Hi! Can I request a headcanon of the captains and what they would watch during quarantine? And if it’s not too much trouble maybe the lieutenants as well? Thank you!
I’ll admit that I’m not too familiar with human entertainment aside from anime and had to thoroughly research for this. (That means spending my evenings on Netflix, not like it was anything different from what I usually do...) It ended up around 2k words. I hope you enjoy, everyone!
Without further ado, let’s see what the captains, lieutenants, and other division members are watching during quarantine. Lengthy post incoming.
What the Gotei 13 Watches During Quarantine
Kyoraku Shunsui and Ise Nanao
When he’s not watching Studio Ghibli movies and contemporary Japanese films with his best friend Jushiro, Shunsui is heavily invested in those cheesy romantic classics.
Nanao looks out the window one day to see him standing outside with a stereo over his head. It’s embarrassing that he broke quarantine just for that. She gets the reference though. She doesn’t appreciate it, but she gets it. Nanao just shakes her head and goes back to watching Unsolved Mysteries and Once Upon a Time.
Shunsui’s also taken a liking to Game of Thrones, enjoying the well-written fantasy world with all its schemes and sex. He strokes his scruff and nods at the screen while he watches. No one knows if there’s political drama or yet another spontaneous steamy scene playing when he does that.
Soifon / Sui-Feng and Omaeda Marechiyo
Soifon’s definitely watching NCIS, Criminal Minds, and other shows regarding the investigation of crime. It reminds her of the various covert operations that the Onmitsukido undergoes. She takes notes, remarking that humans had interesting methods.
While she remains mainly in the crime genre, she also enjoys her strong female leads, so she’s watching Orange Is the New Black and Jessica Jones too. Soifon absolutely hates Killgrave. He’s up there on her shit list, right under 1) Urahara Kisuke and 2) Aizen Sousuke.
She starts watching clips of 90 Day Fiancé because Omaeda keeps sending her them.
Otoribashi “Rose” Rojuro and Kira Izuru
Rose is watching every musical. And I’m not just talking about the popular ones like Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, Hamilton, and Dear Evan Hansen. You know those terrible, niche musicals they make about books that you only find blurry clips of on Youtube at 1 AM? Yeah, he’s watching those too. Broadway or basement tier doesn’t matter to him when it comes to musicals.
Disney movies. You might catch Rose strumming his guitar to a Disney medley he wrote the chords to himself. Izuru, who’s only been watching war documentaries for muse material to write his haikus like a masochistic poet, heard Rose's medley and started watching Disney movies too. Thank goodness.
Rose has never missed a single episode of Glee when he was in the living world. Now he’s rewatching it, singing along during songs and gasping when appropriate.
Unohana Retsu and Kotetsu Isane
Grey’s Anatomy is a given, considering her occupation as the fourth division’s captain. Retsu enjoys the dynamic between the characters as well as the portrayal of medical procedures.
Oh, and she’s watching Dexter. She’s smiling the entire time too, a cup of tea in her hands as the titular character splatters the blood of yet another murderer.
Retsu takes a sip with such serenity that you’d think she’s watching Bob Ross and The Joy of Painting. She’s not. She’s most definitely not.
Isane is, though, because it helps with her nightmares.
Hirako Shinji and Hinamori Momo
Back in the World of the Living, Shinji bought the entire Friends series on DVD and made the Visoreds watch it with him. He’s gleefully devouring his fourth rewatch in his quarters. Don’t be surprised if you hear him go “we were on a break!” or “how you doin’?” when quarantine is over.
Momo’s sick of hearing about Friends through Shinji quoting it and sending her his home-brewed memes, so she directs his attention to Parks and Rec and The Office. He’s sold on this sitcom shit. He even watches New Girl with her.
When he’s not on his Friends frenzy, Shinji’s enjoying Sherlock. What can he say? He loves a good mystery. The outfits they wear aren’t too bad either. Shinji’s going to buy himself double-breasted coats and have them personally tailored the instant he can.
Hiyori definitely starts telling Shinji “no shit, Sherlock.” He replies with a roll of his eyes and says “whatever, Watson.” They both get a kick out of it but they won’t ever admit it.
Kuchiki Byakuya and Abarai Renji
Byakuya spends his time watching Korean dramas, especially the ones where the poor female lead falls in love with the rich male lead. He finds great satisfaction in those plots. He never tires of them, even if they are rather predictable. It's the hopeless romantic in him indulging.
He’ll come out of quarantine a kdrama fiend just like his younger sister.
Samurai movies. Byakuya understands and commends their sense of duty, pride, and chivalry.
The Untamed. I can see Byakuya and Renji separately developing a secret obsession for it, which gets revealed when Renji makes a reference under his breath about being the Wei Wuxian to Byakuya’s Lan Wangji. Both men are shocked they have a common interest in entertainment.
Rukia, who knew the entire time and is also a fan, is howling and holding her stomach at the sight. She can't stop laughing whenever she recalls the memory and teases Renji constantly. He only started watching The Untamed because of her.
Komamura Sajin and Iba Tetsuzaemon
You know those sappy movies about animals where you can figure out the entire plot from the trailer alone? Not only does Sajin watch them with great passion, he weeps at the endings as well.
He’s watching samurai movies too, asking Byakuya for recommendations all the time.
Tetsuzaemon eventually gets him to watch yakuza movies and John Wick too. Sajin's completely against vengeance, but Wick's desire to seek out and punish the murderers who killed his little dog? That's justice.
Porn. A lot of porn. So much porn. She doesn’t even blink anymore.
Not only does Lisa watch 50 Shades of Grey, 365 Days, and other similarly steamy movies that have been adapted from erotica literature, she writes reviews of them and sends them to her fellow Visoreds. “0/10 no safe word” is a common complaint in her critiques.
Hiyori gets tired and asks Lisa why she can't watch Marvel movies like the rest of them instead of being a pervert, so Lisa dives into the MCU. She thinks Natasha Romanoff is sexy as hell, but Gamora has her heart. Thor’s cool too, but Marvel women? “10/10 no safe word needed.”
Muguruma Kensei, Kuna Mashiro, and Hisagi Shuuhei
Kensei sits for hours and watches those Youtube videos where they build something from scratch. He thinks about having the ninth division participate in something like that after the quarantine blows over. He’s also watching Man vs. Wild and other survival shows.
Meanwhile, Mashiro’s watching magical girl anime, Power Rangers, and Kamen Rider and thinks he’s soooooo boring. He finally snaps at her and says he’ll start watching Kamen Rider too, just to get her to shut up. He loses his shit when he finds out just how many there are.
Every single cooking and baking show on Netflix. Every. Single. One. Kensei yells during Cupcake Wars.
Shuuhei’s too busy writing columns for Seireitei Communications about what everyone else is watching to watch anything himself, but one night he watched Forrest Gump because Rangiku told him there was a guitar in it. Yes, he got wasted right after. No, he hasn’t forgiven her yet.
Hitsugaya Toshiro and Matsumoto Rangiku
Toshiro watches Stranger Things since Rangiku recommended it to him. They binge all the seasons together the first week of quarantine. Toshiro starts watching whatever she watches.
That’s how he gets roped into watching shows like Riverdale and Pretty Little Liars. He pretends he’s not interested, but he gets so upset if she skips ahead without him that he nearly compares her betrayal to Aizen’s.
Little does he know Rangiku, the Queen of Netflix, has already binged the entire show as well as everything on their queue and more last week. She hums and pretends she hasn’t if he starts getting suspicious.
Naturally, the ice prodigy watches documentaries about global warming. Toshiro shakes his head at the careless actions of humans toward their own world. How dare they let the ice caps melt? He contemplates going to the World of the Living and restoring them with his bankai.
Zaraki Kenpachi, Kusajishi Yachiru, Madarame Ikkaku, and Ayasegawa Yumichika
Wrestling. Kenpachi doesn’t appreciate it when he hears it’s all staged, but continues watching it anyway. In fact, he's going to suplex his division members the first chance he gets, his canines flashing as he grins.
Kenpachi consumes a lot of zombie media, like The Walking Dead and Train to Busan. Doesn’t matter if they’re Eastern or Western. He’d love to shred a crowd of zombies and hopes that the pandemic leads to the apocalypse so he can go on his berserker head-slicing runs.
Yachiru munches on her candy as she watches with him, loudly cheering during especially bloody scenes while he throws his head back and cackles. It’s unnerving.
Good thing Mashiro’s there to get Yachiru into watching magical girl anime… Nevermind, Yachiru’s favorite magical girl anime is Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which Mashiro didn’t even finish.
Ikkaku watches essentially the same things as Kenpachi. While Yumichika does as well, he’s more often than not bingeing Queer Eye and commenting on the makeovers. He has so many opinions when it comes to the show that they really should consider adding him to the Fab 5.
Just because of Yumichika’s passion for it, Ikkaku gets into Queer Eye too. He says “holy shit” before the transformations and “holy shit” after.
Kurotsuchi Mayuri, Kurotsuchi Nemu, and Akon
Because of all the jokes Mayuri hears about him being a combination of the Joker and Hannibal Lecter, he goes on to watch all the material regarding those two characters. That means Hannibal, The Silence of the Lambs, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy, and Joker. He’s not impressed nor amused in the slightest, sneering until the credits roll.
However, he does enjoy those shows that delve into the human psyche and contain deeply disturbing material (and aren’t used as reference for childish jokes at his expense), such as American Horror Story and Black Mirror. They give him ideas for experiments. Too many ideas.
Akon, who is the King of Netflix, would spy a thesis paper on his captain’s desk after quarantine, name the show that inspired it on the spot, and say “season 2, episode 5” with complete, utter deadpan. He prefers watching House, M.D. and Lucifer, but he knows his captain’s not going to take his recommendations, so he just lights a cigarette and calls Dr. House an asshole as he sinks into his sofa for the rest of the evening.
Good thing Nemu listens to recommendations. Nemu watches everything the other twelfth division members and the other high-ranked shinigami watch. It’s more of a means of collecting data for Mayuri than anything else... But she does feel a semblance of happiness watching material with father-daughter narratives.
Ukitake Jushiro, Kuchiki Rukia, Kotetsu Kiyone, and Kotsubaki Sentaro
Of course, it’s already been mentioned that Jushiro’s watching Studio Ghibli movies and other contemporary Japanese films with Shunsui. He’s awestruck by the magic of it all, so much that he puts on Spirited Away during a terrible bout of illness. It truthfully makes him forget he’s bedridden.
He watches every episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and then A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, inspired by the empathy and kindness demonstrated by Mr. Rogers. Jushiro aspires to be like him.
Since Jushiro heard about the Kuchiki siblings’ deep love for kdramas from Rukia, he picks them up as well.
Sentaro and Kiyone board the kdrama train too. The thirteenth division is the place to be if you want to talk about how much you bawled during Crash Landing on You. Jushiro understands it perfectly, pouring a relaxing cup of tea as he lends an ear to all who were devastated. Sentaro and Kiyone both start sobbing if you even mention the words "crash landing" while Rukia just stares off into the distance, looking dignified as she raises a small handkerchief to the corner of her eye.
Don't talk about any kdramas that focus on terminal illness when the third seats are around. They will set aside their differences to fight you, tears streaming down their cheeks all the while as they yell at you for upsetting their sweet captain.
Jushiro himself has no idea why they get so worked up, since Rukia told him to avoid certain kdramas due to triggering material. He heeds her advice since he trusts her word and goes to watch and recommend Boys Over Flowers to Shunsui, who jokes about the title and says it really should be “girls and flowers over boys~.”
gracieabrams
izzy806
turnnoffyourmind
2087
discoholicmusic
