Summary
The following contains spoilers for BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part, available onHuluandDisney+.
The final episode ofBLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2 – The Separationwas a grand affair full of action and dazzling visuals as has been the norm for this climactic arc. However, the revelation of yet another aspect that has never been seen before added even more hype and excitement to the developments that took place in that episode as Royal Guard member Senjumaru Shutara revealed her Bankai.
Shutara’s Bankai is definitely one of the most impactful Bankai reveals ofBLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood Warand will go down as one of the most significant events of the war.
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Golden Orb
As the pioneer of the Shinigami’s trademark black kimono, orShihakushō(Garment of Dead Souls), Shutara is known as the Great Weaver, as well as Senjumaru, which means “Thousand Arms”, for her dexterity and speed when it comes to weaving, as well as her general powers of material and textile manipulation. Her skill is so powerful that she is capable of weaving tapestries that are difficult to tell apart from reality, and she uses that ability in the preparation for the Zero Squad’sencounter with Yhwach’s elite guard.
Her Zanpakutō, Shigarami, written 刺絡, reflects this history and characterization, as it manifests as a giant golden sewing needle that Shutara can use in melee combat; however, she prefers to employ it in her sewing. “Shigarami” translates to “Thorny Entanglement”, derived from the word “karamu”, as in “entwine”, combined with a rather interesting kanji. The “shi” in “Shigarami” is a variant pronunciation of a character that is associated with words that refer to pricking, stabbing, splinters or slicing, but it also gets used metaphorically to mean harsh criticism. The release command for Shigarami is not known.
Gentei Kaijō
The Royal Guard members distribute their power among themselves to avoid negatively affecting the balance of the universe with their immense spiritual pressures. As a last resort, they can offer up their lives and nominate a member to complete the mission with access to the power relinquished by their allies – a tactic similar toYhwach’s application of the Auswählen. With the power of herself and three other Royal Guard members, Shutara’s spiritual pressure actually causes the World of the Living, the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo to tremble simultaneously as she activates her own personal trump card.
Bankai: Shatatsu Karagara Shigarami-no-Tsuji 娑闥迦羅骸刺絡辻, translated to “Gate of Saha, Kala’s Corpse at the Crossroads of Thorny Entanglement”. The name iswellspring of Buddhist references, Japanese mythological references and archaic kanji that grant it a grandiosity and austerity beyond that of any other Bankai presented thus far. As a member of the Royal Guard, Senjumaru’s history goes back millennia, and the lengthy name of the Bankai is reminiscent of the names of the early generations of deities in Japanese mythology.
Unravel
The first word,Shatatsu, is written 娑闥, which translates to “Sahā”, a term describing the summation of all existence that isn’t Nirvana, and it means “enduring”. The second kanji consists of the “mon” radical which denotes a gate (it’s even shaped like a torii), but inside that first radical is a 達, a character used in the Japanese transliteration of the Sanskrit “dharma”. Karagara 迦羅骸 is made up of three characters, the first two 迦羅 forming the word “Kalā” – the Hindu personification of time itself. The last kanji 骸 denotes “skeleton”. The first part ofKala’s name in Japaneseis a kanji which invokes the first fire god, Kagutsuchi (or Homusubi), which is an interesting connection because in Shinto cosmology, the birth of Kagutsuchi results in the death of Izanami-no-Mikoto (She-Who-Invites) and is seen as the beginning of death.
Kalā is the personification of time, but also death – the idea being that time destroys all things and in the tradition of Shaivism, Kalā is known as the fiery avatar of Shiva known as Bhairava, the personification of annihilation. Both Kalā and the feminine Kali are seen as boundless as they represent the ultimate destructive power of Brahman – the ultimate cause of all that is. As such, they are associated with black, with the belief being that everything eventually gets absorbed into black. Karagara altogether hence carries the idea of what remains at the end of time. Shigarami, the name of Shutara’s Zanpakutō needle, is followed by “no-Tsuji”, which means crossroads, both in a physical and metaphorical sense, which is given a visual expression in the anime when the red carpet unfurls from the torii gate-turned loom.
“Musubi” is an element found in the names of various Shinto deities, and it is the mysterious power or driving force of creation or karma (Brahman) itself possibly due to the word “musubi” also referring to bonds or ties –“musubareru” means “to be tied together”, albeit sometimes this is meant metaphorically. This aspect falls into the realm of Shutara’s textile manipulation, which is why “Homusubi” is the possible interpretation of the “Ka” in “Karagara”. The reference to this deity specifically may also be related to the Soul King’s specific position as the linchpin of the universe (a fate that he had already foreseen, and accepted); but there’s also the idea that Homusubi’s birth was the beginning of death as a concept, as it led to the death of his mother, and Izanagi’s subsequent descent into Yomi (The Underworld). Homusubi also represented the destructive propensity of fire and is therefore a powerful invocation when it comes to purification.
Having already partaken of food in the underworld, Izanami’s death was sealed and Izanagi ran away upon seeing her decaying body while he was trying to bring her back to the living world. Shutara’s Bankai manifests a large torii gate that may have been the same one seen inIchigo’s Soul King training, and large flowing tapestries that decorated the entire space. Crossing through the torii gate signifies entry into the realm of the gods, and beyond this gate awaits only bones eroded away by time. The Bankai can be understood as the crossing through the gate of the world, into a sacred realm where one come across the corpse of time (or the corpse that is time) and become entangled at a crossroads. Each Quincy was faced with a completely different cloth, which sealed them to a different destiny brought about by their own journeys, and their specific situations in Shutara’s Bankai coincide with their fates in the endgame. The manifestation of various devastating reality-warping effects means that the Bankai enables Shutara to manipulate the proverbial string of fate of each respective target – it is a premonition that foresees only death beyond the world of endurance and suffering; an inescapable curse.
