I've been poking at the structure of Bleach, now that the second cycle is finished and a new one is starting, because I honestly kind of expected the fall of Aizen to be the end. Looking back on it, that may have been foolish, because the end of the Hollow cycle matches the end of the shinigami cycle very closely: there is a huge confrontation in which martial ability is useful, is necessary to survive, but does not actually accomplish the desired end. In fact, no one gets a perfectly happy ending and things are still a hot mess afterward.

Now we have a new cycle, which looks like it may be focused on human powers, and that brought my thoughts back to my earlier speculation on KT's apparent cosmological model. In the first cycle, we had a trip to Soul Society, home of the shinigami (Asura). In the second cycle, we had a trip to Hueca Mundo, home of the Hollows (hungry ghosts). Perhaps this cycle will represent the human world.

To be sure, the story in general returns to humans as a touchstone, again and again, but that makes a certain amount of sense if the world-structure really is inspired by the six worlds of the realm of desire. The human realm, the human existence, is, after all, the one to which the greatest potential for enlightenment is attributed. This also makes a certain cosmological sense of why it's the humans who progress so astonishingly quickly, in Bleach.

Thinking about all that, though, brought me back to the basic point that KT really seems to love parallelism and symbolism, and that the personal aspects of the Hollow cycle didn't seem nearly as parallel to the shinigami cycle as I was expecting. Maybe they were, though--parallel in light of the worlds in question, anyway.

( Rukia's journey and Orihime's journey )

Because this has been bouncing around my head for a while, gaining bits, and it's about time to write it down.

I'm not entirely sure that character age is one of the things KT thought all the way out, but I think he had at least a basic idea of how this was supposed to work; what little info we have on aging in Soul Society does suggest a certain shape of rationale, and he's consistent about it.

( Spoilers, obviously )

So there's my theory, based on what we've seen so far. Of course, this suggests that Ichigo's appearance in spiritual form may settle at late teens or early twenties while his material body keeps aging, which could be fodder for all kinds of interesting future-fic.

My response to TRC/Holic is pretty steady these days, and consists of something along the lines of: WTF Clamp?! I mean, the mother named the same thing as the soulmate was bad enough, but now we’re way into the weird spiritual incest and/or masturbation realm. And still no ending in sight. *sighs*

Naruto, on the other hand, is looking interesting, despite the continuing obliteration of the moral and psychological dynamics from the first two-thirds (ie teamwork). It looks like we may be shaping up for a round of “You use that word a lot…”. I am still wondering where the hell Sasuke et al are and how exactly he and/or Madara are going to play into this. I mean, the most emotionally satisfying thing would be for the current trio to break the pattern of the past trios and actually redeem the poor guy, but I’m becoming increasingly unconvinced of Kishimoto’s dedication to satisfying endings.

Bleach… well, now, I have mixed feelings this week. The Ulquiorra-Inoue dynamic got some halfway decent continuation, but little closure. He remains rather a mystery. I don’t actually object to that, but the way that dynamic crossed with the Ulquiorra-Ichigo was… distracting. There’s a lot of development happening, but it all seems to be subterranean. I’m hoping that soon we will get some greater in-action explication.

So, what I’ve been wondering, as we move through the Hueca Mundo arc in Bleach, is: did Aizen create the current culture we see among the arrancar, or did he just take it over?

(Spoilers ahead, of course.)

The fact that Hollows right up to Menos Grande are instinct and hunger driven has meant that the lower levels don’t have much in the way of organized culture or society.  Even the adjuchas seem to organize or group only in small bands, according to what we’ve seen of Grimmjow’s past.  But the arrancar are shown to have organization.  They are still driven by hunger, but they have regained enough mind and individuality to create as well as consume, at least by the witness of Las Noches.

So, is that something they have generated and constructed themselves, over however many thousands of years?  Or is that construction and organization something Aizen imposed?  The question doesn’t seem to me to have been answered one way or another, yet.  If Aizen has been in contact with them for the whole hundred or so years, then the progression we see among the Espada, the ex-Espada and elaborate ranking and numbering, could have been his instigation.  But perhaps not. It’s Aizen who adopts their manner of dress, and those things generally mean something in KT’s writing.

I’m really hoping we get some kind of indication one way or another, somewhere along the storyline.

Bleach: *fans self* Oh my. Aizen has met his match for top contender in the “badness is hot like fire” sweepstakes. Who knew Urahara could be sexy as hell?

Naruto: *slaps desk* There, now that is a fine issue! Why can’t you write like that more often, Kishimoto? Just the right balance of heart-rending and hopeful, with good, stark shading to complement it. Ditch all these fights with characters who take ten freaking issues to die after being gut-stabbed and write like this more.

Eyeshiled 21: … InaMura, you want to kill us, don’t you? What was that? Three reverses in one issue? My heart won’t take another three months of this!

All in all, a darn good week.

Well, the break seems to have made for some nice turning points.

( Bleach 206 and 7 )

( Eyeshield 21 265 and 6 )

( Prince of Tennis 373 and 4 )

And as for Tsubasa... *makes disgusted hand-waving gestures* Yeah, whatever.

It distresses me greatly when people say Rukia is useless or wimpy or any of that. So let us talk about all the ways in which Rukia is amazing.

( There may be spoilers in here for those who do not follow the manga. )

*marvels* Wow, the M7 translation for Bleach 223 sucked donkeys.

Through a straw.

I love how fast the issues come out, of course, but taking long enough to translate in comprehensible sentences would be a plus.

But! Now we see exactly why they call themselves Vizored, a visor being, among other things, the part of a helmet that can be raised and lowered as they do their masks.

I'm just fascinated by the dynamic between Shinji and Hiyori. Hiyori may well be the strongest of them, but it's clearly Shinji who's the responsible leader. Hiyori strikes me as very young--kind of the same way Ichigo does. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Shinji was older than Byakuya. He watches and /thinks/ all the time.

And, damn it, I've got Shinji/Ichigo bunnies nibbling my toes, and I /know/ it wouldn't work. Any more than I can get the Byakuya/Renji bunnies to work. It just doesn't. But that doesn't stop it from feeling like it should! *sulks*

In any case, it looks like I was right about the point Vizored and Arrancar converge on, and the parts invovled. In the former, the heart (conscience) rides the instincts/passions; in the latter, instinct rides the intellect. In both cases, just barely.

By the way, does anyone know what the word is that's getting translated as 'instinct'?


And, incidentally, I still say that 'girian' is 'guerrean'.

*settles down to wait for the next wodge of issues to build up*