Key Takeaways
- Mayuri Kurotsuchi is a mad scientist driven by unbridled curiosity and lack of ethics.
- Kurotsuchi’s genius inventions and solutions played a crucial role in battles during the Thousand-Year Blood War.
- Kurotsuchi’s unique abilities and unending curiosity make him the MVP, providing vital contributions in the war effort.
The Captain of the 12th Squad, the Shinigami’s Research and Development Division, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, is the quintessential mad scientist and one of many in Tite Kubo’s BLEACH. With a notorious lack of respect for life and the living, a vicious thirst for knowledge and nigh unparalleled genius, Kurotsuchi has done various things to pull the Soul Society out of, and prevent many a crisis.
This is also true of the so-called “Protection of the Soul King Great War”, in which the Quincies, thought to have been driven to extinction by the Shinigami a few centuries prior to the events of the series, returned and nearly destroyed the structure of the universe as we know it. Kurotsuchi, through his genius, ability to think on his feet and his brilliant inventions, was repeatedly a crucial agent in keeping the Shinigami in the fight. Here’s why Mayuri Kurotsuchi is the MVP of the Thosand-Year Blood War arc.
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The Unbridled Curiosity of a Mad Genius
For the Love of the Game
There is no such thing as perfect in this world. That may sound cliché, but it’s the truth. The average person admires perfection and seeks to obtain it. But what’s the point of achieving perfection? There is none. Nothing. Not a single thing. I spit on perfection! If something is perfect, then there is nothing left. There is no room for imagination. No place left for that person to gain additional knowledge or abilities. Do you know what that means? For scientists such as us, perfection only brings despair. It is our job to create things more wonderful than anything before them, but never to obtain perfection. A scientist must be a person who finds ecstasy while suffering from that antinomy.
As we know very well by the point in time when the Wandenreich first invade Soul Society, Kurotsuchi’s only motivation is sheer curiosity about the world around him, and he’ll stop at nothing to learn about what makes something tick. From vivisection to using his underlings as crash test dummies or as simple tools for the advancement of science, Kurotsuchi has no real sense of ethics, spurred on by his belief that there is always a way to make something better. During the Soul Society arc, Kurotsuchi’s lack of ethics and wanton disregard for life earned him the burning hatred of Uryū Ishida, whom he told he was the reason for his grandfather, Soken Ishida’s death.
Kurotsuchi’s curiosity is unending, leading him to experiment heavily even on his own body, giving rise to the unsettling appearances he has assumed over the course of BLEACH. His tendency to pursue and tinker with objects that pique his curiosity until there is nothing left to know is his greatest asset, not just as a scientist, but even as a Captain of the Gotei 13. Beyond that, his imagination is second only to the likes of Kisuke Urahara, so if anyone is capable of coming up with a solution or a counter to a problem faced in battle, it is Mayuri Kurotsuchi. In every battle, Kurotsuchi plants special microbes in the enemy that continue to surveil them after the fact, not to mention placing these bugs all across the Soul Society, enabling the Research and Development Division to observe a lot of what takes place.
Kurotsuchi’s Contributions to the War Effort
The King of Counter
During the battle against the Octava Espada, Szayelaporro Grantz, Kurotsuchi was able to avoid the enemy’s ability to crush organs and body parts with a voodoo-like effect by simply removing his organs and replacing them with fakes; a fact that illustrates the idea that he is not only a mad genius, but one capable of defying the laws of nature if he so wished. If the other Captains hadn’t rashly charged into their first battles against the Sternritter, Kurotsuchi may have had a different solution to deal with the possibility of medalizing Bankai, but because they ended up having them stolen, a whole new solution was required and provided by Kurotsuchi’s predecessor, Urahara.
When Kurotsuchi realized that the Quincies were able to move into and out of some of the most secure areas of the Seireitei because they used shadows, he constructed a gaudy suit of light and a special area in the 12th Squad barracks that would be completely devoid of shadows, preventing the possibility of a surprise Quincy attack on the information hub of the Soul Society. If there’s something that has never been done before that is absolutely vital to the mission, including forcing former enemies like the Arrancar to do his bidding, best believe Kurotsuchi can make it happen.
The Most Valuable Player
And He Wasn’t Even Considered a Special War Threat By Yhwach
The events that truly confirmed Kurotsuchi’s status as the MVP of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc was the fact that he was able to remove the effects of Sternritter Z – Giselle Gewelle’s zombification ability on Tōshiro Hitsugaya, and even revive the fallen Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi and Kensei Muguruma as his own personal zombies following their absolute decimation at the hands of Mask De Masculine, overriding Giselle’s control over them as a bokor. We haven’t seen it yet, but at a later point in the war, Kurotsuchi learns to create sentient zombies, with the fallen 3rd Squad Lieutenant, Izuru Kira, literally coming back as a dead man, the moonlight shining through the massive hole in his chest.
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Mayuri Kurotsuchi’s Most Important Inventions |
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Invention |
Use |
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Flesh-Healing Medicine |
Regeneration of lost limbs |
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Gigai Specialization |
The Creation of Nemu Kurotsuchi |
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Surveillance Bacterium |
Monitoring after battle |
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Fake Karakura Town |
Self-explanatory: Kurotsuchi came up with a means to swap the real Karakura with a fake one to thwart Aizen’s plan to create an Ōken |
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Superhuman Drug |
Slowing down the enemy’s perception of time to torturous effect |
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Reishi Locking Device |
Temporary cessation of Reishi activity |
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Reiatsu-Restraining Material |
Subduing Sōsuke Aizen |
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Nerve-Freezing Agent |
Forcefully freezing nerves |
Each time the enemy has an advantage, Kurotsuchi has found a way to beat it, learn from it and soon incorporate it into his own arsenal, as seen with the latest modification of his Zanpakutō, Ashisogi Jizō, which now has countless layers of skin and exposed nerves, which made it the perfect counter to Pernida Parnkgjas, the literal Left Arm of the Soul King. You know, until it wasn’t. Having fully researched Quincies earlier on in his life, Kurotsuchi learned their basic physiology and can now even perform Hirenkyaku. By far, Kurotsuchi’s greatest achievement is his Lieutenant, Nemu, the pinnacle of Gigai and Mod Soul research, a very crucial piece in the eventual victory against Pernida. Without Kurotsuchi backing him up, even Urahara would have had a hard time coming up with strategies to deal with the Quincy threat, and even more Shinigami would have lost their lives, making Mayuri Kurotsuchi the MVP in the Quincy Blood War.
