#rayereads

We still got a good intro for Chad.

Also, I wish this came up more! Chad has a weakness for cute things? There should’ve been some Uryu&Chad scenes since Uryu has a skill for sewing, but what he creates isn’t necessarily cute.

Anyways, we see how strong Chad is, and that’ll play into his power later. I enjoy that even without his awakened powers he’s able to stop a steel bar from crushing his friends and rip a literal telephone pole out of the ground. It makes you wonder why Kubo gives Chad so many Ls by the end of the series…. Maybe I’ll have more insight by the end. For now, Chad for the win! And while I’m mostly neutral on Chad’s character because Kubo really does leave Chad in the dust, I’ll still root for him! He’s also got a cool character design.

Besides the running around, there’s also plenty of Ichiruki. While I see a blossoming romance, the key takeaway is their growing bond. But first: Rukia’s being cute.

Followed by Mizuiro and Keigo both commenting about Ichigo and Rukia as possibly dating. Look, this is the clearest example of ‘everyone knows the two characters like each other except the two characters’. Super common trope. It usually evolves once one of them realizes their feelings…

What’s with that smile, Rukia? Are you catching feelings?

In different news, I know Ichigo and Chad’s past and I’d thought it came up in this arc. I’m surprised it didn’t. I’m not sure when it’ll show up. I think Ichigo has a flashback in Soul Society, at a minimum? Do we have to wait that long? Hopefully we get more hints sooner. With such an intense character focus in Orihime’s arc, I really thought Chad’s character focus was up next, but we don’t even get his backstory. But we do see he’s super strong, so that’s something.

(A literal telephone pole)

My only other comments are about Ichigo’s pure rage at the hollow’s big reveal. While I don’t think the hollow being a serial killer and tricking the boy-bird into finding him victims was a huge plot twist (because the boy-bird is so obviously good and the hollow is so obviously bad), I do think Kubo is giving us the smallest hint to how Ichigo feels about his own mother’s death (which was mentioned this chapter). I kind of wish Kubo had explored this more in regards to Ichigo’s character…

We rarely see him enraged. I don’t even remember a time we see him this gleefully vindictive unless he’s a Vasto Lorde. I’m almost positive the hollow inside him hasn’t awoken yet, so this is just pure Ichigo Fury.

As an aside, I wonder how Chad feels about this reveal. We don’t know because Ichigo takes front and center as soon as he shows up (the opposite of what happened with Orihime). Interesting to compare/contrast Orihime’s intro arc to Chad’s.

Random thoughts:

Ichigo slowly acknowledging he cares about Rukia.

Also…

I saw someone mention that Isshin is talking to the hospital here, which means when he says “tell your manager this is a request from Kurosaki”, he means to tell Ryuken. Perhaps? Also, got to love corner-Ichigo.

And… is Rukia being serious here?

The top panel, where she hesitates and is fumbling with what to say almost makes me think she’s not? But I think I might be trying to retcon for Kubo.

I think Rukia means what she’s saying here. When Kubo wrote this, he really thought Soul Society would be these things. He didn’t know the structure of Soul Society, so he didn’t have much to say about it. Then he changed his mind. He gave soul society have extreme poverty outside the beautiful seireitei. We know Rukia had to steal to survive while living in poverty, so do souls really never get hungry? We also know soul society is not 9 times out of 10 better than the human world… also, boy-bird won’t remember who he is when he gets there. His mom won’t remember him either. They never meet again.

So I believe the original intention was to show how bad Rukia is at comforting people/knowing what to say. She showcased that in the first chapter and will again in MITR. It’s part of her character growth… and here she realizes that the boy-bird is scared, sad, worried, and she should say something to comfort him but doesn’t know what that is.

I also miss Kubo’s gag humor, which decreases as the series goes on. Maybe he thought the story was more whimsical at first, but as it became more serious less whimsy was needed? It’s not gone, but we don’t get gems like this:

And here’s the main man himself!

This scene just gets me. “Early to bed, early to rise”. Just perfect.

Also, Orihime is back! I was hoping she’d show up again soon. She’s so cute. Plus, a huge shoutout to the Tatsuhime in this arc. They’re such a cute ship.

Also. That’s not how weight works Kubo.

In all seriousness, if I could get Kubo to listen to me on one thing, it’d be not increasing Orihime’s bust size in FB, TYBW, and the epilogue.

We get it Kubo. She’s busty. And this isn’t a criticism at Orihime’s character. She’s clearly more than her physical appearance. This is a criticism of Kubo’s design choice. Orihime is already busty, and Kubo increases that. For what purpose? We all know why in our heart of hearts.

Also - a quick note. Orihime’s friends are in this chapter, Chizuru and Others. I dislike Chizuru’s portrayal. She’s “perverted” for comedy purposes which I dislike as a trope. Kon falls into this category too. So suffice it to say anytime there’s comedy about a woman being bothered/groped, know I’m sighing and rolling my eyes. As this is by far not the last time this trope will impact Orihime, I’ll save my lengthy thoughts for another day.

Moving on…

Orihime says she “smells Ichigo” which is supposed to be funny (I’m with Tatsuki on this one: Girl, what?) and Kon appears to flirt with her (Tatsuki looks ready to murder. No one touches her girlfriend!).

Importantly Orihime is the only one who noticed Kon isn’t Ichigo. Though I’m more surprised the others didn’t notice. Do they really think Ichigo leapt up to the third floor window? Does Tatsuki really think Ichigo hardcore flirted with her and Orihime?

I think this shows Orihime is smarter than one might give her credit for. Yes she’s hopelessly in love with Ichigo, but she’s not stupid.

Also, here’s Ichigo freaking out about kissing girls. And while Ichigo says it’s embarrassing, the paneling doesn’t make it seem like flustered-embarrassment, more like mortified-embarrassment. Look. Here’s my thesis. Kubo is 100 percent not writing Ichigo to be gay/bi but he accidentally made Ichigo into a gay/bi icon by refusing to show him engage with women. He blushes at women, sure, but does he connect with them, really? Or are most of his emotional connections with men? I’ll have plenty of time to prove my thesis. And there’s so much evidence (I’m only half kidding). He also has a lot of Ace coding… look. I’m going to make all of these characters LGBT+ and no one can stop me.

Also, Ichigo freaking out over his image being ruined! I like Rukia being confused. Even though she’s growing fonder of Ichigo, she hasn’t quite realized his tough guy act is a facade (don’t worry, Rukia, MITR is next…)

But seriously… Kon! His backstory is so interesting! His character fits in well with the early themes Kubo is establishing! Will we ever learn more about Kon (no). Will we ever learn more about Kon’s past (no). So much potential… But he’s relegated to comic relief instead. I have to guess Kubo meant for that to happen give how quickly Kon becomes a gag, but I wonder if he ever meant to pick up mod-souls again. We have a brief mention of them in TYBW, and that’s it to my memory. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

I mean… we could’ve had more of this:

Very cool!

Well, onwards to MITR.

Anyway, the next arc starts and ends with a comment about horoscopes. We see Ichigo’s dislike for things like that despite the fact they seem to be true…

Though, the only reason I’m bringing it up is because my favorite manga of all time has a part where one of the characters mentions his horoscope, saying “it’s supposed to be a bad day for Scorpios”. For Bleach, it’s supposed to be a bad day for Cancers.

We have some great moments with the rest of the cast doing Don Kanonji’s iconic laugh. I love Ichigo’s face when even Chad is doing it. I also like that it’s revealed later that Mizuiro is only doing it to annoy Ichigo.

There are also plenty of TatsuHime moments in this arc! I really wish Tatsuki didn’t mostly disappear after they go to soul society… at least she’s in HM some.

Also, Kubo gives us some interesting panels to consider:

The first is a good intersection between Ichigo and Orihime. It’s not romantic, but it’s our first glance into Orihime’s character beyond her bubbly friendly demeanor. We see her act… sad? Frustrated? With the complete disappearance of the background and Orihime repeating herself “yeah, you’re right… it’s normal… it’s normal…” even though she’s smiling she’s clearly conveying something else. My personal feeling is Orihime is surprised, and a bit upset, by Ichigo’s answer. I think she’d been hoping he came to the Don Kanonji thing to see her, and was surprised his real reason was so considerate. Her reason for being upset is two-fold. One, she’s sad Ichigo didn’t come to see her (I’m sure inside she knew it was foolish to hope for but couldn’t stop herself), and two, she really doesn’t think highly of herself or others. In her mind, Ichigo is truly an outlier. She may even think that she’d never do anything like that (even though she’s actually a very kind person). I don’t think she’s being mean with this line of thought, mind you. Instead, I feel like it’s hinting that Orihime isn’t just a kind, bubbly person - she’s multifaceted and complex, and can have feelings that contradict her “default” personality.

Regardless, it’s an honest interaction between the two. And probably the most personal outside of her introduction arc.

For the second panel, the thought of “kindness” comes back. Ichigo noticing how kind Rukia is, despite him thinking a basic level of kindness is normal. I’m not sure why Kubo’s juxtaposed this. Maybe it was an accident. But it’s interesting with Ichigo he says it’s normal to be kind, but then with Rukia he’s surprised by her level of kindness. It feels like Kubo’s continued efforts to showcase the main duo’s bond. Also, it leads nicely into some humor.

And more Tatsuhime!

I also like Orihime is the first one of the Karakura Gamg impacted by the spiritual pressure. Sure, we see Ichigo and Rukia, even Karin, but who’s sensitive enough to notice next? Who’s does Kubo identify? Orihime! We also have some low key Ichihime. I don’t think Orihime seeing Ichigo run off is peak ship material, but Kisuke seems to be alluding to the next arc (Uryu!), when he’ll confront Orihime and Chad about their powers and whether they want to help Ichigo. It’s noteworthy Kubo put Ichihime on the panel where Kisuke is alluding to the next big development in the story.

(Is Don Kanonji even going to show up in this review?) The rest of the story doesn’t do too much world building. The most important is the reference to the soul chain, which will come back later. Otherwise, we get some heroic ichigo, we get some of that humor I enjoy (ichigo- we can fight as long as Don Kanonji doesn’t show up! Kanonji- shows up), and an oddly emotional payoff for Kanonji’s arc. Especially since he’s mostly a throwaway character.

This was all clearly a buildup for Uryu and the subsequent chapters though.

So last thoughts:

“It’s my twin brother. Separated at birth” perfect humor.

This being told from Orihime’s POV? Oris it Ichigo’s… someone is thinking this. Sometimes Kubo does this and even when it’s clear who’s thinking it (Uryu’s monologue in SS and HM come to mind), we don’t get a sense of when it’s being said. Why is someone saying this in past tense? When are they saying it? (Is think after Rukia leaves, but why put that here?) I’m a bit torn between saying Kubo has a reason for this and I’m just too dense to figure it out, and that Kubo was just using a popular storytelling technique and it doesn’t have a specific reason, it’s only meant to foreshadow (some vague threat). Whatever. It’s not that deep.

And who do I spy on the horizon? The beautiful, the perfect, the wonderful Uryu Ishida!

Orihime is so perfect…

The car hurt her. Kill it.

Also, this arc gives us some more details about hollows and gives us some more character building. Even though the details of what hollows are seem to become irrelevant as the series goes on, it’s still neat.

I also enjoy Ichigo and Rukia training together (I miss that from later arcs).

We also get our proper introduction of Orihime and Ichigo, and true interactions between them. Orihime is as precious as always, and I like seeing protective Ichigo. Though he does get a bit exasperated with her nonchalance regarding her injuries. Also, RukiHime begins!

From a reader POV (pretending I’m the target demographic of teenage boy), I can see how Orihime is gearing up to be a love interest. Her clear crush on Ichigo is classic in shounen, but (more importantly) she’s shown as someone Ichigo is protective of. The reader is supposed to identify with Ichigo, meaning they’ll feel protective of Orihime too. Ichigo protecting someone isn’t unique to Orihime, but she is the first character to get this treatment.

Now this is an important scene:

I do see a lot of I/H fans say they’re childhood friends, but Ichigo is clear that they’re not close. It’s not the biggest deal, but they are near strangers. He goes on to say he’s only recently learned that Orihime was the same girl from this incident.

Aside from ships, Kubo is setting us up for a kickass reveal. As someone who hasn’t reread the series in awhile, I actually had a “woah!” moment…

I think the build up to this reveal was excellent! And leaving the chapter with this page is perfect suspense. I know hollows are the ‘corrupt’ human souls, but a lot of that nuance disappears later in the series. It was actually surprising to read this “reveal” because it kind of doesn’t mean anything by the end of the series…

Also TatsuHime.

And there are more cute Orihime fantasies involving Ichigo. She really is precious. I love her.

That bear hurt her. Kill it.

This arc is a great way to tell us about hollows, Orihime, and the soul chain (which comes back!). Especially in these earlier arcs, you can tell Kubo was keeping notes of what he’d brought up, because it’s inevitably come back again. Great writing.

But I do want to talk about this scene:

I’ve seen some cool parallels on here from much smarter people than me - they highlight how Orihime’s brother issues and Rukia’s brother issues are somewhat similar. While the parallels might extend further than I’d give Kubo credit for, I can’t deny them outright. Ichigo’s speech to Sora isn’t verbatim what he gives Byakuya, but the feeling is the same. Byakuya does say he’d let his own sister die (we’ll see if he specifically says he’ll kill her. If memory serves, he says he’d kill her himself if need be… oh my beloved Byakuya. So dramatic). Man, Ichigo is just correcting family issues left and right in the beginning of this series! I’m actually a bit sad some of these familial elements disappear later on… but this narrative of Ichigo challenging the status quo, of him using his grit and charisma to make people change for the better (Sora letting himself be sent to soul society, Byakuya eventually saving Rukia and mending his bond with her, rapid fire: Uryu, Renji, all the captains…) this is quality Bleach. The story eventually gets bogged down in character fights and we lose these themes and the focus on characters. It’s so nice to have this time to spend with Orihime and let her shine while Ichigo’s mostly in the background.

Anyways - I think this arc gives us so much for Orihime’s character! She’s such a strong kind-hearted person.

The hollow hurt her. Kill him.

More proof of Orihime’s love for Ichigo in Kubo’s paneling here… and also some great insight into Orihime. I think it’s so easy to brush her off as an air-headed big boobed love interest when she’s really a compassionate, caring, empathetic person. She doesn’t want other people to be sad, she tries very hard to make everyone happy… she’s so sweet! And some may say that she’s cliche or whatever, but so what??? Not every character needs to be Super Unique and Total Different. She embodies the cliche well, filling it out and bringing her own charm too. I really don’t have a problem with her. Also, I like that Kubo later makes some of her traits flaws so we can explore her character later. It’s neat!

Also… Kubo, can I ask you a question?

When the heck did Ichigo and Orihime have a conversation about her hairpins? We don’t need to see it onscreen, but Ichigo made it clear earlier in this arc that he doesn’t know her very well. I guess Orihime would be the nervous type to blurt this kind of information out if Ichigo even mentioned them casually, but you expect me to believe Ichigo noticed those hairpins when he didn’t notice the giant bruise on her leg? I can see why some people think they’re better friends at the start of the manga than they’re supposed to be. Kubo doesn’t even seem to remember from chapter 3 to chapter 6.

The biggest exploration of our characters so far, with Ichigo’s past being revealed. It will later be revealed even more in different conflicting ways, but we’ll focus on MITR for now.

I thought it was an interesting contrast to start the arc with Ichigo being relatively normal. We start with his thoughts on protecting people and then cut to a normal morning with Kon and Rukia. It’s not until Ichigo looks at his watch that he realizes it’s almost the anniversary of his mom’s death.

Ichigo finally has a way to protect his friends and family, something he’s been yearning for. And having those powers has really brought him out of his ‘rebellious punk ways’. He’s becoming happier. And then he sees the date and reality comes crashing down again.

Then comes the exploration of Ichigo’s angst!

But first - Orihime! She’s fantastic once again! I love the picture she drew for her future self. Also, TatsuHime alert!

I am glad Kubo had Orihime notice Ichigo was off. Though it’s another instance of ‘how did everyone not notice?’. Orihime’s Friend 1 says Ichigo is in such a good mood… does she really not think somethings off since the usual scowl is gone from Ichigo’s face? And then Tatsuki says it took her three years to notice he was faking it around his mothers anniversary? To her credit, Ichigo used to be friendly and smiley so maybe she hoped he was finally moving through his trauma? But still, when your childhood friend’s personality changes post-mom-death, no part of you wonders if he’s faking his sudden chipperness on the anniversary of said mom’s death? It’s an odd choice on Kubo’s part.

Regardless, Orihime’s empathic abilities are active again. She’s smart and can read people’s emotions decently well… she just doesn’t know what to do with that information. She can figure out what people are feeling, but can’t figure out how to talk to them (we’ll see this in action later).

Also, I’m a bit tired of Kubo having Orihime notice things about Ichigo, but not having Orihime and Ichigo interact in any meaningful fashion. At this stage, Ichigo is still an acquaintance with Orihime. When do they start becoming actual friends? Kubo, I’m waiting!

Moving on!

It’s time for Ichiruki. It really shines in this arc. Even looking at it platonically, this arc is pivotal to their growing bond. We see their emotional connection deepen as they go through an important interpersonal conflict.

Rukia has noticed Ichigo’s mood and is trying to cheer him up, then chastises him for wanting to skip practice only for Ichigo to drop this bombshell! Also, Ichigo and Rukia haven’t known each other long and Ichigo still reveals this to her. I think it shows the depth of their current bond, because this isn’t information Ichigo shares with anyone else. I’m fairly confident he never tells anyone else about this (on screen), so him sharing it with Rukia showcases his trust in her.

Alternatively…

Tatsuki has to share this information with Orihime (instead of Ichigo sharing it). Tatsuki really has no right to share such personal information, but whatever…

And I get that this is mostly a narrative tool for the audience. We get some insight into the past Ichigo couldn’t/wouldn’t share; but we can’t ignore how Kubo choose to deploy this narrative tool. Not having Ichigo share his past with Orihime is a bad move on Kubo’s part. This won’t be the last time Ichigo doesn’t relay important information to Orihime about himself. And it’s a shame, because this kind of emotional intimacy really should go to Ichihime but Ichiruki gets it instead.

And it wouldn’t even be that big of a deal if this didn’t become a trend in Kubo’s writing. I “get it” right now. Ichigo and Orihime are still acquaintances. But I can’t excuse later arcs. Who knows, maybe I’ll have changed my mind when I get there, but I distinctly remember Orihime meeting a brick wall in FB when trying to talk to Ichigo. She once again knows somethings wrong but he won’t tell her anything.

Putting that aside, the interpersonal conflict between Ichigo and Rukia continues! Importantly, it’s because Rukia is still working on understanding Ichigo. She hasn’t realized yet that he blames himself for his mom’s death…

But when she realizes it, oh man! It’d a drop in the stomach. The paneling is great here as we ramp up the emotional drama right before the big fight.

I also love what this does for Rukia’s character. She’s always so brash and serious. She acts older than she is, trying to impose an air of superiority, but it crumbles as Ichigo bares his soul to her.

And we see her go through a big character change here. She reflects on what she said and by the end of the arc, she’s matured some. She’s figuring out how to talk to people, something she’s been struggling with since chapter one.

And it obviously means a lot to Ichigo. Famously, Kubo brings this line back hundreds of chapters later when Ichigo is talking to Isshin. Its clear Rukia is having a profound impact on Ichigo. And while not the focus, Ichigo is having a profound impact on Rukia (see my above point). When people ask why I like Ichiruki, these are the scenes I point to. Their emotional bond, their trust of one another… it’s just beautiful.

And then there’s Grand Fisher.

Nightmare fuel.

I think her crush is so cute. She’s such a delight! I’m hoping to see her feelings develop some. Right now, her crush is very much based in fantasy (very typical for a young high schooler, so can’t blame her) - here she says she likes imagining his grimacing face, and then cracks up at her own imagination. It’s certainly not a real reason to like someone, though if memory serves we get a better feeling for why she likes him in a few chapters (when we explore Orihime’s past). It’s still cute though. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t wave my TatsuHime flag here. I’ll always stan Tatsuki and Orihime even as Kubo slowly decreases Tatsuki’s screen time to zero.

Also -

The beginning of my love for Ichiruki. They’re already making each other better people.

More importantly, Ichigo is establishing himself as the person who’ll go and save all of his friends during the series. Both Rukia and Orihime (and Uryu to some extent) will later be surprised by Ichigo going to save them even though he literally says, “I save him because I wanted to save him.” He’s such a hero type.

Ever since the first time I read Bleach (I was there in the trenches at the very beginning), my favorite het ships have been Ichiruki and Ishihime. While I know I’ll continue picking up Ichiruki/ishihime vibes, I’m also going to try focusing on Ichihime and Renruki as I read. I’ve deep dived into plenty of Ichihime blogs/posts to understand where their feelings on the ship(s) came from (alongside the epilogue making it official), and I want to do my best to see the ship(s) through their eyes. I don’t suspect I’ll like them better by the end, but I would like to have a greater appreciation for them. I already love Orihime, so it’s be nice to enjoy her canon ship more.

All that said, I’m a multi-shipper and gay shipper first. So I’ll highlight a lot of things along the way.

I’ll be posting my thoughts as I’m reading here. I’ll tag it as RayeReads so feel free to block/ignore if need be.

And as a last note - there is so much ridiculous discourse in the Bleach fandom (example: Ichiruki being p*dophilia). If you’re sincerely curious about my take on all this discourse, you can send an ask. If you’re just here to troll, keep scrolling.

And I won’t be participating in the shipping wars. I’m just going to say this once: I know Kubo has finished the story/there is established canon. I have preferences for ships/plot points/character arcs which I’ll bring up as I go, fully aware that this will not change canon. I’m not trying to change canon. I don’t know Kubo. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t care what I think. I don’t care what he thinks. I’m just a fan interpreting/critiquing the story he released. Since I’m not a person who thinks Authorial Intent supersedes Fan Interpretation, I like to engage in fandom with head canons/theories/interpretations/etc. this is in full knowledge that Kubo still doesn’t care and nothing I say will change things.

If you’re genuinely curious about my take on a ship, ask away. If you’re not, keep scrolling.