Bleach Manga Guide, Volume 1

[notbantamweight]

The Death and the Strawberry

001. Death & Strawberry
002. Starter
003. Headhittin
004. Why Do You Eat It?
005. Binda.Blinda
006. Microcrack
007. The Pink Cheeked Parakeet

001. Death & Strawberry


Characters Met:

Kurosaki Ichigo (Protagonist)
Kurosaki Isshin (Ichigo's father)
Kurosaki Karin & Yuzu (Ichigo's sisters)
Kurosaki Masaki (Isshin's wife, mother of Ichigo, Karin, & Yuzu, deceased)
Kuchiki Rukia (Shinigami)

Plot Events:

> Ichigo meets Rukia when she walks through a wall and into his house.
> The difference between Pluses (Normal spirits) and Hollows (Malignant, predatory spirits) is explained.
> Shinigami duties are explained: send Pluses on to Soul Society via konsou and cleanse Hollows (This is down by breaking their mask in two with a zanpakutou).
> Ichigo proves that he has sufficient spiritual power by blocking Rukia's ability to sense souls and by breaking out of Bakudou #1: Sai when a Hollow attacks his family.
>Rukia stops the Hollow from eating Ichigo by substituting herself, thereby rendering it necessary to turn Ichigo into a Shinigami via impaling himself on Rukia's zanpakutou (Technically killing himself).
> Yuzu is apparently still conscious.
> Ichigo also takes all of Rukia's spiritual energy, instead of half (which is again dependent on the reishi reserves of the Shinigami in question).
> Zanpakuto size is relative to the size of a Shinigami's power - as a result, Ichigo's is massive. _{However, it is made clear later on that Captains have the ability to control the size of their zanpakutou, which makes it clear that Ichigo's abnormally large one is probably due to lack of control.}
> Ichigo cleanses his first Hollow, and the chapter closes out on him glaring.

Other Notes:

- Shinigami (Death Gods, human spirits who have passed on to the afterlife and who also possess reserves of spiritual energy) are shown to have the ability to detect spiritual activity and to be able to walk on air, and also through air.
- Ichigo, along with Karin (and to a lesser degree, Yuzu) are all able to see and interact with ghosts - spirits of the dead.
- Isshin apparently "trains" Ichigo by kicking him in the face. It's amusing.
- Isshin cannot see ghosts or Shinigami. Apparently.
- Hollows (Corrupted/fallen human spirits) are capable of speech, and eat human spirits.
- A table is flipped.
- Kidou (Demon Arts, basically shinigami magic) is used for the first time; specifically, bakudou (defensive/binding spells).
- Shinigami are revealed to age incredibly slowly - Rukia states that "I have been alive almost ten times longer than you have", making her roughly 100+ years dead.
- Shinigami are also revealed to be responsible for konsou (Soul burial), in which the end of the hilt of a zanpakutou (Soul-cutting sword, literally a weaponised extension of a Shinigami's soul) is placed to the forehead of the spirit to be cleansed, thereby sending it on to Soul Society (i.e. the afterlife) in the form of a hell butterfly.
- Hollows are shown to cause actual damage to the physical world, despite being spiritual beings.
- The odds of a human surviving the transition from spiritually rich human to Shinigami are wholly dependent on how much reishi (spiritual energy) that human possesses. The process is also extraordinarily painful, as a zanpakutou has to pierce through the soul chain and soul sleep (which are located over the heart) in order to activate those powers.
- The method for cleansing Hollows is shown - you must destroy their masks to cleanse them.