Bleach 7 > Information > Bleach Manga Guide > Anime Summaries > Bleach Episode 001
Episode 001
Two monsters shoot down from the night sky and land sinisterly on the dark ground. A mysterious woman standing atop a telephone pole overlooking a town. She speaks nothing more than to explain that she senses strong spiritual power.
The episode cuts to day time and an orange haired youth dressed in a school uniform and carrying a book bag, confronting five guys, one of which, is already on the ground. Apparently, the high school student is angered by the knocked over vase and flowers that were an offering to someone who had died there. Although faced with 4 more guys, the boy cares not and stomps an unlucky punk's face into the street. After asking them a few questions, and punishing them physically for each right answer, the five boys are scared away and in the opposite direction. The orange-haired turns to a ghost girl and promises that he will bring her fresh flowers the following day. After this inquisitive observation of him being able to see ghosts, a monologue occurs in which the boy tells us who he is. His name is Kurosaki Ichigo and he is a 15 year old high school student.
It is now night time in Karakura town as Ichigo walks into his house. The building directly adjacent to his own reads "Internal Medicine Pediatrics, Kuroskai Clinic." A normal greeting, by most standards, would be a simple "hello," but instead, the boy is greeted with a round house kick to the face by his father. While the two start fist fighting and arguing about how unhealthy it is to set a curfew for a teenage boy at an astonishing 7pm, his sweet little sister Yuzu tries to stop the fight from the dinner table. Knowing that once they start fighting, there is no way to stop them, Karin, Ichigo's other sister, asks for seconds and Yuzu happily obliges. Fed up with his father, and tired of having to knock him to the ground, Ichigo turns around and half-heartedly calls over his shoulder that he is going to sleep. Yuzu and Karin explain to Ichigo's father that he has been under a lot of stress lately because more and more ghosts visit him to be exorcised. Stunned by the fact that Ichigo refuses to talk to his father about the ghost issue, he asks his daughters, to which Karin coldly replies that he has the maturity of a child. The man runs to a huge poster of his dead wife and hugs it passionately, blaming his children's misbehavior on puberty.
The next day, Ichigo wakes up and while he is eating his toast, he watches a live news feed explaining how a building was maliciously destroyed by an unseen force. He states that the building is nearby, gathers his things, and starts his walk to school, a fresh vase of flowers placed carefully in his book bag. His initial intentions were to bring the female ghost the flowers he had promised her the day before, but before he could find her at her usual place, a scream rings out from behind him. He turns and runs to investigate the cause only to be met by a mob of horrified citizens running in the opposite direction. A building close by has stone gouged out by three seemingly massive claws, but there is nothing to be seen. After the people have cleared the area and are no doubt on their way home for a new pair of underwear, a large mantis-like monster appears a few dozen yards from Ichigo and he is chasing the little ghost girl. Realizing that it is even dangerous for the dead, but disregarding his safety all together, Ichigo sprints to the girl to help her and they both begin to run away until she falls. The monster is a mere few feet from them and all seems lost until an ornate black butterfly flutters calmly in front of Ichigo's face. Before he even realizes what has happened, the girl from the telephone has appeared, dressed in black robes, and unsheathes a katana with the intent to kill. A swift horizontal slash to the monster's face and he writhes in pain. The unrelenting woman lands and begins the onslaught once more, and without emotion, tears the beast in half with the tip of her blade. The horrid creature disappears and the calm beauty returns her katana from whence it came and walks away. Ichigo tries to talk to her, but she just keeps walking.
B PART
It is the same day as the incident with the monster, but now night has fallen and we find Ichigo lying in his bed, thinking of the mysterious woman dressed in black robes. The same black butterfly floats in through the open window and Ichigo's pulse beats furiously. Behind him, the samurai woman materializes from the very wall itself and claims that "it is close." With that, she walks past Ichigo without acknowledging him at all, and heads for the hallway. Ichigo tries to communicate with her, but she ignores him, so he crudely kicks her in the back, sending her sprawling across the room. On her stomach, she cranes her neck backwards and, with a very confused and distraught look, asks him "You...can see me? And...you kicked me?" She goes on to explain that no human should be able to see her, for she is a shinigami, or, a soul reaper. While she explains about a place called Soul Society, the scene cuts to the same little ghost girl being hunted by the second monster from the first frames of the anime. Now, the scene is once again Ichigo's room but the mood has changed from anxiety to frustration. Ichigo tells the woman that since he has never seen a shinigami, he doesn't believe they exist, and, on top of that, swats away the Soul Society business haphazardly. He grabs her head (she is considerably shorter than him) and he says that what she says is the imagination of a brat. Her lip twitches, she pushes him back, and performs a Kidoh, or a binding spell, rendering Ichigo incapable of movement. She whips out her sword, and with the hilt pointing downwards, bring the finely crafted tool downwards with immense force. Instead of hitting Ichigo, the hilt lands on the forehead of a lingering ghost and she sends him to Soul Society.
Taking this opportunity to explain a few more things at her leisure, the warrior woman pulls out a drawing pad and some colors to illustrate her lecture. In childish artwork, she relates to Ichigo about the two types of souls in the world: pluses, or the souls that he commonly sees, and hollows, the monster from the city. Her job, as she puts it, is to lead souls to Soul Society by means of Konsoh, which she had just demonstrated, and to extinguish hollows. Ready to take serious questions from the boy bound by invisible shackles on the floor, she was taken off guard by his real question "Why do your drawings suck so bad?" Vengefully, she draws a cheesy mustache on him and the scene shifts once more to the girl and the hollow.
With the girl cowering at his feet, ready to be made into a meal, the hollow sniffs the air and realizes that a more delicious soul is nearby. This soul, he says, is near a shinigami, and, as he leaves the frightened girl on the ground, he stomps off towards the direction of Ichigo.
Once more, the artwork depicts the orange haired youth and the shinigami with no name. A howling scream which rankles every bone in Ichigo's body rumbles through the air only to be heard by the boy himself. The second scream, though, is heard by both the woman and Ichigo, confusing the woman as to why she didn't hear it before he did. The third scream was by the innocent and pure Yuzu and the shinigami bursts into the hall to see what was going on. Ichigo's little sister stumbles through the hallway until she falls at his door, ignorant to the sight of the shinigami. She tells Ichigo that something has Karin and that he has to help her, and then she passes out. Without waiting, the robed woman vaults down the stairs to engage the hollow, but is stopped by the sight of Ichigo as he follows her and falls down the stairs to land at her back. His first sight is of Karin in the hollow's fist and his adrenaline courses through his body. He stands up, despite the kidoh, and tries to force his hands apart from behind his back. The invisible spell binded his wrists together, but this was nothing for him. The woman pleads with him and tells him that no human can break the kidoh seal with their own powers, and if they tried, their soul would be destroyed. Throwing all caution to the wind, Ichigo tries once more, and breaks through in a burst of light. His groans and grunts are drowned out by his footsteps as he grabs a folding chair and sprints towards the hollow. He is easily smacked away and lands in a heap of defeat and guilt.
Coming to his aid, the woman explains her theory to him. She states that his spiritual power was influenced when he came in contact with the young ghost girl and since then, his spirit was unsealed. The orange haired high school student realizes what she is telling him and knows that both hollows are in fact after him. He doesn't want anyone to get hurt at his expense, so he runs in front of the hollow, willing to sacrifice himself to save everyone else. The hollow willing obliges and runs towards Ichigo, salivating and ready for his soul, but with lighting speed, the shinigami get breaks out her sword and lances between the boy and the hollow. She gets caught in it's mouth and is direly injured, but was able to force the hollow back to buy some time. She laughs as the wound leaches life from her with every drop of blood and says "At this rate, we will all become food for the hollow..." She then turns to Ichigo and asks him if he wants to save his family. His answer was obvious and she teaches him the way to do it. Her method of survival was untested, but they both agreed that this was the only way. She placed her zapakutoh, or soul cutter (katana) over his heart with the intention of transferring half of her power into the boy, making him a shinigami as well. "Give me your sword, shinigami," he says as he readies himself for impalement. She replies with "It's not 'shinigami.' I am Kuchiki Rukia." With that, she impales him with her soul cutter. A flash of light and a burst of spiritual energy light up the night and when the light dims down, standing in front of the hollow is a transformed Kurosaki Ichigo. He is dressed in black robes as well and on his back is a massive sheath for a gargantuan soul cutter clutched in his hand. Apparently, Ichigo took all of the shinigami's powers. Rukia, dressed in a white dress, is amazed by this boy. First, he is a human who broke the kidoh wih by his own valor, then he confused her senses and extracted all of her powers, and finally, she has never before in her life seen a soul cutter that large. The size of soul cutters, which we learn later on, represent the amount of spiritual power in one's soul.
With a new fight to fight, Ichigo faces the hollow and promises him that he will pay for hurting his family. His first act as a shinigami is to sever the hollows arm and then takes off a leg. Tired of playing games, Ichigo uses his herculean soul cutter to split the hollow down the center and watch as it disappeared. Kurosaki Ichigo, 15 years old, high school student and....Shinigami!