Okay. Theres a lot of mileage to be gotten out of this chappie. Lets do this!
Lol, Kubo went and did it again, adding to my favourite of all the Bleach plotholes. Urahara, you are NOT IN EXILE. You are A FUGITIVE. As far as the government of soul society is concerned, you flipped them off and teleported away with a bunch of monstrous experiments before their eyes, at your own fucking trial! And now, you walk up to a shinigami you don’t know, shakes his hand, and go “Hiya! I’m Urahara Kisuke! The crazed scientist who ditched soul society! Please trust me, okay?”. What the hell would you have done if Isshin just went ”nope!” and arrested you, you sandal-hat twat.
Urahara Kisuke, most inconspicuous person ever.
I also love how this entire emergency treatment hinges on the fact that Urahara just happened to walk by Masaki, smell the air, and somehow know that “that girl with no visible changes whatsoever is being hollowfied! I can tell these things, you know!”
And really, what the hell is with Masakis hollowification. Whether Quincies are a new species or not, they’re still alive, made of flesh and blood, they aren’t spirit-creatures like dead people/shinigami/hollows. Yet now, a giant hollow hole is sprouting on Masakis totally human, totally not dead not soul body. BECAUSE THAT’S TOTALLY HOW BECOMING A HOLLOW HAS ALWAYS WORKED
And this fucking soul balance thing. I mean, how long ago was it that the Ichigo SSJ3 hollow was explicitly said to be a “hollow made from a sinigami”? A few weeks? I guess we should just assume Aizen just stuck some Quincy arrows and human souls up its ass to prevent it imploding. But this would kind of defeat the point of making a big deal of labeling it a “shinigami-hollow!”, if its really a “shinigami (human Quincy) hollow!”
Come to think of it, in light of this, ahem, “explanation”, the entire hollowification theorem is ass backwards. “HERP DERP lets spend more than a century throwing souls with zero compatability together and hope it works”. By this logic they should instead have gone for Quincyfication, which would have succeeded instantly.
And the whole Arrancar concept remains completely flawed.
Arrancar: Grrr! We are mix of hollows and shinigami! Fear us!
Urahara: Your existence is a total impossibility.
Arrancar: Oh shit *implodes*
Aizen: In hindsight, this was a bad idea.
And this is another conversation I would have LOVED to see:
“…But see, I don’t get why we have to go through this whole Gigai, soul linkage business. Can’t you just give Masaki a shinigami/human vaccine or something?”
“Nonono, can’t do it with shinigami souls. That’s just unethical”
“Then what about some shinigami reiatsu, or Kido energy or something? I mean, you vaccinated people with arrows before. ARROWS. How the hell do you even capture and store those”
“Sorry, can’t be done. Because reasons”
“Then, what if, and I know this is crazy, I stay a shinigami, you do the soul linkage thing, give her a dose of Humanity. That way, I don’t have to lose my powers
at all! Hell, since the inner hollow in question was specifically a shinigami-hollow, I’m not even sure why I’m needed here”
“But you CAN’T ditch the gigai-plan!”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because we need to force you into a human body so that the first 500 chapters of manga makes sense! And If Isshin hadn’t been nerfed, he might’ve saved Masakis life!”
“Fuck it, okay then. So if I get my powers back after her death, why do I get my ass kicked by a shit-tier hollow in chapter 1?”
“Uh, your powers took a while to come back, yeah”
“But a few months later I’m going toe to toe with Aizen!”
“Shut up, shut up! That’s just how my plot convenience gi-I mean, Super Special gigai rolls! Its’ Science!”
“…So how come my daughters haven’t exploded yet? I’m pretty sure they don’t have any hollow parts to balance out-“
“NO MORE QUESTIONS!”
Another thing I love how no one calls out is Uraharas utter destruction of the barrier between life and death. Bummed out that you died, and left behind your loved ones? No worries, hop into a Plot Convenience Gigai, and continue on as if nothing fucking happened!
The absolute biggest bizarro moment for me is that no one calls out Urahara on his complete and utter inhumanity. I mean, firstly theres the obvious stuff where Urahara goes “Hai, I vaccinate people using HUMAN SOULS. Now jump into this gigai made from HUMAN SOULS” and no one bats an eye. But moving beyond that, simple question: How does Urahara know so much about Hollowification?
Because he’s been researching hollowification for decades.
Uraharas goal has been perfecting Hollowification
Urahara has ATTEMPTED HOLLOWIFICATION
When Urahara talks about soul suicide and all that shit, he’s indirectly saying: I did a shitload of experiments on shinigami, and all my test subjects blew up in my face!
“wait wait wait, maybe Urahara was just counteracting Aizen! Trying to help Aizens victims!” Ahahahaha, nope, Aizen himself has said that both he and Urahara were researching this shit independently. Urahara invented the magic wish-granting 8-ball for the sole purpose of fusing shinigami and hollows.
And even at the most basic level, if you ignore the part about all souls involved getting incinerated, the core principle of hollowification is to stuff a hollow soul into something else.
Now, I know its been a long time since this was ever apparent but...hollows. What are hollows. They are fallen souls living in endless torment as undead monsters, and it is the express duty of shinigami to deliver them from their miserable existence, and let them move on to the afterlife.
OR they could just, you know, stick hollows into other people indefinitely, as a glorified fuel cell.
I mean jesus Christ, this is some fucked up shit
I mean, Kubo has made Urahara completely unscrupulous and unempathic and he doesn’t know it. In Kubos mind, Urahara is still the loveable quirky plot convenience guy. In the canon story, Urahara callously toys with, and destroys peoples very souls.