inward and upward

one of the recurring characters is the lawyer, who specifically says ‘dont throw cars, it doesnt work and its hell on our insurance and liability’, and goes further to suggest things like ‘if you have eye lasers aim down, so you hit the road instead of possibly inhabited buildings’ among many other lawer things

Dead Like Me stars an 18 year old girl named George (short for Georgia) who dies after being crushed by a toilet from a space station that exploded. Her soul is removed before her body got obliterated thanks to a reaper. However, now George has to reap the souls of the recently deceased to allow them to pass on into the afterlife while also meeting various other unique grim reapers in a waffle house to help guide her new undead life.

Bleach is about a boy named Ichigo who has the ability to see ghost until one day he runs into a Shinigami or Soul Reaper by the name of Rukia and thanks to a few series of mishaps he ends up having his soul removed from his body and becomes a soul reaper to fight hollows, the corrupted souls of the deceased who couldn’t pass on into the afterlife. As well as meeting a large and unique cast of soul reapers to help him.

Both Bleach and Dead Like Me establishes that there’s a whole network of reapers working around the clock reaping souls for the afterlife. Reapers in both shows are invisible but can be visible to certain people but in Dead Like Me they can become visible but will look like a completely different person to people who are alive.

In Dead Like Me there are these mysterious supernatural creatures called Gravelings mischievous ghostly beings who causes the accidents that kills people. Reapers aren’t allowed to interfere with the Gravelings actions. We also learn in the first episode that if a reaper doesn’t do their job and reap the soul then the soul will decay and rot and it’s implied that the souls can turn into graveling. Coincidence, I think not.

According to Bleach’s spinoff Burn the Witch there are different division of the Soul Society and each of them treats hollows differently and refers to them with different names. In Japan they’re called hollows and Soul Reapers just kills and purifies them. In London they’re called Dragons and they’re protected and controlled by their reapers who are named witches. So what are they called in America? Here’s my answer it’s Gravelings.