Happy New Year Everyone! 🥳 🎇2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣4️⃣

It feels like the whole using mentally broken Shinigami souls for asauchi system implies it's a recycling process. Like the post says the Shinigami in Maggot Nest's are being broken down for this but there's also the chance of Shinigami that survive war and fighting but come out mentally broken, they would also get turned into asauchi if they're not of noble upbringing.

How Zanpakutō Are Made

We have enough pieces of the puzzle to guess how zanpakutō are made and how and why zanpakutō spirits manifest the way they do. I'm going to outline it for you presently.

We're told in chapter 540 that:

Asauchi are created in the same way as White was: many different Shinigami souls are used to create them; both are examples of what I call a "Cyber-Hollow".

With natural Hollow evolution, Hollows will eat other souls (with all of these being "interned" rather than destroyed) and each other until they gain enough "mass" to become a Gillian, all of which look and act totally identical. Asauchi are actually essentially Cyber-Gillians. They too look and act identical, as we're shown in chapter 523:

Ōetsu goes on to call them:

This is akin to how an individual Gillian can become just about anything when it transforms into an Adjuchas, after one soul achieves supremacy over the others. Now there's an interesting point to make here: Ōetsu claims White was made from the souls of many Shinigami, whereas Kaname says in chapter 532 and 533:

Now it could be that this is yet more singular/plural confusion in the translations here, but Kaname seems to be suggesting that White was made from a single Shinigami.

At any rate, White's purpose is confirmed in Kaname's second statement: White was meant to infect Shinigami as it did Masaki. It is, in effect, a Hollow equivalent of a zombie carrier for a zombie virus, a refined "bioweapon" compared to direct infection with the Hollowfication agent as seen in TBTP; Kaname & Co. were basically playing Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil or Weyland-Yutani from Aliens and creating Bio-Organic Weapons for military purposes. The infection vector being through bites is more readily controlled and less dangerous to the operators than the original form of a loose agent. This is again confirmed by chapter 529:

Whatever the truth is with regards to Kaname's construction of White, it's sort of immaterial as Ōetsu tips his hand: his Asauchi are made from many Shinigami souls layered together. Before we go on to the obvious problem of "Where does Ōetsu get the souls from?" we should finish up with the distinction between asauchi and zanpakutō. Our first clue is in chapter 522:

You can visually see the difference between the two entities. Asauchi are "blank", zanpakutō are "actualized" and can seem extremely human. He goes on to openly mock Ichigo and Renji's inability to distinguish them from Shinigami:

We get told in chapter 523 that:

This hints at the full story, as does chapter 529:

Until finally, we're told the truth in chapter 540, right before and after the comments about White:

So we need to take a step back and clarify something here as Ōetsu is being sloppy: Zangetsu is not White, or the remnants of White. White did not "enter" Masaki. Kaname tells us directly that White is a Hollow with "the ability to convert others into Hollows like itself," emphasis mine. White infected Masaki and Masaki began to Hollowfy, a process arrested by Kisuke. So what Ichigo absorbed was not White, but rather... Hollow Masaki.

This, plus her Quincy blood, fused with his Shinigami powers from Isshin. This is "the will and destiny Ichigo inherited." In a very real sense (in the same sense that Ichigo is Masaki and Isshin's flesh and blood) Hollow Masaki is Ichigo's zanpakutō.

Certainly puts the "I will protect" lines during the fight with Ulquiorra in a different light, doesn't it?

It was never about Orihime. It isn't, "I will protect her," in the original Japanese, it was only, "I will protect," and it is Zangetsu speaking about Ichigo. This is confirmed by 1. Zangetsu almost immediately taking several actions that threaten to kill Orihime (and Uryū) and 2. by Tensa Zangetsu later saying during Dangai training that the things Ichigo wants to protect are not what he wants to protect. Orihime almost dies during the fight because Zangetsu doesn't care about her, just like Zangetsu doesn't care about Karakura, as we're told in chapter 429 (admittedly also involving the sentiments of "Zangetsu", that is to say, not-Yhwach, which is also why Yhwach claims to be Ichigo's "father" later on):

In a very real sense, "Full Hollow Ichigo" can be read as Hollowfied Masaki protecting Ichigo yet again. Don't believe it? This parallel from chapter 680 ain't for nothing:

The Quincy power was mingled with the Hollow power because both were Masaki.

In another sense though, Zangetsu is Ichigo, as chapter 221 shows up with Ichigo beginning to dehollowfy Zangetsu into himself:

This presages the final revelation of the reforging of Zangetsu in chapter 542:

Now, we can all readily see that Ichigo's backstory is extremely convoluted compared to every other Shinigami's, but from his example we can generalize the truth of how an asauchi becomes a zanpakutō. It lies within two statements from Ōetsu:

"I used the asauchi just now as a trigger to extract this zanpakutō from within you."

"… And became your zanpakutō."

Again, Ōetsu is being a little sloppy in his terminology here, but we can divine the basic truth: your zanpakutō (essence) is something that's inside you all along. The asauchi is simply a mechanism for drawing it out and materializing it. So if you ever wondered why Tōshirō already has Hyōrinmaru in his soul in chapter -16, that's why:

The essence of a zanpakutō comes from within, not from without. In some sense, Hyōrinmaru is and always was part of Tōshirō. The same is true of every other Shinigami as well. (The correct way to think about Kusaka, if one credits that movie, is therefore that he shared an essence with Tōshirō.) It is the form of it that changes... on exposure to an asauchi.

To recap:

all Shinigami have a zanpakutō essence within them already

an asauchi serves to draw out this zanpakutō essence and fuse with it, creating a zanpakutō sword

this zanpakutō sword can manifest a zanpakutō spirit, its own personification

At this point you should be wondering: why do zanpakutō spirits look so different from their wielders if they are their wielders?

Well that's very simple: they're mixed with the asauchi. Remember: the asauchi is a collection of Shinigami souls (or parts of them, it's not clear). The essence of a zanpakutō is absorbed from the wielding Shinigami, creating a new entity. But that collection of Shinigami souls still has a massive influence on the manifestation of the completed zanpakutō, thus its radically different appearance and personality. These come from some kind of amalgamation of the souls used to create the asauchi.

Ichigo did not have this issue because there "was nobody else" influencing the expression of his zanpakutō (except the shard of Yhwach, which was also dormant until his powers woke up). Zangetsu simulated a normal zanpakutō using Hollow mask matter, but there were no "outside influences" in the form of an asauchi to change his appearance or behavior, hence why he's a mirror of Ichigo. Not so with every other Shinigami.

(This is bolstered by the assertion by Kubo that when someone else comes into possession of a deceased Shinigami's zanpakutō, although it can be completely overwritten, there is sometimes a "mixing" where the current owner's aspects mix with the previous one's.)

In other words, just like an asauchi is a Cyber-Gillian, a zanpakutō is a Cyber-Adjuchas. The wielding Shinigami provides the dominant soul to bring the component souls of the asauchi into order and advance their evolution to the next step. However, whereas natural Hollows become more animalistic as Adjuchas, Cyber-Hollows become more human as Adjuchas. This is why Ichigo and Renji couldn't tell the difference between all of Ōetsu's zanpakutō and Shinigami.

This also strongly suggests that the zanpakutō essence already residing within oneself is also what is unleashed via Hollowfication. It's simply that in Hollowfication, this essence is twisted and corrupted by the loss of heart, whereas in an asauchi-release, it's kept whole and pure. This in turn suggests that the zanpakutō essence is essentially a personification of the individual's will. This will be important momentarily.

So now we know how this process occurs once someone is handed an asauchi. But where do the components for asauchi come from? Well...

As @uraharashouten has recently noted, the Maggot's Nest is a prison exclusively for Shinigami who are believed to potentially be future problems. It's essentially the Shinigami equivalent of a CIA black site used by Minority Report's Pre-Crime Division.

Notice also what Kisuke says here in chapter -106:

The Maggot's Nest is not Kisuke's main responsibility, nor is it where people who have done normal crimes end up. There is an entirely separate facility for those, which is his main duty, and the Maggot's Nest is just a side-gig. That's why it's such a rinky-dinky little jail. We know of exactly one big prison in the Seireitei: the Central Great Underground Prison. That was his actual main job (although that facility is likely under Central 46's direct supervision, not the Onmituskidō/2nd Division). This is why Kisuke's punishment in TBTP was to be depowered—the warden of the CGUP would know too much to be imprisoned within it.

Now, why would you put the pre-crime prisoners in a separate facility from the normal crime prisoners? Because you want to do something else with them, of course.

Haven't you ever thought it was weird the Maggot's Nest looks more like a psych ward?

I'm going to move a little faster now. We get told in Can't Fear Your Own World, volume 3, chapter 21:

Oh-Etsu had initially planned to hold back the thing by turning him into a full Asauchi, but the Soul Reaper was still in the process of doing that research and was not capable of entirely erasing individuality in those days, so the monstrosity ended up becoming a demonic sword with the ability to devour his own wielder’s konpaku.

We're told in Spirits Are Forever With You that it takes much more time for Azashiro to assimilate people than objects, because their reiatsu resists the effects of his Bankai. As is usual, everything in Bleach is a test of will. So, in other words, the Maggot's Nest exists to break down a Shinigami's will:

This way it's much easier to erase their individuality before shredding their souls and forging asauchi out of them. The listless and broken cannot resist.

Which in turn ensures that the soul of the wielder of an asauchi will always be the dominant soul and properly inject their zanpakutō spirit into it. It's like a rigged version of a Gillian where a particular soul will always effortlessly dominate the others, regardless of how strong it is. There is no competition as in wild Hollows. Even the weakest Shinigami can subjugate an asauchi. And when that soul is strong enough...

They will all acknowledge it and submit automatically.

So there you have it: potentially dangerous Shinigami are mentally broken before being turned into asauchi, those asauchi then draw out an inner zanpakutō essence in a Shinigami and actualize it into a weapon, eventually forming its own "person" which is the same-as-but-different-from the wielder. All of the unsightly Hollow aspects of this are conveniently hidden from all parties, and no Shinigami ever suspects that they're using tame Hollows made from their dead comrades.

It's all nice and "clean".

the return of the sass master

[read from right to left]

Hello and Happy Valentine's Day to you all! To celebrate, here are some very classy and not at all cheap or cheesy, Bleach Valentines Day Cards brought to you by the Gotei 13 Captains! (Or at least, their Bleach Gree Cards, plus my terrible photoshop skills, anyway... 😅)

Give them to your friends! 🥰

Give them to your enemies! 😈

Give them to your boss! 🥸

 (This is all a joke, please don't do those last two! 😅)

Anyway feel free to use them/give them away to your friends and loved ones, and again Happy Valentine's Day! ☺️

(Special thanks to Bleach Gree Cards for adding all these cards to their blog, thereby preserving them when the website went down!)

Update: The Karakura Kids now have cards as well!!!

Absolutely love this, your art style is so immaculate on expressing Young Unohana and Minazuki.

young Unohana-san and first meeting with materialized Minazuki

Incredible, I love how you can correlate the ups and downs Ichigo has Hollow Zangetsu with these kleshas.

Zangetsu, you’re making it sound like that’s a bad thing.

But the fear of becoming a raging monster…is a perfectly reasonable and healthy fear. We should all have such a fear!

All of these amazing pieces look like a vampire drama series poster for each character. Senjumaru and Uryu stand out the most to me, especially with the immaculate accessories/backgrounds.

BLEACH x Vamptober 2023

6 Feral | 7 Lovers | 8 Holy Cross | 9 Sunlight

Me writing a meta for my favorite series: -Write write write evidence write perfect flow write write great organization write evidence write-

Me writing an essay at school: what the hell am i supposed to write for this crap

Actually i was talking about hueco mundo

But I understand not telling them because tatsuki before this wasn’t aware of hollows or the soul society so

Yeah right after I posted that answer, I wondered if you were talking about the other incident since that one is more talked about. My bad.

Ok, I reread that moment and Orihime said she wanted to say goodbyes to the others, but chose Ichigo. She’s a teenager who is about to taken to a place full of Arcancar and isn’t certain if she’ll see her friends again, choosing her crush over Tatsuki doesn’t make her a bad person.

The bottom line of it is her wanting to make sure she doesn’t regret not being clear about how she feels while she was on good terms with the rest hence the “goodbye, halcyon days”. Tatsuki would somewhat wanted Orihime to say goodbye to her but can understand why she chose Ichigo. Also like from my last post, telling Tatsuki would probably get her involved which Orihime is completely against considering how much she cares about her friends.

new art by animator leo kawamoto

I found someone calling orihime a bad person for not telling tatsuki about where she was going

I swear these get more desperate

Like right before she and the gang decided to go to Soul Society to save Rukia?

Because I could see how one could feel for Tatsuki whose unfortunately kept in the dark at that point, and what repercussions would occur if Orihime died without Tatsuki knowing, but it's pointless to badmouth Orihime for that.

Like there's an afterlife of swordsmen who aren't afraid to kill you if you and your friends decide to go into their domain to rescue a prisoner , and you want to keep your best friend away from the crazy thing you're about to do which is very protective of Orihime to do for Tatsuki.

Kubo's end of chapter illustrations and chapter titles depict Tatsuki as a dragon, which suits her nature of wanting to take action especially if she knew what Orihime was getting herself into. Btw, Tatsuki had a broken arm and no notable powers before the Soul Society arc, but she would still try to go with Orihime if she knew.

But I guess some people wouldn't understand wanting to keep your friend away from dangerous situations huh? On another note, I do wish she told Tatsuki about everything after they came back from Soul Society, considering how calm things were before Yammy and Ulquiorra showed up