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Kyoraku: ...Do you think I'm too confident?

Lisa: Nope.

Kyoraku: Don't lie.

Lisa: You're my boss.

Kyoraku: Alright then. Anything you say in the next 30 seconds is free, starting right now.

Lisa: I think you're cocky, arrogant, bossy, and pushy. You also have a god complex. You never think about anybody but your damn self.

Kyoraku: But-

Lisa: I still have 22 more seconds. I'm not done.

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Nemu: Are you all right, sir?

Mayuri, after his battle with Uryu: No!

Mayuri: And I don't plan on being all right for a very long time to come.

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I love how his character allows you to experiment and do all the crazy stuff you always wanted to try, but never got the chance to heh

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Turn Back The Pendulum

#shunsui kyoraku

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#LMAOOOO HE LOOKS SO TIRED

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A lil' compilation of muppet Kisuke to bless your dash tonight

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Zanpakutou Open Carry Laws

I will open up with saying that Bleach as a lot of worldbuilding, just bags of worldbuilding, and sometimes Kubo just says something that turns out to be utterly impractical once you think about it for six seconds, and this is probably one of those things, but I am going to talk about it anyway.

When and where is a shinigami allowed to carry their zanpakutou? Now, a casual viewer of the anime might be tempted to answer “Uh, wherever they way?” because this gets sort of forgotten about after the Soul Society Arc, but we know there are certain restrictions on zanpakutou-carry because of the WARTIME EXEMPTION!! 

I am not a scholar of Japanese history, but I know there have been a number of historical restrictions on carrying swords, like during the Meiji era, and I also know it was common practice that when, say a samurai visited his daimyo’s house, he would have to turn in his sword at the door, so this does seem to make some amount of sense.

However, there’s a lot of practical issues to this! For one, I assume this doesn’t apply to say, “on squad training grounds” and other designated areas, because people gotta train, right? Then, of course, if you live off-base, you would need to carry your sword to and from home. Furthermore, the zanpakutou is a piece of your soul, so it seems pretty weird to me that… you have to leave it somewhere a lot of the time. Seems like a security flaw to me. 

Anyway, let’s try to find some details. The initial place I remembered this being discussed was when Ukitake stops Byakuya at the Penitence Tower:

Here, it seems like it might only be a ban on drawing the sword, but maybe you can still carry it around, which would solve a lot of my issues. This also reminded me that there’s a scene where Hinamori gets a report about the wartime exemption, so I decided to look that up to see if we get more deets, and we do.

So carrying is definitely included! It’s a little interesting that only the top officers are granted the exception– does this mean that lower ranked officers are still not allowed to carry zanpakutou, or does it mean that they were never banned from doing so in the first place? That may sound a little silly, but given the power differentials, I think an unarmed captain could pretty easily take down just about any unseated officer, armed or not. Furthermore, a captain-class zanpakutou is enormously destructive (Soi Fon’s is literally a missile, and I don’t think it’s even one of the stronger bankai), so it makes sense to put restrictions on them. I kinda take “full wartime usage” to mean “you can go to bankai if you want”).

While I was looking for that, I also found this page:

It doesn’t actually add much additional information, I just thought it was hilarious that Captain-Commander tells everyone to “pass it along to those who could not be there,” clearly meaning Ukitake, the only captain not there, and then no one does. This is exactly like that bit in Death Save the Strawberry where the Vice Captains are texting each other about putting their powers in a sword for Ichigo and everyone forgot to forward it to Hisagi. Never change, Gotei-13 robust and effective communication structure.

So, the real reason I got thinking about this had to do with asauchi, actually. We’re told that shinigami are given asauchi as students and instructed to carry them everywhere so that they can imprint onto the sword. How do you reconcile this with the zanpakutou carrying ban, though? Here’s the relevant bit that Oetsu tells Renji and Ichigo when they’re visiting his part of the Royal Realm:

Now option a) is to be very literal here and say “it doesn’t actually say they carry them everywhere, it just says they eat and sleep with them” so, uh…okay. That’s pretty pedantic, even for me. The text here is loose enough though, that it seems like they don’t have to spend every moment, with their asauchi, and I can certainly see there being certain places where asauchi are restricted within reason. b) is as I said before, that maybe they don’t care if students and other low-level shinigami carry around unpowered swords. My impression is that many (most?) shinigami never even achieve shikai (The Bleach wiki supports this, without citation, but this is not critical to my argument).  I could also see them putting a kidou binding (like a bike lock) on student asauchi so that they can’t be drawn without teacher supervision, but perhaps this is excessive. I also want to point out that in all the Academy scenes that we get, the only one where anyone is carrying zanpakutou is the one where the student field trip gets attacked (obviously, they would need zanpakutou for this, since the purpose of the trip was to practice konsou. This also implies that you can konsou with an asauchi, which is mildly interesting to me. I wonder if soul removal glove technology is related at all to the principles of konsou). I am going to just give Kubo a pass on this for not wanted to draw a bunch of swords in every classroom scene, but I find it very charming to think about students hauling these things everywhere and having to prop them places and trying not to get them mixed up. It’s too bad everyone takes this stuff so seriously, I would love to see a student culture of everyone individualizing their asauchi with charms and stickers and such.

The other issue I have with not carrying your zanpakutou with you at all times is, as I said earlier, it’s a huge security risk. We know what happens if you break your sword in shikai or bankai, but what happens if you break a sealed sword? Or lose it? Or more specifically what if it is stolen?

I am thinking more specifically about, say, the Noble Houses, and how stealing zanpakutou could be a practice on the same level as assassination. I mean, would you rather fight Byakuya, or would you rather just steal his sword while he’s at lunch and seal it in a cave somewhere? Could he just get another asauchi and re-imprint Senbonzakura on it? How long would it take? Would it be exactly the same as the original? If he can’t, not only does he no longer have a sword, but I feel like this would do some permanent damage to him, since the zanpakutou is part of his soul, in some ways, kind of like a phylactory?? I have, in fact, occasionally wondered if this might be exactly what’s up with Yoruichi. Also, Zaraki took his zanpakutou off of a dead shinigami– how does that work? Does a sword turn back into an infinitely imprintable asauchi when its owner dies? Maybe that dude sucked and was never able to make much of an imprint in the first place. Maybe having a second-hand zanpakutou contributed to Zaraki’s difficulties with his sword. Maybe there’s even some spiritual detritus from that other guy floating around in Zaraki’s sword! Who knows!

In Roots of Heaven, the best fanfic ever written, which pre-dated all the asauchi stuff, the physical swords are basically just vessels. The premise of the fanfic involves Renji and Ichigo traveling through a different spiritual dimension, and at one point, Renji sells his sword in return for information, which turns out to be a bit of a grift, because he’s then able to put Zabimaru into a new blade (Zabimaru doesn’t enjoy this, but it’s possible). I dunno, this just rang a lot cooler to me than the idea of “special sword containing infinite possibilities,” so I’ve never really came around on the idea of asauchi.

All I really wanted to know is whether or not a student shinigami would/could carry their asauchi on a casual trip to Rukongai, and, as usual, I think I have confused myself more than I have clarified anything. Anyway, it’s the Rukon, nobody cares what happens out there, I’m sure carrying a sword for the purposes of terrorizing the populace is not only allowed but encouraged.

#asauchi are a really good vessel #waugh this is such good meta #i've been thinking about what zanpakuto are lately for Planning Reasons and i also came to a conclusion #anyway i liked this post very much #zanpakuto meta

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shihouin yoruichi my bleach queen

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  模倣 (もほう) imitation  JLPTN1

見様見真似 で 模倣 してる だけ の でき の 悪い 餓鬼 だって こと だ

miyoumimane de mohou shiteru dake no deki no warui gaki datte koto da

You’re just a brat who can only learn by copying me.

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It seems it’s just enough ice… to block your flames.

#OH IT'S ANIMATED

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It has come to my attention that the anime really watered down Byakuya’s All-Time Bitchiest Moment, and I just feel like people need to know that

came out of:

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Orihime: Ichigo, I’m sad.

Ichigo: *holds arms out for a hug* It’s going to be okay.

Rukia: Renji, I’m sad.

Renji, nodding: Mood.

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O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face

Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!

Despised substance of divinest show!

Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st... A damned saint, an honourable villain!

Romeo and Juliet, act 3

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I would love a Bleach claw machine.

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I’ve come to this battlefield as the Fifth Division Lieutenant. I bear the adjutant’s plate upon my arm.

Happy Birthday to Momo Hinamori!🌸 [6.3]

#waugh i love hinamori

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#bleach #bleach meme

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i really can't stop thinking about ep 211 & tiny nanao & also lisa and kyoraku

i haven't made a tumblr post in a long time but i read a really really good nemu/nanao fic today (the only one in the ao3 tag?! i can't believe it but also, i can. they're both kind of side characters aren't they.) and i also saw a gifset that reminded me of Tiny Nanao so i've been thinking about that scene. you know those three minutes of ep 211, during the flashback/pendulum arc, where kyoraku returns to the eighth division barracks and nanao is there with a book and she's asking where lisa is...

it just! it makes me feel insane! the shot of kyoraku looking away when he says lisa is on an important mission, the fact that he's the one who volunteered her for it, the way that he can't meet nanao's eyes when he says "it's okay. she'll be back by dawn, i'm sure".

AND THEN THE FUCKIGN... THE ARC OF BLOOD AGAINST THE MOON HE WAS GAZING AT... THE WAY THE MUSIC STOPS AND WE GET BACK TO THE BATTLE... it just fucks me up! the song is called "here to stay"!!! it really ruins me!!!!!!! it lives in my head rent free!!! thinking about how the last words he had with lisa were him asking her to go in the place of the head of the kido corps, the little exchange of "can i count on you?" "of course!" "then, if you would, please" (ja, yoroshiku). how she left immediately to join the team and then! they did not see each other! for a hundred years!!!!! do you ever think about how she's the only visored who had something personal to say to a shinigami when the visored appeared in FKT, do you ever think about how both of them greet each other with actions and words that say, so clearly, i remember what kind of person you are, i remember you, i haven't forgotten. she yells at him to stop playing dead and he makes one of his usual playboy comments about how she's gotten more beautiful since she last saw him!!! lisa won't say anything more sentimental than "stay there and rest, i'm going to show you how much stronger i've become". and then AFTER she turns away kyoraku calls out to her and says "lisa-chan, i'm glad you're well". i think that in all his time serving as captain he must have found ways to deal with the death and loss inherent to the position, to the whole organization. he had to have found ways to grieve and cope and then move on or at least keep going, especially since as a captain a good deal of those were his fault. i really read that "i'm glad you're well" as like... an admission of responsibility and guilt about something he's had to carry with him for a hundred years. a hundred years! he sent his lieutenant off to what must have been her death and he just had to live with that! it wasn't even that she was assigned to it from on high, he sent her in someone else's place, and she never came back!

but then she calls him an idiot, in a way that really really sounds to me like something she's used to saying, and goes off to fight. it sounds so much like banter, like the way nanao talks to kyoraku now. and after she's flash stepped away he agrees with her.

there's just! i feel like it's maybe not the most intentional parallel, having a tiny meaningful exchange before lisa heads off to a fight that she takes because of kyoraku, but that little snippet of conversation feels like it at least echoes an old dynamic. "i'm glad you're well" "idiot" isn't something strangers can say to each other!!! (though i wouldn't put it past lisa to kick a stranger across a street.)

but at the same time that simple exchange sounds so... layered. he's glad she's been doing well, and he expresses it, and he does so sincerely. he's not saying anything flippant like "oh you've been up to a lot in the past hundred years" or anything like that. and i really wouldn't put it past kyoraku to sit there and joke a bit with his lieutenant, just in general, you know? but he doesn't. he takes a moment and says so sincerely, so genuinely, i'm glad you're okay. to me it sounds like he's also accepting responsibility for, you know, being the reason she might have not been okay that whole time. for sending her off to a horrifying mission where she got hollowfied and cast out of soul society and had to go into hiding in the human world.

and then she calls him an idiot. i feel like forgiveness is too strong or too direct a word, but it has a similar undertone to what i read into that. she knows he was the one who sent her to that battlefield a hundred years ago, and she hears him accepting that and maybe implying an apology for it, and she says you idiot. not forgiveness, because it might not be that there's something for her to forgive - the gotei 13 are still a military organization, you know? and she was a lieutenant and he was her captain and he sent her on a mission, the way captains do - but she knows he's being a sentimental old fool and taking that burden on himself, and in reply she wants to emphasize the "fool" part.

and she steps away back to the fight and he sits there, watching her go, and agrees with her.

anyway that scene with nanao asking in her tiny baby voice where lisa is and kyoraku not being able to make eye contact with her even as he's reassuring her and telling her lisa will come back for sure and the way it cuts back to the doomed fight. the way the song, which is called Here to Stay, cuts out on the "i'm sure". it gets me! it really does!!!!!

#h31s post tag #if anyone wants to look this up: the dispatch to mission scene is in episode 210 / chapter -102 / turn back the pendulum 7 #the tiny nanao scene is in episode 211 / chapter -100 / turn back the pendulum 9 #and the reunion scene is in episode 279 / chapter 365 #just in case anyone wants to suffer emotional damage with me #you know!!! just in case!!! #bleach #lisa yadomaru #nanao ise #shunsui kyoraku