Burn The Witch and other Bleach-ness

[LaZodiac]

Well, the news is out. Tragically, the Bleach anime is returning to finish off the series.

The Bleach sequel series, Burn The Witch, will be serialized come this summer, and will get an anime this fall. So... prepare yourselves, I guess. Gonna be salty about this for awhile.

[Rodin]

Well, the news is out. Tragically, the Bleach anime is returning to finish off the series.

The Bleach sequel series, Burn The Witch, will be serialized come this summer, and will get an anime this fall. So... prepare yourselves, I guess. Gonna be salty about this for awhile.

How are they going to handle it being set after several years worth of manga that wasn't covered by the anime? :smallconfused: It kinda seems like that would be important.

I guess maybe there's only a tangential connection to the main Bleach plot?

I'll probably give it a try at least. I've been stuck inside for the past week with the spring cold/flu and rewatching some of my favorite Bleach fights was a perfect "no brain required" way to pass the time.

[LaZodiac]

How are they going to handle it being set after several years worth of manga that wasn't covered by the anime? :smallconfused: It kinda seems like that would be important.

I guess maybe there's only a tangential connection to the main Bleach plot?

I'll probably give it a try at least. I've been stuck inside for the past week with the spring cold/flu and rewatching some of my favorite Bleach fights was a perfect "no brain required" way to pass the time.

Well, the Bleach anime is picking up directly where it left off, which was just at the end of the Fullbringers I recall.

As for Burn The Witch, **** if I know bud. The fact that it's got an anime confirmed before it's EVEN OUT is kind of gross.

[Rodin]

Ah, I misunderstood. I thought they weren't bothering to finish the Bleach anime and were going straight into Burn the Witch.

Damn, that means I have to decide whether I want to finish off Bleach or not. I've heard not-good things about what came after Fullbringers, and that arc was pretty poor itself. If the anime is high quality it should at least have good fight sequences though. Hrm.

As to Burn the Witch, from what i can gather there was a one-shot manga a couple of years ago. It is a bit surprising that they're leaping straight into an anime without more than a one-shot in the tank.

I'm interested to see what Tite Kubo is getting up to these days, but my excitement is guarded at best. He does good characters, but that man could not tell a good story if someone else wrote one, rolled it up, and hit him between the eyes with it.

[DeadMech]

Of the big three, Bleach was always my favorite. Could have probably just have ended it at Ichigo catching Aizen's blade in their final fight for that delicious turn about and I wouldn't have complained. The fullbringer arc was pretty not great when I first watched it and while I think I've gained some appreciation for what it was doing over the year it's not something I'm likely gonna go back and rewatch.

It's been awhile since I've read what comes after. It has it's moments but it also struck me at the time of being pretty not awesome overall. I don't think I ever did finish it though. I recall hearing that the ending was pretty rushed. Maybe this is something that an anime adaptation can fix but I won't hold my breath.

As for Burn the witch... I've never heard of this before. A very brief and completely superficial glance at a couple textless images of it kinda looks promising.

[LaZodiac]

Ah, I misunderstood. I thought they weren't bothering to finish the Bleach anime and were going straight into Burn the Witch.

Damn, that means I have to decide whether I want to finish off Bleach or not. I've heard not-good things about what came after Fullbringers, and that arc was pretty poor itself. If the anime is high quality it should at least have good fight sequences though. Hrm.

As to Burn the Witch, from what i can gather there was a one-shot manga a couple of years ago. It is a bit surprising that they're leaping straight into an anime without more than a one-shot in the tank.

I'm interested to see what Tite Kubo is getting up to these days, but my excitement is guarded at best. He does good characters, but that man could not tell a good story if someone else wrote one, rolled it up, and hit him between the eyes with it.

Burn the Witch is getting serialized in summer so it'll have all that stuff to work off, but still.


Of the big three, Bleach was always my favorite. Could have probably just have ended it at Ichigo catching Aizen's blade in their final fight for that delicious turn about and I wouldn't have complained. The fullbringer arc was pretty not great when I first watched it and while I think I've gained some appreciation for what it was doing over the year it's not something I'm likely gonna go back and rewatch.

It's been awhile since I've read what comes after. It has it's moments but it also struck me at the time of being pretty not awesome overall. I don't think I ever did finish it though. I recall hearing that the ending was pretty rushed. Maybe this is something that an anime adaptation can fix but I won't hold my breath.

As for Burn the witch... I've never heard of this before. A very brief and completely superficial glance at a couple textless images of it kinda looks promising.

Okay since it seems y'all missed it, I'll go over Burn the Witch. Burn the Witch takes place in Europe and it's about a witch who goes around making sure all the dragon monsters are okay, and beating up any that turn out to be a little rowdy. Humanity makes use of dragons for resources and stuff in secret, and it's all very Interesting. As we see the secret underground city the witches operate out of, we see that the headquarters of her Witch organization has a sign outside, but it's broken due to her breaking through it so often. Remember this.

After Some Events happen where a male character kinda sorta becomes her life debt partner due to dragon antics, we finally return to the headquarters, some stuff happens that theoretically sets up for a series, and then we go to leave... and wee see that the sign that was broken is now repaired, and it reads "Soul Society West Branch". Then our hero breaks it, and the sign is smashed to pieces, and we see the title drop of BURN THE WITCH, but the way Burn the Witch is shaded in, plus some detailing on the now destroyed sign, it secretly reads out "BLEACH" (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/bleach/images/b/bd/BTWBleach.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20180714050114&path-prefix=en), thus revealing it's a spiritual sequel set in the same universe.

The dragons are hollows, the witches are shinigami, their magical wands are zanpakto. It's all the same only different. The words knickers is used exhaustively.

[Anonymouswizard]

The Bleach sequel series, Burn The Witch, will be serialized come this summer, and will get an anime this fall. So... prepare yourselves, I guess. Gonna be salty about this for awhile.

But I couldn't finish the original because it kept meandering! Great, I'm going to be hearing about this from everybody.


Okay since it seems y'all missed it, I'll go over Burn the Witch. Burn the Witch takes place in Europe and it's about a witch who goes around making sure all the dragon monsters are okay, and beating up any that turn out to be a little rowdy. Humanity makes use of dragons for resources and stuff in secret, and it's all very Interesting. As we see the secret underground city the witches operate out of, we see that the headquarters of her Witch organization has a sign outside, but it's broken due to her breaking through it so often. Remember this.

After Some Events happen where a male character kinda sorta becomes her life debt partner due to dragon antics, we finally return to the headquarters, some stuff happens that theoretically sets up for a series, and then we go to leave... and wee see that the sign that was broken is now repaired, and it reads "Soul Society West Branch". Then our hero breaks it, and the sign is smashed to pieces, and we see the title drop of BURN THE WITCH, but the way Burn the Witch is shaded in, plus some detailing on the now destroyed sign, it secretly reads out "BLEACH" (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/bleach/images/b/bd/BTWBleach.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20180714050114&path-prefix=en), thus revealing it's a spiritual sequel set in the same universe.

The dragons are hollows, the witches are shinigami, their magical wands are zanpakto. It's all the same only different. The words knickers is used exhaustively.

On the one hand, sounds interesting. On the other hand, where are my Grim Reapers, my Duhallan, and my other western psychopomps that I'm sure must exist. Heck, both the Grim Reaper mythology and the Duhallan mythology could make for interesting basises for series in their own right, Grim Reapers having two weapons for different purposes (representing the scythe for commoners and sword for nobility), and the Duhallan being so entwined with their steeds they'd literally have to operate very differently to Japanese Soul Reapers (I can see them literally carrying ghosts over to Soul Society for one). Like, interesting ideas were there but sidestepped for a somewhat less interesting one (although if we get a flaming horse Shikai all is forgiven).

Extensive use of knickers is a plus point though. Inherently funny word, inherently funny concept.

[Rater202]

If there's going to be a serialized Burn the Witch Manga then I hope to freaking God that Kubo's editors have been replaced by Editors that do their freaking jobs instead of the ones he had during the original run of Bleach.

Most of Bleach's pacing issues, from what I understand, were the result of them making him skip or rush through parts they didn't like and then spend ages on parts they did. (They really) liked the Espada.

Instead of, you know, checking his work and helping him tell the story he wanted to tell in a way that would appeal to people and sell.

From how he tells it, his finalized outline(which he finalized somewhere during the Soul Society Arc) had Aizen being defeated half-way into the series and then Yhwach would have been the villain for the second half with multiple arcs that didn't directly apply to each villain breaking up the longer more serious plots.

Like, the Forest of Menos filler Arc was plotted out b Kuno but his editors forced him to skip it so he gave the details to the ANime staff. And the Zanpakuto rebellion arc was based on an idea he had but wasn't allowed to use, so he gave it to the Anime Staff. (The canon version of Muramasa appears in one of the Novels) Apprently X-Cution was meant to be part of the "training" arc with the Visored after soul society and honestly, the way it picks up from the Soul Reaper pass plot point makes much more sense closer to the end of the Soul Society arc.

If they're reviving he Bleach anime for the Thousand YEar Blood War arc, it might be a good time to have Kubo explain some of the details he would have wanted to include in it if he hadn't been rushed and his health hadn't started failing towards the end to try and make it

[LaZodiac]

On the one hand, sounds interesting. On the other hand, where are my Grim Reapers, my Duhallan, and my other western psychopomps that I'm sure must exist. Heck, both the Grim Reaper mythology and the Duhallan mythology could make for interesting basises for series in their own right, Grim Reapers having two weapons for different purposes (representing the scythe for commoners and sword for nobility), and the Duhallan being so entwined with their steeds they'd literally have to operate very differently to Japanese Soul Reapers (I can see them literally carrying ghosts over to Soul Society for one). Like, interesting ideas were there but sidestepped for a somewhat less interesting one (although if we get a flaming horse Shikai all is forgiven).

Extensive use of knickers is a plus point though. Inherently funny word, inherently funny concept.

Burn The Witch has exactly one chapter so as of right now all we have are dragons of various concepts, like farm and electricity and Being A Bastard. Also the Witches are... implicitly NOT dead, like the Shinigami were, which makes things all sorts of muddled.

Also the witch wands that we've seen (of which consist of two) create magic brooms to fly on that have heads on the end so we COULD, theoretically, get a flaming horse broom?


If there's going to be a serialized Burn the Witch Manga then I hope to freaking God that Kubo's editors have been replaced by Editors that do their freaking jobs instead of the ones he had during the original run of Bleach.

Most of Bleach's pacing issues, from what I understand, were the result of them making him skip or rush through parts they didn't like and then spend ages on parts they did. (They really) liked the Espada.

Instead of, you know, checking his work and helping him tell the story he wanted to tell in a way that would appeal to people and sell.

From how he tells it, his finalized outline(which he finalized somewhere during the Soul Society Arc) had Aizen being defeated half-way into the series and then Yhwach would have been the villain for the second half with multiple arcs that didn't directly apply to each villain breaking up the longer more serious plots.

Like, the Forest of Menos filler Arc was plotted out b Kuno but his editors forced him to skip it so he gave the details to the ANime staff. And the Zanpakuto rebellion arc was based on an idea he had but wasn't allowed to use, so he gave it to the Anime Staff. (The canon version of Muramasa appears in one of the Novels) Apprently X-Cution was meant to be part of the "training" arc with the Visored after soul society and honestly, the way it picks up from the Soul Reaper pass plot point makes much more sense closer to the end of the Soul Society arc.

If they're reviving he Bleach anime for the Thousand YEar Blood War arc, it might be a good time to have Kubo explain some of the details he would have wanted to include in it if he hadn't been rushed and his health hadn't started failing towards the end to try and make it

I refuse to believe that Bleach is a series that was bad purely because of it's editors. I love your hope though.

Given how Samurai 8: The Legend of Hachimaru has been a complete and utter flop, I think... Burn the Witch probably immediately crashed and burns.

[Rater202]

Kubo's the kind of person who has great ideas but needs help staying on focus.

It's also known that the medication he takes for his mental issues gives him memory problems.

That's why I said he needs better editors and not no editors.

The Novels he's co-writing with some other guy I keep forgetting the name of, that takes place in between the last chapter of Bleach and the epilog, are much better than the original manga becuase the ideas are presented in a way that makes more sense and have decent pacing.

(I wonder if those will get adapted into the revived Anime? Like how NAruto adapted some of its post-series novels after they got to the end of the Manga and uses some of the other ones as Filler in Boruto.)

Kubo's editors forcing him to cater to their tastes at the expense of plot and pacing instead of doing their god-damn jobs isn't the only problem with Bleach, but giving Kubo good editors solves some of the other problems too.

Basically, he needs people who'll help him tell the story he wants in a way that makes sense and people who'll help him keep track of details he might forget about.

a designated "coll your tits, fanbase" social media person might be good, too. He got death threats becuase Ichiruki wasn't canon even though there was literally no sexual tension between Ichigo and Rukia in the orignal manga. Every bit of ship-tease between the two, literally all of it, was added in by the Anime staff.

[Rodin]

It's not like there isn't precedent for editors screwing up the story for a major shonen series. Aizen's plans and motivations change almost as often as the number of androids in DBZ*.

There's also a bunch of story ideas that are introduced but don't go anywhere, like Orihime having reality-warper powers that scare the crap out of people because she breaks all the rules. It's obvious Tite Kubo had a plan for all that when it was introduced, but it was later dropped without explanation. Overly meddling editors telling him to get back to the punching would explain much.

As for the Bleach conclusion, I do like the idea of the anime team using the manga as an outline and cleaning up things with Tite Kubo's assistance. If there's areas that got negative press at the time of release then take the time to polish them as much as you can.



*DO I HEAR FIVE!?!?!

[Ramza00]

I was going to post this, but you beat me to it La Zodiac. I do not know how I feel about this...all I know it is going to be so bad, but that does not convey any useful information for there are dozens of ways things can be so bad.

I may actually like it, despite the badness. :smallamused: :smalltongue:


It's not like there isn't precedent for editors screwing up the story for a major shonen series. Aizen's plans and motivations change almost as often as the number of androids in DBZ*.

*DO I HEAR FIVE!?!?!

VEGETA: I don't give a [censored] about butterflies!

[PraetorDragoon]

Not sure how I feel about it. On one hand I kinda like Bleach... At least until it started meandering. It is one of the first Animes I watched, so that might give me some rose-tinted glasses.

On the other hand, It does seem to me that Kubo has ideas that he is good at introducing, but then not really good at working out. Maybe if he has help he can work those things out better? We will see with Burn the Witch. I do expect it to be better than Samurai 8 though. That was one mess.

[Rater202]

There's also a bunch of story ideas that are introduced but don't go anywhere, like Orihime having reality-warper powers that scare the crap out of people because she breaks all the rules.

That was touched on loosely in the Novels.

Orihime is confirmed to be a Fulbringer(It was ambiguous in the manga) and Fullbringer powers, in general, are low scale reality warping. (I mean, "I talked to this thing's soul and now it's doing whatever the hell I want it to do logic and physics be damned" is pretty reality-warpy to begin with, but the novel makes it clear. There's a Fullbringer with a power comparable to pre-hogyoku Aizen who can take bits of inanimate matter and turn them into dragon force matter and energy to phase harmlessly through her body. Neither of those are her unique power. She doesn't know what her unique power is, she never formed a significant attachment to an object)

And there's a conspiracy in Soul Society that monitors everything and was deliberately keeping the existence of Fullbrigners secret so when Shinigami not involved int he conspiracy run into a particularly powerful one they have no idea what to say or do.

[Traab]

I have to admit, the idea of an expanded bleach universe where there are differing "Soul Societies" based on cultural folklore is an interesting one with a lot of room for expansion as most cultures have some form of related afterlife lore that could be worked with. Stay away from the big three religions to avoid stepping on large numbers of toes and you could theoretically have a lot of spinoffs with various versions of soul reapers and hollows and the unique situations each run into because they work different ways. I wouldnt mind seeing one based on nordic mythology, Valkyries being the shinigami of the setting, Valhalla being the locations of the military and asgard being "soul society" in general. Not sure if they could twist frost/fire giants into being the bad guys but im sure there are all sorts of unquiet dead myths in that section of the world that could be used instead. Draugr maybe? Short wiki quote,
Draugar possess superhuman strength, can increase their size at will, and carry the unmistakable stench of decay. According to Gregg Smith, "The appearance of a draugr was that of a dead body: swollen, blackened and generally hideous to look at."[3] They are undead figures from Norse and Icelandic mythology which appear to retain some semblance of intelligence. They exist to guard their treasure, wreak havoc on living beings, or torment those who wronged them in life. The draugr's ability to increase its size also increased its weight, and the body of the draugr was described as being extremely heavy. Thorolf of Eyrbyggja saga was "uncorrupted, and with an ugly look about him… swollen to the size of an ox," and his body was so heavy that it could not be raised without levers.[4][5] They are also noted for the ability to rise from the grave as wisps of smoke and "swim" through solid rock.[6]

Sounds like an interesting undead creature to base your soul society around dispatching. Also bear a lot of similarities to hollows to allow for the connection while being different enough to be unique.

[Rater202]

Honestly, I'm not sure if that works.

I mean, Soul Society in Bleach is based loosely on Japanese cultural tropes and The Western BRanch is Witches and Wizards(who are implicitly living humans) taking care of, exploiting, and slaying dragons, and...

Well, I mean, that's pretty much it. Bleach was the East Branch and This is the West Branch.

Hollows are based very, very loosely on Mexican skull motifs, and Quincy style themselves as Holy Warriors, but again, that's it.

I think drawing too much on a specific region's mythology makes for two much of an issue.

Don't make it a bunch of different afterlives, make it so that different Branches handle different spiritual issues and just happened to be based in a different place and have different operatives becuase that's what it seems to be.

The Shinigami handle the balance of souls. Wingbind manages dragons. If any other Branches exist, they probably have other things to do.

[Razade]

Hollows are based very, very loosely on Mexican skull motifs

If by very loosely you mean not even close to at all then...yeah. The only thing "Mexican" about the Hollows is that they use Spanish. Not even Mexican Spanish. Intro to Spanish 101 filtered through Japanese then translated to English. So a mess. There's nothing even close to the Hollows and Mexican folklore and their skull/bone motif have nothing to do with one another.

[Rater202]

If by very loosely you mean not even close to at all then...yeah. The only thing "Mexican" about the Hollows is that they use Spanish. Not even Mexican Spanish. Intro to Spanish 101 filtered through Japanese then translated to English. So a mess. There's nothing even close to the Hollows and Mexican folklore and their skull/bone motif have nothing to do with one another.

I said "very, very" loosely for a reason but yeah.

[Durkoala]

Heard you were talkin' ****, Zodi. Let me correct that.

I also like/d Bleach, so here's a somewhat more flattering edit to Zodiac's take on Burn the Witch, inspired by my read of it.



Okay since it seems y'all missed it, I'll go over Burn the Witch. Burn the Witch takes place in Europe Tite Kubi's vision of London after watching the first eight Harry Potter movies and it's about a witch who goes around making sure all the dragon monsters are okay, and beating up any that turn out to be a little rowdy. Humanity Witches make use of dragons for resources and stuff in secret, and it's all very Interesting. As we see the secret underground city the witches operate out of, we see that the headquarters of her Witch organization has a sign outside, but it's broken due to her breaking through it so often. Remember this.

After Some mostly Alright and visually coolEvents happen where a male character kinda sorta becomes her life debt partner due to dragon antics, we finally return to the headquarters, some stuff happens that theoretically sets up for a series, and then we go to leave... and wee see that the sign that was broken is now repaired, and it reads "Soul Society West Branch". Then our hero breaks it, and the sign is smashed to pieces, and we see the title drop of BURN THE WITCH, but the way Burn the Witch is shaded in, plus some detailing on the now destroyed sign, it secretly reads out "BLEACH" (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/bleach/images/b/bd/BTWBleach.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20180714050114&path-prefix=en), thus revealing it's a spiritual sequel set in the same universe.

The dragons are hollows, the witches are possibly shinigami, their magical wands are not very like zanpakto. It's all the same only different. The words knickers is used exhaustively by the translators who were doing their best to make Tite-Kubo-Japan sound like it might be in Britain.
Fixed.

And to AnonymousWizard: Burn the Witch has about as much in common with British-Irish folklore anything as Star Wars does with Taoist philosophy, I'm afraid.

[Rater202]

Also, those aren't magic wands, they're guns(which is honestly a lot like the original conception/pilot of Bleach depicted most Shinigami) the "brooms with heads" were specially bred dragons that serve as mounts, and honestly other than the one-off mention of the "Eastern Branch" just exterminating their "Dragons" I'm kind of hoping that the Dragons aren't Hollows or at least aren't born the way eastern Hollows are.

Becuase Wingbind mostly exploits dragons for their resources and there are one species, a really cute piggy looking one, that is explicitly butchered for its meat and the idea of a system of people breeding, raising, and slaughtering the tortured, agonized souls of dead humans in order to eat them scares the hell out of me.

The Burn the Witch Oneshot supposedly takes place two years after the Epilog of Bleach, so if it ever crosses over with the original series it'll most likely be Kazui and Ichika, not the main characters from the previous series. (Which would be nice. Kazui is a gem.)

[Durkoala]

Also, those aren't magic wands, they're guns(which is honestly a lot like the original conception/pilot of Bleach depicted most Shinigami) the "brooms with heads" were specially bred dragons that serve as mounts, and honestly other than the one-off mention of the "Eastern Branch" just exterminating their "Dragons" I'm kind of hoping that the Dragons aren't Hollows or at least aren't born the way eastern Hollows are.

Becuase Wingbind mostly exploits dragons for their resources and there are one species, a really cute piggy looking one, that is explicitly butchered for its meat and the idea of a system of people breeding, raising, and slaughtering the tortured, agonized souls of dead humans in order to eat them scares the hell out of me.

The Burn the Witch Oneshot supposedly takes place two years after the Epilog of Bleach, so if it ever crosses over with the original series it'll most likely be Kazui and Ichika, not the main characters from the previous series. (Which would be nice. Kazui is a gem.)

The dragons of West Soul a

[Lord Raziere]

I have to admit, the idea of an expanded bleach universe where there are differing "Soul Societies" based on cultural folklore is an interesting one with a lot of room for expansion as most cultures have some form of related afterlife lore that could be worked with. Stay away from the big three religions to avoid stepping on large numbers of toes and you could theoretically have a lot of spinoffs with various versions of soul reapers and hollows and the unique situations each run into because they work different ways. I wouldnt mind seeing one based on nordic mythology, Valkyries being the shinigami of the setting, Valhalla being the locations of the military and asgard being "soul society" in general. Not sure if they could twist frost/fire giants into being the bad guys but im sure there are all sorts of unquiet dead myths in that section of the world that could be used instead. Draugr maybe?


I agree with this. Bleach needs a heavy dose of variation and diversity that would make its world much more interesting rather than the very limited world we see. it would add more factions, and thus more conflict, more things to do than just interact with one soul society and one hueco mundo and maybe quincies if they aren't all dead. shonen runs on adventure and battle, and more factions would help with both.

[Anonymouswizard]

And to AnonymousWizard: Burn the Witch has about as much in common with British-Irish folklore anything as Star Wars does with Taoist philosophy, I'm afraid.

Well knickers. Like, I would be annoyed, if it wasn't for the fact that there are a good number of anime/manga set in the Isles that did the bloody research, some of them getting the culture down to the sometimes baffling divisions.


Also, those aren't magic wands, they're guns(which is honestly a lot like the original conception/pilot of Bleach depicted most Shinigami) the "brooms with heads" were specially bred dragons that serve as mounts, and honestly other than the one-off mention of the "Eastern Branch" just exterminating their "Dragons" I'm kind of hoping that the Dragons aren't Hollows or at least aren't born the way eastern Hollows are.

Becuase Wingbind mostly exploits dragons for their resources and there are one species, a really cute piggy looking one, that is explicitly butchered for its meat and the idea of a system of people breeding, raising, and slaughtering the tortured, agonized souls of dead humans in order to eat them scares the hell out of me.

The Burn the Witch Oneshot supposedly takes place two years after the Epilog of Bleach, so if it ever crosses over with the original series it'll most likely be Kazui and Ichika, not the main characters from the previous series. (Which would be nice. Kazui is a gem.)

From everything it sounds a bit like these 'witches' are more like Quincies than Shinigami, which makes me wonder if we'll be introduced to Reapers who concentrate almost entirely on helping the dead pass on and leave the ones that turn into Hollows to the Witches. There's interesting potential here, but for the spirit king's sake we have interesting psychopomp folklore, if you're going to set a psychopomp-rlated series in the isles use it.

I'm going to give it a few volumes before I decide to be offended or extremely offended, but at the moment I'm leaning towards the latter.

[LaZodiac]

Well knickers. Like, I would be annoyed, if it wasn't for the fact that there are a good number of anime/manga set in the Isles that did the bloody research, some of them getting the culture down to the sometimes baffling divisions.



From everything it sounds a bit like these 'witches' are more like Quincies than Shinigami, which makes me wonder if we'll be introduced to Reapers who concentrate almost entirely on helping the dead pass on and leave the ones that turn into Hollows to the Witches. There's interesting potential here, but for the spirit king's sake we have interesting psychopomp folklore, if you're going to set a psychopomp-rlated series in the isles use it.

I'm going to give it a few volumes before I decide to be offended or extremely offended, but at the moment I'm leaning towards the latter.

Or, since it's going to be serialized in Shonen Jump, you can follow it weekly for free since the three most recent chapters of any series running in jump is available for free.

And if you pay like a dollar a month, you get access to all of it. That feels like a pretty decent barrier of entry, price wise.

[Anonymouswizard]

Or, since it's going to be serialized in Shonen Jump, you can follow it weekly for free since the three most recent chapters of any series running in jump is available for free.

And if you pay like a dollar a month, you get access to all of it. That feels like a pretty decent barrier of entry, price wise.

I mean, that's my plan, follow it weekly but drop out if it becomes too insulting.

[PraetorDragoon]

Or, since it's going to be serialized in Shonen Jump, you can follow it weekly for free since the three most recent chapters of any series running in jump is available for free.

And if you pay like a dollar a month, you get access to all of it. That feels like a pretty decent barrier of entry, price wise.

Follow it weekly for free seem like a fine price for Bleach. :smallbiggrin:

(Honestly, I should check how I can pay for Mangaplus, the offical service I have to use in Europe, its cheap enough and helps the creators.)

[Rater202]

I don't see why this would be offensive.

It has about as much in common with Western Lore as Bleach did with Japanese Lore.

I mean, seriously: shinigami have nothing to do with Japanese folklore. It's literally just their word for the western concept of the Grim Reaper.

[Anonymouswizard]

I mean, seriously: shinigami have nothing to do with Japanese folklore. It's literally just their word for the western concept of the Grim Reaper.

Who is a folkloric creature from which country? :smallwink:

Like, it's this combine with how I suspect that the London scenes have as much in common with wonderland, I should look up the one shot and have a look.

[Rater202]

No, I mean, why should Kubo put more effort into getting British culture and lore right than he did in getting his own lore and culture right?

[Lord Raziere]

I don't see why this would be offensive.

It has about as much in common with Western Lore as Bleach did with Japanese Lore.

I mean, seriously: shinigami have nothing to do with Japanese folklore. It's literally just their word for the western concept of the Grim Reaper.

Your right actually. guys look it up, Yomi has nothing to do with Bleach, its basically just earth but gloomier like Hades or Sheol.

still, would be nice if we got more variation to Bleach than like, two bland realms of existence aside from Earth, two hollow hunter groups and two hollow-adjacent groups. like there is that third realm of existence where horrible people just get dragged off to when konso'd rather than just going to soul society? like there is so much potential to this and you don't have to include actual religions at all, just interesting variant afterlives that take advantage of the same urban fantasy kind of globalism you'd see in like the Dresden Files where there is this separate community of dead people with their factions and conflicts and politics to create various different plots and interactions rather than just this one shinigami monolith and one hollow monolith that makes absolutely no sense.

[Rater202]

https://i.redd.it/lt5qd6q07in41.jpg

Also, apprently the Burn the Witch anime is just an OVA of the oneshot, not a full serialization of the series, so that's not quite as bad as an anime running concurrently with the Manga

And the Can't Fear Your Own World novel is being released in English this summer

Yeah. Yeah. This is a good year to be a Bleach Fan.

Edit:
"It has been so much time probably almost everyone forgot about it, and actually I also forgot. I thought the TYBW Arc wouldn't be animated, so I didn't expect the animation project in this 20th Anniversary. There's also the continuation of Burn The Witch that I didn't plan to serialize, and only showed it to my family and close ones because of pure curiosity. As a result, my editor saw it and told me to make it a series and animate it. It's the first time I'll be drawing manga and anime designs at the same time. I think it will be interesting and overall a good work. By the way, I have finished the manuscript. By the time you read the series, I'll be playing Animal Crossing, and so I'm looking forward to play it with everyone.”The Burn the Witch Serial is a limited series, not an ongoing one. He's already written it entirely and it'll be "done" by the time it start publishing.

[Ramza00]

https://i.redd.it/lt5qd6q07in41.jpg

Also, apparently the Burn the Witch anime is just an OVA of the oneshot, not a full serialization of the series, so that's not quite as bad as an anime running concurrently with the Manga

And the Can't Fear Your Own World novel is being released in English this summer

Yeah. Yeah. This is a good year to be a Bleach Fan.


You still haven't told me they will massage the 1000 Year Blood War into something that actually makes sense. Until you say that I am not confident it will be a good year to be a Bleach fan. Of course that confidence is a personal subjective thing :smallwink:

[Rater202]

I imagine that'll be in a day or two when we get the official announcement: Kubo's reaction aside, this is still technically a leak.

Anyway, if anyone's interested this inspired me to try and get another Bleach freeform game going (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?608922-New-Bleach-in-The-Playground-Discussion-and-Recruitment). No continuity with the previous games, I'm going for an episodic tone similar to the early chapters.

Just figured I'd share that.

[Dragonus45]

Burn the Witch is getting serialized in summer so it'll have all that stuff to work off, but still.



Okay since it seems y'all missed it, I'll go over Burn the Witch. Burn the Witch takes place in Europe and it's about a witch who goes around making sure all the dragon monsters are okay, and beating up any that turn out to be a little rowdy. Humanity makes use of dragons for resources and stuff in secret, and it's all very Interesting. As we see the secret underground city the witches operate out of, we see that the headquarters of her Witch organization has a sign outside, but it's broken due to her breaking through it so often. Remember this.

After Some Events happen where a male character kinda sorta becomes her life debt partner due to dragon antics, we finally return to the headquarters, some stuff happens that theoretically sets up for a series, and then we go to leave... and wee see that the sign that was broken is now repaired, and it reads "Soul Society West Branch". Then our hero breaks it, and the sign is smashed to pieces, and we see the title drop of BURN THE WITCH, but the way Burn the Witch is shaded in, plus some detailing on the now destroyed sign, it secretly reads out "BLEACH" (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/bleach/images/b/bd/BTWBleach.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20180714050114&path-prefix=en), thus revealing it's a spiritual sequel set in the same universe.

The dragons are hollows, the witches are shinigami, their magical wands are zanpakto. It's all the same only different. The words knickers is used exhaustively.


Honestly that all sounds amazing, I just hope he can write the story he wants and recapture some of that energy early Bleach had before the weekly manga grind ground him to paste.

[LaZodiac]

Honestly that all sounds amazing, I just hope he can write the story he wants and recapture some of that energy early Bleach had before the weekly manga grind ground him to paste.

You have to understand that I just summarized about a 50 page one shot in two paragraphs. I cut out basically all of the chaff, both scant good and generic terribleness. Here are some highlights since I guess I'm the only person to have read this here.

Good thing: Balgo, the male secondary lead, has a friend who was a dark dragon possessing his corpse. He'd been possessing the corpse since like, their childhood, so for his entire life Balgo's been friends with him. The dragon learned not one whit of emotional goodness from him and of course tries to kill him, and Noel (the protagonist) has to save him... and ends up being impeded by Balgo because he's apparently such a saint (despite harrassing Noel to see her panties constantly) that he wants to find a way for his friend to not get killed even though it's all been a lie, for his entire life pretty much.

Bad thing: Balgo gets infected by dragon blood because his trying to defend the dragon is idiotic and the only reason he's allowed to live is because Noel takes him in as a slave/familiar, complete with giving him a collar and leash and a shirt that says Slave on it. Noel also, personality wise, is basically just Rukia. Also there's a character named Spangle and I remember nothing about her other than she being the absolute worst. Also again I have to emphasize that Balgo's entire character is that he's a soft saintly ugu boy... who also begs to see Noel's panties (knickers) basically every page they're both on screen together up until the action starts.

Just kind of annoying: They call the secret underground "Reverse London" and regular London "Front London" and that's just kinda dumb.

Also to finish this compliment sandwich, I will say the art is fairly good, and like always the creepy monster designs are Quite Solid. The dragon, while inside his friend, is shown as basically a giant tornado of black dragon skin that can coil around stuff. It's actually kinda cool.

Also also, an addendum now that I have more information about this; it's looking like it's not a FULL serialization, it's just going to be a short thing like All You Need Is Kill and such. As Kubo himself said on twitter apparently; by the time you actually get the first chapter I'll be playing Animal Crossing.

[Dragonus45]

You have to understand that I just summarized about a 50 page one shot in two paragraphs. I cut out basically all of the chaff, both scant good and generic terribleness. Here are some highlights since I guess I'm the only person to have read this here.

Good thing: Balgo, the male secondary lead, has a friend who was a dark dragon possessing his corpse. He'd been possessing the corpse since like, their childhood, so for his entire life Balgo's been friends with him. The dragon learned not one whit of emotional goodness from him and of course tries to kill him, and Noel (the protagonist) has to save him... and ends up being impeded by Balgo because he's apparently such a saint (despite harrassing Noel to see her panties constantly) that he wants to find a way for his friend to not get killed even though it's all been a lie, for his entire life pretty much.

Bad thing: Balgo gets infected by dragon blood because his trying to defend the dragon is idiotic and the only reason he's allowed to live is because Noel takes him in as a slave/familiar, complete with giving him a collar and leash and a shirt that says Slave on it. Noel also, personality wise, is basically just Rukia. Also there's a character named Spangle and I remember nothing about her other than she being the absolute worst. Also again I have to emphasize that Balgo's entire character is that he's a soft saintly ugu boy... who also begs to see Noel's panties (knickers) basically every page they're both on screen together up until the action starts.

Just kind of annoying: They call the secret underground "Reverse London" and regular London "Front London" and that's just kinda dumb.

Also to finish this compliment sandwich, I will say the art is fairly good, and like always the creepy monster designs are Quite Solid. The dragon, while inside his friend, is shown as basically a giant tornado of black dragon skin that can coil around stuff. It's actually kinda cool.

Also also, an addendum now that I have more information about this; it's looking like it's not a FULL serialization, it's just going to be a short thing like All You Need Is Kill and such. As Kubo himself said on twitter apparently; by the time you actually get the first chapter I'll be playing Animal Crossing.

Yea, all that sounds pretty great. I'll have to look it up.

[Rater202]

While checking the Bleach subreddit, someone made a good point: We don't know that the Burn th Witch serial is going to follow up from the Oneshot.

Like, the Bleach serial is very, very different from the original Bleach Oneshot. Orihime didn't die and Rukia didn't shrink down to the point that she could use a teacup to take a bath when she transferred her power to Ichigo.

[LaZodiac]

Since my cursed, powerful words someone convinced all of you to read this on purpose, I'll let you know that the one shot is now avaialble for free on the Shonen Jump website. Link here: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/chapters/burn-the-witch?utm_source=VIZ_Anime_SJ&utm_campaign=Anime_BleachAnimeBTWAnnounce&cmp=1&utm_medium=Email

[Dragonus45]

Since my cursed, powerful words someone convinced all of you to read this on purpose, I'll let you know that the one shot is now avaialble for free on the Shonen Jump website. Link here: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/chapters/burn-the-witch?utm_source=VIZ_Anime_SJ&utm_campaign=Anime_BleachAnimeBTWAnnounce&cmp=1&utm_medium=Email

Yea I checked it out, definitely has the early Bleach energy I was looking for and got a few laughs out of me. I'm looking forward to seeing what the final version looks like.

[Anonymouswizard]

I have to emphasize that Balgo's entire character is that he's a soft saintly ugu boy... who also begs to see Noel's panties (knickers) basically every page they're both on screen together up until the action starts.

:smallsigh:

Does Kubo realise that n not every culture shares the same fetishes?

Like, that and the implied assumption of Japanese naming customs are legitimately insulting to me in a way that the avoidance of our folklore isn't.

On the names thing, yes I would use a senior's first name, it's convention, unless the situation calls for the full 'Mr/Mrs/Ms/Mx/Dr Blah'. Insisting on your last name can go either way, sometimes it'll get used as a nickname other times it won't.

And on the knickers thing, from reading the one shot it's just treated as entirely too normal. It would be considered a very weird fetish to have over here, not mockable level but certainly on the level where people would get tired of hearing about it. I'm going to try to treat the rest of the one shot, but urgh.

[LaZodiac]

:smallsigh:

Does Kubo realise that n not every culture shares the same fetishes?

Like, that and the implied assumption of Japanese naming customs are legitimately insulting to me in a way that the avoidance of our folklore isn't.

On the names thing, yes I would use a senior's first name, it's convention, unless the situation calls for the full 'Mr/Mrs/Ms/Mx/Dr Blah'. Insisting on your last name can go either way, sometimes it'll get used as a nickname other times it won't.

And on the knickers thing, from reading the one shot it's just treated as entirely too normal. It would be considered a very weird fetish to have over here, not mockable level but certainly on the level where people would get tired of hearing about it. I'm going to try to treat the rest of the one shot, but urgh.

I will at least note on re-read that Noel is supposed to be a huge ****ing nerd, so anything she does that's overtly Japanese is at least intentionally dumb. Spangle at least explains why she calls Noel by her last name. As for Bargo's knickers fetish... **** if I know man. Just saying the word knickers kills any potential "ah, enjoyable to look at" feelings, it is an extremely unsexy word.

[Durkoala]

:smallsigh:

Does Kubo realise that n not every culture shares the same fetishes?

Like, that and the implied assumption of Japanese naming customs are legitimately insulting to me in a way that the avoidance of our folklore isn't.

Ironically, the fact the Kubo isn't even trying to be accurate to London England Britain Europe any western society makes this entirely unoffensive to me. I get far more infuriated when authors try to serve up a garbled mess of a foreign country and seem to think that they're a competent authority on it.

'My home country, with a thin coat of foreign paint' and 'Comically overdone stereotypical depiction' are depictions I find extremely funny, and Burn the Witch falls into the former hilariously well.

That said, Balgo accosting the same girl every day and demanding her underwear is painfully unfunny.


Just saying the word knickers kills any potential "ah, enjoyable to look at" feelings, it is an extremely unsexy word.

Disagree.:smalltongue:

[LaZodiac]

I should note the official translation of the one shot was improved now that it's back on the site.

Balgo is Bargo

Wind Bind is Wing Bind.

Selvy is now Selby but this is irrelevant since he dies.

Just wanted to make a note of that because if we're gonna be doing this for any length of time I'm not gonna be reading Balgo every time I come here. We're doing this by the book.

[Anonymouswizard]

I will at least note on re-read that Noel is supposed to be a huge ****ing nerd, so anything she does that's overtly Japanese is at least intentionally dumb. Spangle at least explains why she calls Noel by her last name. As for Bargo's knickers fetish... **** if I know man. Just saying the word knickers kills any potential "ah, enjoyable to look at" feelings, it is an extremely unsexy word.

Noel also seems to be intended to be Anglo-Japanese, although at least a second-generation immigrant, and calling somebody by their last name is a thing, it's just limited to very formal concepts or it's closer to being a nickname. It makes sense for Nini (that name just sounds off, is it meant to be Nina?) to call Noel by her last name or a diminuitive of it, but to me it reads as if Nini is asking to be called by her surname. It's confusing to try to unpuzzle who's talking.

And nah, knickers is a perfectly sexy word (although it is a bit weird that Bargo uses it exlusively, instead of altnerating in 'undies', 'pants', or other words). It's panties that's as unsexy as George Lucas's romantic dialogue.


Ironically, the fact the Kubo isn't even trying to be accurate to London England Britain Europe any western society makes this entirely unoffensive to me. I get far more infuriated when authors try to serve up a garbled mess of a foreign country and seem to think that they're a competent authority on it.

'My home country, with a thin coat of foreign paint' and 'Comically overdone stereotypical depiction' are depictions I find extremely funny, and Burn the Witch falls into the former hilariously well.

Eh, there's a line somwhere between 'I've read Charle's Dickens' and 'my name is Baron Aliastair Featherstonehaugh-Smythe' where I find it incredibly funny, but putting in no effort at all just pisses me off. Also an intentionally stereotyped England is to me better than an unintentionally stereotyped England, there's a difference between knowing it's wrong and doing it anyway because it's funny and just getting it wrong because you don't know better.


That said, Balgo accosting the same girl every day and demanding her underwear is painfully unfunny.

I'm going to have to check with my friends who know more about Japanese society, but is stalking considered funny over there? I know that Western-culture-wise that most of the tropes based on stalking behaviour have died a slow death over the past decade or so.

Because yes, to me he reads like a stalker, not a funny man who just wants to see a girl's undies. He's implied to be sexually harassing her every single day, which would be fine if we were shown they were friends and have both agreed it's okay, but it's very much implied to be unwanted.

[HandofShadows]

If I remember correctly Kubo liked the english Soul Reaper name better than Shinigami.

Read Burn the Witch and it seems more like a comedy one shot than the start of a full series. Does have some interesting ideas though I think it could use a lot of refining. The Dragons aren't Hollows that I can see, but some kind of different spiritual entity. Interesting that it's the human's negative emotions that corrupt them into being dangerous.

[LaZodiac]

Noel also seems to be intended to be Anglo-Japanese, although at least a second-generation immigrant, and calling somebody by their last name is a thing, it's just limited to very formal concepts or it's closer to being a nickname. It makes sense for Nini (that name just sounds off, is it meant to be Nina?) to call Noel by her last name or a diminuitive of it, but to me it reads as if Nini is asking to be called by her surname. It's confusing to try to unpuzzle who's talking.

And nah, knickers is a perfectly sexy word (although it is a bit weird that Bargo uses it exlusively, instead of altnerating in 'undies', 'pants', or other words). It's panties that's as unsexy as George Lucas's romantic dialogue.

Eh, there's a line somwhere between 'I've read Charle's Dickens' and 'my name is Baron Aliastair Featherstonehaugh-Smythe' where I find it incredibly funny, but putting in no effort at all just pisses me off. Also an intentionally stereotyped England is to me better than an unintentionally stereotyped England, there's a difference between knowing it's wrong and doing it anyway because it's funny and just getting it wrong because you don't know better.

I'm going to have to check with my friends who know more about Japanese society, but is stalking considered funny over there? I know that Western-culture-wise that most of the tropes based on stalking behaviour have died a slow death over the past decade or so.

Because yes, to me he reads like a stalker, not a funny man who just wants to see a girl's undies. He's implied to be sexually harassing her every single day, which would be fine if we were shown they were friends and have both agreed it's okay, but it's very much implied to be unwanted.

Her name is intended to be Nini, yeah. Like Nee-nee I guess. I'm just going to call her Spangle though.

Gonna hard disagree on you there Anon, panties is way cuter and sexier a word for it. Knickers just sounds like old lady grandma pants. But then that's part of the culture divide so there you have it. Also god damn you Kubo for making me have to write these words with my fingers and brain.

[Rater202]

If I remember correctly Kubo liked the english Soul Reaper name better than Shinigami.

Read Burn the Witch and it seems more like a comedy one shot than the start of a full series. Does have some interesting ideas though I think it could use a lot of refining. The Dragons aren't Hollows that I can see, but some kind of different spiritual entity. Interesting that it's the human's negative emotions that corrupt them into being dangerous.

There's a line about how the Eastern Branch just kills their "dragons" indiscriminately and since the Eastern Branch is the Soul Society we know that implies that either Wingbind can't tell the difference between dragons and hollows or their definition of Dragon encompasses hollows.

Considering that "dragon" is explicitly a catch-all term for any supernatural creature, it's entirely possible...

Beyond that, we know that there are only 4 types of souls: Humans, Plus/Shinigami, Hollow, and Quincy, and that all power comes from souls.

Witches are either humans or Shinigami who inhabit physical bodies, that much is obvious. We know that Yhwach genocides his own people several times so even though Quincy come from Europe they're unlikely to be Quincy.

The Dragons sure as hell don't look like humans, Shinigami, or Quincy, so that would mean that they have to be the same type of Soul as Hollows.

That doesn't mean that they are Hollows, but still. It's a frightening possibility that those cue little piglets that get harvested for meat are the tortured souls of humans who couldn't pass on after death.

Anyway: Does anyone else hope that the Thousand Year Blood War Anime will expand the final battle against Ywhach a bit? It'd be nice if Ichigo actually used the true form of his Bankai.

[Anonymouswizard]

Her name is intended to be Nini, yeah. Like Nee-nee I guess. I'm just going to call her Spangle though.

I find myself once again in awe of Hiromu Arakawa managing to pick mostly fitting and meaningful names via mostly opening a book of European names to random pages (even the varying languages of origin make sense within the setting), with a few intentional and unintention standouts.


Gonna hard disagree on you there Anon, panties is way cuter and sexier a word for it. Knickers just sounds like old lady grandma pants. But then that's part of the culture divide so there you have it. Also god damn you Kubo for making me have to write these words with my fingers and brain.

The short answer is, I find panties as a term to sound incredibly childish, like something you might use while helping a child get dressed, while knickers is the word I grew up with being used generically (which is NOT a UK wide thing, I refer to myself as wearing knickers but not every male-oresenting person does). Honestly the most general terms are pants, undies/underwearalso refers to what you wear on your top half under your clothing, with what exactly 'knickers' means depending on where you and your parents grew up (it could mean anything from the most common style to anything which covers your lower bits).

So I see panties as being too cute, and the wrong kind of cute. It weirds me out when I see it in US media.

Although it's probably best so cut this conversation here, because this could likely go over the line. So as you said, cultural divide.


There's a line about how the Eastern Branch just kills their "dragons" indiscriminately and since the Eastern Branch is the Soul Society we know that implies that either Wingbind can't tell the difference between dragons and hollows or their definition of Dragon encompasses hollows.

Considering that "dragon" is explicitly a catch-all term for any supernatural creature, it's entirely possible...

Beyond that, we know that there are only 4 types of souls: Humans, Plus/Shinigami, Hollow, and Quincy, and that all power comes from souls.

Witches are either humans or Shinigami who inhabit physical bodies, that much is obvious. We know that Yhwach genocides his own people several times so even though Quincy come from Europe they're unlikely to be Quincy.

The Dragons sure as hell don't look like humans, Shinigami, or Quincy, so that would mean that they have to be the same type of Soul as Hollows.

That doesn't mean that they are Hollows, but still. It's a frightening possibility that those cue little piglets that get harvested for meat are the tortured souls of humans who couldn't pass on after death.

Anyway: Does anyone else hope that the Thousand Year Blood War Anime will expand the final battle against Ywhach a bit? It'd be nice if Ichigo actually used the true form of his Bankai.

Honestly I suspect the most likely answers for witchs are going to be 'Fullbringer, Plus/Soul Reaper version of Fullbringer, Quincy' in that order. We already know that not every Quincy is dependent on Yhwach for their power (see Uryuu), but we don't know how much that works and if there were pre-Yhwach Quincies, but Fullbringers fit in relatively neatly without needed to add new lore beyond 'the Soul Reapers of the Western Soul Society don't deal with dragons'.

Dragons, I suspect, are going to fall somewhere on the Shinigami/Hollow spectrum. Dark Dragons are clearly Hollows or the Western equivalent of them, but exactly what uncorrupted dragons are is harder to deduce. They're clearly something that can turn into Hollows, but at the same time don't seem to be the souls of the dead. It's possible that Japanese Soul Reapers and/or Quincies drove them to extinction before the series started.


I suspect, if Kubo is allowed to share his original plans with the anime staff we'll get the end of the final battle extended to show Yhwach slowly breaking Ichigo's true Bankai (and thus showing us it's powers) until we finally get the battle ending the same way. But I don't think there will be much expansion to the earlier parts of the battle (to keep the 'what is Ichigo's Bakai's power' suspense going a bit longer)

[DeadMech]

Personally I'm open to the differences in the setting coming down to metaphysics getting rewritten in the aftermath of the whole soul king thing.

[LaZodiac]

I find myself once again in awe of Hiromu Arakawa managing to pick mostly fitting and meaningful names via mostly opening a book of European names to random pages (even the varying languages of origin make sense within the setting), with a few intentional and unintention standouts.


Comparing Full Metal Alchemist to Bleach seems really unfair now that I think about it.

[Rater202]

Honestly I suspect the most likely answers for witchs are going to be 'Fullbringer, Plus/Soul Reaper version of Fullbringer, Quincy' in that order. We already know that not every Quincy is dependent on Yhwach for their power (see Uryuu), but we don't know how much that works and if there were pre-Yhwach Quincies, but Fullbringers fit in relatively neatly without needed to add new lore beyond 'the Soul Reapers of the Western Soul Society don't deal with dragons'.Uryu is explicitly the only Quincy in the work who can't be affected in any way by auswallen, and we know that his parents are descended from Ywhach or people who were empowered by him because his mother and his father's first cousin both had their powers taken by Yhwach.

Uryu is a freak mutation, not a standard to go by.

Also, Ywhach is gone into more in-depth in the Novel Can't Fear Your Own World: When The soul King was bound and Gutted, various parts of his body and power were removed. Some of them like his Soul chain merge with the souls of others and were passed down over the generations, while others like his arms became independent beings in their own right.

"The Almighty" isn't actually Yhwach's shrift, rather, The Almighty is the name of a power of the Soul King and Yhwach is the Almighty incarnated as a human being. This is what he means when he says he's the son of the Soul King.

Quincy are souls that are infused with Divine Power, which is one of the functions of The Almighty. So yes, all Quincy are descended from Yhwach and through him the Soul King.


Personally I'm open to the differences in the setting coming down to metaphysics getting rewritten in the aftermath of the whole soul king thing.

It doesn't work. Per the novels, the rules of Metaphysics were artificially imposed by the ancestors of the Five Great Noble Houses of Soul Society gutting the Soul King and binding him in place to establish an artificial separation of the living world and the spiritual world.

Originally, there was no difference between physical matter and spiritual matter and death didn't exist. Humans didn't turn into hollows, Hollows just sort of spontaneously came into existence(if you checked Ulquiorra's Backstory from that one artbook where he was spontaneously born fully formed as a Vasto Lorde? Yeah, it's like that. incidentally, this means that he's at least a million years old and could be up to 100 million years old) The forces of creation and destruction ran rampant during this time.

The Soul King would kill the Hollows when they became dangerous to others but some Nobles feared him for his power, others wanted to convert the hollows into normal beings instead of destroying them, others feared the instability of the world, and one thing led to another... Nietzche was right: "God is Dead and we killed him" and in doing so they broke the world.

Yhwach's plan was to Mercy Kill the Soul King, absorb his power, and then let the artificial boundaries between the physical and the spiritual collapse which would have caused untold devastation to the Mortal World and to Soul Society but also would have put the world back the way it was supposed to be.

After he died, his corpse was gutted and turned into another Soul King to restore reality to the artificial state it was before it was too late.

So unless Soul King Yhwach was destroyed the second Kazui booped the remnants of Yhwach's power come to Ichigo for revenge, there can't have been a major change in metaphysics since then.

[Durkoala]

Honestly I suspect the most likely answers for witchs are going to be 'Fullbringer, Plus/Soul Reaper version of Fullbringer, Quincy' in that order. We already know that not every Quincy is dependent on Yhwach for their power (see Uryuu), but we don't know how much that works and if there were pre-Yhwach Quincies, but Fullbringers fit in relatively neatly without needed to add new lore beyond 'the Soul Reapers of the Western Soul Society don't deal with dragons'.

Dragons, I suspect, are going to fall somewhere on the Shinigami/Hollow spectrum. Dark Dragons are clearly Hollows or the Western equivalent of them, but exactly what uncorrupted dragons are is harder to deduce. They're clearly something that can turn into Hollows, but at the same time don't seem to be the souls of the dead. It's possible that Japanese Soul Reapers and/or Quincies drove them to extinction before the series started.


I suspect, if Kubo is allowed to share his original plans with the anime staff we'll get the end of the final battle extended to show Yhwach slowly breaking Ichigo's true Bankai (and thus showing us it's powers) until we finally get the battle ending the same way. But I don't think there will be much expansion to the earlier parts of the battle (to keep the 'what is Ichigo's Bankai's power' suspense going a bit longer)

I personally expect witches to be purely human spiritual warriors, unlike the half-human Substitute Shinigami (Shingami, obviously), Fullbringers (Hollows) and impure Quincies (Quincies, duh). We know that human powers exist, but not what form they take, and the Harry Potter feel of SSW make this an obvious niche for supernatural pure humans.

I'm running off the idea that SSE exterminated most their dragons a long time and hollows are a mutant, symbiotic type of Dark Dragon that bonds with souls, but there's no canon proof one way or the other, afaik.


And yes, it would be nice to have any idea what Ichigo's Bankai is supposed to do.



Personally I'm open to the differences in the setting coming down to metaphysics getting rewritten in the aftermath of the whole soul king thing.

I think I'd be alright with that.

[Anonymouswizard]

Comparing Full Metal Alchemist to Bleach seems really unfair now that I think about it.

Sure, not only is one an adventure story while the other is a shounen battle manga but they deal with very different ideas and themes. I was mainly remaking on how Hiromu Arakawa seemed to use a method barely one step up from making up Western-sounding gibberish, but managed to give us as meaningful names as Roy Mustang (which can be read as 'the king who bucks at his master's commands') and Alex Louis Armstrong ('the famed and powerful defender of the people'). It seems to have been mostly coincidence, but it does make me feel like there was a lack of any attempt in Burn the Witch.


Uryu is explicitly the only Quincy in the work who can't be affected in any way by auswallen, and we know that his parents are descended from Ywhach or people who were empowered by him because his mother and his father's first cousin both had their powers taken by Yhwach.

Uryu is a freak mutation, not a standard to go by.

Also, Ywhach is gone into more in-depth in the Novel Can't Fear Your Own World: When The soul King was bound and Gutted, various parts of his body and power were removed. Some of them like his Soul chain merge with the souls of others and were passed down over the generations, while others like his arms became independent beings in their own right.

"The Almighty" isn't actually Yhwach's shrift, rather, The Almighty is the name of a power of the Soul King and Yhwach is the Almighty incarnated as a human being. This is what he means when he says he's the son of the Soul King.

Quincy are souls that are infused with Divine Power, which is one of the functions of The Almighty. So yes, all Quincy are descended from Yhwach and through him the Soul King.

Ah, to me this sounds like seeing A, deducing that A means that !A is fast, and extrapolating that A=!B.

That because Uryu is immune to the auswallen via being a unique mutation that there aren't other ways Quincies can be immune to it.

But as I haven't read the novels I suppose I won't argue. It just seems a shame to irrevocably link every Quincey to Yhwach and remove the possibility of alternative traditions to the one and a splinter we see in Bleach.


I personally expect witches to be purely human spiritual warriors, unlike the half-human Substitute Shinigami (Shingami, obviously), Fullbringers (Hollows) and impure Quincies (Quincies, duh). We know that human powers exist, but not what form they take, and the Harry Potter feel of SSW make this an obvious niche for supernatural pure humans.

I'm running off the idea that SSE exterminated most their dragons a long time and hollows are a mutant, symbiotic type of Dark Dragon that bonds with souls, but there's no canon proof one way or the other, afaik.

I suspect we'll get more information one the serialisation starts, but I'm still putting my money on them being Fullbringers or Quincies. Them being entirely human is certainly not going to change the metaphysics of the setting greatly, but I'm not convinced it'll be the truth.

Alternatively, maybe Witches are everything, in that they don't make a differentiation between Human/Soul Reaper/Hollow/Quincey powers, and include all among their members.

[Rater202]

Ah, to me this sounds like seeing A, deducing that A means that !A is fast, and extrapolating that A=!B.

That because Uryu is immune to the auswallen via being a unique mutation that there aren't other ways Quincies can be immune to it.

No, no you'r not getting.

Per Yhwach, Uryu is the only Quincy that is immune to Auswallen.

You can't point to Uryu as proof that some Quincy are immune to Yhwach's power because he's the only Quincy that's immune to his power.

Furthermore, Yhwach killed every Quincy int the world except for the three Ishida men and Masaki's children. Uryu thought he was the last Quincy for a reason, and outside of the Vadenreich, he might as well have been.

@Durkuala: Hollows being a kind of Dark Dragon is contradicted by... Literally everything we know about Hollows. Before the laundering of the Soul King, they were hungry beings born spontaneously. Afterword they're corrupted human souls.

[HandofShadows]

Sure, not only is one an adventure story while the other is a shounen battle manga but they deal with very different ideas and themes. I was mainly remaking on how Hiromu Arakawa seemed to use a method barely one step up from making up Western-sounding gibberish, but managed to give us as meaningful names as Roy Mustang (which can be read as 'the king who bucks at his master's commands') and Alex Louis Armstrong ('the famed and powerful defender of the people'). It seems to have been mostly coincidence, but it does make me feel like there was a lack of any attempt in Burn the Witch.


Unless my memory is VERY bad most of the military characters in the series are named after warplanes or military craft. (Mustang, Hawkeye, Buccaneer, Raven & Heinkel for example.) She put more than a little thought into characters names.

[Anonymouswizard]

Unless my memory is VERY bad most of the military characters in the series are named after warplanes or military craft. (Mustang, Hawkeye, Buccaneer, Raven & Heinkel for example.) She put more than a little thought into characters names.

I was somewhat more referring to first names (where I believe she literally claimed to go to a big book of European names, ooen it to a random page, and pick a name), but yeah. Even with last names she seems to have been incredibly lucky with some of them, Mustang works equally well if you're thinking of the planes or the term for horses.

[Vinyadan]

I remember reading about an year's worth of the comic before I gave up on it. While it was visually impressive, it was REALLY hard to understand what happened during battles. Plus, I don't know, it felt like the comic didn't really know where it wanted to go. There also were so many "good guys" -- Ichigo's family, Rukia, Ichigo's male friends, Ichigo's female classmates, the people at the shop, Ichigo's doppelganger -- they were fun, but they didn't really have a defined role in the overall plot, and it felt like they gained powerups by author fiat, rather than by how the setting worked.

[Rater202]

Kubo knew where he wanted to go but there was a bit too much in the way of editorial oversite.

Kubo says that he got along with his editors and that they really helped him out in places, but they also made him spend a lot of time on the Arrancar arc and to truncate, skip over, rush, delay, or just flat out other abandon plot threads.

And since he was being made to spend more time on the Arrancar arc than he originally intended, he ran into writers block problems and his solution for writer's block is to draw characters and then try to figure out how to fit them into the story.