First off:
Yeah, its been ages, I know. I was doing my own little fullbring run-through
when I left off, and still intend to finish it one day, but Gliblords excellent
article, which is what motivated me to churn out another entry, made me decide
to do something different.
So, this
time I’ll talk of a real treat as far as nonsense in Bleach goes: Uraharas
exile from soul society. Way back in my first proper entry for this blog I
commented on how Kubo had written
Byakuyas personality as two different characters, but Urahara takes that to a
whole new level. Because let us consider: Why was Urahara exiled from soul
society?
Well, it
was because Urahara made an untrackable, reiatsu suppressing gigai of course!
I can
already picture people frowning at this; surely turn back the pendulum showed
us something completely different? That indeed it did, but for the first
hundreds of chapters in the series, the explanation was the Gigai one, as
revealed by Aizen at the end of the soul society arc. As indeed I did myself at
first, I can picture people thinking “Aizen=lie”, but then I realized:
- - Aizen
has no reason to lie about this. It gains him nothing. It doesn’t smear Urahara
or manipulate Ichigo in any way, so there doesn’t seem to be any point. But
even if Aizen is just a pathological liar…
- - As
a lie, it would be ridiculously simple to disprove.
“Hey Ichigo, what did Aizen tell you?”
“How
Urahara got banished because of the gigai thing”
“What?
No, that wasn’t the reason.”
“Oh. Seems kinda pointless to tell me that then”
- - And
finally, it made sense. To be sure, it’s a bit of an extreme reason for exile
for soul society banishment, but Kubo needed to make some sense of Aizens
extremely convoluted master plan, and Rukia being made a weak, undetectable
hogyoko-container was a crucial part of that. To be sure, the plan was still
filled with holes even then, but Uraharas exile, and the gigai business seemed
reasonably plausible, and importantly: No one questioned it. No one was
expecting the “TRUE” version of Uraharas past to be a plot point that needed to
be addressed down the line. The situation was resolved, we knew why he was
exiled.
The key
word here being: exiled.
Turn Back
the Pendulum tells us the story of why Urahara became a fugitive.
That aint’
the same thing.
Basically,
Instead of the central chambers passing a judgement on Urahara, and his
presence in Karakura being the result of that judgement, TBPT shows us how
Urahara bolts from the trial and becomes a man on the run. And this trial has
absolutely jackal to do with gigais, its about how Urahara got framed for
performing horrific hollowification experiments on his fellow shinigami, which
is to me is slightly worse as far as crimes go, and might actually be worth getting
a bit worked up about, and instigating a manhunt over.
So why is this
big deal? Even if these two explanations are completely uncompatible, the net
result is the same right? Uraharas out of SS!
The problem
is this:
The mere existence of the Urahara shop makes the TBTP version absurdly preposterous. So, Urahara gets framed as an exceptionally loathsome criminal, escapes from right under the noses of SS’s rulers…and proceeds to walk around in the open in the most spiritually dense place on earth, and set up a shop? A shop called URAHARA STORE? Harrison Ford could really have used some pointers from this genius.
And really,
just think back to the first few volumes of Bleach: What happened when Rukia
stumbles across ruthless mad scientist fugitive Urahara Kisuke? Why, she doesn’t
bat an eye, and proceeds to get supplies from him! Supplies he gets shipped in from
Soul Society!
But know
what would make almost total sense of this?
If Urahara was simply exiled! Sure he would
still have a spotty record, but compared to what Aizen framed him for it’d be a
lot easier to accept Rukias acceptance of him, and the fact that he has unseen
connections to Soul Society that gets him stuff and allows him to operate a
hollow-bounty system (Boy did that plotpoint expire quickly).
However,
even this explanation makes no sense in the long run: if Urahara was known as the “reiatsu draining
permanent gigai guy”, then Rukia really, really should have seen it coming.
And the
weirdest thing is that after setting up these two different Uraharas, Kubo
cannot even stick with one. Lets’ say that TBTP Urahara overrides past Urahara,
so that the framed, innocent Urahara is the “real” one. For instance, lets fast
forward to really not that long at all actually after Turn Back the Pendulum,
where the Vizards show up to help the fight against Aizen. Despite being in
deep shit herself, Soifon has the gall to make demands of Hacchi before she
teams up with him: Imprison Urahara for a month!
…
This war
takes place several months after Aizen flipped off Soul Society, and revealed
himself to be douchebag extraordinare, ruler of a Hueco Mondo, and on the hunt
for a hollowification device. If theres even a single active brain cell left in
Soul Society, Framed!Uraharas criminal record should be squeaky clean after
this, and trust in him reinstored. Hey, wouldn’t you know it, rewind the arc a
bit and when Kenpachi & Co arrive as reinforcements in Hueco Mondo? That’s because
of Uraharas help. On Yamamotos orders.
So appearantly
Urahara was a forgiven ally, and at the same time…not.
Theres one
way to slightly alleviate the moronicness in this specific case though: if
Soifon was a ridiculously petty überbitch who was willing to imprison an
innocent man, because Soifons crush decided, of her own free will, to help him
save the lives of innocent people.
And she is
a protagonist.
A high
ranking military officer.
In charge of
Soul Societys assassin squad.
How nice..
Still, at
the very least, the matter should be settled now right? Even if it doesn’t
affect the Gigai crime, his contributions to the fight against Aizen should
have improved his reputation considerably. SS even enlists him to forge the
reiatsu sword that gives Ichigo back his powers, so surely he’s been forgi-
Kubo Tite:
Urahara and Yourichi are still permanently exiled from soul society.
