Summary
Since its return to the limelight with the adaptation of the Thousand-Year Blood War Arc,Bleachhas taken the world by storm with its immaculately animated visuals, gripping action,and the reappearance of many beloved characters. Covering the final arc of Tite Kubo’s iconic shonen manga series,Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood Warpicks up after the Lost Substitute Shinigami Arc, with the rekindling of an age-old feud between the Shinigami of Soul Society and the Quincy of the Wandenreich led by Yhwach. The stakes are high in this conflict, with the fate of Soul Society, the Human World, and Hueco Mundo all hanging in the balance.
While the Wandenreich’s invasion of Soul Society inBleachis a relatively recent event in the series' canon, the origins of this conflict stretch back more than a millennium. It concerns a fundamental difference in the ideologies and objectives of the Shinigami and Quincy —two factions that have always been at oddswith one another. As the battle draws closer towards its climax with each successive episode, many will be left wondering about the finer details behind the roots of this war, and why it is so critical to preserving the fabric of reality.
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Polar Opposites In Every Respect
In essence, the conflict between the Shinigami and Quincy boils down to the fundamental divide between their responsibilities and how they execute them. As a tribe of spiritually aware humans, theQuincy were a group dedicated to fighting Hollows, with the ability to absorb Reishi from their surroundings to create weapons — primarily bows — and mold their own spiritual energy for self-defense. They are far more durable than regular humans, can live for longer periods in the right environment, and can be seen by those who do not possess spiritual awareness.
On the other hand, Shinigami are beings who reside in Soul Society, a world beyond that of the living, and are tasked with overseeing the flow of souls between the realms of the Human World, Soul Society, and Hueco Mundo. They are invisible to those who cannot perceive spiritual beings, and have a high Reiryoku within bodiesmade of Reishi from which they release their Reiatsu. As opposed to gathering energy from their surroundings, Shinigami innately possess energy within their bodies. They are also extremely durable and can live for long periods, with the oldest among them known to be more than 2,000 years old.
Another fundamental point of difference between the two is in how they deal with Hollows. Since Quincy do not possess any antibodies towards Hollows, their souls will be completely destroyed if they are exposed to them. They cannot even undergo Hollowfication like Shinigami. Hence, the Quincy are driven to exterminate Hollows, and they do so by completely erasing their souls, preventing them from passing on into Soul Society. On the other hand,Shinigami are meant to shepherd Hollowsand benign spirits known as Pluses into the afterlife, by purifying them with the Konso ritual, or cleansing them with their Zanpakuto. Where Shinigami view Hollows as spirits to be redeemed and guided back into the cycle of death and rebirth, Quincy view them as monsters to be eradicated. This is why the two groups are regarded as polar opposites of one another.
Maintaining The Balance Between Worlds
Hence, since Quincy eradicate Hollows completely, their activity disturbs the balance of souls between the world, which provoked the intervention of the Shinigami. Due to the Quincy’s over hunting of Hollows, there was a growing danger of the cycle of souls becoming unstable, as there would be too many souls in the Human World and not enough in Soul Society, if they were eradicated by the Quincy before passing on. After many attempts at convincing the Quincy to cease their hunting of Hollows ended in failure,the Shinigami of Soul Society were forcedto wipe out the Quincy over time, as their numbers grew high.
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Nearly 1,000 years prior to the start ofBleach’smain storyline, the Quincy Emperor Yhwach, son of the Soul King and the leader of an empire known as the Licht Reich, waged war against the Shinigami of the Gotei 13 to conquer Soul Society. The Quincy Emperor himself fought Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto, going up againsthis immensely powerful Bankai Zanka no Tachi. Unfortunately for Yhwach, his forces were comprehensively defeated in the conflict, and he was impaled by Yamamoto’s Lieutenant Chojiro Sasakibe, which allowed the Gotei 13’s Captain-Commander at the time to deliver the final blow and bring an end to the brutal war.
Subsequently, the Quincywere also slowly wiped out by the Gotei 13, with survivors either fleeing to the Human World, or inhabiting a portion of the Seireitei that they dubbed the Wandenreich, as it had been created by manipulating Reishi to form space within the shadows. Over time, certain Quincy such as Uryu’s grandfather Soken Ishida, advocated for Quincy to serve as “first responders” of sorts in the Human World, where they could be charged with protecting humans from Hollows until a Shinigami arrived to purify them. Sadly, this idea was met with derision by the Gotei 13, who were still bitter about the war between the two groups.
The Quincy King Reborn
Among the legends of the Quincy, there was a song known as the Kaiser Gesang, which spoke of a sealed king who would regain his heart after 900 years once the seal on him was broken. Subsequently, the song went on to state that his intellect would be revived after 90 more years, following which, he would reawaken his full power after nine more years. While this song was the stuff of legend for a long time, it was proventrue when Yhwach used Auswahlen to steal powerfrom all the Quincy he deemed to be impure or unnecessary, which lead to the deaths of both Masaki Kurosaki and Kanae Katagiri.
With his power restored, Yhwach set out to marshal his troops once again, and mount another offensive against Soul Society. Despite the obvious grudge he held after his defeat nearly a millennium prior, he also believed that the division of life and death was unnecessary and that all the worlds should be merged into one. His reason for doing this was twofold. Firstly, he sought to create a world free from the fear of death.Secondly, as the son of the Soul King, he could not tolerate his father being sealed and forced to maintain the balance between the worlds, and sought to bring an end to his father’s perceived humiliation by killing him. Additionally, in Yhwach’s own words, the last, long forgotten segment of Kaiser Gesang, stated that the sealed king would regain the world in 9 days. To fulfill this prophecy, he declared war on Soul Society, and commenced the Quincy Blood War with the Wandenreich’s invasion of Soul Society.
BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2 – The Separationis available to stream onHuluandDisney+.
