5 Bleach abandoned plotlines, explored

Tite Kubo’s shonen franchise Bleach centers on the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki, a spiritually aware high school student who becomes involved in the afterlife’s unpredictable affairs after gaining the powers of a Shinigami. As one of the Shonen Jump’s cherished “Big Three,” alongside Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece and Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto, it goes without saying that Bleach has its fair share of subplots surrounding the main story.

Despite the multitude of chapters, episodes, and movies that make up the franchise, however, there are several storylines that were introduced in the series and then abruptly dropped without any further development. While this may not be surprising, given the sheer length of Bleach’s story and the vastness of its cast, the manga’s rushed ending can be blamed for it.

That said, the long-awaited Bleach TYBW anime may be able to remedy these shortcomings. Bleach TYBW is presenting the franchise like never before, and this is due to the close collaboration between the anime’s staff and Tite Kubo. With this in mind, it’s not out of the question that some of the abandoned plotlines at issue will be better addressed in the upcoming episodes of Bleach TYBW.

5 subplots that Bleach introduced but never developed further

1) Sajin Komamura’s Wolfman Clan

Komamura as seen in Bleach TYBW (Image via Studio Pierrot)

The former captain of the Gotei 13’s Seventh Division, Sajin Komamura, is a standout compared to the other Shinigami, as he is an anthropomorphic wolf coming from the Wolfman Clan. Seeking revenge on the Quincy who caused Genryusai Yamamoto’s death, Komamura performed his clan’s secret Humanification Technique, which allowed Komamura to temporarily become a human and gain an invulnerable body that could regenerate from any injury.

As long as the Humanification Technique was active, no attack had any effect on Komamura. However, its effect eventually wore off, causing Komamura to lose his Shinigami powers forever and permanently—and this time, completely—transform into a wolf. Neither Komamura’s fate nor the lore regarding his clan were touched upon further.

The only thing that is known about the Wolfman Clan is that it’s a group of souls who were punished for their actions while alive. Likewise, the only known members of the clan are Komamura and the elder wolf, who initiated him into the Humanification Technique. Admittedly, the worldbuilding of Bleach would only benefit from the series delving deeper into the secrets of the Wolfman Clan.

2) Uryu’s grudge against Mayuri

Uryu as seen in Bleach TYBW (Image via Studio Pierrot)

Since his introduction in Bleach, Uryu Ishida has been shown to have a strong hatred for Shinigami, whom he holds responsible for the death of his grandfather Soken. Later in the story, it’s revealed that the Twelfth Division’s captain, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, indirectly caused Soken’s death to seize the latter’s body and use it for his research on Quincy.

Mayuri deliberately delayed the Shinigami that Soken had called to his aid during a battle against a group of Hollows. Later, he conducted extensive research on Soken’s body. Upon learning this, Uryu vowed revenge on Mayuri. Driven by his rage, Uryu got as far as to perform the special Letzt Stil technique, which dramatically increased the strength of his Quincy powers at the cost of losing them shortly afterwards.

Mayuri managed to poison Uryu with his Bankai but was otherwise completely overwhelmed by the Quincy. Uryu fired a powerful arrow at Mayuri, tearing a hole through the Shinigami’s body and forcing him to retreat. The incident is never mentioned again, except for the part where Mayuri’s assistant Nemu states that Uryu intentionally avoided killing Mayuri by shooting him in the body instead of the head.

Given their personal enmity, it would have been interesting to see a rematch between Uryu and Mayuri during the conflict between Quincy and Shinigami in Bleach TYBW, but—unless the new anime adaptation alters the original story—that never happened. On the contrary, despite Mayuri’s evil actions towards his grandfather, Uryu had no particular problems cooperating with Mayuri some time after their battle.

Mayuri’s research into the Quincy features and powers through Soken’s body is also never brought up again, even though such knowledge could have been helpful to the Shinigami side.

3) Tatsuki’s spiritual powers

Tatsuki and Ichigo (Image via Studio Pierrot)

A student at Karakura High School, Tatsuki Arisawa is a close friend of Ichigo Kurosaki and Orihime Inoue. Despite being a normal human, Tatsuki has enough spiritual awareness to see Hollows and Shinigami. She can even sense them from a distance. That said, she doesn’t have any spiritual powers of her own.

This is rather disappointing, as the series had built up a compelling narrative basis for her to develop them. However, this subplot was abandoned and never picked up again. At the beginning of the Bleach story, Tatsuki was heavily involved in the events, and when it was revealed that she could see spirits, most fans assumed that she would develop her own spiritual abilities sooner or later.

Unfortunately, once the Shinigami were introduced in the story, Tatsuki’s character was left aside. In all fairness, this was a pity, as she had the potential to develop a Fullbring ability. She could survive an encounter with low-level Hollows, which would act as the trigger to unleash her dormant potential.

Granted, Tatsuki was never meant to be particularly powerful, but the story implied that she would at least become capable enough to be of help against lower-order threats. As a skilled martial artist, she could have used a Fullbring power to take her karate techniques to a whole different level, much like Jackie Tristan did. It would have made sense as Tatsuki had sworn to protect Orihime from anyone who jeopardized her.

4) Karin’s Shingami potential and connection with Urahara

Karin and Ichigo (Image via Studio Pierrot)

Karin is one of Ichigo Kurosaki’s two sisters, making her a descendant of Isshin Shiba and Masaki Kurosaki. Unlike her brother, her father, and her mother, Karin has never shown any groundbreaking power. But, given her blood kinship, it would be anything but absurd for Ichigo’s sister to develop spiritual powers of her own.

Since the very beginning of the series, Karin has been able to see spirits. She was even able to harm some very weak Hollow. Upon meeting Karin, Toshiro Hitsugaya noted that she had very high spiritual power for a normal human. At one point, the story seemingly hinted at Karin gaining Shinigami powers, but that plotline never came into fruition.

After Ichigo lost his powers as a result of performing the Final Getsuga Tensho, it was stated that Karin’s spiritual power grew stronger than before. At the same time, she began to visit Kisuke Urahara regularly. She told Urahara that Ichigo had always fought to protect the others, so now it was her turn to protect her brother.

Kisuke Urahara (Image via Studio Pierrot)

These words sounded like a foreshadowing of Karin’s future Shinigami powers, especially as she said them to Urahara, the same person who helped Ichigo to unleash and train his own spiritual powers. While Karin seemed to indicate her intention to follow in Ichigo’s footsteps, this never happened. To add insult to injury, her spiritual powers were never mentioned again.

Two people being related doesn’t necessarily mean that they would inherit the same powers, but as the offspring of a formidable Shinigami captain and a pureblood Quincy, it’s not unreasonable to think that Karin has some remarkable dormant power. She wouldn’t become as strong as Ichigo, who is a prodigy in his own right, but she has the potential to be at least able to defend herself against most threats.

Still, the series never bothered to focus on Karin. If she ever went through the same process that Ichigo went through with Urahara at the beginning of the story, she may unlock her own Shinigami powers. In fact, she may also have some dormant Quincy powers that she inherited from Masaki.

5) The mysterious Rukongai

Ichigo and his friends explore the Rukongai (Image via Studio Pierrot)

The Rukongai is the largest and most populated portion of the Soul Society, the afterlife world where Shinigami live and most souls reside. Even then, not much is known about the Rukongai, except that it is divided into 320 districts.

Most of the souls dwelling in Rukongai are poor, living in extremely precarious conditions surrounded by a harsh environment. The lives of the residents matter so little that the Shinigami have no qualms killing them, like Sosuke Aizen and Mayuri Kurotsuchi did either to advance their plans or to restore the balance between souls and Hollows.

Bleach never really explained why there is social inequality in the afterlife, which is a major flaw in the lore of Tite Kubo’s addictive franchise. While this makes the Soul Society resemble the world of living more than most fictional depictions of the afterlife, it would be absolutely interesting to know the reason for the disparity between the Rukongai and the Seireitei.

The story hinted that there was some sort of precise and yet mysterious meaning behind the Rukongai’s designated role but never actually revealed it. The Shinigami society is a hierarchy inspired by real-life Feudal Japan, with strict social classes and barriers to social mobility that result in little to no opportunity for social advancement.

Even the Rukongai residents who have managed to leave it and become a renowned Shinigami have never shown any interest in improving the conditions of the Rukongai, which only emphasizes the need for some in-depth insight into this part of the Bleach world.