Shinji Hirako: THE INVERSION | BLEACH: Character Analysis

this week i'm doing a character analysis on the highly requested shinji hirako he had been the captain of the fifth division for over 100 years that is until he was made to undergo qualification thanks to eisens experiments and it is because of this that shinji was exiled from the seoul society along with several other shinigami who had also been hollified shinji had banded them together and thus had become the leader of this group called the wizards it is no secret that shinji is a beloved character not only does he have an incredible introduction he also solidifies himself as one of the strongest shinigami that we see especially after knowing that he was one of the few shinigami who were able to successfully land an attack on eisen during the fake karakoram town arc and in addition to this he also has one of my favorite lines uttered within the entirety of this story during the 10 back the pendulum arc when eisen has concealed himself and he is watching urohara and shinji speak shinji ends up revealing eisen who has been concealed under some camouflage eisen complements his captain and asks when was it that he realized that he was there shinji hilariously responds that he has known about eisen since he was in his mother's womb so let's break down this character whose glorious white teeth could be on the cover of a colgate advertisement this is my breakdown and analysis of shinji hirako the captain of the 5th division and the leader of the wizards [Music] shinji makes his debut appearance within the story in chapter 183 of the manga and in episode 109 of the anime what you may not know about shinji's character is that he was one of the first characters that we see at the start of the first chapter of bleach kubo had originally intended to introduce shinji's character much earlier within the story but with the way that the story panned out he was introduced later on going back to the first chapter of bleach and seeing shinji drawn in kubo's very early art style is fascinating to me and i wonder what other plans kubo had initially with his character when it comes to the appearance of shinji the first thing that you'll notice is a strikingly straight hair they are like blonde strands of spaghetti in addition to this he always has a very disinterested expression through his eyes and through his facial expressions you'll always be able to see the top portion of his teeth hence my reference to colgate toothpaste earlier on as the story progresses shinji's character has several changes of appearance including his long-haired look as a captain from the 10 back to pendulum arc then we see his more casually dressed appearance that we are introduced to as the leader of the vizards and in the current timeline of bleach shinji of course has returned to being a captain of the 5th division with a slight change in his hairstyle with his fringe being cut towards the left-hand side of his face shinji's personality is hilariously contrasted with his expressionless face despite his blank disinterested face shinji definitely has a sense of humor and through this he breathes comedic relief into serious moments of the story and in addition to this he loves annoying his underlings in particular hiyori despite this goofy attitude shinji is very perceptive and this is demonstrated through how he keeps a close eye on eisen during the turn back the pendulum arc even choosing to have eisen as his lieutenant because he was able to perceive that he was up to no good the suspicions of eisen had indeed proven to be true and we learned about the consequences of shinji not taking action sooner and doing more to stop isen during the 10 back the pendulum arc and it is during this very short flashback arc that we learned the most about shinji's past up until this point within the story we had known him only as a wizard but during this arc we are introduced to a completely different goatee 13 as we are told of events that occurred 110 years ago where shinji and the other vaisards were forcibly made to undergo holification so after having introduced shinji's character i'm now going to be going over his past this will hopefully allow us to understand his appearances throughout the rest of the story as we are able to appreciate where shinji's character had come from and what his mindset must have been when he had first met ichigo and what he had been feeling when he had seen eisen again during the fake karakura town arc shinji's chronological first appearance within the story occurs when he is making preparations to attend urahara's captain ceremony we also learned that the other members of the vaisards had positions with indigote13 also i loved seeing all of these characters interacting with captains who are currently holding their positions in the present for example characters like shinsui and okitake if you've seen the other videos on my channel then you'll know that the turn back the pendulum arc was about telling the backstory of urohara we get to also learn how urohara's character is closely linked to the vizards after urohara had first become a captain he was struggling to deal with his lieutenant hiyori who had been refusing to accept him as a new captain shinji notices that urohara is struggling and even offers him advice he even goes as far as to said that urohara reminds him of himself and you can see that there are certainly some similarities between both urohara and shinji's character especially in how their comedic nature contrasts with their seriousness as well as their ability to perceive details that most often are not others would miss it is during this conversation with urohara that shinji notices that his lieutenant isen is spying on him after uncovering him and making that comment about eisen's mother's womb his lieutenant tells shinji that he is a scary person but shinji responds by saying that it is eisen in fact who is the scary one further confirming that he is keeping a close eye on eisen having his suspicions that he may be up to no good we then get a slight time skip as nine years passed since urahara had become a captain the events that occur after this time skip what proved to change shinji's world forever the soul society was made aware of some strange deaths that had been occurring within the rokongai district and it is at this time that the ninth division was tasked to investigate what was going on however after some time had passed and concerns grew about the whereabouts of the ninth division shinji along with a group of other shinigami were tasked to investigate the disappearances within the rukongai district as well as finding out what had happened to kensei and his squad upon arriving they quickly discover a holified kensei shinji had arrived just in time to defend hiyori from the holofit captain the group of shining army are then attacked by kensei's lieutenant mashiro kuna after hachi arrives on the battle scene they're able to subdue both kensei and moshiro but it is at this point that hiyori begins choking as the unthinkable happens hiyori too begins to become horrified and attacks shinji and in addition to this a mysterious individual arrives and takes out the rest of the rescue squad after this attack by this mysterious individual it is revealed that shinji was the only one who was still conscious we quickly learned the identity of this attacker to be kaname tozen shinji is then caught off guard by the arrival of his lieutenant eisen as he is accompanied by guinea chimaru as we learned that the individual who had been qualifying the shinigami was indeed his own lieutenant it is through this flashback arc that we learn about the relationship that shinji has with eisen and the reason for the 100-year grudge that shinji and the other wizards would have against eisen shinji admits that he isn't surprised that eisen would be behind this as his captain shinji had quickly suspected that eisen was somebody who could not be trusted and that there was a lot more to eisen than meets the eye we learned that shinji had purposefully selected eisen to be his lieutenant in order for him to keep a close eye on him however eisen reveals that he had taken advantage of shinji suspicions because of shinji suspicions eisen was able to manipulate him through his kyokasugatsu xinji would have lowered his guard assuming that his lieutenant would be following him but what shinji did not know was that for the past month a decoy had been following him because shinji didn't have a meaningful relationship with his lieutenant he wasn't able to spot these subtle differences between this decoy and the real eisen if shinji was more trusting and had actually formed a friendship with his lieutenant then eisen feared that his decoy would have been seen through but ironically thanks to shinji's suspicions eisen was able to go around his back and do these holification experiments and it is for this reason that eisen had willingly accepted shinji's offer of becoming his lieutenant after realizing his oversight eisen states that shinji is responsible for his comrades having fallen unconscious and becoming qualified understandably after hearing this claim that he would be responsible for the holification of his friends shinji becomes immediately angered however because he too is gradually becoming qualified his heightened emotions within this situation lead to the holification process speeding up eisen is so smug during this exchange he ends up thanking shinji for being so easily provoked and takes note that the process of holification is sped up when an individual is in a heightened emotional state when eisen orders tozen to finish off the shinigami shinji defends his comrades during this exchange shinji did his best to remain calm being aware that his feelings of anger would only speed up his holification just as shinji began to have the upper hand against tozen the holification process proves to be too overwhelming and not shinji unconscious and just as eisen was about to kill shinji and the others he ends up being saved by the arrival of urahara and tessai and of course we know the rest of the story urahara is held responsible for the holification of his comrades while eisen gets away with everything scot-free the night before he was made to appear before the central 46 urahara had been trying his best to assist his comrades trying to reverse the holification process while he is being sentenced hiroichi had broken into urahara's lab and then retrieved the bodies of shinji and the others along with the hall-of-fight shinigami she had also retrieved a prototype giga with this the halifad shinigami along with tessai urahara and urichi leave for the human world where urahara is able to help shinji and the others by creating riatsu blocking gigai where they are able to undo some of the effects of the holification process while the vizards were in the world of the living eisen and his accomplices began to be promoted with indigote13 as not too long after eisen had become the captain of the fifth division taking shinji's position after having successfully fooled everybody this then perfectly leads us into shinji's first appearance within the story at the end of chapter 183 i've always thought of shinji's character introduction to be one of the most visually iconic scenes within the entirety of the bleach manga the way that kubo draws this mysterious character floating upside down above ichigo and the others we are introduced to a new character whose introduction also reminds me of the introduction of udyu we were aware that there was something unique about udu's character when we had noticed that he was able to see ichigo in his shinigami shihaku show while kubo had employed more covert measures with udu's character when it came to shinji's character kubo overtly made us aware that this individual has spiritual powers through how he is floating upside down in the air watching ichigo in his shinigami form although initially appearing to be a sinister threat we learned that shinji was only trying to grow closer to ichigo in order to assist him with his struggles with his inner hollow in order to accomplish this goal he had even disguised himself as a student and had attended ichigo's school it doesn't take long before he formally introduces himself to ichigo in chapter 184 while ichigo is making his way over to battle against a hollow he appears behind ichigo and ends up attacking him revealing that shinji has his own zombucto after ichigo demands to know who shinji is in chapter 185 he reveals that he too has his own holo mask as ichigo is made aware that shinji holds a lot of similarity to himself as he too is a shinigami who has been crossed over with a hollow he introduces himself as a vizard and states that he is just like ichigo he offers an invitation to him to join his group as he states that he doesn't belong with the shinigami he belongs with the vizards in chapter 187 after being alerted to an intense spiritual pressure belonging to ichigo's father the exchange between shinji and ichigo comes to an end after the sudden appearance of this spiritual pressure shinji becomes aware of how terrible ichigo is at sensing spiritual pressure before ichigo leaves he makes it clear that he doesn't care who shinji is because there is no way that he is joining him he reaffirms to himself that he is a shinigami and he isn't a wizard he still hasn't come to terms with the hollow which lays dormant within himself rejecting his inner hollow he refuses shinji's invitation for assistance in chapter 189 ichigo drags shinji out of the classroom wondering what on earth he is still doing here after ichigo had refused its offer of help he had made it clear that he didn't want to be recruited into shinji's group so for this reason shinji no longer has any reason to be here but the leader of the vaisard reveals to ichigo that he isn't going to give up either way ichigo doesn't have a choice after all he is a wizard himself whether if he likes it or not he is already on their side if he doesn't manage to control the inner hollow within him then it is only a matter of time before it starts to affect his friendships eventually ichigo will be swallowed by his inner hollow and go insane shinji is the first one to pinpoint the exact issue that ichigo is going through the fact that the hollow within ichigo is growing too big for him to handle he is the voice of reason and the solution to ichigo's problems here and for nothing in return he is offering to teach ichigo how to retain his sanity i do not lose it to his inner hollow sure enough just as shinji had predicted ichigo was left with no choice but to come to him at the end of chapter 214 we see ichigo arriving at the vaisards there after being defeated by yami and being unable to protect orihime and then being defeated by grim zhao being unable to protect rukia ichigo was forced to come to shinji because his inner hollow continued to disrupt him during battle despite refusing its assistance his inner hollow continued to grow before he becomes consumed by his inner hollow like shinji had predicted ichigo arrives to be trained by shinji and the wizards he makes it clear that he isn't here to join them but he is here to unapologetically use them in order to control his inner hollow in order to prove himself worthy of being trained he ends up battling against shinji hiyori then takes over as she challenges ichigo while shinji watches the two of them battle he witnesses ichigo's inner hollow manifest and almost choke yuri to death he along with the other vaisards end up restraining ichigo shinji begins his training in chapter 217 as hyori makes him run on this exercise machine as shinji explains that this will help him to prepare for his upcoming training the longer that he can keep on this exercise machine then the more that he will get out of his training when ichigo continues to be ungrateful and complain about his training stating that it is taking too long and he doesn't have time to play with the wizards shinji loses his patience and tells him to shut up it is here that we are made aware that this group called the wizards are aware of aizen and the hokyoku as shinji reveals to ichigo that he doesn't even know how long it takes for the hokyoku to awaken so on what grounds can he be speaking about wasting time in chapter 217 shinji states that he already knows about the hokyoku the irankas and even eisen he has known about them for years he ends up giving in to ichigo's request for a shortcut to his training as we learned that shinji knows that ichigo was able to become a shinigami and achieve shikai and bankai in a very short amount of time ichigo is surprised that he knows about this shinji places his hand over ichigo's face as he falls unconscious sending ichigo into his inner world where he will learn how to holify on command shinji ended up initiating a process where ichigo would become a hollow all of the way but ichigo's goal here is to not let his hollow consume him instead he needs to consume the hollow if his hollow takes over here then it is over for him now earlier on when ichigo had been struggling with his inner hollow rukia had suggested to him to get help from urahara but ichigo made it clear that urohara knows what he is going through and if he could have helped him then he would have done so the fact that shinji knows about how ichigo had become a shinigami and that he had learnt shikai and bankai in a short amount of time leads me to believe that urohara had probably spoken to shinji and had asked him to train ichigo this explains his impeccable timing as he appears right at the start of the iranka arc as soon as ichigo begins to have issues with his inner hollow this is speculation but i believe that it is reasonable to come to this conclusion especially considering that urohara was the one who had dealt with the hollow white during the everything but the rain flashback arc when the hollow had possessed ichigo's mother the vizards take turns in subduing ichigo's outer body while he is in his inner world ichigo is finally able to gain control over his inner hollow in chapter 222 as shinji asks him how he is feeling to which ichigo smiles and replies that he is not doing too bad the focus of ichigo's training with shinji and the vizards then shifts as he is trained to lengthen the time that he can manifest his hollow mask as shinji is able to manifest his hollow mask for five minutes while ichigo struggles to manifest his for longer than 10 seconds in chapter 230 shinji is left with no choice but to let ichigo go when he senses that grim jiahu has arrived in the world of the living in chapter 236 we learned that shinji had followed ichigo as he ends up saving both rookie and ichigo from a sorrow attack from grimgel and it is here where we truly get to see shinji's power demonstrated for the very first time as we see him easily hold his own against the sixth isbada after quickly losing his patience with the hot-headed grim jiao he manifests his holo mask and easily subdues the espada just as gringzhou is about to release his zambocto ukira arrives and takes him away thus ending his battle with shinji at the start of chapter 239 we learned that ichigo had left a note to say thanks to the wizards as shinji becomes aware that ichigo has gone to wacom window after shinji and the vizards play their part in assisting ichigo with these hollow powers we don't really see them again until the fake karakura town arc at the end of chapter 364 when it appears that eisen has the upper hand and the gote 13 have been defeated the visas arrive finally reuniting with eisen after almost 100 years after arriving shinji ends up speaking to head captain yamamoto as the captain commander wonders if shinji has arrived to seek revenge he clarifies their position by stating that they want revenge against eisen and that they don't really care about the gote 13. head captain yamamoto asks shinji if they can consider the vizards as their allies but shinji states that they are not allies they are simply enemies of eisen and that they are ichigo's allies at the end of chapter 365 all of the vaisards activate their masks as they begin to battle at the end of chapter 366 shinji cuts to the chase and appears in front of eisen as he declares that he is going to end this he strikes towards eisen but his attack is blocked by tozen tozen is able to inflict a cut above shinji's left eye as blood begins to run down his face before he can strike the wizard again komomura arrives to assist shinji in chapter 375 we catch up with shinji as we see that he is facing off against again their brief encounter comes to an end after eisen calls for gin and tozen to come back after he takes out haribel in chapter 377 shinji wants the other wizards not to approach eisen carelessly but after eisen taunts the wizards hyori loses aku and charges towards him but this is where she is taken out by gin shinji is powerless to help yuri as he wonders where on earth ichigo is as he remembers that orihime could heal hyori's injuries in chapter 383 a fascinating exchange occurs between shinji and eisen as eisen explains to the wizard how he is planning to become a god eisen deems shinji worthy enough to use his zompak dough against him shinji leaves hyori in the care of hachi as he tells him to look after her until ichigo arrives eisen begins to question the trust that shinji has in ichigo but he doesn't expect eisen to understand since he has no trust in his own underlings this is demonstrated through how he easily had taken out haribel earlier eisen tells shinji that when you trust someone it means that you are relying on them and this is ultimately a sign of weakness so it is for this reason that trusting others isn't something that eisen or his underlings do shinji questions how can eisen believe this since he has so many subordinates sure the eisen would have only gained such a following if he had told them to trust in him but eisen reveals that he had never asked his subordinates to trust in him he had only asked them to accompany him he hadn't extended this offer beyond these simple words he never asked for that trust in fact he had reminded the ispada and the irankas to not trust anybody including him however it appears that very few had heeded eisen's warning explaining the sense of betrayal that haribel must have felt after eisen had cut her down despite warning her not to even trust in him eisen explains that all beings trust their superiors they are unable to survive on their own if they don't blindly follow a leader it is through this basic concept of having trust in a higher power that eisen begins to elaborate upon his true motive revealing that people want to find a god to believe in he tells shinji that he will show him before his very eyes how he will become a god one that is superior to the soul king he wants to become a divine being that others can put their faith in and as a result others will begin to put their trust in him it's fascinating that the idea of trust is brought up between these two characters in the past shinji had been eisen superior but despite them sharing these positions of captain and lieutenant neither of them had trust in each other eisen of course didn't trust shinji as he had no real reason to place his faith in him not deeming him worthy enough to obey and to forsake his desires of becoming a false god the dysfunctional past of these two characters is once again brought up in chapter 385 as we begin to understand the advantages that the two characters have after deciding not to trust each other when i had spoken about the 10 back the pendulum arc i spoke about how eisen had taken advantage or the fact that shinji didn't trust him and how he had kept a close eye on him never really opening up to him neither of them had really tried to get to know each other so it is for this reason that shinji didn't know anything about eisen zambakdo but this also works the other way as eisen has no idea what kind of power shinji zambakdo has shinji then questions if eisen really believes that kyokasugetsu is the only zampakdo that can manipulate an individual's senses shinji then releases the shiikai of his zompakto sakade his zambakdo begins rapidly spinning clockwise eisen comments on the interesting shape of his zampakdo but states that he doesn't feel any change as he recalls that shinji had stated that his zampakdo would take over his senses it is at this moment that shinji confirms that change has already taken effect we learned that shinji zambakdo has the ability to invert an individual senses as he welcomes eisen to his upside down world not only are the directions of up and down reversed shinji also reverses right and left this is the ability of his shikai fascinatingly in chapter 387 shinji is the one and only shinigami who is able to actually land an attack on eisen when shinji charges towards eisen he is able to deduce that the leader of the wizards can also invert the directions of front and back it appears that eisen has successfully blocked shinji but despite this eisen still gets cut on his right arm as this former captain reveals that he is also able to invert the direction of eisen's sight and whereas wounds are inflicted are also reversed shinji is confident that it is impossible for anybody to make all of these adjustments within their head just as shinji gains some confidence in the battle eisen realizes that a shikai is no more than an optical illusion as he easily sees through it referring to it as child's play and it cannot be compared to his own zambakdo which can take control of all five senses after this ichigo ends up successfully arriving in fake karakora town and shinji and the other wizards don't really do anything of significance for the rest of this arc aside from assisting kitsugaya in mistakingly attacking momo now i just went over the exchange between shinji and eisen from one perspective if you want to see another perspective then i highly recommend checking out my eisen character analysis where we get to understand more about his mindset and philosophy so definitely go and check out that video if you want to know more about the nuance and detail behind this exchange in chapter 392 eisen is successful in taking out shinji along with the other members of the gotei 13. he doesn't kill them so that they can witness what is yet to come we don't see shinji again until after eisen is defeated by ichigo as we catch up with him in chapter 422 where he thanks una hana for healing hyori una hana questions why he is thanking her as it isn't necessary after all she was saving the life of one of her comrades you can see that the gote 13 no longer have anything against the wizards presumably it is because of their non-judgmental nature that some of the vizards joined the gotei 13 once again we don't really get to see this happen within the manga but during the fallbring arc in chapter 479 we see that shinji has reclaimed his position as the captain of the fifth division he doesn't have much more of an involvement within the fullbrink arc aside from being one of the shinigami who had placed their reishi into the reishi sword that was used to restore ichigo's powers this now takes us to shinji's appearance within the final arc of the story the thousand-year blood war arc he doesn't have much of a role during the first invasion of the quincy aside from reacting to the deaths of head captain yamamoto and to the arrival of ichigo into the soul society and after the first invasion he isn't really that badly injured in chapter 515 he updates ichigo on rukia and renji's condition explaining how the two of them have just gotten out of surgery and are being kept at the intensive care ward when rukia thanks ichiko for coming to save the soul society ichigo states that he doesn't deserve her thanks since he didn't do anything it is here that shinji scolds ichigo reminding him that his actions had driven yuho back out of the soul society if ichigo didn't arrive when he did then the soul society would be in a lot more of a mess he reminds ichigo to stick his chest out more and to feel confident in his actions after ichigo leaves shinji ends up speaking to rukia he comments on how ichigo is always busy no matter the situation he always ignores his wounds in order to take care of others rukia questions shinji asking him why was it that ichigo looked like he was in pain shinji reveals to her that ichigo had gone through a rough time as well his zambakdo had been broken and in all honesty ichigo was right he wasn't able to save anybody revealing that shinji was aware of how useless ichigo was but he didn't want to rub salt into his wounds hence why he had tried to encourage him earlier on and in a similar manner he tries to reassure rukia as he tells her that ichigo is probably tired and she shouldn't have to worry about him in chapter 517 we see shinji meeting with the royal guards when they arrive to take ichigo and the others to the seoul king's palace when the quincy once again attacked the soul society he ends up having a brief encounter with bambieta but he is taken out by her in chapter 556 and has to be saved by komomura shinji is one of the first people to learn from urohara that he is intending to break into the seoul king's palace in chapter 612 shinji accompanies ichigo and the others as they break into the soul king's palace which has been transformed by the quincy into their own fortress called waharwald shinji doesn't counter the standard to lil barrow but he leaves shantsui behind to deal with him stating that it is the job of the captain commander in order to give up his life for his underlings of course he would have stayed back to help shinsuit if time wasn't of the essence when he arrives at the upper levels of the city they are confronted by the standard gerard valkyrie in chapter 654 it appears that gerard ends up taking out shinji and his lieutenant momo through using his shift the miracle because of the rushed nature of the end of the thousand-year world war arc we don't really get to know about their whereabouts until after the 10-year time skip where we learned that shinji and momo had indeed survived as we see them present at the captain ceremony of rukia in chapter 685 so this is the extent of shinji's involvement within the story now i know that some people including myself complained that the role of the vaisards dwindled after the defeat of eisen and the fact that they had joined the gotei 13 had made their characters fade into obscurity because factually speaking we didn't see them do anything after the fake karakora town arc and to be honest it may have been a wiser choice for kubo to keep shinji and the others as vizards this would enable them to remain as a unique and distinctive group separate from the gotei 13. even if we didn't get this i would have loved if we got to see the vaisard members being accepted back into the soul society but we didn't get to see any of this if you want my opinion from the actual manga that we got from chapters 1 to 686 i do believe that shinji hirako was a character with wasted potential especially since we didn't get to see his bankai and the true extent of his abilities i know that his shiikai was used within the thousand year blood war arc but he was still severely underutilized within this final arc we didn't see him take part in any proper battles within the fullbrink arc and shockingly he didn't do anything of significance during the thousand-year blood war arc this truly baffles me because shinji is one of the most powerful shinigami within the story i do hope that some additional scenes involving his character are added within the anime adaptation of the thousand-year blood war arc even if we don't get this i would love to have a bangkai reveal within the upcoming hell arc that was announced in august of 2021 whatever the case i wouldn't call this the end of shinji story and i look forward to seeing more of his character in the future so we're at the part of the video where i hand over the discussion to all of you what do you think of shinji hirako did you learn anything new about him from this video or do you think that i missed some points about his character i would love to know all of your thoughts so definitely leave a comment under this video letting me know what you think of the leader of the wizards and the captain of the 5th division and lastly thank you for making it to the end of this video and i can't wait to see you in my next bleach character analysis if you enjoyed this video and would like to see more like it then please consider supporting my channel on patreon i have multiple tiers with the rewards including access to an exclusive discord server video scripts as well as being the first to know about unreleased upcoming videos thank you for your time and whatever you choose to contribute i will appreciate and it will mean a lot to me [Music] you

Channel: DBZimran

Views: 296,313

Keywords: bleach, shinji, shinji hirako, shinji bleach, shinji bankai, shinji shikai, shinji vizard, shinji vs grimmjow, shinji vs aizen, shinji hirako character analysis, shinji analysis, shinji hirako becomes captain again, bleach analysis, bleach character analysis, shinji character analysis, shinji explained, shinji past, shinji backstory, shinji hirako hollowfication, history of shinji, hirako shinki analysis, bleach 2021, bleach 2022, turn back the pendulum arc, bleach anime

Id: 4NAOshuLvdI

Length: 28min 55sec (1735 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 27 2021