingly use blood to act as like a engine fuel for his for his weapon where he basically gets the blood from the slash spits it onto the fire almost and it basically just ignites this enormous blade which takes off white's arm and it's a it's just a really quite a it's a short but visceral fight that i really like actually and then of course masaki intervenes gets bitten by the hollow and the story plays out from there and like i said we'll go into a lot more detail in its own video i think but for now what's really key about ishii in here in the past is that he is willing to give up everything he has for masaki despite them having only really just met and that goes to show you exactly the kind of person he is and that nobility that sense uh of wanting to protect at all costs and and saving face will be passed down to his son at a later date as well um and i really like that and i think more than ever you can really see ichigo in ishin during everything but the rain not just physically although i do think his facial features resemble ichigo on a level they've never done before here um but you know mentally as well and figuratively you can really see ichigo in his father here and i think that's really really well done but so of course we find out the truth about why ishin's powers uh had disappeared um basically in order to save masaki's life now she's been bitten by a hollow and is hollow fighting against her will because quincy and hollow rayatsu is incompatible in that way um urahara literally basically uses spirit threads to tie together ishin in a guy to masaki basically basically bonding them together essentially because ishin as a shinigami is exactly what she needs to balance out the current soul suicide that's taking place and so ishin must stay by her until the moment she dies and it's a surprisingly romantic story for bleach romance is not a major part of bleach's story no matter what anyone says um it never has and it probably never will be but the everything but the rain mini arc is surprisingly um tasteful i think i think it's really really well done it's just really well written much in the same way as the mini arc turn back the pendulum was and i love what we get here and it explains everything you know it's the fact that when uh ichigo's inner hollow takes over during the battle against biakia in seoul society arc that is the last moment where ishin could no longer suppress the hollow white and so the threads were torn apart permanently and he gets his shinigami powers back at the start of the iran karak that's explained it's explained how eisen knew about ichigo before he was born because he was there to witness masaki being bitten by the hollow and her first meeting with ishin i mean that one is a little more tenuous but it's also not hard to just kind of put two and two together that's how he knows that ichigo is an amalgamation of all these different races and so i think that kubo just did such a good job with everything but the rain on the whole and i was really really impressed when i was reading it and in that sense it's such a shame then ishin does so little after this he then goes on of course to tell ichigo the truth about how masaki actually died the fact that yuhar bach himself used the australian on masaki basically moments before she was attacked by grand fischer so that she couldn't defend herself and it's disappointing then that ishin basically does nothing else after this for the rest of the story because now he has a personal stake against juha bach and it's a shame that it's never it never kind of comes to pass right at the end of the series in the varvelt uh final battle ishin and ryuken arrive on the stage and you know that was so exciting because you know it seemed like we would get ishin's bankai we would get a fight for ryuken at last ryukan is dressed like an absolute badass only for them to do very very little ryuken at least gives uru the still silver arrow that wins the day but ishin just stands there he literally just stands there and basically says nothing and that's a shame it really does sort of feel like kubo i think kubo really wanted ishin to have an active role in that final battle but unfortunately he doesn't but at the same time it is still pretty cool that they arrive at all and that final that not the final shot but the shot of them arriving i really like how that looks and it's just so cool seeing ishin and ryuken actually entering a battle together i really like that and i just wish that we'd actually seen it play out i think i thought and many many other people thought as well that ryuken would go and intercept in the hash wolf battle and then ishin now is she could have gone a couple of ways here i think ishin could have intercepted the gerard fight and had a reunion with hitsugaya or he could have gone straight to yuhabak and ichigo which is probably more likely what would have happened but regardless i would have liked to have seen either of those scenarios play out and that's pretty much it for the character of ishin kurosaki even with a cliff notes version of everything but the rain this video has gone on for longer than i anticipated but that's what happens when you talk about easily one of the most mysterious characters in the series like genuinely this guy is just someone that we were so so curious about and while i would have liked to have seen more from ishin on the whole i liked what we got and i think that's the sign of a successful character in many ways obviously with kubo's illness and running out of time at the end of the series i think we didn't quite get to see everything from ishin that kubo wanted us to however if he ever decides to write more of these hell chapters in the future i really hope that ishin plays a role there as well but that's it for this video guys i really hope you enjoyed it let me know in the comments below what's your favorite ishin moment in the series what do you like about this character um and would you have liked to have seen more from him in the story what do you think his bankai is as well that was teased i do want to do a video on that in the future too alright guys but i hope you enjoyed don't forget to hit subscribe and i'll catch you next time i'll see you then

Channel: MrTommo2304

Views: 144,571

Keywords: bleach, bleach manga, bleach discussion, bleach tybw, bleach anime, bleach new anime, bleach tybw anime, bleach new chapter, bleach hell arc, MrTommo2304, MrTommo2304 Bleach, bleach anime trailer, bleach tybw trailer, bankai, tybw anime, bleach hell chapter, bleach isshin, isshin bankai, isshin shiba

Id: TamZYexKrMU

Length: 49min 49sec (2989 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 18 2022