#zanpakutou

[bleachbleachbleach]

This is my zanpakutou

[Bleach 055 | 075]

Sure, you can be jaded about shounen guys and their fancy weapons parades, like, if you want, but I think the way zanpakutou are introduced is immensely fucking cool. We have some sense of the thing--from Zangetsu, and from Rukia having started it all by thrusting hers through Ichigo's chest, but our introductions to Soul Society and the shinigami who lead it are through an introduction to these swords.

We see it first from Renji, in the dark on a street in Karakura: A sword that can cut, but one that can also be called forth to change shape, become teeth that pounce and gnash. The image is so visceral--you can feel it dig into Ichigo's shoulder, tear through fat and muscle.

But maybe we've forgotten that, in the broad daylight of the West Gate. Even Ichigo's life-or-death tousle to regain Zangetsu is a dim memory on the other side of the dangai, because we've made it to the gates and bested the gate giant without much trouble and even some hijinks. The world on this side doesn't yet feel real, because Jidanbou is Jidanbou and Jidanbou lives up to the sense of fantasy: If you beat the gate guardian, of course you get to go into the city. That's how fantasy works, doesn't it?

But it's not how gates work. Ichimaru rightly points out that beating the gate guardian should not logically mean said guardian then opens the gate for you. I'm not saying it should mean you get your arm cut off by Some Guy, but it's not like Ichimaru's entirely wrong here. That's fantasy logic. This is Soul Society, and this is his zanpakutou. Which is, if you recall, a brutal weapon. It's also other things, but the way we met it and the way we are reminded of it it now, is through its violence.

[Bleach 055 | Bleach 075]

And I love the juxtaposition of the pure violence of zanpakutou to the fact that they are also the object of konsou--and konsou, for most, is likely how such a sword is most often used. Konsou, an act of meditation, mercy, perhaps grace. There's a juxtaposition, too, between the pure violence of zanpakutou and the fact that our first glimpse of Soul Society as a place is through Renji and Rikichi talking about butterflies; our introduction to Ichimaru is him frittering time away with Byakuya; and he closes the scene with a goodbye that is both disarming and utterly apprehension-inducing:

[Bleach 075]

All of these juxtapositions offer something different--with Renji, we begin to understand different dynamics between him and his past with Rukia, and with shinigami duties as a normal person job; we see some additional social complexities arise between Byakuya and Ichimaru; and while Ichimaru's "byebye" is written in pink and followed with a heart, it's not the same as the glimpses we get of Renji. Renji's scenes say, there's more for you to know. Ichimaru's introduction screams, I will not let you know. We're certainly not saying goodbye to hijinks, and it's not as though Soul Society isn't defined just as much by its hijinks (bureaucratic, slapstick, and otherwise) as it is its swords, but Ichimaru showing up, however playfully, is a reminder that shit's also serious, and those hijinks live hand in hand with the vicious intensity of zanpakutou, and shinigami, and Soul Society.

[phoenixcatch7]

Just once I'd like to see a fic where shinso (sword spirit from bleach) is shinso (brainwash teen from bnha). Just one fic.

Bleach shinso is entirely a blank slate of 'century old sword spirit belonging to, of all people, gin ichimaru' 'ridiculously fast, long and lethally poisonous' and 'named the god killing spear and does a darn good job of it in the end'.

It'd be a fascinating character to come from that, and in the body of shinso bnha it'd make for a excellent canon divergence XD. I wonder how it'd affect his quirk? Maybe the shinso family could have come from a bloodline relating to the sword? Who knows.

Maybe transferring the shikai/bankai abilities to his body? Maybe he has a sword fused with his arm? Maybe he can summon the sword once his quirk comes in? Maybe it's a second quirk thing on top of his brainwashing? Maybe some terrifying fusion of the two?? Who knows lmao. But it'd be so cool.

[thelandswemadeofpaper]

I saw this gif and though of Byakuya

[recurring-polynya]

this is the most disrespectful use of the split-screen reaction shot i have ever seen. i would file a grievance with the vice-captains' union.

[crispybonkeggllama]

I am so certain that after accepting every part of himself Ichigo treats Shiro like a little kid, 'cause he's not afraid anymore and the thing I can imagine is:

Shiro: *planning somethig with evil laughter*

Ichigo: *whacks him on the head* no murder.

Shiro: *pouts* what about stabbin'?

Ichigo: depends on who.

Shiro: that ugly ass clown who made glasses lose the shiny-bow?

Ichigo: ...

Ichigo: that's actually "murder" category, y'know?

[tunamayojazz]

the captain and his sword

[violetnaps]

how the fuck do u name a zanpakutou... im just googling any and all relevant words for the power it has

[biskael]

looking over each and every one of his weapons collection ... attempting to find a specific favourite . he likes blades the best , after all .

[lilacwriter07]

you know what be cute little Ichigo dressed up as Zangetsu having a date with Urahara dressed up as Benihime and Shunsui dressed as Katen Kyokotsu 😌💖

[nvrcmplt]

/rattles/ can u let me write about u plz, osamu-yaaaaaa

[bleachbleachbleach]

In our Bleach rewatch, we are about halfway through the Zanpakutou Rebellion arcs, and a few nights ago we hit my VERY FAVORITE SCENE IN THIS WHOLE ARC. (Other notables: Byakuya and Renji sparring, Hitsugaya putting his hand up for dragon-Hyourinmaru like he’s giving him an apple, the Kuchiki hanami/10th bonfire, and all the shots of the Wind Sock.) Like, I had been waiting for this every night like “Boy gee golly I hope we get to see that scene where Chirpy floats past Isane and Iba!!!! Will it be tonight!! Will we see it?!?!” AND THEN WE SAW IT and it was even more glorious than one could ever dream.

Ashisogi Jizou is hands-down my runaway first bestest top favorite zanpakutou manifestation. I’m generally very lukewarm on humanoid versions of anything that has a non-human form or several that it could otherwise be manifesting as, so for this arc this weird-ass chirpy butterfly baby is my favorite manifestation by default. But it goes so much further than that. You need to understand.

I LOVE this thing. It is a screaming, all-caps, heart a-flutter love. Never have I so hotly anticipated the appearance of a character on my screen as much as Chirpy. In my mind, no character has ever had a more celebration-worthy intro than Chirpy meandering its way through the background of the Zanpakutou Rebellion’s D-plot, encountering Sirs Who Are Not Appearing In This Film because we don’t know shit about Isane nor Iba’s zanpakutou. 

It’s just THERE. To conduct mayhem and be cute and off-putting in a haunted sort of way. And you have the bonus of Isane’s ICONIC OBSERVATION, 

“It’s very distinctive.”

Though tbh, the shinigami had a relatively hard time parsing out whose zanpakutou was whose, including their own. Except Isane. Isane knew everyone’s and I feel in my heart it’s because working at the 4th she has had much more direct and contained experience with most everyone’s reiatsu. And then you have this weird butterfly baby and whose tf else’s would it be.

Top 5 great features of Chirpy:

HE CHIRP. BEST SOUND GREAT SOUND

HE MILL. just wandering around, havoc seemingly both optional and inevitable

Zaraki grabs him by the face

accurately represents real-life moth feature, ‘squeeze me to see my eldritch blades’

could not begin to care about the arc lore. he is here to fuck around and find absolutely zero things out

I LOOOVEEEEEE HIMMMMMMMM

[midnightactual]

here’s something interesting for you to chew on. chapter 540:

chapter 532:

the only people in the world who would’ve known that White was named White were Aizen, Kaname, and Gin

Kaname and Gin are dead

Ōetsu didn’t pop down to Muken to chat with Aizen

how does Ōetsu know it was named White?

chapter 529:

dude doesn’t just know Aizen, Gin, Kaname, and Isshin were there that night

he was listening in on their conversation. he knew where all of them were and what they were doing the entire time.

[aurora-313]

So the final arc for black and blue will be the zanpakuto rebellion? I can understand why you may go for it- among the filler arcs it does seem to be the most popular and well-liked (I LOVED all the zanpakuto designs myself) but I wonder why include it at all? Perhaps so that two certain zanpakutos that no realizes are zanpakutos will get a chance for a big reveal since tybw won't be happening?

(It's cool if you can't directly answer, spoilers and all that jazz.)

On the less spoilery side of things, will you be addressing the forms the zanpakuto take? Like with zabimaru, instead of the monkey with the snake tail we got chimpette and snakey. I always assumed that zanpakuto could assume more than one form or perhaps those two could symbolize the form of renji's true bankai (like we learned from kubo that yachiru as we know her is supposed to be kenpachi's bankai, kind of like tensa zangetsu- in shikai she's an adult woman). And I always thought that sogyo no kotowari and haineko had animal forms to go with their human forms.

On the humorous side of things, I always thought retroactively that it would've been hilarious if old man zangetsu got brought out and someone- unohana or sasakibe- saw him and were like, "Why is kurosaki's zanpakuto spirit that quincy asshole yamamoto killed a thousand years ago?!"

Because frankly, I wanted a relatively low-stake wind down from the world-ending threat that was Aizen. And I've got a cute image in my head of little Sogyo no Kotowari barging into Kaien's office, begging Kaien to play with them and complaining about how much they missed him.

Then Kaien siccing them on his Hollow instead. "Sorry guys, I'd love to but I have work to do, I don't have time today... **points to Hollow Kaien lounging about** he's free though." "Yay! White Kaien, play with us! Lets play kido tag together!" "W-Wait what?! Kaien I'll kill you!" "Have fun; bring them back before naptime~!"

That won't happen, that's just a scene I thought up of while doing a bleach re-watch in prep for TYBW anime's return and I realised it'd be a great way to re-charge from the world ending catastrophe. Muramasa aside, there weren't a lot of stakes. It was a fun distraction more than anything else; plus the opportunity for humorous Zanpakutou interactions.

Given who Kaien is, I easily imagine Nejibana relentless trolling the living daylights out of Rukia and Ichigo. Hell, I doubt even Kaien would be safe from her. He has siblings ya know, and Nejibana was there every step of the way in the living world - I wonder how Kukaku would react to the Jellyfish story in particular. ;)

I think Zanpakutou having one or two separate forms is highly dependent on the wielder. Just like the Zanpakutou spirit itself is shaped by the soul it belongs to. Hell, Hisagi mentioned that his Zanpakutou appeared to him in various different elemental forms in CFYOW before appearing as a shadow-clad humanoid to have that 'How to Bankai' talk.

Since this isn't spoilers, I'll confirm Nejibana has two. Her humanoid form and a sea wyvern.

Given how I intend to write BB, I don't think it'll be the old man brought out.... but, we'll jump off that bridge when we come to it.

It might turn out I don't do the Zanpakutou rebellion at all and just finish with the Lost Agent arc. Won't know for sure until I write it.

[uraharasandals]

can i ask about how sasakibe's eyes can turn all white in TYBW?? if you know the answer I hope you answer my question, thank you !!

The actual and honest answer to this is I don't know, but that's boring so let's cook up some theories and speculate about this!

So per anon’s observation, Sasakibe’s eyes before TYBW are like this: 

(Fake Karakura Town) 

As we can see, he has gorgeous bronze-coloured pupils (and what seems like eyeliner lmfao). 

Now, in TYBW...

(Official art for TYBW) 

He has indeed no pupils, his eyes are completely white. Bear in mind, however, that Sasakibe appeared for a total of 3 episodes (1 if we’re counting his current age/the current timeline) before he completely disappears. Out of these, 2 are of him as a young man and the one in the current timeline is of him fatally wounded. 

My guess is that the lack of colour in his eyes show that he’s dead. From what I remember in Bleach, Kubo doesn’t really do anything whacky with eyes (not including the Hollows) except when individuals undergo Hollowfication, so this is probably in line with conventional storytelling. You can see that there’s clearly something wrong here -- he doesn’t look normal, and he wasn’t turned/changed/experimented etc. etc. The only change in state he experiences is...well, he died.

That said!! I believe there's also another reason for his eyes to be completely white. In Bleach, your zanpakutou (and Bankai, in extension, I suppose) is an extension and manifestation of your soul. In the most cliche way possible, the eyes are believed to be the windows to one’s soul. The fact that Sasakibe’s eyes are a blank canvas may possibly be a reflection of the fact that his Bankai was stolen from him, and he was unable to use his zanpakutou’s abilities properly. When Toshirou got Daiguren Hyorinmaru stolen, he couldn’t communicate with his zanpakutou because it went silent. I suppose by stealing the Shinigami’s Bankai, the Quincy also took a part of their soul with them. Therefore the lack of colour could symbolise the loss of his soul, I suppose 

Let me know what you think of this answer! Hopefully this clears things up :)

[recurring-polynya]

🌞🌺 Good Morning!🌻🌈

Did you know that Squad 4 has a huge room full of sleeping berths for handling mass casualty situations??

[obsidiennes]

Okay, so when Rangiku shows up and steps in to save Don Kanonji and Tatsuki, Tatsuki finds her really remarkable. (The fact Tatsuki doesn't recognize her means she only turned up at Karakura High School the one day, and that was apparently during lunch or something as neither Tatsuki nor Orihime were in the room at the time, so Tatsuki just never saw Rangiku until this point.)

So as Aizen menaces Gin and Rangiku, Ichigo shows up.

Everyone is reacting to him in the first page, and it feels weird that Tatsuki and Keigo question if it's really him, but whatever. Tatsuki and Keigo look way more distressed than Don Kanonji, Chizuru, and Mizuiro, which reflects the fact they probably both knew they were gonna die at certain points versus Aizen, whereas Mizuiro and Chizuru didn't and Don Kanonji is crazy enough to shrug it off. But here's where things get really interesting.

In the Xcution arc, after Ichigo punches Tsukishima, Tatsuki and Keigo once again look far more distressed, though with Keigo it seems almost like shocked disappointment and with Tatsuki it's hot rage. Really look at her expression in the second panel. She wasn't even that angry by comparison when Ichigo told her to butt out when Orihime went missing:

Now we know that to Chad and Orihime, at least, Tsukishima defeated Aizen. Every altered history need not necessarily be the same, but it seems likely that feature is consistent, and from what we see there, Tsukishima appeared when Ichigo canonically did in actual history, meaning events otherwise proceeded as we saw (meaning Don Kanonji and Rangiku stepped in earlier on.)

This is supported by the fact that Tatsuki's incredible anger at Tsukishima being attacked doesn't seem to stem from personal familiarity, given she's still respectfully calling him "Mr. Tsukishima," the page before, which suggests their main interaction was him saving her (and everyone else) from Aizen, not anything longer. Now why does this register so strongly with her?

Probably because of this. Mind you, Tatsuki has already endured something similar:

But what happened with Aizen is far worse. So, the defeat of Aizen was such a big deal to Tatsuki because:

She definitely consciously faced down (a probably grisly) death, with to some degree far more awareness of it than the previous times with Numb Chandelier and Yammy

She had memories of being the sole survivor after Yammy's attack and so a repeat scenario but worse is basically a massive PTSD trigger

the people at risk due to Aizen were likely notably more important to her

her lady crush who'd just awakened something in her was in peril too

(Good time to recall that Tatsuki is incredibly durable, as I've said many times, and that this event also caused her to train incredibly hard afterward.)