Key Takeaways
- Kubo’s BLEACH showcases “show, don’t tell” writing style with rich symbolism and metaphor.
- The Quincies in BLEACH represent a mix of German and Japanese cultures with heavy Judeo-Christian imagery.
- The five-pointed star symbolizes the dismemberment of the Soul King and represents the spread of Quincies.
Tite Kubo’s BLEACH is famed for its epic visuals and character designs, with the author’s design sense being heavily leaned into in the production of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War. Kubo’s writing is a prime example of “show, don’t tell”, and the rampant symbolism and use of metaphor throughout the series are a testament to this.
One such symbol is that of the five-pointed star, which is emblematic of the current iteration of Yhwach’s Quincy army but also carries heavy symbolism related to the various religious themes presented by the character and the Quincies as one of the main races in BLEACH. What is the significance of the symbol, and how do its real-world connotations connect to BLEACH?
RELATED
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – Yhwach’s Name and Schrift Explained
Yhwach is BLEACH’s true antagonist, and has been a concept from early in the series. What does his name signify, and what are his abilities?
About the Quincies
BLEACH Races Each Reflect a Particular Language or Cultural Paradigm
Before we get into the significance of the star itself, it may be a good idea to refresh how Kubo conceptualized the four main races in the BLEACH universe. The Shinigami are obviously Japanese, reflecting values and a society reminiscent of feudal Japan, while the Hollows and the various aspects associated with them are Spanish. The Fullbringer techniques are English, while the Quincies are interestingly both Japanese and German, with there being a branch of “Echt” or pure-blooded Quincies, and those who are mixed, which presents a rather diverse range of languages invoked in the Quincies.
To keep it simple, Quincies have a German(ic) motif attached to them. As those who were originally Shinigami but gained Hollow powers, the Visored speak Kansai-ben, the Japanese dialect spoken in Kyoto, which was the original capital of Japan before Tokyo – which lines up with how Hirako Shinji and the rest of the Visored were Captains and Lieutenants in the Gotei 13 before the original Gotei 13 presented during the Soul Society arc.
Heavy Judeo-Christian Imagery of the Quincies
The Inherent Piety
The Quincies are representative of medieval Europe or Germany, and this connection is strengthened by the Christian imagery and symbolism with which they are associated from their introduction through Uryu Ishida, who summoned a bow by sending reishi through a rosary. The word “Quincy” comes from English, but in Japanese it is written 滅却師, which translates to “Monk of Destruction”. The characters used to write the word in Japanese would not normally be pronounced “kuinshi”, which makes this an example of ateji – “assigned characters”; kanji meant to phonetically represent words, whether native or borrowed, with less regard to the meanings of the characters, or kanji used semantically without regard to how they are read.
The fact that the concept of a monk – a member of a religious order – is embedded in the term “Quincy”, means that piety is integral to the existence described by that demonym. It is because of this Christian connection that the Quincy garb is reminiscent of cassocks worn by take on an appearance derived from common depictions of angels, and Yhwach’s monstrous appearance is reminiscent of art depicting Judeo-Christian figures’ encounters with angels – messengers of God.
The Name of God
Heavy Parallels to Judeo-Christian and Other Mythological Imagery
When the Wandenreich is introduced, we learn more about the Quincies and the society that existed in the shadows of the Soul Society, we see more of this Judeo-Christian imagery through the Quincy King, Yhwach, whose name is derived from “YHWH”: the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God in the Hebrew Bible. Beyond that, the Quincy King is referred to as “Our Father” by the Quincies, and his origin features his feeble existence as a baby born without many important body parts who caused miracles in the lives of those who touched him.
The Soul King, the creator god and linchpin of the BLEACH universe, also happens to be Yhwach’s father, a relationship that reflects that of Jesus Christ and the Christian God; however, it is the Soul King’s lack of resistance to being maimed by the ancestors of original Five Great Noble Houses of Soul Society that strengthens the connection specifically to Christianity on one level of analysis. Yhwach’s Schrift Assignment ritual involves the chosen Quincy sipping from a cup filled with Yhwach’s blood, a parallel to the Catholic sacrament of communion, in which congregants sip wine from a chalice that is symbolic of the blood spilt by Jesus Christ during the crucifixion.
There are countless mythologies that feature an overarching deity and an overcoming of death, not to mention a prophesized messiah that is martyred, but there are many elements at play regarding the symbolism related to Yhwach and the Soul King specifically. The Soul King’s name, Adnyeus, is supposedly derived from the name of the Gnostic archon (creator god, builders of the physical universe) Adonaios – The Sun, that comes from the Hebrew “Adonai“, a name of God that means “the Lord/our Lord” adopted in place of the sacred Tetragrammaton, the pronunciation of which began to be avoided and has thus been lost; hence Ichibē Hyōsube’s removal of Yhwach’s name 1000 years prior to the events of the series.
The Auswahlen, which strips away the Quincy powers previously assigned by Yhwach and thus also results in the deaths of those selected parallels the sealing away of 12 000 people across the 12 Isralite tribes, the rest of whom would supposedly be condemned.
“The confined Quincy King…
Regains his pulse after 900 years.
His strength after 9 years.
And the world… in 9 days.”
March of the Star-Cross
Quincy Pentameter
In English, the prefix “quin-” often denotes “five”, as seen in words like quintuplets – a set of five children born at one birth; quincunx, the layout of five objects in the layout seen on the 5-side of a six-sided die – you get the idea. What’s interesting about this detail is that the Shinigami, Gotei 13, the Soul King and even the BLEACH narrative itself is frequented with the symbolism tied to the number four – four main races which make up the Soul King, Four Great Noble Clans (after the fall of the Shiba Clan) and four as an unlucky number because of how it can sound like “death” in Japanese.
1000 years ago, a young Yhwach was the leader of the Lichtreich, a kingdom in the World of the Living comprised of various captured territories somewhere in Europe. The symbol back then was three spokes attached to each other in the shape of a “Y”; when Uryu was first introduced, his cross was the standard Christian cross with four points, and upon the introduction of Ryuken are we presented with the Quincy Cross as it is now; an emblem known as the Quincy Zeichen, the symbol of the Quincies, the Wandenreich and the Sternritter.
The five points may refer to the dismemberment of the Soul King, representing his arms, legs and heart; it could be a representation of the primordial world and the composition of the Soul King, or it could be representative of the spread of Quincies across the world. The pentagram is a commonly depicted symbol in media that has had many different meanings throughout history across various contexts, and was once associated with Paganism, and another time, associated with wounds of Christ or Stigmata, but now it is more infamously a mark of the occult. The Quincy Zeichen has emerged in various creative ways over the course of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War, and has been emblematic of the kind of intentionality behind the direction of this adaptation that feels like more than just immensely improved visuals.
BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War is available on Hulu and Disney+.
