The following contains graphic descriptions of unspeakable levels of human cruelty and violence of all kinds that could be upsetting for some readers. Continue at your own risk.
Summary
- Mayuri Kurotsuchi conducts cruel experiments reflecting real-life Unit 731 atrocities.
- SRDI plays a crucial role in maintaining balance between realms in BLEACH.
- Shinigami actions, like Rukia’s near execution, show amoral brutality for “peace.”
In BLEACH, the Gotei 13’s 12th Squad is introduced as the Shinigami Research and Development Institute, a place where the Captain, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, conducts experiments, research and pioneers brilliant technology for the Seireitei. Established by Kisuke Urahara, who chose Kurotsuchi to follow in his footsteps should he no longer be able to hold his office, the SRDI has been pivotal in the continued maintenance of the balance between the realms, and immensely important to the success of countless important missions. Kurotsuchi’s boundless intelligence and curiosity have helped the Shinigami to push through difficult circumstances, but his sociopathic, sadistic approach makes his alignment seem more villainous than just.
His heinous experiments can be considered in the realm of crimes against life itself, and eerily enough, his character and actions reflect one of the darkest periods in human history, a lore that is veiled by the success story the country has become: the various war crimes of Imperial Japan leading up to and during World War II; more specifically, the infamous Unit 731.
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BLEACH: The Shinigami Version of Peace, Explained
Something about the version of peace that the Shinigami are trying to protect is extremely warped?
The Mad Scientist’s Overwhelming Scientific Curiosity
Who Exactly IS Mayuri Kurotsuchi?
At some point about 110 years prior to the events of BLEACH, Kurotsuchi was a prisoner confined to the special prison known as the Maggot’s Nest, where potentially dangerous individuals are held to prevent harm to Soul Society. While prisoners can generally move freely within the Maggot’s Nest, they are often driven to madness by the dreary surroundings. Kurotsuchi was deemed so dangerous that he needed to be shackled to his room, but was soon freed when Urahara enlisted him to join the newly established SRDI.
Urahara had once been Corps Commander of the Detention Unit before being promoted to Captain of Squad 12, so he was presumably making this choice based on an intimate knowledge of Kurotsuchi’s abilities, and proclivities. After Urahara was framed for Aizen’s Hollowfication experiments, Kurotsuchi became Captain of Squad 12, and continuing the SRDI, went on to perform countless experiments while also working on his magnum opus, the Nemuri Project.
The Case of Sо̄ken Ishida
One Of Kurotsuchi’s Most Heinous Acts
During the Soul Society arc, Ichigo and the gang head to the Seireitei to put a stop to Rukia’s execution, a series of events that gives us the first taste of the strange amorality of the Shinigami despite their role as “keepers of balance”. Their willingness to kill a young woman for daring to do something that she felt was the only way to protect an innocent human and survive was a showcase of the brutality of the Soul Society, which was also accompanied by the accounts of their experimentation with modified souls, which entailed using corpses imbued with artificial souls to fight what can only be assumed to be the Quincies, and their subsequent genocide of the Quincies.
Basically, Shinigami aren’t necessarily “good guys”, but they do what they do to “protect the peace”, which we also learn was a construction of the Shinigami themselves achieved through heinous method. While there’s a lot of brutality, a character who really makes the Shinigami’s violent perspective very clear is Kurotsuchi, who encounters Uryu Ishida, who sadly thought he was the final Quincy and sorely missed his mentor and grandfather, Soken.
Having sacrificed a Captain of the Gotei 13 I love so dearly – truly a tragic price to pay – we have obtained valuable information on the nature of your ability. Do you understand what this means? My strange Quincy friend. I hear no response, but I will continue. What I mean to say is this. Right now, I have made a shocking sacrifice that drives me almost to tears. And it is precisely such touching sacrifices that give rise to glorious victories. In other words… I feel you should show your respect for this wonderful sacrifice by offering yourself up to me as an experimental subject!
– Mayuri Kurotsuchi in “BABY HOLD YOUR HAND”
It turns out that Sо̄ken was killed by Hollows due to a lax response from the Shinigami regarding the Hollow attack, a response that was ordered by Kurotsuchi because he wanted to experiment on Quincies. His experiments always involve various acts of cruelty, like vivisection, injection with strange chemical agents, body alteration and countless other acts. He mocked the old man’s pained utterances and went as far as to show Uryu an image of his grandfather’s autopsied corpse, which drove home just how sociopathic Kurotsuchi really is, not to mention his horrible treatment of his daughter Nemu, whom he created to grow and evolve, but she is seen more like a tool than a person.
Kurotsuchi’s scientific curiosity and lack of respect for life are evident in the ways he describes his experiments, his constant desire for “test subjects” and the fact that he uses the members of his Squad as living weapons against their will, throwing away lives for the sake of creating doohickeys for the sake of warfare reflect a real-life horror in history.
Dark History: What Was Unit 731?
About Imperial Japan’s Biochemical Warfare Research Unit During WWII
The Imperial Japanese Army was established following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, and was active until its disbandment in 1945. During its relatively short time, the IJA became synonymous with extreme violence as it quickly became the most modernized military in Asia and grew increasingly more powerful in the early 20th century and, unlike in western armies, the IJA was independent of the government, with the War Minister being accountable only to Emperor Hirohito himself as per the provisions of the Meiji Constitution. Over several decades, the IJA grew in strength, and by the 1930s, had engaged in multiple conflicts against China, Russia, and various involvements in international conflicts during World War I. The military became a major tool used to expand the Japanese Empire with heavy focus on “Manchuria” following an incident orchestrated by the Japanese used to create an excuse to invade and settle in that northeastern region, leading to some irreparable relations with many other countries, and a denial of a slew of war crimes, including the horrific events that took place at the hands of the Kamo Detachment, otherwise known as Manchu Detachment 731 or simply, “Unit 731”.
Established after the Zhongma Fortress was shut down in 1937, Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research unit of the IJA that performed various unethical experiments on prisoners during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It is estimated that around 300 000 people died as a result of Unit 731’s activities, which involved some of the most notorious war crimes committed by the Japanese armed forces. The experiments included various forms of torture, from injections with pathogens, controlled dehydration, biological weapons testing, vivisection, organ harvesting and amputation, weapons testing, the systemic assault and forced pregnancy of female prisoners and all other kinds of cruelty. The unit was established specifically to create biological weapons, weapons with humans as their intended victims, and not even children were exempt from the kind of horrors prisoners faced. There have been no recorded survivors of the Unit 731 compound.
Kurotsuchi’s Darkness Reflects Real-Life Darkness
Experimentation on Live Subjects Reflects Unit 731’s Sadism
Kurotsuchi’s constant search for test subjects reflects how the military was used to collect prisoners who would then be subject to all kinds of experimentation, but it is how he is willing to pursue any and all of his interests, no matter how horrific, that really connects Kurotsuchi to the kinds of things that were being perpetrated by not only the Japanese military, but all kinds of military outfits in the world, especially after the Geneva Convention was signed. Experiments performed solely to see how long it takes a human to succumb to their injury or condition, the injection of various pathogens, spread of disease, vivisections and other forms of torture sanctioned by the IJA and the Empire of Japan by extension, all reflect Kurotsuchi’s approach to science, but coupled together with the feudal nature of the Soul Society that reflects a lost time, and the long list of heinous acts perpetrated by the Shinigami themselves; a force that was once far more terrifying than it is in its current state. A greater connection to Imperial Japan emerges as one considers Soul Society and the narrative of BLEACH as a kind of commentary on the horrors of war, the bloody origins of modern society and the cyclical nature of conflict.
Further Reading: NY Times, Pacific Atrocities Non-Profit, WW2 Database
BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War is available on Hulu and Disney+.
