I'm re-reading Bleach because I lack pattern recognition.

[snarp]

And I know I shouldn't be thinking about these things, and I know that it's totally self-destructive, and I know that Kubo Tite, if he has thought about them at all, has probably only basically thought, "Eh! Whatever! THIS NEXT GUY'S BANKAI SHALL BE A HAT

THE HAT IS ON FIRE"

But I just - why do people die in Soul Society? I mean, they're all dead already. Do they, like... double-die? What are the mechanics of this? Is it explained?

You can die of old age in Soul Society, right? Does that idea make any kind of sense at all? What if you already died of old age once in the first place, and that is why you're dead? (That sentence is totally unacceptable and I refuse to rewrite it.) Does this stuff just recurse? You can be disabled in Soul Society, and you obviously take certain physical traits over with you - so if you died of one of those really persistent cancers that manifest themselves over and over, do you just pop into Soul Society briefly to die in the same way a second time a few months later?

How did all the Shinigami who spent their angsty childhoods in Soul Society die in the first place? The Yuichi story suggests that they must have died as small children. Does that mean that every single one of them has further childhood angst which we just haven't yet had the leisure to investigate?

Is everybody in Soul Society Japanese? (except maybe Kaname? I can't remember whether this was obvious in his backstory.) Is this like in the Inspector Chen series, where there are separate afterlifes for every culture? And if so - Hueco Mundo? Why?

(I'm re-naming Hueco Mundo NetherHell, by the way. I'm in charge of these things, so I'll be expecting the internet to call it NetherHell from now on. I will accept no excuses.)

Who built all the streets and the sewer system and stuff? In Soul Society, I mean, I'm still on that. (Though I'm also confused by Hueco Mundo, I recall it behaving more like a noodly nightmare realm without rules, whereas we're supposed to buy that the shit that goes down in Soul Society makes some vague kind of sense.) The houses can obviously break, and stuff, and Kuukaku has built several new ones - where did she get the materials? Is there a Soul Society logging industry? A Soul Society Park Service for them to quarrel with? Are the lumberjacks union? Do they pay their dues on time?

(...does Soul Society have currency? It must have currency. Oh, Rukia gets paid for bounties, so it has currency. Where's the mint located? Do you have to be a Shinigami to work at the mint? That must not be a popular job.)

It's not like the Shinigami are all that interested in like, civic works or governance, or anything, so why is there this neatly-laid-out city with a sewer system? Does the Shinigami judicial system apply to non-Shinigami? Do portions of the non-Shinigami areas of Soul Society ever form small sovereign nations with taxes and police forces and building codes?

Maybe each sovereign nation has its own mint. And the Shinigami have one, too.

...that would make sense.

...

I can't concentrate on your goddamn fight scenes while I'm thinking about this stuff, Kubo Tite! I am of a nervous disposition! I require historical context and reasonable economic models, or I have to go wash the teapot and make sure my shoes are pointing in the same direction again! I refuse to re-read any of Hueco Mundo if you don't clear it up!

Comments

[starlady]

Actually it could possibly not have currency; it could be like the Heian period where everyone got paid in stuff and rice was the unit of wealth because the government stopped minting money, IDEK.

[snarp]

Possibly! But at one point she's buying stuff with a bounty using her cell phone as a debit card, and numbers are displayed, which leads me to think there's something very granular backing it up. Though that something could, I guess, be like... energons or something.

...how does agriculture work in Soul Society? Do people eat meat?! If they're raising animals for meat, I mean, do the animals give birth? Or are the animals all dead animals from earth, too? Is there a SPECIAL COW SOUL SOCIETY

[starlady]

But is that possibly just for the real world?

Also my Conan Doyle spirit compels me to point out that that was early in the manga when it still had a plot and, y'know, character development

[snarp]

But that would suggest that 1) the Shinigami have some real-world presence that's able to finance these bounties (presumably in yen?), and 2) that they can go around in the real world and spend them (apparently not normal), both of which don't seem to be the case! Also, it would make things even more confusing.

Though the former would explain why all those Shinigami were all able to acquire school uniforms? (I'm still unsure why they could get the uniforms, but they couldn't get housing, or give Hitsugaya any money to buy food. Perhaps that was merely a cruel prank on Hitsugaya.)

IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR ME TO JUST ACCEPT THAT THE MANGA STOPPED TRYING TO MAKE SENSE A LONG TIME AGO

BUT I CAAAAAAAN'T

[starlady]

I feel like most of Hitsugaya's life has been a cruel prank on Hitsugaya.

But like, they have to have some kind of real-world presence, yes? If they don't than who is Urahara dealing to? Where did Shinji get his jazz records? IDEK it is completely nonsensical when you think about it.

Though my default assumption was always that the dead plebes kept up the sewer system, grew the food, &c

[snarp]

Cruel pranks on Hitsugaya MAY be a large part of the motivation for the re-reading thing.

I... don't know who Urahara's selling to. Rukia? Only Rukia? Because none of the other Shinigami knew about him and AGH STOP POINTING OUT MORE THINGS FOR ME TO FRET ABOUT AGH AGH

Hanatarou keeps up the sewer system! He said so! He was very sad about it.

Because of Hanatarou's one-sentence lampshade of this, I can actually accept the upkeep part. I just can't imagine anyone in power in Soul Society ever having the sense necessary to construct a sewer system in the first place.

[starlady]

omg don't send me to TV Tropes I will never escape go to bed

Well, okay, there's that one dude in Fourth Squad who thinks he's all that who bought those shades from Urahara, yes? So that's him and Rukia makes two. IDEK.

Yeah, given what we know about the complete absence of the King (actually that's so meta a commentary on Japanese politics it kind of makes me laugh) and the whatnot with the Royal Special Forces (did we ever learn more about Isshin, btw?), the fact that Soul Society hasn't fallen down around its ears is a constant source of low-grade amazement.

[snarp]

Fullmetal Alchemist just needs to send some characters it's not using over to babysit Soul Society, given that pretty much all the problems they try to solve end up being THEIR OWN STUPID FAULT.

(I have no idea what happened with Isshin because I stopped reading shortly after it became clear that while something would happen with Isshin, Kubo wanted us to sit through six zillion inane fight scenes first.)

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Somewhere, a universe has collapsed in on itself. Just from the power of these thoughts.

[snarp]

my head collapsed too

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

"If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
and other science facts,
Just repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show,
I should really just relax...'"

Mind you, I say this as a person who has devoted more thought than most people would consider reasonable to the problem of how the vampire population in Sunnydale managed to sustain itself. Between the relatively small number of normal humans to feed on, and the constant predations of the Slayer, it's a conundrum.

[snarp]

My fragile psyche was able to handle what I saw of Buffy because I just kept telling myself that one of the vampires had a van. Every few days, they all just got in the van, headed out of town, ate some people, turned some people into vampires, and came back. The Van Theory covered most of my problems.

[chomiji]

Hee, you need to get together with thewriter0 because she also just got into Bleach (she's watching the anime) and she is asking much the same sort of questions!

They are great questions, though. I have almost no interest in the world building in this case. The emotional interactions are everything, and when the folks do nothing but fight for several chapters, I get bored. Samurai Deeper Kyo is a little better at sprinkling those combat sequences with flashbacks that pack some emotional heft.

[snarp]

Intellectually, know that worldbuilding is not the priority! I know that I shouldn't pick at these things! But I can't help it. If he would just throw in like, a two-sentence hand-wave explanation, my brain would settle down and enjoy the ride. But he never does, so I just keep trying to come up with a Grand Unified Theory of Bleach.

[doom-magpie.livejournal.com]

The dying while already dead thing has been bugging me for ages. Though I suppose it'd keep the population down... or something....

And I suspect the aging/dying of old age in Soul Society thing is er... selective at best. Yama-jii? Ancient since who knows when. (Wiki mentions something about Ukitake and Kyouraku having trained with him "thousands of years before the current Bleach storyline" o.o but I haven't read the manga, so I can't really comment on that one.) Hitsugaya and Yachiru? Also not so much with the getting older. Yet clearly others, like Rukia and Renji, have aged.

I would also mention that it's quite possible not all the Shinigami died as young children: the Kuchiki family, for example, implies that its members were indeed born in Soul Society. (Unless you want to argue they were a family in life and then... each conveniently died at appropriate ages for flashbacks or something?)

Maybe you can only get old and die if you were born in Soul Society?

But yeah, any kind of death when you're already dead just seems ridiculous. Though I guess you can't have epic battles if there aren't any consequences.

Btw, 12th squad with all its technologically advanced computers and stuff... yet no meds for Ukitake's TB? Or maybe you're stuck with your illnesses forever? That's a great incentive to cross over to Soul Society... >.>