‘Bleach: The Diamond Dust Rebellion’: The Trials of Toushiro and Why I Watch, part 2
For part 1 of this article, click here.
The Soul Reaper Academy (every society needs an academy – see Plato, Aristotle, Hogwarts), founded 1000+ years ago by Commander-General Yamamoto, graduated the youngest person to ever become a captain, Hitsugaya Toushiro. Serious in countenance, sharp of mind, fierce in battle, child-like in stature (brilliantly voiced by seiyuu Romi Park and by English voice actor Steve Staley), with spikey white hair and turquoise eyes that made him an outcast in his rural Rukongai district (where most souls live; the Sereitei, Court of Pure Souls, is for the shinigami and nobility), and thus a loner, he nonetheless mastered the strongest ice-based Zanpakutou ever in its full bankai form, Hyourinmaru (manifests as an ice dragon and a regal humanoid). He stands tall amongst the captains, despite his relative youth, respected and well loved. But his soul knows only hard work and justice, unlike those who had defected and nearly killed him and everything he loves. Toushiro, too, knows loss, and he and Ichigo had seen battle together and they are friends, though opposites: Toushiro the samurai dubbed a “snotty brat” by Ichigo who is…well…15. When we meet Toshiro in this story, he and his lieutenant, Matsumoto Rangiku (who’d discovered him in the Rukongai), and soldiers of Squad 10 are guarding the royal family and the magical artifact, the Ouin, when the entourage is attacked, the Ouin stolen. The forces suffer heavy losses and Toushiro is seriously wounded. He sees his masked attacker, who says, “You haven’t changed,” and thus knows him by voice and leaves his post to go after him.
When a law becomes unjust, it is our duty to defy it and rewrite it. Ichigo taught Captain Kuchiki Byakuya (Rukia’s noble brother by adoption) this during the ordeal of Rukia’s execution and Byakuya eventually thanked him for it. Our Founding Fathers and the revolutionaries before them who’d inspired them voiced such axioms, schooled in the classics back to Plato. The Japanese constitution is based upon ours, framed by MacArthur at the armistice after WWII. We share an ideal and thus Bleach speaks on both sides of the world. And like much Japanese literature, though it shows many fierce battles, it counsels that battles are to be avoided whenever possible between people of reason – a hallmark of Philosophy, Just War Theory (Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas). Ichigo gets all this because he’s the outsider of the Soul Society, 17th vs. 21st C. The others are slower to defy even seemingly unjust laws and decisions, finding injustice in their midst so hard to believe due to their resolve, their utter certainty that what they risk their lives to do every day is Good, that all life on both sides of the veil depends on them (think Sorkin’s Marines in A Few Good Men).
The staunch-justice icon Yamamoto, especially
during his post-Aizen betrayal days, has no patience for anyone who breaks the laws (no individual justice, only society’s justice) and suspects Hitsugaya-taichou (captain) of treason, and issues a capture and execution order, and the villain does everything possible to further isolate Toushiro, who escapes 2nd Squad Captain Soi Fon’s Stealth Force (ninja) to the World of the Living and passes out, where he is found and taken in by his friend Ichigo. The villain is Kusaka, Toushiro’s best friend from the Academy – about the only times you see Toushiro openly smile are in the flashbacks with him, friendship as a balm to the troubled soul (Sagisu does this beautifully in Toushiro’s 3 recollection leitmotif themes, played by a soulful solo cello with strings, repeated throughout the series). When they had gone to the cave to discover their Zanpakutous together as classmates and “friends forever,” unprecedentedly they both mastered the same powerful sword being and they were overjoyed – but joy quickly turned to conflict. The Chamber of 46, the absolute ruling body, rules for tradition without mercy. Hitsugaya’s ready to give up his precious Hyourinmaru for the sake of friendship, whereas Kusaka’s ready to give up friendship for the sake of power (Toushiro’s shadow). So the Council makes a Solomonic decision and chooses Hitsugaya and finishes the fight because they know he won’t kill his friend. Kusaka, as an angry soul, ends up resurrected in Hueco Mundo with Arrancar companions (combined power souls created by Aizen) and, by the power of the Ouin (and you have to believe that Aizen is pulling the strings here, in the shadows), comes back wielding his Hyourinmaru and wants to not only finish his old business with his friend, but take over the Soul Society as king, bloody vengeance, not justice, his intent. But vengeance means malice and there is no Philosophy on the planet that condones it, whatever past injustice may prompt those feelings.
Toushiro vows to stop him alone, even if it kills him. He is a man of vows, law, and justice, so he puts aside his captain’s haori (white cloak over his black hakama) and his vows as captain and goes forth on his friendship business, alone, wearing the traditional raw brown cloak of the wandering mendicant, his sword as his staff, despite the pleadings of Ichigo and his friends to share his burdens with them, to let them help. His over-developed sense of responsibility, shame, and guilt driving him.
But his friends never give up on him and keep believing in his goodness.
Eventually,
with the help of everyone, Ichigo stops the fight (“Is all you people ever do is fight?! Are you really that anxious to execute your friend?!”), gets through to Toushiro, and they all share the burdens of this challenge, the cohorts rising up and shouting, “Taichou!” as he re-dons his haori and asks Matsumoto to watch his back. Kusaka has invoked the Ouin’s limitless powers and becomes an unstoppable behemoth version of Hyourinmaru, raw power out of control, and the globe of power threatens to eat the entire Soul Society and the World of the Living. Once that power is contained and shattered by the elder captains on the outside and the younger ones on the inside working in full concert, finished off by Toushiro’s good Hyourinmaru, Kusaka is just a man again, his anger purged and, man-to-man, no magic, Ichigo as his 2nd (he could’ve finished off Kusaka, but he stepped back, for his friend’s sake), Kusaka and Toushiro both get to settle the fight they’d been forced to have so long ago, on their own terms. Toushiro wins, but at a terrible cost, finally having to kill his friend. And as Kusaka’sreiatsu/reishi (spiritual pressure) dissipates into the very fabric of the Soul Society and Kusaka finds peace, the twin swords become one again in Toushiro’s hand, he and Kusaka repeat their childhood vow, “Let’s be friends forever,” and he fades away, the real Kusaka to live on in Toushiro’s heart and memory. Ichigo gets to be the Greek chorus and make explicit to his friend (and us) what was just played out. Then uncharacteristically, the captain laughs, thanks Ichigo, and goes to the cemetery with his mentor, subordinate, and friend, Matsumoto, to put his friend’s broken sword on Kusaka’s grave, where he apologizes to Matsumoto without facing her: “I’m sorry for all I put you through.”
But no squishy sentiment, here. Toushiro, still himself, then abruptly changes the subject and they go back to their jobs. And Ichigo returns home once again to his other precious family and friends, for the nonce.
Death and trauma give way to life for the strong – another constant message of Bleach.
The ethical person is strong and there is the most strength in friendship and that means sharing your burdens with your friends – to not-share is weak, as Ichigo learned from his father after his mother’s death and as he exclaims, in frustration, about his friend Toushiro during this ordeal. He knows. It harms your precious friends and family and puts them through hell.
Granted,
Aristotle warns against too much sharing of feelings lest men grow too womanly – and yet women need their feelings in order for society to survive, he admits, which is revolutionary for his time. But Aristotle believes in the virtue of metropatheia, moderated passions used for the Good (Ichigo, Matsumoto, other captains), and not in apatheia, the purged passions, of the Platonists and Stoics (Toushiro and Byakuya, and Aizen on the shadow side, often with tragic results). Bleach tells its men and women (strong female characters who are still feminine), young and old, high-born and low, living and dead, to feel and share, lest destruction ensue. Considering that it comes from a Japanese author in a country where hierarchy, courtesy, and level behaviour are everything and gender roles rather strictly defined, that is quite extraordinary, indeed. And that this franchise thrives in all its forms with no end in sight is a testament to the timelessness of its messages.
