Summary
- Urahara used Hollow Reiatsu to return stolen Bankai to Shinigami, making them toxic to Quincies.
- Visored’s composition resembles Arrancar, supposedly making them toxic towards Quincies.
- Hollowfication may have cut down the losses from the war significantly.
- The Visored Captains may have been restricted from using Hollow abilities within the Seireitei by the Central 46.
BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War showed the Shinigami being driven to the edge after their Bankai were stolen by the Sternritter. In Part 2, Kisuke Urahara devised a means to return the stolen Bankai to their respective Shinigami by capitalizing on a “fundamental virulence” of Hollow Reiatsu to the composition of Quincies. By imbuing the Shinigami with Hollow Reiatsu, they become something closer to Arrancar, thus making their Bankai toxic to Quincies and therefore unusable to them.
However, if Hollow Reiatsu was the solution all along, why exactly weren’t the Visored the first point of observation of this toxic effect? Why didn’t they use Hollowfication for most of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc?
Hostility stems from a difference in ideology. It’s impossible to continue hating those who do not have a will or ideology. There is only one reason that they could hold such lasting hostility.
It’s a fundamental fear of that which endangers your life.
RELATED
Bleach: The Visored, Explained
Explore the significance of The Visored in Bleach, their troubled history with Seireitei, and what role they might play in the Thousand-Year Blood War
Recap: Fundamental Virulence?
How Hollow Reiatsu Was the Key to Restoring the Bankai
In the BLEACH universe, the main races exist in distinction to each other but are linked by the fact that they’re each an aspect of the being that was the Soul King. The Soul King’s existence is one that is unique and inexplicable because he is the composition of oppositional existences. In the BLEACH universe, the human soul undergoes a cycle of reincarnation in which it can assume a number of different states defined by different formats of “being”.
A normal human soul is a Plus, which normally passes over to the Soul Society naturally or by Konsо̄. Should that fail to take place, the Soul is eventually consumed by despair and becomes a Hollow. Hollows are attracted to the souls of the living as they consume to fill the void left deep within their warped souls.
Humans who are spiritually aware who eventually developed a means of fighting against the supernatural threat of the Hollows became known as Quincies, and unlike the Shinigami, the series’ main faction, their means of Hollow exorcism is complete annihilation of the soul without hope of reincarnation. This punitive and final means of dealing with Hollows was simply understood as a reaction and contempt for a “natural predator”, but Urahara and Kurotsuchi think about it a bit more and consider the means of Hollow combat to be needlessly excessive.
The Quincies’ permanent solution to the threat of Hollows is wrought with desperation informed by a threat to existence, meaning that they thoroughly destroy Hollows because of a fundamental incompatibility between the two forms of existence. That hunch turns out to be correct, as imbuing the souls of the Shinigami with Hollow Reiatsu returned their Bankai to them, albeit temporarily Hollowfying them.
The Exiled Redeemed Ones
The Visored Have the Prerequisite Composition
The Visored are a group of high-ranking Shinigami who were exiled from Soul Society after being accused of performing forbidden experiments to blur the line between the mirror existences of Shinigami and Hollows. They were actually victims of Aizen’s experiments, which had massive consequences for various parts of the lore. Shinigami are the balancers of the BLEACH universe, maintaining the cycle of reincarnation by purifying Hollows so they may return to Soul Society, and overseeing the safe passage of human souls to the afterlife.
Hollows are souls that have lost themselves to despair and have their hearts manifested as masks. When these masks are deliberately broken, they gain access Shinigami powers. These Hollows are called Arrancar, and the more powerful they become, the more human they appear, although they can release their “Zanpakutо̄” and regain their original forms and power. Aizen had been fiddling with these distinctions between soul types for a long time, as well as designing Hollows with unique abilities and payloads.
3rd Squad Captain Rо̄jūrо̄ “Rose” О̄toribashi, 5th Squad Captain Shinji Hirako, 12th Squad Lieutenant Hiyori Sarugaki, 7th Squad Captain Love Aikawa, 8th Squad Lieutenant Lisa Yadomaru, 9th Squad Captain Kensei Muguruma and Lieutenant Mashiro Kuna were all victims in Aizen’s experiments, and were only able to regain their sanity when Kisuke Urahara intervened, unfortunately being framed as the mastermind of that incident and the various strange occurrences that had been taking place as a result of Aizen’s experiments. Essentially, they became Shinigami with Hollow abilities. After Aizen’s defeat, some were reinstated to their previous positions to fill the void left behind by the defection.
Reasons Not To Hollowfy, #1: The Burden
Hollowfication Can Only Be Maintained For a Relatively Short Time
What adds more credence to the well-established idea that Visored have a similar composition to Arrancar (and vice versa) is the fact that there actually was a Visored Captain who engaged a Quincy during the initial invasion when the Bankai were metalized, and yet, his Bankai wasn’t stolen, nor was he gravely injured in that encounter. Rose went up against Sternritter U – The Underbelly, NaNaNa Najahkoop, and because the whole thing was offscreened, there’s not much information as to why either of them returned alive, or relatively unscathed. That also would have been the one encounter, other than Ichigo vs Asguiaro Ibern, that would’ve shown the fundamental virulence of Hollow Reiatsu to the Quincies.
Later, when Rose and Kensei went up against Sternritter S – The Superstar, Mask De Masculine (James) in the episode “Rages at Ringside”, both were thoroughly defeated even with their Bankai, giving rise to one of the most notorious moments in the series when it comes to exposition through dialogue, as Rose arrogantly detailed every aspect of his Bankai only to be perforated minutes later. What makes the Hollowfication risky for Visored is how taxing the transformation is on the body, leading to each individual having different parameters for how long they can keep their Hollow mask on.
Ichigo could only manage about eleven seconds, while Mashiro could maintain it for hours, not to mention the fact that she incorporated the Hollow within with the least struggle or training of anyone in the group. All this thought only makes it more confusing, as it becomes clear that Hollowfication, even without Bankai, could’ve at least curbed the massive losses incurred by the Shinigami.
Reasons Not To Hollowfy, #2: The Law
It Is Possible They Were Restricted By The Central 46
The theory that has the most support by fans, and makes the most sense given what we know, is that the reinstated Visored were simply not allowed to use their Hollow abilities within the bounds of the Seireitei. This thought is supported by the fact that in BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2, Muguruma took Shūhei Hisagi to the outskirts for his Bankai training, in which Mashiro Hollowfied without issue. The Central 46 is the judiciary authority of the Soul Society, with more decisive power than the Captains themselves.
It is they who instated Shunsui Kyо̄raku to the position of Captain-Commander after Yamamoto’s death, as well as the ones who sentenced Aizen to 20 000 years in the Muken. During the Soul Society arc, Sо̄suke Aizen massacred the Central 46, used his Kyoka Suigetsu to create the illusion that they were still alive, and issued various orders that eventually culminated in Rukia’s execution.
Prior to the Ryо̄ka Invasion, it was not normal for the Shinigami to openly carry their swords in the Seireitei, thus the Central 46’s influence also extends to the behavior of the super-powerful Captains and Lieutenants. It is possible that the conditions of the reinstatement of the Visored as Captains restrict Hollowfication. What’s unsatisfying about this is that there has been no indication of this in the story whatsoever, so it’s pure conjecture.
There also should have been some kind of “wartime clause” as seen when they were granted permission to openly carry their Zanpakutо̄, or some kind of override of the usual chain of command in times of war that would allow Hollowfication, especially when it is so vital to the overall outcome of the war. If this is the reason, it’s likely that Visored Hollowfy as late as the end of Part 3 because the fight now takes place at what used to be the Soul King’s Palace, rather than at the Seireitei.
Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War
- Release Date
-
October 10, 2022
- Network
-
TV Tokyo
- Showrunner
-
Tite Kubo
