Another thing I don’t get about Bleach ending is that the kids are freaking toddlers. Why end your shonen action manga with two toddlers with swords who look younger than Karin and Yuzu did when Bleach started?

Years ago I always imagined Bleach’s possible “future children” ending to show young teens or at the very least middle school aged kids to carry the mantel of shinigami hero in the story. 

Like I imagined Ichigo having his first kids be twins, a boy and a girl show up as his age and then a third child as his sisters age as sort of a mirror to what his family was. 

And the fact that the canon kids are the new “Death and the Strawberry,” makes no sense.

Because Kazui is going to grow up faster than Ichika, because dispite having shinigami powers, he is still a human.

The fact that they are apparently the same age now is contrary to canon, because souls age much slower than humans. Not to mention souls with high reiatsu can stay the same age for practically decades (example: Toshiro) which Ichika must have, since she is already a soul reaper at age Freaking TEN. 

So by the time Kazui does age up to his teens, Ichika’s still going to be a half-pint kid. It is very unlikely that they will develop the same kind of relationship Ichigo and Rukia had. They won’t be equals, they won’t be partners.

Childhood friends? Probably.

But look at how most of Ichigo’s “childhood friends” were treated in this series. Relegated to the sidelines. 

In all honesty, yes I did feel a slightly romantic tension between Ichigo and Rukia, and yes the chapter title “Death & Strawberry” is most likely about those two, but I can’t help but notice Ichigo and Orihime’s budding romance while I was reading Bleach.

I do like how the ending has pretty much run full circle now that ships have become canon, Seireitei is rebuilt, and Aizen is back in... prison. HOWEVER!

Something I would have liked to see before the manga ended was maybe more of a romantic buildup between Rukia and Renji. At the same time, I feel that ending it the way it did was wonderful. You get to see the next generation of “Bleach” and how each character has matured even more (with Chad becoming a pro wrestler, Ishida becoming a doctor, and Ichigo taking over his family’s clinic.)

I do wonder what happened to all the remaining Espada like Harribel, Nel, and Grimmjow though. Either I accidentally skipped over it, or it just didn’t happen.

Congratulations, Tite Kubo.