The Weirdness that is Shinigami Physiology

[Duedate8898]

Having just recently finished the manga I want to just speak about something that has always bothered me in regard to the Shinigami.

The fact that they bleed and have organs.

This right here has always just been weird to me. Because they're these composed of spiritual energy, why the hell do they still need beating hearts? Why do they need a certain amount of blood? Why do they still require organs? Why do they appear to die in the same sense that normal humans do?

I'm sure the out of universe reason is that Kubo just doesn't care and that a lot of the powers and abilities he thought up require this.

However, in-universe, why do they function the way that they do?

I know Bleach doesn't have the same concept of spirits as we normally do, but still it's just something that I sit up and think about a lot.

What do the rest of you think about this?

 

[AppleLord]

Isn't obvious? Fiction. Saint of killers killed both Satan and God, and Spawn sealed away both God and Satan who were fight for eternity. All this characters bleed and have organs in fiction. This aren't the only versions. The only ones that I could say that don't have this are from the Diablo III video game. The angels, Death and Diablo seemed to be made of light or something intangible and did not bled in that game. I haven't played the other games so I can't confirmed those.

 

[Duedate8898]

Not only is that the out of universe explanation, but the other examples you site don't really have the same thing going as Bleach does.

In image comics and preacher, those characters start out alive and end up dead. They aren't in some state beyond death, or spirits or anything like that. Them having blood and organs and all that doesn't come off as odd at all.

However, Bleach goes through the trouble of making it clear that not are characters composed of spirit energy and the such, but that our shinigami are just spirits. Spirits which are also shown to be a result of people dying in the world of the living. In fact, the entire 1000 year war arc talks about the flow from spirits into and out of the both worlds. At one point, its made clear our main cast has to turn themselves into spirits to even enter the soul society.

It just seems strange that the limits of the mortal form seem to extend to that of the spirit form to me

 

[AppleLord]

"In image comics and preacher, those characters start out alive and end up dead. They aren't in some state beyond death, or spirits or anything like that. Them having blood and organs and all that doesn't come off as odd at all."

You do know that Heaven and Hell exist in those universes and souls go there and can still bleed again and die? The same happens with Supernatural.

In Bleach only souls with spiritual energy eat, sleep, etc as the energy is replenished by eating, sleeping, etc. Normals souls in Bleach from the Rukongai don't required that but ALL soul can die because they are reincarnated back into the human world as new human babies without memories of their past lives.

In the recent novels it was explained by Ichibei that the Soul King came into existence as if the old world had rejected him into reality. The Soul King later created the concepts of "life & death" for humans and immortals souls taking immortality away and introducing the cycle of reincarnation. Ichibei witness all of it.m alongside the noble house leaders. Yhwach just wanted that old world back and make everyone into an immortal being.

Souls didn't existed back then since Soul King created the Soul Society, Hueco Mundo and the Real World. However, the universe already existed. He just converted part of it into Reishi so humans made of Kishi couldn't enter or find "Heaven" without dying and becoming a soul first.

If you put all the pieces together it isn't that hard to understand.