The emotional power of their goodbye when the powers fade at the end of the Aizen arc of both of them gazing is heartbreakingly beautiful and it reflects when they save each other. The emotional connection, love, support and mutual understanding between two souls is perfectly conveyed.
becuz renji wouldn't do that despite him willing to die for ichigo. Their brotherly bond is equal parts growing together, teasing each other mercilessly, and protecting each other with their lives. Renji expressly states later on that he owes his life to ichigo for saving his relationship with rukia, which renji could not do on his own. Rukia cherishes ichigo because he's very similar to kaien. He wants to save her because she saved his family. This means *everything* to him due to how he perceives the death of his mom as a failure to protect his mom. It's platonic though. Ichigo simply doesn't want anyone to die, but he will kill for his family and die for those close to him.
Also are we not gonna mention that Rukia’s bankai Hakka no togame actually parallels Ichigo’s mugetsu perfectly? The panels parallel, and when they use their powers it makes them vulnerable afterward. When I had read Rukia’s bankai for the first time (when the chapter came out) I was convinced that the ending of the series would involve both of them using their powers together, but nope. 🫠 weird how the best written couple in shonen is the non canon one.
Kisuke even said the war would be up to Ms. Kuchiki & Mr. Kurosaki and this was happening when they were heading towards Yhwach. Probably time restraints and his sickness and he couldn't get Rukia in 😢
@@lolsnez7542but why would he say those two names specifically? Rukia was only a lieutenant, he could have said any of the captains or Renji. But instead he said Rukia’s name after she already finished her fight and didn’t end up doing anything else for the rest of the arc.
That line was one the reasons that I felt like the plans for the final battle of bleach where changed last second because of the rush Kubo was in, Rukia was definitely meant to have a larger part in the final battle before it changed.
@@mikecash2384 Not true, the anime simply expanded on what was already there. Kubo was clearly leaning in the Ichi/Ruki direction for most of the series before backtracking in the final arc.
@@Vaporious2000 nah its very true.. especially when they pulled that ice skating scene out of their asses....never happened in the manga. .. took out or reworded specific scenes with Orihime and Ichigo... yea they were playing it crazy
@@mikecash2384 Yeah and the anime added more scenes between Ichigo and Orihime during the fullbring arc so it’s not like they were playing favorites all the time.
Rukia is the one that changed Ichigo’s world Ichigo gained his bankai for Rukia’s sake Rukia stopped Ichigo’s rain Ichigo misses Rukia and is in denial about it IchiRuki parallels with Masaki/Isshin Ichigo’s Fullbring activates when he thought of Rukia The so called Black Sun and White moon Time may passed but IchiRuki's bond will never break.
I feel like the Ichigo/Rukia bond is so deep, it can't even be summed up with just romantic. If they ended up together, it won't just be about getting married and all that, they would do big things together - like possibly reforming soul society in some way. They are perfect partners. It would've been such an interesting and fulfilling way to end the series. But alas, it goes for the "mainstream" way - with Orihime the perfect housewife and Renji the persistent childhood friend. Real snooze fest ending.
@@Marukanitelit is called friendship. The mangaka can create a platonic relationship between a girl and a boy. You never had a friend of the other sex ?
Mate. You explained everything that my 11 year old self never could when I first got into the IR fandom. 12 years down the line, I still absolutely love this pairing. Yes, we weren't canon but it's okay 'cause IR was the best pairing to ever grace the shonen landscape.
@@lolsnez7542 Do you really waste your time going around trying to pick fights with people who disagree with you over a relationship between two fictional characters?
@@lolsnez7542 Replying to a year old comment on a video that has nothing to do with Orihime. Yeah, right. The only ship you guys are not beating is Sasuke and Sakura in the list of worst developed pairings in the entire medium kek. Nobody is gonna say that Ichigo and Onihime are either well written or developed. Even the fandom during the original run of the manga was heavily in favour of Ichiruki. Kubo got shit for it (which should not have happened) for the years. The VAs even did a skit where Ichiruki got married lol. I know that doesn't mean much but let's be honest, people have different taste and rather than hating, go and touch some grass or cope harder. Whatever floats your fancy.
Fr lol back in Bleach original manga run I was a big fujoshi but yet no yaoi shipping will ever scratch the same itch Ichiruki did. Their chemistry is just hrrnnghh damn good. Ah well the good ole days. Now we just gotta make do with what we got, pretty realistic but stull kinda hurt.
Wonderful video, just one thing: there is no way he didn't know what he was doing with Ichiruki. No way. It was all intentional. What's so incredibly frustrating from the last chapter is how everybody ended up doing the very thing they didn't wanna do, like Ishida becoming a doctor (even tho it was said just 10 or so chapters before that he had no intention of becoming one), Chad becoming a boxer (even tho it was said from the beginning that he would use his strength only if necessary and to protect his friends) and Hime became a housewife (in the early chapters she had stated that she wanted to do lots of things, even really creative ones). Ichigo didn't want to live his life as an ordinary human and he became a freaking translator.... like what the hell happened? It's the opposite of everything that was set from the beginning and it's weird
why is no one else talking about this? the future careers of the main cast is absolutely frustrating, i totally agree with you. does kubo have alzheimer's?
Ichigo did want a normal life tho but he also wanted strength ontop of that so he could protect the people he cares for so he can have that peaceful normal life
I am a dude. The was one sceen that made me believe these 2 were meant to be together and that was when Rukias brother took Rukia and left ichigo on the ground. Rukia said to ichigo to let him go and said I would never forgive you. Ichigo took that seriously and didn't move. If a friend said that to me I would ignore due to the circumstances. Yet ichigo responded to her emotions. Since then I was and still am full on this ships side.
The end of manga was a BIG tragedy for me. I am still not over it since 2016. And yep, even if Kuro didn't want to develop romantic plot line, it would be MUCH MORE better not even give us couples we had in the end. Open ending, or something about bright future. Because there was no development in Orihime and Ichogo's relationship so that they end up being a married couple with kids
there were development objectively if you read the manga, you just chose to ignore them due to your preference. You are also ignoring "what kind of person Ichigo is". A dude wo will choose a normal lifestyle over a supernatural. At the end of or Soul Society arc. Rukia chose to live in Soul Society while Ichigo would want to live as a human.
I don't think the romantic type of love is special. And I am started to think that the romantic type of love isn't real. I mean about more than half of romantic couples either break up with each other or divorce each other, while most platonic best friends remain friends until death. I think that having a platonic best friend is a lot better than having a romantic partner or spouse is. Having someone who's like a sibling to you is a lot better than having a romantic partner or spouse. Also, you are more likely to be much more closer to someone who's like a brother or sister to you than you would be with a romantic partner or spouse. People tend to fight with their partner or spouse a lot more than they do with a platonic best friend, and you never fight with your best friend the way you fight with your partner or spouse. Partners and spouses are just temporary. If you break up or divorce them, it's hard to go back to them. With your platonic best friend, you're going to make things work, because they are your best friend, they are your go to partner. It's always easier to make amends with them than it is with a romantic partner or spouse. Romantic relationships are pointless, while platonic relationships are not.
@@riflebusters1 Platonic relationships and romantic relationships may be two entirely different things, but that doesn't mean they are equal when it comes to the amount of love given in them. The love in platonic relationships seems to be way stronger than the love in romantic relationships is since platonic relationships are not fragile like romantic relationships are. Also, platonic relationships also seem to be a lot more intimate and comfortable than romantic relationships are. Platonic love is one of the most purest forms of love there is, while romantic love is one of the least purest forms of love there is. Most people seem to be a lot more comfortable around their platonic best friends than they are around their romantic partners or spouses. A platonic best friend is one of the best things you could ever have. A platonic best friend can be someone you trust the most, and they can be your confidant and coach. People tend to trust their platonic best friends more than their romantic partners, and that's a fact. The concept of romantic love and romantic relationships seems to mostly be a man-made thing.
I don't ship Ichiruki much because I don't really care that much about romance in a story. However, it always baffled me about how Orihime loved Ichigo. I mean, we can clearly see it's a crush developed from a bit of kindness in her childhood. But they rarely interact with each other. Orihime has more chemistry with Uryu, Tatsuki and Rangiku at this point. It still baffles me how that romance is ok with many people in spite of the just bare minimum interaction
Ichigo literally mentioned in the fullbring arc why she is fidgeting around so much even though she was at his several times at his home at this point. Thats not what i call rarely interacting with each other.
the animators cut out a lot of orihime scenes and added more rukia ichigo filler to try and push the ichiruki ship. the manga develops ichigo and orihime’s relationship perfectly
Honestly, Ichigo would have been better off with Tatsuki if anything and Orihime with Uryu. Uryu and Orihime had a fun dynamic and Tatsuki and Ichigo bounced off each other really well in the little time they're on screen. I guess since they're pretty similar in a lot of ways and I'm a bigger fan of similar people being with one another than the common opposites attract trope. I mean me and my friends called her She-chigo for a while
Your explanation on the male gaze vs female gaze show of affection actually made me realize how you can use that to explain Orihime's goodbye towards Ichigo in the start of HM arc vs Ichigo and Rukia's goodbyes with each other at the end of the arc. Orihime attempts to kiss Ichigo while he's unconscious and is overtly vocal and well, obvious about how she feels for him. It's all very blatant and in your face... but it's one sided. Ichigo isn't awake to hear or respond and when he wakes up he has no idea what had happened. But this is enough for men i've seen online to hail that scene as peak romance despite it being strictly Orihime --> Ichigo . In contrast, Ichigo and Rukia's goodbye, deliberately written as a mutual farewell to compare it to Orihime's, has them both responding. The words they spoke of are little in comparison, but the feelings of longing and sorrow are evident through expressions alone. And unlike with Orihime, it was very much Ichigo-->
omg your point on comparing orihime's goodbye versus ichiruki's goodbye perfectly sums up the lack of reciprocated love, and how during ichiruki's case it's heavily reciprocated, and is also an example of the female gaze. honestly i had too many scenes to choose from for this video so i wasn't able to use ichigo and rukia's goodbye as an example because i didn't want to sound like i was repeating myself too much in this video. but it was definitely on one of the many pages of notes i made for this video lmao. thank you !! i'm glad you enjoyed my analysis and thanks for leaving such a thoughtful comment
I think thats why even I as a man could never be on board with IchiHime and Orihime's portrayal of her affection for Ichigo. It was just a crush that might've blosomed to love but Orihime never got that close with Ichigo on a personal level. I don't mean intimate either. Ichigo for his part had never been portrayed as interested in Orihime in that way. & Kubo's meager attempts to try & push them as a thing kept it very shallow, surface level, and still one sided. From objectifying Orihime either as a damsel or just another sexy body to rushing the conclusion to just make her a house wife.
@@JurassicLion2049 like fr I agreed the pairing literally came out of nowhere at the last minute. There was literally no chemistry between the two and orihime was the only that show affection for ichigo. The manga literally show all of the key moments between ichigo and rukia and yeah tite kubo wasted a great opportunity to pair these two up to be one of the greatest anime couples of all time.
Funny (and sad) thing is, Kubo talked about his thought process when drawing the Orihime farewell scene. And he admitted his sole concern was how proud he was that he made Orihime look so sexy. One of the scenes IH shippers hype up as one of the pair’s romantic moments, and the writer admits he didn’t have romance on the mind and just only cared about Orihime looking aesthetically-pleasing. So yeah, just wanted to reinforce your point about the different farewell scenes being either for the male-gaze or the female-gaze.
@@CQueenC171 weird on how a fully grown man wants to talk about the looks of a schooler. Does make sense on why orihime is with Ichigo though. Kubo is known to be obsessed with big breasted women.
I have to agree. I personally think I fell in love with their relationship and shipped them so hard because it wasn’t your typical I love you/have a crush on you because you’re simply just attractive. They built up a real connection without needing to have heavily intimate scenes. It was subtle and it worked so damn well. It shows you that romantic relationships don’t have to be just about Intercourse or overly sexualizing each other. This felt so natural and organic that it took me awhile to get over the fact that their relationship was not endgame.😭😭 Either way no other anime or tv show has made me ship any pairings so hard. I’m not one to ship people together but I couldn’t help it with this one. Great video!
Honestly, the same. I am not usually into shipping, but relationship that IchiRuki had it's something that subtle, but do real. I would say many people would like to have such relationship in their lives.
Same. Up untill now I'm not getting over IchiRuki ship. From the beginning their chemistry was there but then the Arancar arc came and we are presented a prince saving princess route where the feelings was on the spot (for Ichigo) and not build. Like wow, people (characters) just open their mouth to put ideas on your head (Inoue's feelings and importance) and you just believe you love her? Wow...wow.... 🙄 While there so many suspicious and jealous of Rukia by just standing around Ichigo because there was that closeness and relationship (trust) they don't have with others. But.... Based in Rukia's personality, she can be close to whoever she wants. Bru, this girl is also harvesting looks and tender treatment from the opposite gender (and some females too), not by her looks but her personality. For example, Ichigo, Renji (after being awakened by Ichigo in season 1), that masked man under the sand on Hueko(?)/Ueko Mundo (how do you call it?), And then the twins in the Movie, yeah I know it's a movie and not cannon but Rukia's personality was displayed there. 👍
@@shielatv22 Yeah i definitely agree with you especially about that inoue part like I get it but at the same time that’s not how a relationship should work at all
@@Mdgary2 😭😭😭😭😭 I'm happy that I'm not the only one who noticed that fast phased "realization of feelings" of Ichigo to Inoue. Like literally they didn't have that connection in the beginning unlike Rukia's to Ichigo. It only start in the Arancar and thats it, while Rukia, through the beginning till some other arc, she was there, yeahhhhh even the Arancar arc, she was there also to be Ichigo's emotional and physical (fighting) support. Even in the movies, they are always together. And hey~~~ when Ichigo was in his lowest point of his life! Who was it that welcomed him and gave him light? Yeah it's Rukia my bias. (When his power git stolen, then it was Rukia who stabbed him at the back to awaken or share her riatsu. I can't exactly remember the reason because It's been so long since I read Bleach.) That's why I can't understand Kubo for doing the current pairings. Haissstttt.. But then, knowing the reasons he made mistakes, I can understand somehow. But I never read Bleach again after knowing my ship didn't sail. I'm only reading parts where there is Rukia.
The reason I liked them together was because what they do for one another. Ichigo acts reserved and has been like that ever since his mother died, before that he was very expressive, crying at the drop of a hat. Everyone that knows him, knows this about him. His sisters are so used to this dishonest behavior that when he pretends to not be upset about losing his power, they got visibly mad at him. Rukia managed to get under Ichigo's skin in a few days and ever since she is the single, only person he never even tries acting fake around. She has him completely figured out very early and kept him honest with himself. Rukia stay frozen in a moment in time, unable to move past the terrible situation she found herself in, but after breaking Ichigo out of his shell, his utter genuineness forced Rukia's world to move forward again. Her self-loathing was shattered and her hopelessness is perpetually staved off by his presence. For me, the best literary relationships are ones like these, ones where each person becomes a better person by being around the other. I have nothing against Orihime as a character, but her relationship seems so shallow. She likes Ichigo, but he doesn't provide her with anything that improves her as a character, nor vice versa. Ichigo never drops his reserved mask around her and Ichigo never treats or thinks about Orihime any differently than he'd treat any of his female classmates. There was a better character for Orihime who also brought out the best in each other, but that's a topic for another rant.
This honestly tracks.... If you know the X-Files, I've heard the creators purposefully tried not to objectify the female lead, so she her relationship with the male lead would not be interpreted romantically. However, this only made the ship more popular among female fans because it wasn't a one-sided male gaze with overt sexualization.
Ummmm. Mulder and Scully have been eye f*cking since the pilot. Like every time they were in a scene together, it just oozed sexual tension...it wasn't created to be that way but the actors just have that dynamic
@@CrimsonMey fax. its concerning how quickly people believe the hobbled together explanations and justifications of artists on their work (often times articulating things that weren't a factor at all or words that exist currently but not back when they were actually creating the work) when the work speaks for itself.
Damn this video is so relevant I just wanted to say. So thank you fr! Now, I realize why ichiruki shippers get to say "We know ichigo more than the author" or smthng in that sense and that's maybe because we've been perceiving the series a different way compared to kubo. And the way you mentioned how you notice how ichiruki moments just feel like 'aren't they too obvious?' like they're into each other ,, It feels good to know that it's just not me and there's a logical explanation behind why we see it that way and some people don't. I don't know if being a shoujo anime/manga enthusiast has something to do with the way we view the two but yeah it's really sad that in the end, I'm quite disappointed since I've been so sure of them (particularly because I watch it with the female gaze), the hints are just sooo unquestionable (but that doesn't seem to be the case for other ppl so maybe it rlly depends on our perspective :
Wonderful video. I wanted to add that when Ichigo rescues Rukia and is holding her, it parallels what is later revealed about his dad Isshin rescuing his mom in Thousand Year Blood War. It even looks the exact same with both men holding the woman they have saved in the face of danger and not appearing afraid but rather confident to protect the person close to them.
Same thing happened to me: I revisited Bleach and here I am. And just like you, IchiRuki back then very heavily affected my view on relationships, and how I view romance now (that Im 30+). I don't think Kubo had intentionally leaned towards portraying the female gaze, but I do think his view on romance and romantic relationships is quite different and unique. Just look at the biggest ships/couples in Bleach: none of them were overly sappy, and all of them ended tragically. He clearly prefers deep yearning and love based on trust and strong friendship. For me, the finale, which I think is the "Ultimate worst case scenario for everyone, one possible future where no one is really happy" was the ultimate sacrifice from Ichigo and Rukia. Yhwach promised he would watch them and come back when they are the happiest, so either Ichigo or Rukia made a sacrifice, and that caused a butterfly effect. I do think it was Rukia, because her wedding came first, and giving up her feelings and happiness does fit in with her personality. It is sad. But the biggest love stories never have a happy ending. I want to give Kubo the benefit of the doubt that this was his intention from the beginning, as it does fit with the whole "sand and rotator" metaphor, but who knows really. I really like your explanation on their relationship.
@@carloskingdomh good advice, I'll try not to proyect (??? how did you manage to eff up a word so badly?) however, you're on the wrong side of the internet, hun. find ur own playground
Louder 😭😭😭 What most people fail to realize is the emotions between two characters. They only care about the "I love you's" and make us IchiRuki fans seem delusional for seeing through the chemistry, symbolism and emotions between those characters
I watched one video where they called us IchiRuki shippers "groomers" but if we were judging Ichigo on not having sex with Rangiku or Yoruichi, saying Ichigo should've smashed when he was a kid that's a different story. Funny enough there are tons of comments saying Ichigo ( a 15 at the time ) should sleep with women ( hundreds of years older and says he missed out and if they were in his shoes they would've hit ) Or Isshin and Masaki for example.
I watch it and I'll probably watch it again later sometimes. Your analysis is pure gold. I've never realized about the female gaze in Bleach, I do know there are a lot of male gaze in anime (ex: in Neon Genesis Evangelion). To be honest, I start to read the manga version because my cousin suggest it, and back then it was 2019, the manga was already finished. Before I begin, I already knew that Ichiruki is not canon at the end, but after a few chapters, I ask my cousin if they were really not together at the end cause their development and bond seems sooooooo beautiful and strong. I don't understand why Kubo decides to pair them like this, and give a name like Ichika, seriously, huh? Thank you for your video, it makes my day!
because ichihime and renruki were the ones he mostly wanted and made the most sense, and ichikas name comes from a japanese kanji meaning happy familly a wish from orihime to rukia so whats your point?
Same for me. Bleach introduced to romance in my teen's and when I see ichiruki pics, a nostalgic felling embrace my thoughts. They were my first ship and always will be the most healthy relationship I ever seen in anime. Kubo said they're more than friends and less than lovers, but to me they are my only OTP.
Haven't seen a pair with such an equal footing as Ichiruki in shounen ever. It was perfectly balanced! I think that is one of the reasons why it wasn't canon :/
@@charliealba7931 they were not on equal footing for the entire series orihime literally was trying to catch up to ichigo and it was the reason she was training so hard later on..
@@charliealba7931Ichihime was endgame solely for the fanboys who adored her for superficial reasons. They projected themselves onto Ichigo to score the prettiest girl. Ichihime is DEFINITELY not on equal standing, Orihime was a token gf!!!
god…! I can never move on from these two since they had such a healthy and beautiful relationship! thank you for your analysis. ichiruki will always be my favorite dynamic
You hit it on the head perfectly. When I was really into bleach back in 2012, I remember being heavily into the ichiruki fandom and constantly seeing emphasis on their emotional connection and just overall understanding of each other. I truly believe they have one of the most well-developed male/female dynamic in shounen. It was one of the reasons that made bleach so refreshing to me, because the main female lead wasn't just some damsel in distress, but was actually an equal to the main character. She's someone who was clearly created to be the other half of his character. The only other show that has something like this is fairy tail with Natsu and Lucy, but there is way more fan service scenes and Lucy is almost always the damsel, plus they dont have the deep emotional connection that is emphasized like Ichiruki. With this in mind, it was very hard not to ship and enjoy their dynamic. I see a lot of IH fans in the comments and I don't really get it tbh. Your ship is canon, no one is being delusional. These are literal facts. Ichigo and Rukia have always had a deep emotional connection and sorry to say it but it was highlighted more than IH no matter how hard you try to deny it or write it off as platonic. It was disappointing when they didnt end up together, but I kind of expected it since it was stated in the Soul Society arc that Rukia wanted to remain there since it was her home. I couldnt see her or ichigo uprooting their lives to be together in that way especially when they have friends and family. Also, Kubo stated he wanted Ichigo and Rukia's kids to meet, so thats another reason IMO why he went with the ships he did. He just wanted to continuous of their story through their kids. Sidenote, I've also seen people try to dismiss their connection and the fact that they had a possibility of getting together because of the age gap, but refuse to acknowledge Isshin and Masaki's relationship or how Ichigo isnt even really human lmao Lastly, you were completely right about Kubo's writing. It's funny how people are saying you shouldnt criticize the author, but what they fail to realize is that the ending of bleach was completely disappointing and it had nothing to do with the ships. Like you said, Kubo was rushed and you can tell that. He wanted to go out with a bang with the war arc and let it become convoluted. If you were around when Bleach ended, then you would know EVERYONE was disappointed in how it ended which is why it's kinda funny how people who are just now getting into it are touting the series are the best shounen anime ever....when it's just not lol
@@lolsnez7542 Im sure you did read thats why you were triggered enough to reply to me lmaoooooo also I just saw you commented on this video a month ago..... why did you come back.... are you obsessed or something?
still bamboozled how people think ichihime is better, its canon and that's it. doesn't exactly mean it was a good idea just the one that the author chose. Though i know alot of people will prefer and defend the canon ship just because its canon
Thanks for making this video, I really enjoyed it. You laid everything out so clearly despite the subject matter being so difficult to put into words. I like IchiRuki because there's a sense of balance and unconditional closeness which is seemingly governed by powers beyond conventional attraction. The viewer experiences their relationships from both perspectives and their affection is genuine and reciprocated, regardless of whether it's explicitly romantic. I would add that IchiRuki is associated with symbolism which contributes to its 'specialness'. Butterflies, white and black, death and strawberry - it's like their relationship extends beyond their interactions and merges with the themes of the story and the wider universe. I'm really drawn to fictional relationships which exist in these intangible terms. IchiRuki must have been my first exposure to a [romantic] relationship which was framed in the female gaze. As a boy who was fed the idea that a woman's attraction was earned through a man's display of hyper-masculinity, it was deeply validating that Rukia's 'gaze' at Ichigo was instead based on their chemistry and the position he holds in her personal development, and vice versa. Moreover, Rukia's experience of Ichigo was easy to empathise with, which gave me a more realistic model of romantic attraction as something which is shared rather than pursued. I won't argue that IchiRuki is a masterpiece of writing or even anything close, but something about it has kept me invested over the years. It's my comfort-zone, where I'm allowed to indulge in a fantasy of romance and fate within the context of an immensely nostalgic franchise.
It's been years. I am still not over it. I will probably never be over it. Thank you for that video, it's really well researched and insightful. I believe it was always about Ichigo and Rukia being equals. Even when she was being saved by him, she still desperately tried to protect him, while he desperately tried to protect her. When he lacked power, she gave him hers, when she had none, he lend her his. They had this mutual understanding. It's easy to be close to someone when knowing everything about one another. But there was this beautiful intimacy of them respecting their individual boundaries, but still accepting the other's thoughts and emotions. The amount of trust in another person this requires is insane. It's like saying, hey, I don't know why you feel this way, and how you got here. But I acknowledge your emotions because they are yours, and there must be a valid reason for them, since it's you feeling them. So you don't have to tell me, I will accept them anyway, but if you ever need to tell me, I am here. This is just so selfless and pure it still keeps me up at night. Never before or after have I seen such a balanced dynamic between a male and a female in a shounen anime. IchiRuki is life. Always and forever. The only pairing I've ever shipped. They were partners in every sense of the word. And that is the most romantic thing I can think of.
@@carloskingdomh Not really. When Rukia screamed "go back home, idiot, you will get hurt!" Orihime screamed "Kurosaki-kun, please save me!". Orihime was always in love with Ichigo, and all her motivation was based solely on him. Don't get me wrong, Ichigo is not toxic to Orihime (like most shounen protagonists from that era would often tend to be, so good work there), but this relationship was never on equal terms, cause Orihime was always infatuated with him. I mean look at the latest anniversary chapter, the Gates of Hell open, and Orihime does laundry. It's like Kubo-sensei doesn't even want me to take her character seriously. This is the worst part - she deserved someone who wouldn't look at another girl like Ichigo looked at Rukia. She deserved someone who wouldn't have a soulmate with a "more then friends" relationship with another girl. She also deserved to get character development, not being in love with the same guy since forever. She was basically this cute, little safety cushion with nice boobs the protagonist can settle for after the bad guys are dealt with. And it's not ok. Orihime deserved better. (So did Rukia, Hinata, Sakura, Mikasa and many more, but that is a book material, not a TH-cam comment issue.)
@@NiveaCow ohhhh you are one of those ehhh? yeah i guess orihime also screamed that she will protect him no matter what is the same right? orihime was in love with ichigo truth, but her motivation wasnt based on him solely at all they were on equal terms in character, development and interactions, and orihime wasnt the type to always infatuate about him ohhh its so sad people like you still keep at with bleach just to missunderstood it even more, ok so whats the big deal? orihime is a mother they are a family and she is doing something completely normal based her life, so your mother didnt do laundry? you dont do laundry at home? what does that have anything to do with her on the chapter? again how the F is she helping in her house not taking her seriously? no it isnt the worst part since you saw everyhting completely wrong, ohhhh lol so how did ichigo looked at rukia cause last time he always saw themselves as pretty good friends, kid you thinking ichigo and rukia are more than friends when kubo specifically said theya rent is your own damn fault. she did get character development. and how is her being in love with him is a bad thing? you know thats common right? nope orihime is this kind, brave and not ill mannered girl who grew stronger and more confident with herself throught the series, and given the development they had yes it is ok you not seeing correctly is on you yes she did, a better spotlight like what other characters had but in terms of character she was pretty good RUKIA? sorry rukia is basically perfect but by this comment alone you really just told me, you are one of those who read bleach with that wrong kind of mentality and didnt understood it at all, not wasting my time with you
@@carloskingdomh I don't think we would ever agree on the matter, so let's just call it a day, shall we? You won anyway in the end, so there is no point in arguing, when clearly Kubo saw it your way. All we, IchiRuki fans have left is videos, fanfiction and fan art. So just let us be in our spaces. :)
HUH??? THIS VIDEO!!!! IT WAS GOOD HUH. I thought this video was made by a huge 100k channel. It kept me engaged the whole way and it was really well put. Very good video 10/10 would watch again
I highly doubt that kubo didn’t know what he was doing when it came to the female gaze since as a manga artist, you have to plan and sketch out scenes and convey emotions in a limited time and frame space as well. What I think happened is that his audience was most likely male and it was mainly to satisfy them and also the ridiculously short serialization of publication most manga artist go through. Shonen jump is literally targeted to young teen males and not females, however kubo tried to appease both to the point that there are some teen males who also rooted for ichiruki but it didn’t out weigh the ichihime fans.
You encapsulated just what it is that made Ichigo and Rukia as a romantic pairing stand out from other pairings / leads in stories and especially in contrast to shonen anime. I'm a male fan but I guess I did view Bleach especially early on a female gaze show. It appealed to maturity in a non sexual way. It leaned on emotion and bonding in a raw and honest way. IchiRuki was very much the mutual balance romance where two people mutually grew and cared for one another. Thank you for this video, it was really well researched and thought out. Way better than many of the Bleach videos that explored the series on TH-cam.
She's one of the best because most other Bleach videos are people just trying to downplay the show's other flaws or talk about the power system or worldbuilding
i refuse to believe that your channel isn't among the biggest yet, girl the amount of work and effort you put in your videos are incredible, yet still so underrated! i really wish your channel will blow up very soon so you can get the success you deserve. lots of love and do not give up you'll eventually make it big !
thank you so much!! ❤😊your sweet and thoughtful comment made my day omg. It makes the hard work I did worth it!! i also hope more people check out my channel at some point, but I don't mind waiting because it takes a while to build an audience on TH-cam from my understanding. Even if my audience seems small now, I still remember when I only had like 2 subscribers, so i'm very grateful for all the people that have found my channel already! including you! thank you so much for the support
18:10 "all he says is hey and his eyes are equally as soft as rukia's" (something along those lines) WHEN I FIRST SAW THAT SCENE I MELTED LITERALLY, IF THAT'S NOT LOVE THEN WHAT IS?
OMGG!!! I don't know how to put in words but I totally agree with you!! I'm Peruvian and I started watching bleach when I was 13 years old in 2008, of course somehow I spiritually died when Kubo released the last chapter of the manga, because somehow it didn't make sense at all for me, but I never couldn't explain myself WHY?! I feel so blessed that I found this video because I literally feel that I've just resolve an investigation case of my adolescence. Thank you so much for this analysis, it's brilliant!!!!
@@MelissaANNdeedeville ichihime is by far more male gazey and less substantive and subtle. Ichihime to me looks like how a guy would write typically write a romance whereas i think ichiruki is probably only as good as it is because he never intended it to be romantic. Kinda like, if a woman character isn’t relegated to a romance that only serves the protagonist or a sexual figure to serve the audience, then they are more free to be more fleshed out respected characters instead. It just so happens that most woman characters that aren’t meant as objects in some way are often very minor characters that don’t end up getting a lot of attention. For sooooome reason
@@Smolharuharu ichihime isnt male gaze at all because if you think ichihime is male gaze the ichiruki is male gaze as well, you are just making excuses, ichihime is like any normal person wether men or woman would write a man and a woman setting up to be in love, sorry are you contradicting yourself? so ichiruki is romantic cause it wasnt set up to be romantic? are you ok? orihime was never relegated to serve as the protagonist love interest or sex object, with that you proved you havent seen bleach at all, ichigo and orihimes relationship was fleshed out and developed for them to become something at the end, then i suggest you to actually read bleach cause orihime was never shown as that
@@MelissaANNdeedeville this is the most fiery response I’ve gotten about anything I’ve said in a very long time. I’m not really in the communities that have shipping drama so this was neat to get a glimpse of. That said i won’t really be trying to prove this stuff because it’s just my opinion and how i read the relationships. I will say though that for you, if you’re at all interested in arguing in good faith, you just kinda have different standards and definitions for things than i do, but you use that as a basis to say i was contradicting myself. But like, my line of thinking is fairly straightforward and fits my definitions and standards. You were the one who asserted that a different view was fact and so i must be contradicting myself. I dunno, seems silly to me. Unless maybe you just genuinely mistook my meaning or something. Either way i don’t think there’s much to be angry about here, though i understand it can be fun to some people to fight about this sort of thing
@@MelissaANNdeedeville Lol IchiHime is the pinnacle of the male gaze. Orihime’s character gets more and more objectified and reduced to fanservice scenes as Ichigo and her have more interactions relating to her position as a love interest.
Nah nah, Kubo knew what he was doing. The backstory with Isshin and Masaki says it all. HE KNEW. He knew IchiRuki had romantic backing, that's why he reused all their elements for Ichigo's parents (really well!!). And he sabotaged it all on PURPOSE. It is SO blatantly obvious it's insane. Every other intimate relationship in the series has elements that are also Ichigo and Rukia's relationship. He KNEW. And yet he threw it all out of spite.
lol this video i may have went off the rails at the end with my odd theory. also it was my only way to cope with how the manga ending happened 😂 like maybe kubo just doesn't see things how i see things??? but as you pointed out the obvious parallels with ichigo's parents were way too in your face to overlook, and one of the reasons when i was reading the manga back then and the reveal of his parents' backstory came out, i seriously thought ichiruki would be endgame back then 'cause of all the parallels. Kubo didn't end it with ichiruki tho even after all that tho... still can't believe the last chapter of the series exists to this day.
@@casualfandomview i read Bleach in 2022 knowing FULL WELL who the canon endgame couples are, intending to ship them and even I was blown away at the fact IchiRuki isnt canon and how much the canon couples are... not good, in comparison, or even in general. The last chapter legit feels like sabotage cuz I can't believe its actually real. I missed out on the meltdowns from 2016 but if i didnt already know Ichihime and Renruki were already canon I wouldve had one too fr
Even though im not really much of a "Bleach" enjoyer, or watcher for the matter. When I started watching it was pretty hard not to ship them. Iv taken a liking to your channel from the amount of unnoticed animes you did videos on such as 91 days. Honestly, keep it on dude. I respect your time into this and overall research and, well 'wording'. Great video, cant wait to see your next one!
thank you for watching my video even though you're not a big Bleach enjoyer! i'm happy to hear you like my channel and the other animes i've done videos on. i'm glad all this research I did amounted to something coherent lol. thanks for sticking around!
I think i had the same journey as you with IchiRuki. I also want to point out that for a big 3 shounen series to have a duo tag team with one male and one female was rare and as you said they were on a equal footing too. I too believe that was a huge part of why I fell in love with the ship tbh to me it still makes the most sense and every now and then when i go back to ichiruki i feel comforted. Both their characters actually were complex and complimented each other so well and if I'm not wrong people still do end up shipping ichiruki even after knowing how it ends simply because of how they are perceived and developed. I know its not my place to say it cuz I too believe anyone can ship who they want and no ship is superior but Ichiruki felt like wasted potential of an almost perfect ship
What I read is that the anime took some creative liberties to make the scenes between Ichigo and Rukia feel more romantic, or as you say, having the female gaze
The anime clearly overplayed their moments, with all the long shot and gazes over each other. The manga doesnt do that. They give one panel/page for these then quickly move on for next scene. Now is it because of different medium or the director choice, who knows, but Ichiruki is definitely more hammered down in anime compared to manga. Still better than nonexistent chemistry that is Ichihime, and I actually like Orihime.
I started watching anime in college when my younger brother got hook on it. And the reason I got hook on it too coz of Rukia and Ichigo pairing... luv ur video! It brings back old memories. Ichiruki stan forever😍
Going off the intro I guess I have both the "male gaze" and the "female gaze," both terms I think are stupid because physical, sexual attraction and emotional, romantic attraction are BOTH IMPORTANT. One is not better than the other, we are all both object and subject, it is better to acknowledge that rather than value one of the other. Objectification is not a bad thing, so long as you can... "Subjectify" them, I guess? Sexualization isn't an inherently male thing, and emotional attachment isn't inherently a female thing. Hell, the mere act of finding someone or something "hot" or "sexy" is sexualization, and nearly EVERYONE does it, regardless of gender, and EVERYONE can have deep emotional connections, again, regardless of gender! In my opinion, the terms male gaze and female gaze should disappear, we need to treat them as what they are, natural, normal responses for any human being, not an excuse to further the arbitrary gender divide.
You just said what I thought!! The romance between them was the first time for me to realize that the relationship between boys and girls could be such a nice thing…
The fuck kind of sociopathic shit is that. It took a non-canon ship from an anime to help you realize that relationships between the oopposite gender can be good...like what?
Lovely video ☺️! I do think orhime is a character used for the male gaze and fan service, and it sucks that she did not get more arcs outside of HM especially since she had a strong story in the beginning, dealing with her brothers hollow and awakening her fulbring powers. I started shipping ichiruki on episode 15 I think where ichigo and rukia are talking at the end of school and it’s sunset. She wants to tell him about the soul society coming to execute her but doesn’t want to burden him, and he can tell she’s not okay. I felt like that scene showed that they both care for one another, and it showcased a start to their bond. Even before that scene there was a scene where the rukia, orhime and the other girls had lunch at school and they asked how rukia felt about him and she paused looking suspicious before saying they are just friends. She stopped his rain and he is the man in her heart! Plus the scene where ichigo took in rukias words about him opening up about his mothers death when he is ready. He remembers her words and uses it to talk with his dad when he reveals he’s a soul reaper to him. It’s so clear kubo changed his mind and that’s okay, but I don’t like how bleach fans are making us ichiruki shippers look delusional. Anyone can ship anything and I have no hate for ichhime shippers, but to say there was zero ichiruki moments is a lie honestly. I feel like we got baited a lot and we don’t know why, but I’m glad we got all those scenes in the manga, anime and movies of bleach.
Orihimes character isnt just fanservice, and if you think orihime was for the male gaze then also was rukia, and did you ignored her character development and involvment in the series? because she did got more kubo never changed his mind, this is why you are said to be delusional because you believe stuff that isnt truth
@@julianmaers6535 other than liking ichigo there wasn’t much to orhime as a character. She stopped getting attention or character development after heuco mundo arc. Rukia did get male gaze attention but she did have a lot of character and personality and wasn’t attached to one character (ichigo). My opinion may be biased but that’s what I think. I can see where you are coming from though.
@@Thesilentvoice... Thats weird because the loast agent arc and thousand year blood war are the arcs orihime gets the most character development sp i really cant see where you are cominf from. So you are ignoring orihimes character and personality as well? And orihime wasnt attached to ichigo yes she did had a crush but it waa ichigos character who helped orihime evolve and improve. Yes it is but ok thanks for the discussion.
I am an ichihime but i am not biased enough to say ichigo was being romantic to anyone for that matter (during the run of the series) because he had more internalized emotional issues to work out + rangiku actually told orihime that he's a silly boy that doesn't understand romantic love yet. I just felt theres more stuffs ichigo exclusively does for orihime like offering to walk her home, telling shinji to apologize to her, exclusively made a vow to protect her, bothered when shes scared of his mask, felt at peace once she encouraged him to actually care for himself and not to put the burden all to himself, coming from the dead hearing her calling for him, gives gentle look to her, putting down their walls and got familiar to each other in fullbring arc, to the point that both of them can finally stand side by side as equals and accepting each other's help during yhwach's fight as oppose to hueco mundo arc where they were at their lowest point, trying to reject each other's help. In the final arc Ichigo was finally able to depend on others without burdening everything by himself while orihime can finally reject her role of being protected and ichigo trusts her enough to protect him. They are depending on each other and battling together in a synchronized way. This is pivotal to their characters individually as well. Was those all romantic? At least for me not really, maybe something gradually leading to that. But they have established their dynamic as the sword (ichigo) and the shield (orihime). Thats their kind of dynamic. It also works with the analogy of the sword and the sheath like in rurouni kenshin. Orihime is a great foil to ichigo's personality and it just makes more sense for them to end up together romantically. It really doesn't help when the anime changed numerous small stuffs that ends up changing a huge context as whole, and this applies to ichigo as well not just orihime. Other than that emphasizing or adding ichiruki scenes that wasnt even there in the first place. Again, there's nothing wrong preferring one to the other but we have to acknowledge both ichiruki and ichihime plays out out different dynamics with ichigo where ichiruki is more of "push past pain" and ichihime is more to "addressing those pain" hence it felt more personal. I just dislike it when people say ichihime had no chemistry/dynamics at all. This is just my opinion btw .
This is a well-researched and nuanced perspective on the ichiruki relationship and a fair critique of the show/series on the whole. Good job CFW. I had previously never heard of the "female/feminine gaze" and I should like to watch that talk by Soloway and learn more. Two potential examples of the female gaze that I could think of would be (first) Ulquiorra and Orihime's interactions (feel free to disagree). 1) Emotions - Ulquiorra was seen as emotionless/numb but really he was emotionally constipated and deeply confused, bound by orders from his "master". Orihime brought different emotions out of him with her words alone. The reverse is also true, an Orihime that never got mad or outwardly showed her internal grief and sorrow (not even to Ichigo or Tatsuki) was suddenly exposed by him calling her out, again with words and eyes. She even went so far as to slap him. He challenged her in a way that brought out a strength and courage in her that we never got to see... arguably any other time. 2) Gazed gaze - Ulquiorra and Orihime's interactions include verbal discourse and nonverbal communication through glances both anime and manga. Obviously Ulqui is a man of few words and while Orihime was often oblivious to communications among other characters she was perfectly in tune to his glances; she understood them perfectly. 3) Returned gaze - yes, you often see them gazing at each other in these meaningful, drawn out sequences both anime and manga. 4) Small actions - her slapping him, which I saw as Orihime utilizing power over someone else which is character growth for her - if, a little aggressive lol it's anime!! The scene where he asks her if I rip open your heart will I find the heart there? Okay he's a little sociopathic there but he's an emotional fledgling... it was his way of asking where heart and feelings exist. He never actually touched or harmed her. If anything, he genuinely listened to her talk more than any other character aside from Tatsuki. He respected her mind and body. And the final nail: Ulquiorra's last moment where he reaches out and asks her if she's afraid of him, she says no and reaches back. At this point their relationship had progressed from an unfeeling arrancar taking care of a hostage and interrogating her naivete while she confidently defends her beliefs and friends, to a creature that found an interest in humanity, friendship, and bonds and a girl that was capable of questioning her reality and found she was stronger than she realized. Their interactions were built on gazes, gazes returned, the little things. Had they been allowed it could have been some more interesting development and exploration of human emotions. But welp. All's well that ends well? Another problematic relationship is featured in The Case Files of Jeweler Richard. Without giving it all away, some fans were upset that a huge portion of the show was seemingly queerbait and viewers were not made aware of this until the final episode. I was among the disappointed. It felt to me like the creator found something that was highly marketable, but either he didn't understand how much he really utilized the female gaze or he genuinely didn't care. It's upsetting either way. I sometimes feel like authors, mangakas, various creators from many different backgrounds HATE their characters. Lol. Otherwise why would they do this to them?? Let them grow, be challenged, love and be loved equally, or at least be able to choose for themselves (open endings).
Omg no let's not compare bleach with tcfjr!😭 Tcfjr IS NOT QUEERBAITING nor should you feel that way about it at all! - There is the anime, which is extremely ambiguous but has subtext and an open ending where no one specifies their relationships or their sexual orientation yet - And then there is the novel that shows more clearly how Richard and Seigi are slowly trying to understand their feelings for each other and how important they are to each other None is queerbaiting Utako Yukihiro, the author knows and understands the bond between Seigi and Richard better than anyone else and it is shown in her work that she is very aware of the queer spectrum I'm not sure if you read the novel, I don't want to give spoilers if you don't, but it's definitely not queerbaiting.
People are pretending like men are the only one who ever sexualize anything. It's not just a male gaze or female gaze. It's just viewing stories in different ways and gendering it is stupid and only incites division
As someone who grew up shipping IchiRuki I've personally grown to see them more as very close siblings that aren't related by blood, rather than being romantically interested in one another. And that was even before he and Orihime became an item. I think his dynamic with Rukia very much reflects his dynamic with his sisters, particularly Karin. They bicker and fight but at the end of the day care very deeply for one another, but not in a romantic or sexual way. I honestly love Ichigo and Rukia being extremely close, platonic friends since it's a good ecample of two people of opposite sexes being extremely close and intimate friends without it being romantic.
I grew up shipping Ichiruki during the stage I cringed so hard at anything smell remotely like romance, especially in older days' shonen series, because they just semmed tacked on with no purpose and distracting from the main plot and theming of the stoery. Romance to me at that time was just so cringey and superficial, but Ichiruki struck different to me with how their relationship build naturally and not from (to me at that time) cringey crush. Sure as I grow up I become more open to romance and I understand even what started off with typical perv-gaze attraction can bloom into something genuine. But Ichiruki just still held special place with the man and woman were on equal footing and not just blatant hero and his damsel (and bro the whole the rain has stopped poetic thing and how the rain continued when Ichigo lost his powers). I already lost interest during TYBW original manga run after Byakuya's cop-out death and dropped it after I found out how lame Squad 0 was. When I came back to read the last chapters for the sake of completing my childhood hyperfixation, I was upset to see how the end pairings were set up (I'm actually more upset with Renruki than Ichihime like cmon girl you deserve more than that loser, and I said this as a diehard Renji fan. Man's so cool and hot but he's too pathetic for that). They kinda reminds me of my own mom and dad. Well, nope they weren't fighting soul monsters like Ichiruki, and they didn't playful bicker much but they came off from gentle friendship and understanding from years of friendship, and neither was obviously crushing in the other. But again, there's no accounting in taste, and people have different view on things. It's just in the shallow world we're in nowadays genuine relationship built on mutual understanding almost seems like an impossible daydream, something like Ichiruki is just so comforting. (And maybe if Kubo actually developed the same level of attention and chemistry for Ichihime like what Ichiruki had, I probably would've warmed up to it more than just tepid indifference I have for them)
@@765craven4I would've liked it better if no one is end up with anyone tbh. Sure to some it's a cop out, but if Kubo doesn't give a damn to romance like many info said then he should've beennfine with no endgame romantic pairing right? Besides, it's also realistic that you don't end up marrying either your highschool crush or childhood friend. Better than having some tacked on romance I ABSOLUTELY despise from all shonen titles, especially from Jump.
@@fz_dracohart1255 That's absolutely true. But at the same time it's important to remember that these shows are fantasies with characters who definitely aren't all that realistic. I don't think many actual 15 year olds would be able to pull off the stuff Ichigo does very early in the show. The same could be said of Kagome in Inuyasha, or 14 year old Yoko in Gurren Lagann.
@@flipmonke imagine flexing a ship getting popular only AFTER it was confirmed canon, since IchiHime was bottom of the barrel in terms of popularity when Bleach was still going on that RenRuki had to be the one they had to milk for one of the novels lmao but even besides that, IchiRuki is still the more popular one after 6 years which says a lot
@@gaslightgatekeepgirlboss6321 I don't know if it still is but just the fact that they're still trying to argue with us says a lot. They ask IRs to move on but can't move on from IR themselves, i wonder why.
@@flipmonke i think theyre just salty that despite all this time IR is still the more popular and favored among fans, both Western and Japanese. Even new readers, they split between shipping IR (like I did, i read Bleach in 2022) or just "going along with canon" which isnt the same as shipping. I'd be sad too lmao. "Planned canon from the start" and yet Kubo couldn't convince the majority of readers when Bleach was still going lmao
A late comment to your video, but I appreciate how well you described the impact of these subtle moments. Those were actually a great way of breaking down how to deliver impactful romantic moments for an audience even outside of just anime media. I wasn't aware of many of these techniques, and your video felt like it turned on a lightbulb for me since they're littered everywhere in books, comics, and movies but never really registered to me how they made those scenes so effective before.
Even though I disagree, I absolutely love this video and your take here because it got me reflect on the series. I did not ship Ichigo with Orihime, but it looked pretty obvious to me. 24:03 This is an interesting point here about Ichigo turning his back to an enemy here to save Rukia when he felt she was losing, but Ichigo also did the same with Chad when he was fighting Kenpachi in Soul Society. He wanted to run over to save Chad, but Kenpachi wouldn't let him. Ichigo is noticeably softer and little more thoughtful than normal around Orihime. Small stuff like offering to walk her home or saying he has always been keeping an eye on her since the accident with her brother. Or the time where Shinji was being inappropriate with Orihime. It was really noticeable how angry he was with Shinji. Ichigo even made it a point to insist Shinji go and apologize. Rukia and Ichigo are best friends. Definitely saw them as being close and emotional with one another.Or also, I don't know actually. Your romantic partner can most certainly be your best friend, however, I feel the reason many saw Ichigo and Rukia as being a ship is because Male and Female characters hardly ever get to be intimate with each other onscreen without them being a romantic or sexual relationship.
I loved IchiRuki back then. But I'm not gonna talk about it. Instead I have some harsh critiques of the female gaze as a concept. Namely, the female gaze is just a bunch of gender stereotypes repackaged under fake progressive lenses. Women historically are socialized to not speak out, to not express how we really feel, so we were forced to speak in code, speak without being obvious. We had to be subtle. Great example - we would say "Sure, Honey" when the male members of our social lives told us to vote one candidate, then vote who we actually wanted and never let them know about it. In fact when we do speak out and express ourselves, we're called hysterical, we're called crazy, we're called overly emotional. I don't need to explain why this was all nonsense. So when people like Soloway talks about how female gaze is nonsexual in nature and more based on emotion, that unfortunately typecasts female perspective as emotional, reactive, and "oh she doesn't want sex but he does" in a way that makes me feel gross.
Something I never understood about these feminist systems of classification is why they insist on having one concept be for one sex, and the another concept for the other. In my own personal experience, I've met plenty of women who like to be horny, stare at, and objectify men, and plenty of men, myself included, who want a mutual emotional connection. Hell, most people are some mixture of the two ideas. Why must they be the exclusive territory of one sex?
Honestly, Kubo probably wrote both Rukia and Orihime as love interests, flipped a coin, then said: alright looks like this is the half of the fan base that’s gonna get pissed off.
This is honestly a big example of some of the issues with the anime/manga trope of never having clear cut romances until the very end. If it was Ichihime from the start then none of these issues would have happened. We'd have known from the start that Ichigo and Rukia wasn't the goal
It's not that the romances aren't clear cut, it's more the relationship, the girl, is the prize for the main character at the end. There's no need to build up, because the female character that outwardly pines the most, regardless if it is reciprocated, is the one that he is going to end up with
Huh, IchixRukia wasn't obvious at all for me when I read Bleach, contrary to IchixHime. The fact that I don't really care about Rukia as a character doesn't help.
Oh my god you gave me a very different view of Ichigo and Rukia it makes me love them more and appreciate their relationship, and I love how you mentioned Ichigo's voice in English cause I thought I was the only one thinking that I almost went crazy lol you saved my life
So glad i stumbled on to this, ive always thought as an anime watcher and a manga reader of bleach that the chemistry between the two was just so much more romantically present than anything Ichigo had with Orihime. Not to mention who kubo ended up pairing her off with seemed bizarre
Yeah sorry to burst your bubble but you are not fooling anyone you havent read the manga and it shows, the relationship between ichigo and rukia was never romantic in fact most romantic moments were for the cano couples, if you think it wad.bizarre you are one a on liar
Ichiruki is one of the best ships from shonen (another good one is Ed x Winry) and yeah, the female gaze has a lot to do about it, intentional or not Kubo managed to build a relationship of mutual respect (thing that women in shonen rarely get), even if you see it as a romance or just platonic, their bond shines through. Maybe, with time male authors may learn how to write more complex female characters... and give them the development their male counterparts get
@@carloskingdomh not really, the ship and even Orihime always perform very badly at polls and merch, Rukia and Ichigo on merch is always sold out, it's still the #1 pairing
Not to mention they have a movie together as in Ichigo saving Rukia again and being the only one who remembers her name, besides Kon and a few others... Fade to Black which literally made me think they're canon (sadly the movie isn't considered a canon I think?)
And what's even better is ichigo's shinigami lineage, which would make it even more logical to ship them together, since there is a lot of connections with rukia and just the shinigami world overall. It's a shame that Bleach turned out the way it is, but nevertheless I still enjoy it and am looking forward to it's future.
Yes. Eventually Orihime will die because she's just human unlike Rukia and Ichigo, both are shinigami. Honestly, Orihime and Ichigo make no sense. They don't have chemistry unlike Ichigo and Rukia.
I don't think Ichigo's shinigami lineage matters that much. He is still human and never had an interest in living a non-human/shinigami life in that sense. Plus, part of Rukia's story is about breaking SS (nobles) traditions like what happened when Byakuya married her sister and then adopted Rukia. And that's pretty much what she continued to do by marrying Renji - a commoner. Ultimately even if IchiRuki was romantic their life goals are too different to work out in that way.
@@evelina2619 I see your point, one way to write it would be to associate the story of Byakuya, recreating the relationship he had, which is not wrong and it works well. I just personally would’ve liked Ichigo’s father’s route to be recreated till the end, for it was done from the start and would fit too. Ichigo’s mother was Quincy, but still human and father shinigami. It would then be as reversed roles, but whole route the same.
Timestamps: 00:00 - 1:37 Intro 1:38 - 4:38 The Male Gaze Vs. The Female Gaze (as defined by Joey Soloway in TIFF 2016) 👁 4:39 - 6:41 Adding to Soloway's Definition of the Female Gaze 🧐🖐 6:41 - 7:31 How does Bleach, a Shonen anime have the Female Gaze?? It's a Shonen! ❓🤔 Examples of the Female Gaze: 7:32 - 9:00 Equal Footing 🏃♀️🏃♂️ 9:00 - 13:52 Prioritizing Emotions 💕 13:53 - 22:00 The Return of the Gaze 👁 22:01 - 25:07 Small Actions ✨ Ending Segment: 25:08 - 32:29 The Implications of the Female Gaze 🔍 32:29 - 33:35 General Thoughts on Rewatching Bleach (AND Ichigo's dub voice actor?! How did I forget he sounded like this?) 33:35 - 35:23 My Final Thoughts on Ichiruki & Video Outro 🙃 Note: This video references and quotes Joey Soloway's Female Gaze theory and applies their theory to the anime Bleach specifically. I used their theory of the female gaze as a lens to analyze Ichigo and Rukia's relationship throughout the video. Joey changed their name in 2020 and I had based this video off of my university notes which referred to them as their previous name while I was studying in school; Also in the screenshot I took back when I made this video TIFF still had their previous name, Jill, up on the TH-cam title of the video I was referencing, so I assumed that was the name they went by when I watched their TIFF master class speech. This is a mistake on my part and I'm sorry for it. Now I know to research more thoroughly before releasing a video. I just wanted to correct my careless mistake here: their name is Joey Soloway!!! And this video was based upon their theory!
I also hate when two characters that are canonically together look like siblings, like Ichiho and Orihime have the damn near same color palettes?? They could be twins without context i can’t stand it
Didn’t Kubo say he never wanted to make the story romantic? I could be getting him and another writer mixed up. But I always saw their relationship as romantic. You are so right about the dub actor sounding flirty! Because he never sounds like with anyone else
He just said that but what did he do in the ending? He just paired Ichigo with Orihime (useless and annoying damsel in distress)! He just threw all the solid development of Ichigo-Rukia relationship all through out Bleach with forced pairing of Ichigo and Orihime! I will never accept that canon. Never. For me, its still IchiRuki forever.
First it was never a romantic. Ichigo says as much. Soul society " in the Shiba estate says " i am here to save rukia,for giving me a human the power of a soul reaper yo save my family, if I just stayed put and not save her and she was killed,I couldn't face my future self" That's it, plain as day. Bleach 2nd theme is " Balance" he uses quincy and hollow,, soul reaper and the quincy. Orihime had the same backstory as ichigo. Orihime took the route of forgiving her self,making friends and living a life free of the chains her brother wouldn't of wanted. Ichigo DIDN'T he never looked inward and never forgave his pass " shortcomings " Isshin and ryuken how ryuken always took the burden and guilt of katagiri.and distanced himself from uryu and quincy. Isshin knew masaki would never be replaced,isshin knew he couldn't take it on alone. He gave em roles in the house to make up for masaki and so she could feel at peace. Ship who you want,but this was never kubos intent. So the ship is Objectively no where to be found. Also sending a man death threats over that...sorry I don't care its not cannon it's fan fiction
@@hollowify_tensa_zangetsuthis debate is terrible 😭 you bring up the fact he goes to save her because she gave him powers but not the fact that they’re friends and we see multiple scenes of him missing her during this time as well as breaking down when rukia is taken. Something he didn’t do for orihime. Orihime didn’t have the same backstory where did u get this 😭 if anything rukias backstory has more similarities to ichigos then orihimes. Also have u seen the parallels of ichigo and rukia?? Rukia and ichigo are shown more of a duo then ichigo and orihime and might I add that orihime kissed Ichigo when he was asleep which is basically assault. Kubo literally said that orihime was the main heroine even though he gave her nothing and gave rukia everything. Hell if you look at the last chapter we see for the first time 2 characters on the front of the manga and it was Ichigo and rukia. Nobody is saying that orihime shouldn’t have gotten with Ichigo. We’re saying that orihime got little to nothing and rukia was built more towards Ichigo as a character. You do have to remember that kubo was rushed because of his sickness so we can’t blame him. I agree that he shouldn’t get death threats for it.
Wow that was awesome. Instead of just Ichigo being like "Wow she's hot!" and checking her out, the way the bond between them always was felt so strong to me. Much of the time an anime has the perspective of the male protagonist looking at the female characters, but I like how Bleach mixed it up. Someone before the manga ended said if Ichiruki doesn't happen that Bleach was ubertrolling, and that's sorta how it felt. It felt a little weird to me how it ended. I mean it's ok, kinda moved on for the most point, but still a very insightful video.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS. it’s incredibly frustrating that so many love and care was crafted into this relationship for it not to be canon. Not to say that soulmates always have to end up together but what we got was SO dissatisfying.
@@Blackmamba_yellowfit yeah cause it added scenes that werent in the manga that even kubo was mad about, sorry but thats on you ichihime is the better pairing
@@Blackmamba_yellowfit cause it added scenes that even the author was mad about, its on you if you see it this way, ichigo and orihime is the one that was developed
27:04 You're absolutely right. Kubo is a troll but he also has a very specific "show don't tell" writing style. The way he panels automatically lends itself to the female gaze because he leaves many things unsaid and open to interpretation. Sometimes he literally just has blank backgrounds while two characters have eyesmex with their hair blowing in the wind, and the reader is left to their imagination. Really? This is the main reason I don't think it's a stretch for people to be pissed off that he mislead them. While he didn't intend for IchiRuki to be romantic, he used a TON of romantic cues seen in other media for them (whether by accident or otherwise). On the flip side, Kubo is a dude and it's equally reasonable that he himself did not interpret Bleach from the female gaze. But it still feels jarring to borrow so many romantic cues, slap them on the most well-developed, reciprocal and profound relationship in the series, and have them marry other people at the end. In hindsight I do think Kubo created Orihime as the token "love interest" from the getgo but she and IchiHime are sadly underdeveloped in comparison. I also believe him when he said he planned the ending with Ichika and Kazui from the start. I just think by nature of being the protagonists, IchiRuki ended up developing natural chemistry that surpassed what Kubo originally planned. This frequently happens to writers - when characters start coming alive and start writing the story themselves. If you force an ending or plot point against what the characters would naturally do, it can feel very jarring and out of character to the readers. After all these years, I just want to understand how in the world Kubo and I saw two entirely different series. I just want to make sense of that ending and every character he retconned in the main cast. While it was a fun ride at first, Bleach is the reason I will never emotionally invest in another long running series again without knowing the end first.
@@carloskingdomh chill out, ichihime is canon since the final bleach chapter came out. Unless you are INSECURE w/ the fact the ending was mid AF and the development between Ichigo and orihime was no different than stale white bread…
@@carloskingdomh the fact that you need to comment on a video that is venting on a series that concluded over half a decade ago proves to me that you knew the ending could’ve been better. Isshin and Masaki had better romance development than Ichigo and Orihime. Gin and Rangiku had a better romance subtext. That’s pathetic because they were SIDE characters. Go bask in your ship’s glory somewhere else, you are to this very day obviously looking for trouble instead of trying to not be a disappointment in your mommy and daddy’s eye 🤡 🎪
Looking back on Bleach, I realized that IchiRuki is one of the best written couple (rip canon) ever? Like it's better than a lot of shojo manga I know?? It's funny that it's from a shonen of all thing!
Sigh, really wanted to watch this. But saying that Thor being shirtless is still the "male gaze" but for women is braindead... Are you seriously expected me to believe the women in the theaters cheering for a shirtless Hemsworth are just brainwashed into the male gaze? Touch grass.
the "talk" they had on episode 8 while running downstairs? the moment when they said their goodbyes because Ichigo was losing his power? the moment Ichigo was crying in the rain in the fullbringer saga because he lost his power AGAIN and in the exact second Rukia appears the rain INSTANTLY stops? nah that ship HAD to happen, i still belive this was just a mandela effect and i got sent to a different reality bruh bc there's no way.
Ichiruki in the end would have had more for how she showed us things! Everyone sees the interpretation they like, and everyone now says that Ichihime is the perfect couple because the manga ended like this (Even if it's not finished yet). But in terms of storytelling if you always show me the protagonists of a story together and show me different scenes in the manga/anime/film (like Fade to Black) where you give me clues that their friendship will develop and then eventually finally you put together the male protagonist with a character who supports them and the female one with the childhood friend you have the wrong approach from the beginning. Canon or non-canon some scenes are equivocal and Kubo explained the matter of couples badly, some interactions between the characters should have been set better. Example In the scene in the manga where Ichigo regains his powers after being pierced by the reishi sword that Rukia is wielding in his hand, strong emotions appear on his face at the fact of having seen her again (she and all the other shinigami on the scene, but first you see) you don't get moved like that for a friend. Had Orihime been more up front and built a stronger character on her it would all have made sense. In short, for a love that according to Kubo is platonic, you shouldn't set up all those parallels like: -Tha black sun and White Moon -Their bankai/transformations that are respectively black and white: Mugetsu and Hakka no Togame - Ichigo who saves Rukia in the Soul Society and Isshin who saves Masaki in the human world
Relaunch: what a nice idiotic comment. And I want to clarify: these are my observations, carefully argued, they are not the truth of the facts. a lie is a false statement, made intentionally to mislead others, or to hide one's own fault or the truth. I don't think this is the case.
@@RukiaKuchiki9224 lol this is person is literally lurking in the comment section. All they say is "you are liar" instead of arguing properly. But I guess I could understand, after alll, how could you argue a very poorly developed relationship (if indeed intended to be the romantic one) in intellectual manner? like you see, you are free to ship whatever. Plus dont speak as tho people dont have the right to demand for a better romantic relationship esp in shounen when female love interests are reduced to such (because surprise surprise a lot of these authors couldnt portray a woman and relationship with men, romantic or otherwise) people are disappointed because we have this ship that sogood that it's so overwhelmingly popular, when typically MxM are popular ships (and this could be explained because mxm friendships are portrayed more intimately that people couldnt help but gravitated to beauty of such relationship)
anyways, i am one year behind but i want to say that Ichigo do have strongest reaction to Rukia. He have been more vulnerable with Rukia, and i guess the circumstances allowed them which further their bond. People like to argue they are only friends, but cmon, is it too much to ask for an endgame canon ship to feel organic and believable? not to mention that the parallels have romantic implication/association further than the fact Ichigo's parents have the same framing of the rescue scene. Like nah, i dont think that Kubo is that dumb.
Another thing that’s interesting is how kubo talks about ichigo and Rukia in interviews compared to any aspect of orihime. He would say something like “whenever I draw rukia, I just have to draw ichigo with her, it just feels wrong with one being without other and” then he just goes on and on about their relationship just to give some throwaway statement when questioned about orihime just to go back to ichiruki. I can only think ichihime won not because kubo had any plan for it, but for all the hate orihime got in the beginning of the series so he just gave her a lot more presence and ultimately winning to troll his haters sadly
@@lolsnez7542 I would have to politely disagree, the proof is in the plot. In the end of bleach, ywhach was gonna destroy everything because it was becoming the fufilled timeline, after ichigo beat ywhach he could still come back. So everyone had to make this timeline the most unfulfilled; ichigo marrying orihime when he doesn’t even care for her like rukia and staying in karakura with his boring life when he’s not even supposed to be allowed there bc he’s too strong and he hated that boring normal life, rukia marrying renji even though she’s more fond of ichigo and renji did attack her and almost kill uryu, uryu became a doctor even he doesn’t want anything to do with his dad, and chad became a boxer which goes against his entire character and story of “using your fists to protect others.” Also when kazui touched ywhach reiatsu when it reappeared, he completely disappeared.
@@crownlotus6007 you know thats a lie right? No one had to make a time line in which they are sad, thats an excuse made from people who cant read and missunderstood juha bachs words
@@frobsonsdesenhos I don't even care anymore, just thought at the time that yall get too pressed to defend a so called "perfect canon ship", thats all. Peace.
I think canon matters...if the series didn't end the debate then you can have videos like this with no problem but people who stay in denial for what they wanted and perceived can be critiqued
the anime also got rid of a lot of interactions between ichigo and orihime early on, made her character into much more of a bimbo, and got rid of their friendship that had already existed prior to rukia coming along and that was potentially going to develop into something more. i think ichigo even had a potential crush on orihime early on that was taken out of the anime cuz the anime team thought he was going to end up with rukia and wanted to make that more obvious. point is, the ichigo orihime thread is better and less out of the blue in the manga. i like both ships
To this day I still think the best kind of love in fiction (and out of fiction) is the type where the two characters are equal but different, the type that challenges each other to continue to be the best versions of themselves, the type to smack some sense into each other and to bring hope to each other when all hope seems lost, the type that the two are individuals but they come to a mutual understanding of each other. Ichigo x Rukia's soul-bond is a great representation of this kind of relationship. Another one, dare I say, is Naruto x Sasuke :D But it's almost impossible to have Japanese authors end their stories in these pairings in a mainstream shonen manga, especially the second one.
The emotional power of their goodbye when the powers fade at the end of the Aizen arc of both of them gazing is heartbreakingly beautiful and it reflects when they save each other. The emotional connection, love, support and mutual understanding between two souls is perfectly conveyed.
or just two friends saying goodbye
@@chawli2782then why not put renji in that scene, he has more emotional scenes with ichigo than origihime does lol.
becuz renji wouldn't do that despite him willing to die for ichigo. Their brotherly bond is equal parts growing together, teasing each other mercilessly, and protecting each other with their lives. Renji expressly states later on that he owes his life to ichigo for saving his relationship with rukia, which renji could not do on his own.
Rukia cherishes ichigo because he's very similar to kaien. He wants to save her because she saved his family. This means *everything* to him due to how he perceives the death of his mom as a failure to protect his mom. It's platonic though. Ichigo simply doesn't want anyone to die, but he will kill for his family and die for those close to him.
@@yearningcontrolyou proved how much of an illiterate you are
sibling energy imo
Also are we not gonna mention that Rukia’s bankai Hakka no togame actually parallels Ichigo’s mugetsu perfectly? The panels parallel, and when they use their powers it makes them vulnerable afterward. When I had read Rukia’s bankai for the first time (when the chapter came out) I was convinced that the ending of the series would involve both of them using their powers together, but nope. 🫠 weird how the best written couple in shonen is the non canon one.
Kisuke even said the war would be up to Ms. Kuchiki & Mr. Kurosaki and this was happening when they were heading towards Yhwach.
Probably time restraints and his sickness and he couldn't get Rukia in 😢
@@Marukanitel that doesnt mean anything he just meant that both rukia and ichigo had to do their parts to win
The best couple in shounen is canon already thats ichihime
@@lolsnez7542but why would he say those two names specifically? Rukia was only a lieutenant, he could have said any of the captains or Renji. But instead he said Rukia’s name after she already finished her fight and didn’t end up doing anything else for the rest of the arc.
That line was one the reasons that I felt like the plans for the final battle of bleach where changed last second because of the rush Kubo was in, Rukia was definitely meant to have a larger part in the final battle before it changed.
I don’t like how he made them seem so in love…and then just gave us nothing.
Kubo never made it seem that way in the manga.. the anime went out of their way to do this
@@mikecash2384 Not true, the anime simply expanded on what was already there. Kubo was clearly leaning in the Ichi/Ruki direction for most of the series before backtracking in the final arc.
@@Vaporious2000 nah its very true.. especially when they pulled that ice skating scene out of their asses....never happened in the manga. .. took out or reworded specific scenes with Orihime and Ichigo... yea they were playing it crazy
@@mikecash2384 Yeah and the anime added more scenes between Ichigo and Orihime during the fullbring arc so it’s not like they were playing favorites all the time.
@@Vaporious2000 what scene outside them casually doing day to day stuff and at school? no extra romantic stuff
Rukia is the one that changed Ichigo’s world
Ichigo gained his bankai for Rukia’s sake
Rukia stopped Ichigo’s rain
Ichigo misses Rukia and is in denial about it
IchiRuki parallels with Masaki/Isshin
Ichigo’s Fullbring activates when he thought of Rukia
The so called Black Sun and White moon
Time may passed but IchiRuki's bond will never break.
@@carloskingdomh You into big booba hime?? boring 🤷🏻
If Orihime was the end goal why so many parallels between Rukia and Ichigo?
It's one of the reasons I'm IR instead of IO
@@gorotaro832 Not in just the anime, but the poems that Kubo made for the two lol
I feel like the Ichigo/Rukia bond is so deep, it can't even be summed up with just romantic. If they ended up together, it won't just be about getting married and all that, they would do big things together - like possibly reforming soul society in some way. They are perfect partners. It would've been such an interesting and fulfilling way to end the series. But alas, it goes for the "mainstream" way - with Orihime the perfect housewife and Renji the persistent childhood friend. Real snooze fest ending.
@@Marukanitelit is called friendship. The mangaka can create a platonic relationship between a girl and a boy. You never had a friend of the other sex ?
Mate. You explained everything that my 11 year old self never could when I first got into the IR fandom. 12 years down the line, I still absolutely love this pairing. Yes, we weren't canon but it's okay 'cause IR was the best pairing to ever grace the shonen landscape.
Ichihime is im sorry you have no taste
@@lolsnez7542 Do you really waste your time going around trying to pick fights with people who disagree with you over a relationship between two fictional characters?
@@Funky_Studentaren't IH fans disagreeing with these delusional lovers as well?
@@lolsnez7542yes WE GET IT!
@@lolsnez7542 Replying to a year old comment on a video that has nothing to do with Orihime. Yeah, right. The only ship you guys are not beating is Sasuke and Sakura in the list of worst developed pairings in the entire medium kek.
Nobody is gonna say that Ichigo and Onihime are either well written or developed. Even the fandom during the original run of the manga was heavily in favour of Ichiruki. Kubo got shit for it (which should not have happened) for the years. The VAs even did a skit where Ichiruki got married lol. I know that doesn't mean much but let's be honest, people have different taste and rather than hating, go and touch some grass or cope harder. Whatever floats your fancy.
This ship is like a straight version of all those gay ships where the two main guys just have better chemistry than the actual main couple
Ichigo and orihime havr a better chemistry than ichigo and rukia
Fr lol back in Bleach original manga run I was a big fujoshi but yet no yaoi shipping will ever scratch the same itch Ichiruki did. Their chemistry is just hrrnnghh damn good. Ah well the good ole days. Now we just gotta make do with what we got, pretty realistic but stull kinda hurt.
@@fz_dracohart1255you have never seen or read bleach liar
… So like an ideal healthy relationship between a man and a woman? Lol.
I know exactly what you mean! IchiRuki is like Sasuke x Naruto in Naruto, but then he marries Hinata, just like Ichigo marries Orihime lol
Wonderful video, just one thing: there is no way he didn't know what he was doing with Ichiruki. No way. It was all intentional. What's so incredibly frustrating from the last chapter is how everybody ended up doing the very thing they didn't wanna do, like Ishida becoming a doctor (even tho it was said just 10 or so chapters before that he had no intention of becoming one), Chad becoming a boxer (even tho it was said from the beginning that he would use his strength only if necessary and to protect his friends) and Hime became a housewife (in the early chapters she had stated that she wanted to do lots of things, even really creative ones). Ichigo didn't want to live his life as an ordinary human and he became a freaking translator....
like what the hell happened?
It's the opposite of everything that was set from the beginning and it's weird
why is no one else talking about this? the future careers of the main cast is absolutely frustrating, i totally agree with you. does kubo have alzheimer's?
@@lyere I think he suffers from pettiness and lazyness
@@verotile_ maybe its his way of telling us hes trolling us
Ichigo did want a normal life tho but he also wanted strength ontop of that so he could protect the people he cares for so he can have that peaceful normal life
@@marioc200 He _was_ rushed, wasn't he? 🤔 Maybe he was trying to say "this shit ain't canon, y'all."
My people are here. I mourn the lack of ichiruki end game.
No we dont
I am a dude. The was one sceen that made me believe these 2 were meant to be together and that was when Rukias brother took Rukia and left ichigo on the ground. Rukia said to ichigo to let him go and said I would never forgive you. Ichigo took that seriously and didn't move. If a friend said that to me I would ignore due to the circumstances. Yet ichigo responded to her emotions.
Since then I was and still am full on this ships side.
ichihime is better
The end of manga was a BIG tragedy for me. I am still not over it since 2016. And yep, even if Kuro didn't want to develop romantic plot line, it would be MUCH MORE better not even give us couples we had in the end. Open ending, or something about bright future. Because there was no development in Orihime and Ichogo's relationship so that they end up being a married couple with kids
Ichiruki fans act like they've never read the manga.
there was a ton of development liar
there were development objectively if you read the manga, you just chose to ignore them due to your preference.
You are also ignoring "what kind of person Ichigo is". A dude wo will choose a normal lifestyle over a supernatural.
At the end of or Soul Society arc. Rukia chose to live in Soul Society while Ichigo would want to live as a human.
@@chawli2782bro im scanning the comments and... have you been camping this comment section for 2 years??? Ichihime fans are unhinged fr fr
@@CalvinMabvurungeyou too, you really should get a life
I think Kubo unintentionally taught me how to write great romance.
IchiRuki is literally Pride and Prejudice hand clench scene on steroids
Or you are just delusional
Ichiruki is not a romance
"hand clench scene on steroids" Lol what a great way to put it. 100% agree
ichiruki wasnt written by Kubo. It's not as prevalent in the manga. Actually read for once
@@andrelima4125 wow, you did not read the manga
It's crazy how IchiRuki is both one of the reasons I believe in love, and one of the reasons I don't.
I don't think the romantic type of love is special. And I am started to think that the romantic type of love isn't real. I mean about more than half of romantic couples either break up with each other or divorce each other, while most platonic best friends remain friends until death.
I think that having a platonic best friend is a lot better than having a romantic partner or spouse is. Having someone who's like a sibling to you is a lot better than having a romantic partner or spouse. Also, you are more likely to be much more closer to someone who's like a brother or sister to you than you would be with a romantic partner or spouse.
People tend to fight with their partner or spouse a lot more than they do with a platonic best friend, and you never fight with your best friend the way you fight with your partner or spouse. Partners and spouses are just temporary. If you break up or divorce them, it's hard to go back to them. With your platonic best friend, you're going to make things work, because they are your best friend, they are your go to partner. It's always easier to make amends with them than it is with a romantic partner or spouse.
Romantic relationships are pointless, while platonic relationships are not.
@@icysnow57cold64I think you have a point,the goal is to have a romantic and platonic relationship with the same person.
@@riflebusters1 Platonic relationships and romantic relationships may be two entirely different things, but that doesn't mean they are equal when it comes to the amount of love given in them.
The love in platonic relationships seems to be way stronger than the love in romantic relationships is since platonic relationships are not fragile like romantic relationships are.
Also, platonic relationships also seem to be a lot more intimate and comfortable than romantic relationships are. Platonic love is one of the most purest forms of love there is, while romantic love is one of the least purest forms of love there is.
Most people seem to be a lot more comfortable around their platonic best friends than they are around their romantic partners or spouses.
A platonic best friend is one of the best things you could ever have. A platonic best friend can be someone you trust the most, and they can be your confidant and coach.
People tend to trust their platonic best friends more than their romantic partners, and that's a fact.
The concept of romantic love and romantic relationships seems to mostly be a man-made thing.
@@riflebusters1 which is what I see in Ichigo x Rukia 😭
Please stop
I don't ship Ichiruki much because I don't really care that much about romance in a story. However, it always baffled me about how Orihime loved Ichigo. I mean, we can clearly see it's a crush developed from a bit of kindness in her childhood. But they rarely interact with each other.
Orihime has more chemistry with Uryu, Tatsuki and Rangiku at this point. It still baffles me how that romance is ok with many people in spite of the just bare minimum interaction
ichigo and orihime always interacted with each other more than tatsuki ishida and specially matsumoto please stop lying kid
Ichigo literally mentioned in the fullbring arc why she is fidgeting around so much even though she was at his several times at his home at this point. Thats not what i call rarely interacting with each other.
the animators cut out a lot of orihime scenes and added more rukia ichigo filler to try and push the ichiruki ship. the manga develops ichigo and orihime’s relationship perfectly
Honestly, Ichigo would have been better off with Tatsuki if anything and Orihime with Uryu. Uryu and Orihime had a fun dynamic and Tatsuki and Ichigo bounced off each other really well in the little time they're on screen. I guess since they're pretty similar in a lot of ways and I'm a bigger fan of similar people being with one another than the common opposites attract trope. I mean me and my friends called her She-chigo for a while
@@ricegrain6880I read the manga and no it doesn’t 😭 it’s more one sided love
Your explanation on the male gaze vs female gaze show of affection actually made me realize how you can use that to explain Orihime's goodbye towards Ichigo in the start of HM arc vs Ichigo and Rukia's goodbyes with each other at the end of the arc. Orihime attempts to kiss Ichigo while he's unconscious and is overtly vocal and well, obvious about how she feels for him. It's all very blatant and in your face... but it's one sided. Ichigo isn't awake to hear or respond and when he wakes up he has no idea what had happened. But this is enough for men i've seen online to hail that scene as peak romance despite it being strictly Orihime --> Ichigo . In contrast, Ichigo and Rukia's goodbye, deliberately written as a mutual farewell to compare it to Orihime's, has them both responding. The words they spoke of are little in comparison, but the feelings of longing and sorrow are evident through expressions alone. And unlike with Orihime, it was very much Ichigo-->
omg your point on comparing orihime's goodbye versus ichiruki's goodbye perfectly sums up the lack of reciprocated love, and how during ichiruki's case it's heavily reciprocated, and is also an example of the female gaze. honestly i had too many scenes to choose from for this video so i wasn't able to use ichigo and rukia's goodbye as an example because i didn't want to sound like i was repeating myself too much in this video. but it was definitely on one of the many pages of notes i made for this video lmao. thank you !! i'm glad you enjoyed my analysis and thanks for leaving such a thoughtful comment
I think thats why even I as a man could never be on board with IchiHime and Orihime's portrayal of her affection for Ichigo. It was just a crush that might've blosomed to love but Orihime never got that close with Ichigo on a personal level. I don't mean intimate either. Ichigo for his part had never been portrayed as interested in Orihime in that way. & Kubo's meager attempts to try & push them as a thing kept it very shallow, surface level, and still one sided. From objectifying Orihime either as a damsel or just another sexy body to rushing the conclusion to just make her a house wife.
@@JurassicLion2049 like fr I agreed the pairing literally came out of nowhere at the last minute. There was literally no chemistry between the two and orihime was the only that show affection for ichigo. The manga literally show all of the key moments between ichigo and rukia and yeah tite kubo wasted a great opportunity to pair these two up to be one of the greatest anime couples of all time.
Funny (and sad) thing is, Kubo talked about his thought process when drawing the Orihime farewell scene. And he admitted his sole concern was how proud he was that he made Orihime look so sexy. One of the scenes IH shippers hype up as one of the pair’s romantic moments, and the writer admits he didn’t have romance on the mind and just only cared about Orihime looking aesthetically-pleasing. So yeah, just wanted to reinforce your point about the different farewell scenes being either for the male-gaze or the female-gaze.
@@CQueenC171 weird on how a fully grown man wants to talk about the looks of a schooler. Does make sense on why orihime is with Ichigo though. Kubo is known to be obsessed with big breasted women.
I have to agree. I personally think I fell in love with their relationship and shipped them so hard because it wasn’t your typical I love you/have a crush on you because you’re simply just attractive. They built up a real connection without needing to have heavily intimate scenes. It was subtle and it worked so damn well. It shows you that romantic relationships don’t have to be just about Intercourse or overly sexualizing each other. This felt so natural and organic that it took me awhile to get over the fact that their relationship was not endgame.😭😭 Either way no other anime or tv show has made me ship any pairings so hard. I’m not one to ship people together but I couldn’t help it with this one. Great video!
Honestly, the same. I am not usually into shipping, but relationship that IchiRuki had it's something that subtle, but do real. I would say many people would like to have such relationship in their lives.
Same. Up untill now I'm not getting over IchiRuki ship. From the beginning their chemistry was there but then the Arancar arc came and we are presented a prince saving princess route where the feelings was on the spot (for Ichigo) and not build. Like wow, people (characters) just open their mouth to put ideas on your head (Inoue's feelings and importance) and you just believe you love her? Wow...wow.... 🙄
While there so many suspicious and jealous of Rukia by just standing around Ichigo because there was that closeness and relationship (trust) they don't have with others. But.... Based in Rukia's personality, she can be close to whoever she wants. Bru, this girl is also harvesting looks and tender treatment from the opposite gender (and some females too), not by her looks but her personality. For example, Ichigo, Renji (after being awakened by Ichigo in season 1), that masked man under the sand on Hueko(?)/Ueko Mundo (how do you call it?), And then the twins in the Movie, yeah I know it's a movie and not cannon but Rukia's personality was displayed there. 👍
@@shielatv22 Yeah i definitely agree with you especially about that inoue part like I get it but at the same time that’s not how a relationship should work at all
@@shielatv22 for real kubo fumble the bag. Rukia was the white moon that dries ichigo rain the black sun
@@Mdgary2 😭😭😭😭😭 I'm happy that I'm not the only one who noticed that fast phased "realization of feelings" of Ichigo to Inoue. Like literally they didn't have that connection in the beginning unlike Rukia's to Ichigo. It only start in the Arancar and thats it, while Rukia, through the beginning till some other arc, she was there, yeahhhhh even the Arancar arc, she was there also to be Ichigo's emotional and physical (fighting) support. Even in the movies, they are always together. And hey~~~ when Ichigo was in his lowest point of his life! Who was it that welcomed him and gave him light? Yeah it's Rukia my bias. (When his power git stolen, then it was Rukia who stabbed him at the back to awaken or share her riatsu. I can't exactly remember the reason because It's been so long since I read Bleach.)
That's why I can't understand Kubo for doing the current pairings. Haissstttt..
But then, knowing the reasons he made mistakes, I can understand somehow. But I never read Bleach again after knowing my ship didn't sail. I'm only reading parts where there is Rukia.
The reason I liked them together was because what they do for one another.
Ichigo acts reserved and has been like that ever since his mother died, before that he was very expressive, crying at the drop of a hat. Everyone that knows him, knows this about him. His sisters are so used to this dishonest behavior that when he pretends to not be upset about losing his power, they got visibly mad at him. Rukia managed to get under Ichigo's skin in a few days and ever since she is the single, only person he never even tries acting fake around. She has him completely figured out very early and kept him honest with himself.
Rukia stay frozen in a moment in time, unable to move past the terrible situation she found herself in, but after breaking Ichigo out of his shell, his utter genuineness forced Rukia's world to move forward again. Her self-loathing was shattered and her hopelessness is perpetually staved off by his presence.
For me, the best literary relationships are ones like these, ones where each person becomes a better person by being around the other. I have nothing against Orihime as a character, but her relationship seems so shallow. She likes Ichigo, but he doesn't provide her with anything that improves her as a character, nor vice versa. Ichigo never drops his reserved mask around her and Ichigo never treats or thinks about Orihime any differently than he'd treat any of his female classmates. There was a better character for Orihime who also brought out the best in each other, but that's a topic for another rant.
you described ichigo and orihime
This honestly tracks.... If you know the X-Files, I've heard the creators purposefully tried not to objectify the female lead, so she her relationship with the male lead would not be interpreted romantically. However, this only made the ship more popular among female fans because it wasn't a one-sided male gaze with overt sexualization.
if you think that was ichihime you are completely wrong
Ummmm. Mulder and Scully have been eye f*cking since the pilot. Like every time they were in a scene together, it just oozed sexual tension...it wasn't created to be that way but the actors just have that dynamic
@@CrimsonMey fax. its concerning how quickly people believe the hobbled together explanations and justifications of artists on their work (often times articulating things that weren't a factor at all or words that exist currently but not back when they were actually creating the work) when the work speaks for itself.
Rukia is the only who can smack some sense into Ichigo and make him never give up and kick ass. No matter how hope seems lost.
And orihime
@@lolsnez7542did u just come back because Ichirukis haven’t been converted to Ichihime after making a comment about being biased a month ago?
@@theunknownvoidz1409 i think he just told you the truth
orihime does that as well
@@lolsnez7542 orihime never, only rukia
Damn this video is so relevant I just wanted to say. So thank you fr!
Now, I realize why ichiruki shippers get to say "We know ichigo more than the author" or smthng in that sense and that's maybe because we've been perceiving the series a different way compared to kubo.
And the way you mentioned how you notice how ichiruki moments just feel like 'aren't they too obvious?' like they're into each other ,, It feels good to know that it's just not me and there's a logical explanation behind why we see it that way and some people don't.
I don't know if being a shoujo anime/manga enthusiast has something to do with the way we view the two but yeah it's really sad that in the end, I'm quite disappointed since I've been so sure of them (particularly because I watch it with the female gaze), the hints are just sooo unquestionable (but that doesn't seem to be the case for other ppl so maybe it rlly depends on our perspective :
Wrong video
This made me tear up because I still ship IchiRuki so bad lol. I love all the work and effort you put into this analysis, and it is beautiful!
Wonderful video. I wanted to add that when Ichigo rescues Rukia and is holding her, it parallels what is later revealed about his dad Isshin rescuing his mom in Thousand Year Blood War. It even looks the exact same with both men holding the woman they have saved in the face of danger and not appearing afraid but rather confident to protect the person close to them.
Bad video
Same thing happened to me: I revisited Bleach and here I am. And just like you, IchiRuki back then very heavily affected my view on relationships, and how I view romance now (that Im 30+). I don't think Kubo had intentionally leaned towards portraying the female gaze, but I do think his view on romance and romantic relationships is quite different and unique. Just look at the biggest ships/couples in Bleach: none of them were overly sappy, and all of them ended tragically. He clearly prefers deep yearning and love based on trust and strong friendship. For me, the finale, which I think is the "Ultimate worst case scenario for everyone, one possible future where no one is really happy" was the ultimate sacrifice from Ichigo and Rukia. Yhwach promised he would watch them and come back when they are the happiest, so either Ichigo or Rukia made a sacrifice, and that caused a butterfly effect. I do think it was Rukia, because her wedding came first, and giving up her feelings and happiness does fit in with her personality. It is sad. But the biggest love stories never have a happy ending.
I want to give Kubo the benefit of the doubt that this was his intention from the beginning, as it does fit with the whole "sand and rotator" metaphor, but who knows really. I really like your explanation on their relationship.
yeah difference is ichigo and orihime are a good couple, please dont proyect
@@carloskingdomh good advice, I'll try not to proyect (??? how did you manage to eff up a word so badly?) however, you're on the wrong side of the internet, hun. find ur own playground
Louder 😭😭😭 What most people fail to realize is the emotions between two characters. They only care about the "I love you's" and make us IchiRuki fans seem delusional for seeing through the chemistry, symbolism and emotions between those characters
Right!?? I hate when ichihime shippers only tell us that “we’re still salty and delusional” like pls stop I know how to read do you? 😭😭😭
I watched one video where they called us IchiRuki shippers "groomers" but if we were judging Ichigo on not having sex with Rangiku or Yoruichi, saying Ichigo should've smashed when he was a kid that's a different story.
Funny enough there are tons of comments saying Ichigo ( a 15 at the time ) should sleep with women ( hundreds of years older and says he missed out and if they were in his shoes they would've hit )
Or Isshin and Masaki for example.
@@Marukanitel You know people, they're hypocrites 🤣
th-cam.com/video/zuYtsHIJwlk/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/users/shortszuYtsHIJwlk?feature=share
I watch it and I'll probably watch it again later sometimes. Your analysis is pure gold. I've never realized about the female gaze in Bleach, I do know there are a lot of male gaze in anime (ex: in Neon Genesis Evangelion). To be honest, I start to read the manga version because my cousin suggest it, and back then it was 2019, the manga was already finished. Before I begin, I already knew that Ichiruki is not canon at the end, but after a few chapters, I ask my cousin if they were really not together at the end cause their development and bond seems sooooooo beautiful and strong. I don't understand why Kubo decides to pair them like this, and give a name like Ichika, seriously, huh?
Thank you for your video, it makes my day!
because ichihime and renruki were the ones he mostly wanted and made the most sense, and ichikas name comes from a japanese kanji meaning happy familly a wish from orihime to rukia so whats your point?
@Ashi To yeah fr
@@carloskingdomh She literally says it's a combination of the two most important men in her life's names: Ichigo and Kaien. Straight up cucking Renji
@@reaganthai9529no
Same for me. Bleach introduced to romance in my teen's and when I see ichiruki pics, a nostalgic felling embrace my thoughts. They were my first ship and always will be the most healthy relationship I ever seen in anime. Kubo said they're more than friends and less than lovers, but to me they are my only OTP.
ichihime is better
@@carloskingdomh in what ascpect? Can you mention just one ? Dont think so :D
Haven't seen a pair with such an equal footing as Ichiruki in shounen ever. It was perfectly balanced! I think that is one of the reasons why it wasn't canon :/
Ichihime is another one
@@charliealba7931 no it is not
Yes you have is called ichihime
@@charliealba7931 they were not on equal footing for the entire series orihime literally was trying to catch up to ichigo and it was the reason she was training so hard later on..
@@charliealba7931Ichihime was endgame solely for the fanboys who adored her for superficial reasons. They projected themselves onto Ichigo to score the prettiest girl. Ichihime is DEFINITELY not on equal standing, Orihime was a token gf!!!
god…! I can never move on from these two since they had such a healthy and beautiful relationship! thank you for your analysis. ichiruki will always be my favorite dynamic
You hit it on the head perfectly. When I was really into bleach back in 2012, I remember being heavily into the ichiruki fandom and constantly seeing emphasis on their emotional connection and just overall understanding of each other. I truly believe they have one of the most well-developed male/female dynamic in shounen. It was one of the reasons that made bleach so refreshing to me, because the main female lead wasn't just some damsel in distress, but was actually an equal to the main character. She's someone who was clearly created to be the other half of his character. The only other show that has something like this is fairy tail with Natsu and Lucy, but there is way more fan service scenes and Lucy is almost always the damsel, plus they dont have the deep emotional connection that is emphasized like Ichiruki. With this in mind, it was very hard not to ship and enjoy their dynamic. I see a lot of IH fans in the comments and I don't really get it tbh. Your ship is canon, no one is being delusional. These are literal facts. Ichigo and Rukia have always had a deep emotional connection and sorry to say it but it was highlighted more than IH no matter how hard you try to deny it or write it off as platonic. It was disappointing when they didnt end up together, but I kind of expected it since it was stated in the Soul Society arc that Rukia wanted to remain there since it was her home. I couldnt see her or ichigo uprooting their lives to be together in that way especially when they have friends and family. Also, Kubo stated he wanted Ichigo and Rukia's kids to meet, so thats another reason IMO why he went with the ships he did. He just wanted to continuous of their story through their kids.
Sidenote, I've also seen people try to dismiss their connection and the fact that they had a possibility of getting together because of the age gap, but refuse to acknowledge Isshin and Masaki's relationship or how Ichigo isnt even really human lmao
Lastly, you were completely right about Kubo's writing. It's funny how people are saying you shouldnt criticize the author, but what they fail to realize is that the ending of bleach was completely disappointing and it had nothing to do with the ships. Like you said, Kubo was rushed and you can tell that. He wanted to go out with a bang with the war arc and let it become convoluted. If you were around when Bleach ended, then you would know EVERYONE was disappointed in how it ended which is why it's kinda funny how people who are just now getting into it are touting the series are the best shounen anime ever....when it's just not lol
TLDR ichihime is still better
@@lolsnez7542 Im sure you did read thats why you were triggered enough to reply to me lmaoooooo also I just saw you commented on this video a month ago..... why did you come back.... are you obsessed or something?
@@lolalouiseee its indeed better
@Ryn Harkian yeah fr ichiruki all the way
she didnt said anything right at all
still bamboozled how people think ichihime is better, its canon and that's it. doesn't exactly mean it was a good idea just the one that the author chose. Though i know alot of people will prefer and defend the canon ship just because its canon
Careful, there is a person who is... vehement about zhe/zher's cow sized top muffin of a 'goddess'
Ichihime is better thats a fact sorry you cant read
@@lolsnez7542 cope
@@Emrystatari your ship will never be cannon cope
Lowkey.. As a kid who LITERALLY grew up watching Bleach.
I legit stopped watching once Ichigo & Oriheme got together... it felt forced.
Thanks for making this video, I really enjoyed it. You laid everything out so clearly despite the subject matter being so difficult to put into words.
I like IchiRuki because there's a sense of balance and unconditional closeness which is seemingly governed by powers beyond conventional attraction. The viewer experiences their relationships from both perspectives and their affection is genuine and reciprocated, regardless of whether it's explicitly romantic.
I would add that IchiRuki is associated with symbolism which contributes to its 'specialness'. Butterflies, white and black, death and strawberry - it's like their relationship extends beyond their interactions and merges with the themes of the story and the wider universe. I'm really drawn to fictional relationships which exist in these intangible terms.
IchiRuki must have been my first exposure to a [romantic] relationship which was framed in the female gaze. As a boy who was fed the idea that a woman's attraction was earned through a man's display of hyper-masculinity, it was deeply validating that Rukia's 'gaze' at Ichigo was instead based on their chemistry and the position he holds in her personal development, and vice versa. Moreover, Rukia's experience of Ichigo was easy to empathise with, which gave me a more realistic model of romantic attraction as something which is shared rather than pursued.
I won't argue that IchiRuki is a masterpiece of writing or even anything close, but something about it has kept me invested over the years. It's my comfort-zone, where I'm allowed to indulge in a fantasy of romance and fate within the context of an immensely nostalgic franchise.
Ichiruki is just too good for Bleach.
Ichihime is
@@lolsnez7542 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@lolsnez7542 ichimid ichiruki is better
@@walterwhite1700 I swear this guy be commenting on every ichiruki video.
@@reaganthai9529 youre goddamn right
It's been years. I am still not over it. I will probably never be over it.
Thank you for that video, it's really well researched and insightful.
I believe it was always about Ichigo and Rukia being equals. Even when she was being saved by him, she still desperately tried to protect him, while he desperately tried to protect her. When he lacked power, she gave him hers, when she had none, he lend her his. They had this mutual understanding. It's easy to be close to someone when knowing everything about one another. But there was this beautiful intimacy of them respecting their individual boundaries, but still accepting the other's thoughts and emotions. The amount of trust in another person this requires is insane. It's like saying, hey, I don't know why you feel this way, and how you got here. But I acknowledge your emotions because they are yours, and there must be a valid reason for them, since it's you feeling them. So you don't have to tell me, I will accept them anyway, but if you ever need to tell me, I am here. This is just so selfless and pure it still keeps me up at night.
Never before or after have I seen such a balanced dynamic between a male and a female in a shounen anime.
IchiRuki is life. Always and forever. The only pairing I've ever shipped. They were partners in every sense of the word. And that is the most romantic thing I can think of.
you really could say the same thing about ichigo and orihime
@@carloskingdomh Not really. When Rukia screamed "go back home, idiot, you will get hurt!" Orihime screamed "Kurosaki-kun, please save me!".
Orihime was always in love with Ichigo, and all her motivation was based solely on him.
Don't get me wrong, Ichigo is not toxic to Orihime (like most shounen protagonists from that era would often tend to be, so good work there), but this relationship was never on equal terms, cause Orihime was always infatuated with him.
I mean look at the latest anniversary chapter, the Gates of Hell open, and Orihime does laundry. It's like Kubo-sensei doesn't even want me to take her character seriously.
This is the worst part - she deserved someone who wouldn't look at another girl like Ichigo looked at Rukia. She deserved someone who wouldn't have a soulmate with a "more then friends" relationship with another girl. She also deserved to get character development, not being in love with the same guy since forever.
She was basically this cute, little safety cushion with nice boobs the protagonist can settle for after the bad guys are dealt with. And it's not ok.
Orihime deserved better.
(So did Rukia, Hinata, Sakura, Mikasa and many more, but that is a book material, not a TH-cam comment issue.)
@@NiveaCow
ohhhh you are one of those ehhh? yeah i guess orihime also screamed that she will protect him no matter what is the same right?
orihime was in love with ichigo truth, but her motivation wasnt based on him solely at all
they were on equal terms in character, development and interactions, and orihime wasnt the type to always infatuate about him
ohhh its so sad people like you still keep at with bleach just to missunderstood it even more, ok so whats the big deal? orihime is a mother they are a family and she is doing something completely normal based her life, so your mother didnt do laundry? you dont do laundry at home? what does that have anything to do with her on the chapter? again how the F is she helping in her house not taking her seriously?
no it isnt the worst part since you saw everyhting completely wrong, ohhhh lol so how did ichigo looked at rukia cause last time he always saw themselves as pretty good friends, kid you thinking ichigo and rukia are more than friends when kubo specifically said theya rent is your own damn fault. she did get character development. and how is her being in love with him is a bad thing? you know thats common right?
nope orihime is this kind, brave and not ill mannered girl who grew stronger and more confident with herself throught the series, and given the development they had yes it is ok you not seeing correctly is on you
yes she did, a better spotlight like what other characters had but in terms of character she was pretty good
RUKIA? sorry rukia is basically perfect but by this comment alone you really just told me, you are one of those who read bleach with that wrong kind of mentality and didnt understood it at all, not wasting my time with you
@@carloskingdomh I don't think we would ever agree on the matter, so let's just call it a day, shall we?
You won anyway in the end, so there is no point in arguing, when clearly Kubo saw it your way.
All we, IchiRuki fans have left is videos, fanfiction and fan art. So just let us be in our spaces. :)
@@NiveaCow
This dude is desperate, you can see his comments everywhere. Annoying af.
HUH??? THIS VIDEO!!!! IT WAS GOOD HUH. I thought this video was made by a huge 100k channel. It kept me engaged the whole way and it was really well put. Very good video 10/10 would watch again
thank you so much!! 😊
I highly doubt that kubo didn’t know what he was doing when it came to the female gaze since as a manga artist, you have to plan and sketch out scenes and convey emotions in a limited time and frame space as well. What I think happened is that his audience was most likely male and it was mainly to satisfy them and also the ridiculously short serialization of publication most manga artist go through. Shonen jump is literally targeted to young teen males and not females, however kubo tried to appease both to the point that there are some teen males who also rooted for ichiruki but it didn’t out weigh the ichihime fans.
This doens't makes sense at all
May we all see our broken hearts mended together. I will never forget that warm summer where I first saw Bleach.
You encapsulated just what it is that made Ichigo and Rukia as a romantic pairing stand out from other pairings / leads in stories and especially in contrast to shonen anime. I'm a male fan but I guess I did view Bleach especially early on a female gaze show. It appealed to maturity in a non sexual way. It leaned on emotion and bonding in a raw and honest way. IchiRuki was very much the mutual balance romance where two people mutually grew and cared for one another. Thank you for this video, it was really well researched and thought out. Way better than many of the Bleach videos that explored the series on TH-cam.
She's one of the best because most other Bleach videos are people just trying to downplay the show's other flaws or talk about the power system or worldbuilding
😅i was always so happy that the anime showed that not all love is romantic and sexual in nature. That they weren't afraid to show platonic love.
This was a wonderful analysis! I’m rewatching Bleach and the chemistry between Ichigo and Rukia is so blatantly clear, Kubo knew what he was doing
stop lying
you mean the animation team? kubo was putting his foot down the whole time until he took matters into his own hands 😂
Kubo doens't oversees the anime
@@frobsonsdesenhoslmao yeah he does, he owns the entire IP
@@ImaTroper that's not how It works lol
i refuse to believe that your channel isn't among the biggest yet, girl the amount of work and effort you put in your videos are incredible, yet still so underrated! i really wish your channel will blow up very soon so you can get the success you deserve.
lots of love and do not give up you'll eventually make it big !
thank you so much!! ❤😊your sweet and thoughtful comment made my day omg. It makes the hard work I did worth it!! i also hope more people check out my channel at some point, but I don't mind waiting because it takes a while to build an audience on TH-cam from my understanding. Even if my audience seems small now, I still remember when I only had like 2 subscribers, so i'm very grateful for all the people that have found my channel already! including you! thank you so much for the support
i so agree 💗💗
18:10 "all he says is hey and his eyes are equally as soft as rukia's" (something along those lines)
WHEN I FIRST SAW THAT SCENE I MELTED LITERALLY, IF THAT'S NOT LOVE THEN WHAT IS?
OMGG!!! I don't know how to put in words but I totally agree with you!! I'm Peruvian and I started watching bleach when I was 13 years old in 2008, of course somehow I spiritually died when Kubo released the last chapter of the manga, because somehow it didn't make sense at all for me, but I never couldn't explain myself WHY?! I feel so blessed that I found this video because I literally feel that I've just resolve an investigation case of my adolescence. Thank you so much for this analysis, it's brilliant!!!!
El supremo ichiruki
Hey, never thought I'd see a fellow Peruvian in a vid like this. At least the new anime episodes are really good!
Doesnt exist
Crazy that all it took for a man to write an intimate emotional based romance that wasn’t sexualized, was for him to not intentionally do it
he made ichihime tho
@@MelissaANNdeedeville ichihime is by far more male gazey and less substantive and subtle. Ichihime to me looks like how a guy would write typically write a romance whereas i think ichiruki is probably only as good as it is because he never intended it to be romantic. Kinda like, if a woman character isn’t relegated to a romance that only serves the protagonist or a sexual figure to serve the audience, then they are more free to be more fleshed out respected characters instead. It just so happens that most woman characters that aren’t meant as objects in some way are often very minor characters that don’t end up getting a lot of attention. For sooooome reason
@@Smolharuharu ichihime isnt male gaze at all because if you think ichihime is male gaze the ichiruki is male gaze as well, you are just making excuses, ichihime is like any normal person wether men or woman would write a man and a woman setting up to be in love, sorry are you contradicting yourself? so ichiruki is romantic cause it wasnt set up to be romantic? are you ok? orihime was never relegated to serve as the protagonist love interest or sex object, with that you proved you havent seen bleach at all, ichigo and orihimes relationship was fleshed out and developed for them to become something at the end, then i suggest you to actually read bleach cause orihime was never shown as that
@@MelissaANNdeedeville this is the most fiery response I’ve gotten about anything I’ve said in a very long time. I’m not really in the communities that have shipping drama so this was neat to get a glimpse of. That said i won’t really be trying to prove this stuff because it’s just my opinion and how i read the relationships. I will say though that for you, if you’re at all interested in arguing in good faith, you just kinda have different standards and definitions for things than i do, but you use that as a basis to say i was contradicting myself. But like, my line of thinking is fairly straightforward and fits my definitions and standards. You were the one who asserted that a different view was fact and so i must be contradicting myself. I dunno, seems silly to me. Unless maybe you just genuinely mistook my meaning or something. Either way i don’t think there’s much to be angry about here, though i understand it can be fun to some people to fight about this sort of thing
@@MelissaANNdeedeville Lol IchiHime is the pinnacle of the male gaze. Orihime’s character gets more and more objectified and reduced to fanservice scenes as Ichigo and her have more interactions relating to her position as a love interest.
Nah nah, Kubo knew what he was doing. The backstory with Isshin and Masaki says it all. HE KNEW. He knew IchiRuki had romantic backing, that's why he reused all their elements for Ichigo's parents (really well!!). And he sabotaged it all on PURPOSE. It is SO blatantly obvious it's insane. Every other intimate relationship in the series has elements that are also Ichigo and Rukia's relationship. He KNEW. And yet he threw it all out of spite.
lol this video i may have went off the rails at the end with my odd theory. also it was my only way to cope with how the manga ending happened 😂 like maybe kubo just doesn't see things how i see things??? but as you pointed out the obvious parallels with ichigo's parents were way too in your face to overlook, and one of the reasons when i was reading the manga back then and the reveal of his parents' backstory came out, i seriously thought ichiruki would be endgame back then 'cause of all the parallels. Kubo didn't end it with ichiruki tho even after all that tho... still can't believe the last chapter of the series exists to this day.
@@casualfandomview i read Bleach in 2022 knowing FULL WELL who the canon endgame couples are, intending to ship them and even I was blown away at the fact IchiRuki isnt canon and how much the canon couples are... not good, in comparison, or even in general. The last chapter legit feels like sabotage cuz I can't believe its actually real. I missed out on the meltdowns from 2016 but if i didnt already know Ichihime and Renruki were already canon I wouldve had one too fr
no he didnt knew thats what you say to justify your non existant pairing
@charlskingdomh My dude have you actually watched Bleach?
@@carloskingdomh again, masaki and isshin says it all
ugh thank u for this much needed
for what?
Even though im not really much of a "Bleach" enjoyer, or watcher for the matter. When I started watching it was pretty hard not to ship them. Iv taken a liking to your channel from the amount of unnoticed animes you did videos on such as 91 days. Honestly, keep it on dude. I respect your time into this and overall research and, well 'wording'. Great video, cant wait to see your next one!
thank you for watching my video even though you're not a big Bleach enjoyer! i'm happy to hear you like my channel and the other animes i've done videos on. i'm glad all this research I did amounted to something coherent lol. thanks for sticking around!
I think i had the same journey as you with IchiRuki. I also want to point out that for a big 3 shounen series to have a duo tag team with one male and one female was rare and as you said they were on a equal footing too. I too believe that was a huge part of why I fell in love with the ship tbh to me it still makes the most sense and every now and then when i go back to ichiruki i feel comforted. Both their characters actually were complex and complimented each other so well and if I'm not wrong people still do end up shipping ichiruki even after knowing how it ends simply because of how they are perceived and developed. I know its not my place to say it cuz I too believe anyone can ship who they want and no ship is superior but Ichiruki felt like wasted potential of an almost perfect ship
Me watching this video for the 10000000000000000th time to soothe my salty IchiRuki heart.
L
The last manga chapter absolutely SLAPPED me in the face and told me it hated me.
Maybe because you didnt paid attention yo the series
What I read is that the anime took some creative liberties to make the scenes between Ichigo and Rukia feel more romantic, or as you say, having the female gaze
So nothing she said is true?
@lolsnez7542 Idk there's nothing factual about the ship you like, it's just a matter of perspective
The anime clearly overplayed their moments, with all the long shot and gazes over each other. The manga doesnt do that. They give one panel/page for these then quickly move on for next scene. Now is it because of different medium or the director choice, who knows, but Ichiruki is definitely more hammered down in anime compared to manga.
Still better than nonexistent chemistry that is Ichihime, and I actually like Orihime.
@@meh.96 troll if you think ichihime had no chemistty then you are a miserable liar you dont like orihime and you havent read bleach at all
I started watching anime in college when my younger brother got hook on it. And the reason I got hook on it too coz of Rukia and Ichigo pairing... luv ur video! It brings back old memories. Ichiruki stan forever😍
thank you!! ❤
Perfectly described.. I appreciate this. Thank you!
I'm glad someone sees that too. Gazes, small actions, gestures...
Just with ichihime
@@chawli2782 How? When?
@@andzikowa read the manga
@@chawli2782 I did that, for the third time now. I don't know where do you see the "just with IchiHime" thing.
@@andzikowa then you didnt paid any attention
Going off the intro I guess I have both the "male gaze" and the "female gaze," both terms I think are stupid because physical, sexual attraction and emotional, romantic attraction are BOTH IMPORTANT. One is not better than the other, we are all both object and subject, it is better to acknowledge that rather than value one of the other. Objectification is not a bad thing, so long as you can... "Subjectify" them, I guess? Sexualization isn't an inherently male thing, and emotional attachment isn't inherently a female thing. Hell, the mere act of finding someone or something "hot" or "sexy" is sexualization, and nearly EVERYONE does it, regardless of gender, and EVERYONE can have deep emotional connections, again, regardless of gender! In my opinion, the terms male gaze and female gaze should disappear, we need to treat them as what they are, natural, normal responses for any human being, not an excuse to further the arbitrary gender divide.
THIS im so sick of this whole female gaze thing … it once again reinforces stereotypes about gender
You just said what I thought!! The romance between them was the first time for me to realize that the relationship between boys and girls could be such a nice thing…
There was never romance between them
The fuck kind of sociopathic shit is that. It took a non-canon ship from an anime to help you realize that relationships between the oopposite gender can be good...like what?
Lovely video ☺️! I do think orhime is a character used for the male gaze and fan service, and it sucks that she did not get more arcs outside of HM especially since she had a strong story in the beginning, dealing with her brothers hollow and awakening her fulbring powers.
I started shipping ichiruki on episode 15 I think where ichigo and rukia are talking at the end of school and it’s sunset. She wants to tell him about the soul society coming to execute her but doesn’t want to burden him, and he can tell she’s not okay.
I felt like that scene showed that they both care for one another, and it showcased a start to their bond. Even before that scene there was a scene where the rukia, orhime and the other girls had lunch at school and they asked how rukia felt about him and she paused looking suspicious before saying they are just friends.
She stopped his rain and he is the man in her heart!
Plus the scene where ichigo took in rukias words about him opening up about his mothers death when he is ready. He remembers her words and uses it to talk with his dad when he reveals he’s a soul reaper to him.
It’s so clear kubo changed his mind and that’s okay, but I don’t like how bleach fans are making us ichiruki shippers look delusional. Anyone can ship anything and I have no hate for ichhime shippers, but to say there was zero ichiruki moments is a lie honestly.
I feel like we got baited a lot and we don’t know why, but I’m glad we got all those scenes in the manga, anime and movies of bleach.
Orihimes character isnt just fanservice, and if you think orihime was for the male gaze then also was rukia, and did you ignored her character development and involvment in the series? because she did got more
kubo never changed his mind, this is why you are said to be delusional because you believe stuff that isnt truth
@@julianmaers6535 other than liking ichigo there wasn’t much to orhime as a character. She stopped getting attention or character development after heuco mundo arc. Rukia did get male gaze attention but she did have a lot of character and personality and wasn’t attached to one character (ichigo).
My opinion may be biased but that’s what I think. I can see where you are coming from though.
@ǞЯƮΦЯiǞ РęПDЯǞgΦП Sorry im not going to discuss with someone as close minded as you are but you can think whatever you want.
@@Thesilentvoice... Thats weird because the loast agent arc and thousand year blood war are the arcs orihime gets the most character development sp i really cant see where you are cominf from. So you are ignoring orihimes character and personality as well? And orihime wasnt attached to ichigo yes she did had a crush but it waa ichigos character who helped orihime evolve and improve.
Yes it is but ok thanks for the discussion.
@@julianmaers6535 oh yeah, did Rukias boobs get a bike pump attached to them the further along the story got?
This video was a balm to my soul. Captured so well why I was frawn to Ichiruki and loved them so much. The ending still hurts to this day. 💔
Poor delusional soul
Ichigo and Rukia have one of the most compelling relationships I’ve ever seen in media. I can’t get enough of them ichiruki stand rise up!
I am an ichihime but i am not biased enough to say ichigo was being romantic to anyone for that matter (during the run of the series) because he had more internalized emotional issues to work out + rangiku actually told orihime that he's a silly boy that doesn't understand romantic love yet.
I just felt theres more stuffs ichigo exclusively does for orihime like offering to walk her home, telling shinji to apologize to her, exclusively made a vow to protect her, bothered when shes scared of his mask, felt at peace once she encouraged him to actually care for himself and not to put the burden all to himself, coming from the dead hearing her calling for him, gives gentle look to her, putting down their walls and got familiar to each other in fullbring arc, to the point that both of them can finally stand side by side as equals and accepting each other's help during yhwach's fight as oppose to hueco mundo arc where they were at their lowest point, trying to reject each other's help. In the final arc Ichigo was finally able to depend on others without burdening everything by himself while orihime can finally reject her role of being protected and ichigo trusts her enough to protect him. They are depending on each other and battling together in a synchronized way. This is pivotal to their characters individually as well.
Was those all romantic? At least for me not really, maybe something gradually leading to that. But they have established their dynamic as the sword (ichigo) and the shield (orihime). Thats their kind of dynamic. It also works with the analogy of the sword and the sheath like in rurouni kenshin. Orihime is a great foil to ichigo's personality and it just makes more sense for them to end up together romantically. It really doesn't help when the anime changed numerous small stuffs that ends up changing a huge context as whole, and this applies to ichigo as well not just orihime. Other than that emphasizing or adding ichiruki scenes that wasnt even there in the first place.
Again, there's nothing wrong preferring one to the other but we have to acknowledge both ichiruki and ichihime plays out out different dynamics with ichigo where ichiruki is more of "push past pain" and ichihime is more to "addressing those pain" hence it felt more personal. I just dislike it when people say ichihime had no chemistry/dynamics at all. This is just my opinion btw .
Compelling, respectful , and humble 🤝
Thank you for actually understanding bleach
W take
This is a well-researched and nuanced perspective on the ichiruki relationship and a fair critique of the show/series on the whole. Good job CFW.
I had previously never heard of the "female/feminine gaze" and I should like to watch that talk by Soloway and learn more.
Two potential examples of the female gaze that I could think of would be (first) Ulquiorra and Orihime's interactions (feel free to disagree). 1) Emotions - Ulquiorra was seen as emotionless/numb but really he was emotionally constipated and deeply confused, bound by orders from his "master". Orihime brought different emotions out of him with her words alone. The reverse is also true, an Orihime that never got mad or outwardly showed her internal grief and sorrow (not even to Ichigo or Tatsuki) was suddenly exposed by him calling her out, again with words and eyes. She even went so far as to slap him. He challenged her in a way that brought out a strength and courage in her that we never got to see... arguably any other time. 2) Gazed gaze - Ulquiorra and Orihime's interactions include verbal discourse and nonverbal communication through glances both anime and manga. Obviously Ulqui is a man of few words and while Orihime was often oblivious to communications among other characters she was perfectly in tune to his glances; she understood them perfectly. 3) Returned gaze - yes, you often see them gazing at each other in these meaningful, drawn out sequences both anime and manga. 4) Small actions - her slapping him, which I saw as Orihime utilizing power over someone else which is character growth for her - if, a little aggressive lol it's anime!! The scene where he asks her if I rip open your heart will I find the heart there? Okay he's a little sociopathic there but he's an emotional fledgling... it was his way of asking where heart and feelings exist. He never actually touched or harmed her. If anything, he genuinely listened to her talk more than any other character aside from Tatsuki. He respected her mind and body. And the final nail: Ulquiorra's last moment where he reaches out and asks her if she's afraid of him, she says no and reaches back. At this point their relationship had progressed from an unfeeling arrancar taking care of a hostage and interrogating her naivete while she confidently defends her beliefs and friends, to a creature that found an interest in humanity, friendship, and bonds and a girl that was capable of questioning her reality and found she was stronger than she realized. Their interactions were built on gazes, gazes returned, the little things. Had they been allowed it could have been some more interesting development and exploration of human emotions. But welp. All's well that ends well?
Another problematic relationship is featured in The Case Files of Jeweler Richard. Without giving it all away, some fans were upset that a huge portion of the show was seemingly queerbait and viewers were not made aware of this until the final episode. I was among the disappointed. It felt to me like the creator found something that was highly marketable, but either he didn't understand how much he really utilized the female gaze or he genuinely didn't care. It's upsetting either way. I sometimes feel like authors, mangakas, various creators from many different backgrounds HATE their characters. Lol. Otherwise why would they do this to them?? Let them grow, be challenged, love and be loved equally, or at least be able to choose for themselves (open endings).
you could say that ichigo and orihimes relationship work the same way
Omg no let's not compare bleach with tcfjr!😭
Tcfjr IS NOT QUEERBAITING nor should you feel that way about it at all!
- There is the anime, which is extremely ambiguous but has subtext and an open ending where no one specifies their relationships or their sexual orientation yet
- And then there is the novel that shows more clearly how Richard and Seigi are slowly trying to understand their feelings for each other and how important they are to each other
None is queerbaiting
Utako Yukihiro, the author knows and understands the bond between Seigi and Richard better than anyone else and it is shown in her work that she is very aware of the queer spectrum
I'm not sure if you read the novel, I don't want to give spoilers if you don't, but it's definitely not queerbaiting.
People are pretending like men are the only one who ever sexualize anything. It's not just a male gaze or female gaze. It's just viewing stories in different ways and gendering it is stupid and only incites division
As someone who grew up shipping IchiRuki I've personally grown to see them more as very close siblings that aren't related by blood, rather than being romantically interested in one another. And that was even before he and Orihime became an item. I think his dynamic with Rukia very much reflects his dynamic with his sisters, particularly Karin. They bicker and fight but at the end of the day care very deeply for one another, but not in a romantic or sexual way. I honestly love Ichigo and Rukia being extremely close, platonic friends since it's a good ecample of two people of opposite sexes being extremely close and intimate friends without it being romantic.
I grew up shipping Ichiruki during the stage I cringed so hard at anything smell remotely like romance, especially in older days' shonen series, because they just semmed tacked on with no purpose and distracting from the main plot and theming of the stoery. Romance to me at that time was just so cringey and superficial, but Ichiruki struck different to me with how their relationship build naturally and not from (to me at that time) cringey crush.
Sure as I grow up I become more open to romance and I understand even what started off with typical perv-gaze attraction can bloom into something genuine. But Ichiruki just still held special place with the man and woman were on equal footing and not just blatant hero and his damsel (and bro the whole the rain has stopped poetic thing and how the rain continued when Ichigo lost his powers). I already lost interest during TYBW original manga run after Byakuya's cop-out death and dropped it after I found out how lame Squad 0 was. When I came back to read the last chapters for the sake of completing my childhood hyperfixation, I was upset to see how the end pairings were set up (I'm actually more upset with Renruki than Ichihime like cmon girl you deserve more than that loser, and I said this as a diehard Renji fan. Man's so cool and hot but he's too pathetic for that).
They kinda reminds me of my own mom and dad. Well, nope they weren't fighting soul monsters like Ichiruki, and they didn't playful bicker much but they came off from gentle friendship and understanding from years of friendship, and neither was obviously crushing in the other.
But again, there's no accounting in taste, and people have different view on things. It's just in the shallow world we're in nowadays genuine relationship built on mutual understanding almost seems like an impossible daydream, something like Ichiruki is just so comforting.
(And maybe if Kubo actually developed the same level of attention and chemistry for Ichihime like what Ichiruki had, I probably would've warmed up to it more than just tepid indifference I have for them)
@@fz_dracohart1255 I absolutely agree that RenjixRukia and IchigoxOrohime felt very shallow and tacked on. They have very little chemistry.
@@765craven4I would've liked it better if no one is end up with anyone tbh. Sure to some it's a cop out, but if Kubo doesn't give a damn to romance like many info said then he should've beennfine with no endgame romantic pairing right? Besides, it's also realistic that you don't end up marrying either your highschool crush or childhood friend. Better than having some tacked on romance I ABSOLUTELY despise from all shonen titles, especially from Jump.
@@fz_dracohart1255 That's absolutely true. But at the same time it's important to remember that these shows are fantasies with characters who definitely aren't all that realistic. I don't think many actual 15 year olds would be able to pull off the stuff Ichigo does very early in the show. The same could be said of Kagome in Inuyasha, or 14 year old Yoko in Gurren Lagann.
This video is pure gold, many years have passed and the fans of this couple continue to increase. This ship will always be the only one.
I think you are confusing that with ichihime which is the one thats increasing and more popular
@@chawli2782 If IchiHime gets more popular it isn't really a flex though, it's been 6 years already.
@@flipmonke imagine flexing a ship getting popular only AFTER it was confirmed canon, since IchiHime was bottom of the barrel in terms of popularity when Bleach was still going on that RenRuki had to be the one they had to milk for one of the novels lmao but even besides that, IchiRuki is still the more popular one after 6 years which says a lot
@@gaslightgatekeepgirlboss6321
I don't know if it still is but just the fact that they're still trying to argue with us says a lot. They ask IRs to move on but can't move on from IR themselves, i wonder why.
@@flipmonke i think theyre just salty that despite all this time IR is still the more popular and favored among fans, both Western and Japanese. Even new readers, they split between shipping IR (like I did, i read Bleach in 2022) or just "going along with canon" which isnt the same as shipping. I'd be sad too lmao. "Planned canon from the start" and yet Kubo couldn't convince the majority of readers when Bleach was still going lmao
Watched til the end, it's great you found soo many examples
You mean fake examples?
id love to hear your video essay on why they're fake
A late comment to your video, but I appreciate how well you described the impact of these subtle moments. Those were actually a great way of breaking down how to deliver impactful romantic moments for an audience even outside of just anime media. I wasn't aware of many of these techniques, and your video felt like it turned on a lightbulb for me since they're littered everywhere in books, comics, and movies but never really registered to me how they made those scenes so effective before.
Thank you so much! 💜 glad you enjoyed how I described the subtle moments. I think they're essential to writing a captivating romance!
Even though I disagree, I absolutely love this video and your take here because it got me reflect on the series. I did not ship Ichigo with Orihime, but it looked pretty obvious to me.
24:03 This is an interesting point here about Ichigo turning his back to an enemy here to save Rukia when he felt she was losing, but Ichigo also did the same with Chad when he was fighting Kenpachi in Soul Society. He wanted to run over to save Chad, but Kenpachi wouldn't let him.
Ichigo is noticeably softer and little more thoughtful than normal around Orihime. Small stuff like offering to walk her home or saying he has always been keeping an eye on her since the accident with her brother. Or the time where Shinji was being inappropriate with Orihime. It was really noticeable how angry he was with Shinji. Ichigo even made it a point to insist Shinji go and apologize.
Rukia and Ichigo are best friends. Definitely saw them as being close and emotional with one another.Or also, I don't know actually. Your romantic partner can most certainly be your best friend, however, I feel the reason many saw Ichigo and Rukia as being a ship is because Male and Female characters hardly ever get to be intimate with each other onscreen without them being a romantic or sexual relationship.
At least you disagree
I loved IchiRuki back then. But I'm not gonna talk about it.
Instead I have some harsh critiques of the female gaze as a concept. Namely, the female gaze is just a bunch of gender stereotypes repackaged under fake progressive lenses.
Women historically are socialized to not speak out, to not express how we really feel, so we were forced to speak in code, speak without being obvious. We had to be subtle. Great example - we would say "Sure, Honey" when the male members of our social lives told us to vote one candidate, then vote who we actually wanted and never let them know about it.
In fact when we do speak out and express ourselves, we're called hysterical, we're called crazy, we're called overly emotional. I don't need to explain why this was all nonsense.
So when people like Soloway talks about how female gaze is nonsexual in nature and more based on emotion, that unfortunately typecasts female perspective as emotional, reactive, and "oh she doesn't want sex but he does" in a way that makes me feel gross.
I feel like you’re overgeneralizing a lot of differing historical and cultural norms but sure.
Something I never understood about these feminist systems of classification is why they insist on having one concept be for one sex, and the another concept for the other.
In my own personal experience, I've met plenty of women who like to be horny, stare at, and objectify men, and plenty of men, myself included, who want a mutual emotional connection. Hell, most people are some mixture of the two ideas. Why must they be the exclusive territory of one sex?
Well said
I will love this video so much, I loved their chemistry from the beginning and am very excited for this video😁
Honestly, Kubo probably wrote both Rukia and Orihime as love interests, flipped a coin, then said: alright looks like this is the half of the fan base that’s gonna get pissed off.
No
No who's telling you this gibberish.
I don't think it mattered much
This is honestly a big example of some of the issues with the anime/manga trope of never having clear cut romances until the very end. If it was Ichihime from the start then none of these issues would have happened. We'd have known from the start that Ichigo and Rukia wasn't the goal
It's not that the romances aren't clear cut, it's more the relationship, the girl, is the prize for the main character at the end. There's no need to build up, because the female character that outwardly pines the most, regardless if it is reciprocated, is the one that he is going to end up with
@@xLadyRaine wrong
we knew it from the arrancar arc what the hell is wrong with you
@@chawli2782 found you again. Unhinged to the extreme
Huh, IchixRukia wasn't obvious at all for me when I read Bleach, contrary to IchixHime. The fact that I don't really care about Rukia as a character doesn't help.
I like the mirroring of his parents too, because instead of him falling for a Quincy-he fell for a soul reaper. It would’ve been Rukia in a gigai
Oh my god you gave me a very different view of Ichigo and Rukia it makes me love them more and appreciate their relationship, and I love how you mentioned Ichigo's voice in English cause I thought I was the only one thinking that I almost went crazy lol you saved my life
So glad i stumbled on to this, ive always thought as an anime watcher and a manga reader of bleach that the chemistry between the two was just so much more romantically present than anything Ichigo had with Orihime. Not to mention who kubo ended up pairing her off with seemed bizarre
Yeah sorry to burst your bubble but you are not fooling anyone you havent read the manga and it shows, the relationship between ichigo and rukia was never romantic in fact most romantic moments were for the cano couples, if you think it wad.bizarre you are one a on liar
I love this sm man ichiruki the only right answer man !
I still come back to this video, and I cannot describe how much it affected me and changed something in me.
You mean it made you a delusional person as well?
U have made so much sense of why their relationship is so special. Mega kudos to u!
Ichiruki is one of the best ships from shonen (another good one is Ed x Winry) and yeah, the female gaze has a lot to do about it, intentional or not Kubo managed to build a relationship of mutual respect (thing that women in shonen rarely get), even if you see it as a romance or just platonic, their bond shines through. Maybe, with time male authors may learn how to write more complex female characters... and give them the development their male counterparts get
and ichihime is better
@@carloskingdomh lol i mean feel free to like it but there is a reason most of the fandom prefers the former
@@graceross4888 the real fandom prefers ichihime
@@carloskingdomh not really, the ship and even Orihime always perform very badly at polls and merch, Rukia and Ichigo on merch is always sold out, it's still the #1 pairing
@@graceross4888 yeah thats a lie its obvious you dont know
Not to mention they have a movie together as in Ichigo saving Rukia again and being the only one who remembers her name, besides Kon and a few others... Fade to Black which literally made me think they're canon (sadly the movie isn't considered a canon I think?)
that movie is filler and means nothing
And what's even better is ichigo's shinigami lineage, which would make it even more logical to ship them together, since there is a lot of connections with rukia and just the shinigami world overall. It's a shame that Bleach turned out the way it is, but nevertheless I still enjoy it and am looking forward to it's future.
Yes. Eventually Orihime will die because she's just human unlike Rukia and Ichigo, both are shinigami. Honestly, Orihime and Ichigo make no sense. They don't have chemistry unlike Ichigo and Rukia.
@@ไอ้พวกอิสลาม lmao
I don't think Ichigo's shinigami lineage matters that much. He is still human and never had an interest in living a non-human/shinigami life in that sense. Plus, part of Rukia's story is about breaking SS (nobles) traditions like what happened when Byakuya married her sister and then adopted Rukia. And that's pretty much what she continued to do by marrying Renji - a commoner. Ultimately even if IchiRuki was romantic their life goals are too different to work out in that way.
@@evelina2619 I see your point, one way to write it would be to associate the story of Byakuya, recreating the relationship he had, which is not wrong and it works well. I just personally would’ve liked Ichigo’s father’s route to be recreated till the end, for it was done from the start and would fit too. Ichigo’s mother was Quincy, but still human and father shinigami. It would then be as reversed roles, but whole route the same.
Timestamps:
00:00 - 1:37 Intro
1:38 - 4:38 The Male Gaze Vs. The Female Gaze (as defined by Joey Soloway in TIFF 2016) 👁
4:39 - 6:41 Adding to Soloway's Definition of the Female Gaze 🧐🖐
6:41 - 7:31 How does Bleach, a Shonen anime have the Female Gaze?? It's a Shonen! ❓🤔
Examples of the Female Gaze:
7:32 - 9:00 Equal Footing 🏃♀️🏃♂️
9:00 - 13:52 Prioritizing Emotions 💕
13:53 - 22:00 The Return of the Gaze 👁
22:01 - 25:07 Small Actions ✨
Ending Segment:
25:08 - 32:29 The Implications of the Female Gaze 🔍
32:29 - 33:35 General Thoughts on Rewatching Bleach (AND Ichigo's dub voice actor?! How did I forget he sounded like this?)
33:35 - 35:23 My Final Thoughts on Ichiruki & Video Outro 🙃
Note: This video references and quotes Joey Soloway's Female Gaze theory and applies their theory to the anime Bleach specifically. I used their theory of the female gaze as a lens to analyze Ichigo and Rukia's relationship throughout the video. Joey changed their name in 2020 and I had based this video off of my university notes which referred to them as their previous name while I was studying in school; Also in the screenshot I took back when I made this video TIFF still had their previous name, Jill, up on the TH-cam title of the video I was referencing, so I assumed that was the name they went by when I watched their TIFF master class speech. This is a mistake on my part and I'm sorry for it. Now I know to research more thoroughly before releasing a video. I just wanted to correct my careless mistake here: their name is Joey Soloway!!! And this video was based upon their theory!
Their relationship honestly reminds me of InuKago from Inuyasha
I also hate when two characters that are canonically together look like siblings, like Ichiho and Orihime have the damn near same color palettes?? They could be twins without context i can’t stand it
Ichigo and orihime do not look siblings at all weirdo and last i checked are you saying people with same hair colour are siblings? Please shut up
Didn’t Kubo say he never wanted to make the story romantic? I could be getting him and another writer mixed up. But I always saw their relationship as romantic. You are so right about the dub actor sounding flirty! Because he never sounds like with anyone else
He just said that but what did he do in the ending? He just paired Ichigo with Orihime (useless and annoying damsel in distress)! He just threw all the solid development of Ichigo-Rukia relationship all through out Bleach with forced pairing of Ichigo and Orihime! I will never accept that canon. Never. For me, its still IchiRuki forever.
First it was never a romantic. Ichigo says as much. Soul society " in the Shiba estate says " i am here to save rukia,for giving me a human the power of a soul reaper yo save my family, if I just stayed put and not save her and she was killed,I couldn't face my future self"
That's it, plain as day.
Bleach 2nd theme is " Balance" he uses quincy and hollow,, soul reaper and the quincy. Orihime had the same backstory as ichigo. Orihime took the route of forgiving her self,making friends and living a life free of the chains her brother wouldn't of wanted. Ichigo DIDN'T he never looked inward and never forgave his pass " shortcomings "
Isshin and ryuken how ryuken always took the burden and guilt of katagiri.and distanced himself from uryu and quincy.
Isshin knew masaki would never be replaced,isshin knew he couldn't take it on alone. He gave em roles in the house to make up for masaki and so she could feel at peace.
Ship who you want,but this was never kubos intent. So the ship is Objectively no where to be found. Also sending a man death threats over that...sorry I don't care its not cannon it's fan fiction
@@hollowify_tensa_zangetsuthis debate is terrible 😭 you bring up the fact he goes to save her because she gave him powers but not the fact that they’re friends and we see multiple scenes of him missing her during this time as well as breaking down when rukia is taken. Something he didn’t do for orihime. Orihime didn’t have the same backstory where did u get this 😭 if anything rukias backstory has more similarities to ichigos then orihimes. Also have u seen the parallels of ichigo and rukia?? Rukia and ichigo are shown more of a duo then ichigo and orihime and might I add that orihime kissed Ichigo when he was asleep which is basically assault. Kubo literally said that orihime was the main heroine even though he gave her nothing and gave rukia everything. Hell if you look at the last chapter we see for the first time 2 characters on the front of the manga and it was Ichigo and rukia. Nobody is saying that orihime shouldn’t have gotten with Ichigo. We’re saying that orihime got little to nothing and rukia was built more towards Ichigo as a character. You do have to remember that kubo was rushed because of his sickness so we can’t blame him. I agree that he shouldn’t get death threats for it.
Wow that was awesome. Instead of just Ichigo being like "Wow she's hot!" and checking her out, the way the bond between them always was felt so strong to me. Much of the time an anime has the perspective of the male protagonist looking at the female characters, but I like how Bleach mixed it up. Someone before the manga ended said if Ichiruki doesn't happen that Bleach was ubertrolling, and that's sorta how it felt. It felt a little weird to me how it ended. I mean it's ok, kinda moved on for the most point, but still a very insightful video.
Because Ichigo isn't that kind of character. It's a byproduct of good writing on Ichigo and Rukia's behalf that let them properly mesh together
I know saying 'I feel seen' is a dead meme and all but this video legit expresses my frustration in such an eloquent way.
So both of you are wrong?
@@lolsnez7542for and to my 'male gaze'... _...yes._
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS. it’s incredibly frustrating that so many love and care was crafted into this relationship for it not to be canon. Not to say that soulmates always have to end up together but what we got was SO dissatisfying.
I can’t tell you how pissed I was when Rukia did not end up with this man. I was so confused smh
then that tells me you didnt read the manga, or didnt paid attention to it
@@terrarionaqu5262 I didn’t read the manga. The anime was definitely deceptive.
@@Blackmamba_yellowfit yeah cause it added scenes that werent in the manga that even kubo was mad about, sorry but thats on you ichihime is the better pairing
@@Blackmamba_yellowfit cause it added scenes that even the author was mad about, its on you if you see it this way, ichigo and orihime is the one that was developed
@@terrarionaqu5262 lol ok but would you agree that in the anime Ichigo and Rukia made more sense? Not manga just the anime.
27:04 You're absolutely right. Kubo is a troll but he also has a very specific "show don't tell" writing style. The way he panels automatically lends itself to the female gaze because he leaves many things unsaid and open to interpretation. Sometimes he literally just has blank backgrounds while two characters have eyesmex with their hair blowing in the wind, and the reader is left to their imagination. Really? This is the main reason I don't think it's a stretch for people to be pissed off that he mislead them. While he didn't intend for IchiRuki to be romantic, he used a TON of romantic cues seen in other media for them (whether by accident or otherwise). On the flip side, Kubo is a dude and it's equally reasonable that he himself did not interpret Bleach from the female gaze. But it still feels jarring to borrow so many romantic cues, slap them on the most well-developed, reciprocal and profound relationship in the series, and have them marry other people at the end.
In hindsight I do think Kubo created Orihime as the token "love interest" from the getgo but she and IchiHime are sadly underdeveloped in comparison. I also believe him when he said he planned the ending with Ichika and Kazui from the start. I just think by nature of being the protagonists, IchiRuki ended up developing natural chemistry that surpassed what Kubo originally planned. This frequently happens to writers - when characters start coming alive and start writing the story themselves. If you force an ending or plot point against what the characters would naturally do, it can feel very jarring and out of character to the readers.
After all these years, I just want to understand how in the world Kubo and I saw two entirely different series. I just want to make sense of that ending and every character he retconned in the main cast. While it was a fun ride at first, Bleach is the reason I will never emotionally invest in another long running series again without knowing the end first.
no she isnt right nothing in this video is right
@@carloskingdomh chill out, ichihime is canon since the final bleach chapter came out. Unless you are INSECURE w/ the fact the ending was mid AF and the development between Ichigo and orihime was no different than stale white bread…
@@carloskingdomh the fact that you need to comment on a video that is venting on a series that concluded over half a decade ago proves to me that you knew the ending could’ve been better. Isshin and Masaki had better romance development than Ichigo and Orihime. Gin and Rangiku had a better romance subtext. That’s pathetic because they were SIDE characters. Go bask in your ship’s glory somewhere else, you are to this very day obviously looking for trouble instead of trying to not be a disappointment in your mommy and daddy’s eye 🤡 🎪
@@ChocoBuns420 are you butthurt cause your parents dont love you?
@@ChocoBuns420 ooooo, girl u ATE that scrumdidlyumyum by pur purrr
Looking back on Bleach, I realized that IchiRuki is one of the best written couple (rip canon) ever? Like it's better than a lot of shojo manga I know??
It's funny that it's from a shonen of all thing!
Well I must say because Ichigo has actual flaws and it's not romantically idealised as shojo males as
Sigh, really wanted to watch this.
But saying that Thor being shirtless is still the "male gaze" but for women is braindead...
Are you seriously expected me to believe the women in the theaters cheering for a shirtless Hemsworth are just brainwashed into the male gaze?
Touch grass.
Feminists are always that dishonest
the "talk" they had on episode 8 while running downstairs? the moment when they said their goodbyes because Ichigo was losing his power? the moment Ichigo was crying in the rain in the fullbringer saga because he lost his power AGAIN and in the exact second Rukia appears the rain INSTANTLY stops?
nah that ship HAD to happen, i still belive this was just a mandela effect and i got sent to a different reality bruh bc there's no way.
Stop confusing friendship with love, its pathetic
@@lolsnez7542 friendship is a part of love,stop confusing lust with love
Ichiruki in the end would have had more for how she showed us things! Everyone sees the interpretation they like, and everyone now says that Ichihime is the perfect couple because the manga ended like this (Even if it's not finished yet). But in terms of storytelling if you always show me the protagonists of a story together and show me different scenes in the manga/anime/film (like Fade to Black) where you give me clues that their friendship will develop and then eventually finally you put together the male protagonist with a character who supports them and the female one with the childhood friend you have the wrong approach from the beginning. Canon or non-canon some scenes are equivocal and Kubo explained the matter of couples badly, some interactions between the characters should have been set better.
Example In the scene in the manga where Ichigo regains his powers after being pierced by the reishi sword that Rukia is wielding in his hand, strong emotions appear on his face at the fact of having seen her again (she and all the other shinigami on the scene, but first you see) you don't get moved like that for a friend. Had Orihime been more up front and built a stronger character on her it would all have made sense.
In short, for a love that according to Kubo is platonic, you shouldn't set up all those parallels like:
-Tha black sun and White Moon
-Their bankai/transformations that are respectively black and white: Mugetsu and Hakka no Togame
- Ichigo who saves Rukia in the Soul Society and Isshin who saves Masaki in the human world
Nice lies
@@lolsnez7542 relaunch: what a nice idiot comment
Relaunch: what a nice idiotic comment. And I want to clarify: these are my observations, carefully argued, they are not the truth of the facts.
a lie is a false statement, made intentionally to mislead others, or to hide one's own fault or the truth. I don't think this is the case.
@@RukiaKuchiki9224 lol this is person is literally lurking in the comment section. All they say is "you are liar" instead of arguing properly. But I guess I could understand, after alll, how could you argue a very poorly developed relationship (if indeed intended to be the romantic one) in intellectual manner?
like you see, you are free to ship whatever. Plus dont speak as tho people dont have the right to demand for a better romantic relationship esp in shounen when female love interests are reduced to such (because surprise surprise a lot of these authors couldnt portray a woman and relationship with men, romantic or otherwise)
people are disappointed because we have this ship that sogood that it's so overwhelmingly popular, when typically MxM are popular ships (and this could be explained because mxm friendships are portrayed more intimately that people couldnt help but gravitated to beauty of such relationship)
anyways, i am one year behind but i want to say that Ichigo do have strongest reaction to Rukia. He have been more vulnerable with Rukia, and i guess the circumstances allowed them which further their bond. People like to argue they are only friends, but cmon, is it too much to ask for an endgame canon ship to feel organic and believable? not to mention that the parallels have romantic implication/association further than the fact Ichigo's parents have the same framing of the rescue scene. Like nah, i dont think that Kubo is that dumb.
This video helped me rationalize why Sora and Riku from Kingdom Hearts have more chemistry than Kairi and Sora.
This just tells me you havent played kingdom hearts or read bleach
@lolsnez7542 I dunno what your instinct is telling you, but I've played the entire KH series from the rip. I've also read and watched all of bleach.
@@CherikoSolthen you are a liar
This perspective is refreshing
It isnt
@@lolsnez7542, sure thing, bot.
@@edgarmuniz8331sure it is. kid
Honestly the fact that they didn't get together was a crime I'll never forgive.
You wouldnt know what a real crime even if yout house were robbed in front of you
Another thing that’s interesting is how kubo talks about ichigo and Rukia in interviews compared to any aspect of orihime. He would say something like “whenever I draw rukia, I just have to draw ichigo with her, it just feels wrong with one being without other and” then he just goes on and on about their relationship just to give some throwaway statement when questioned about orihime just to go back to ichiruki. I can only think ichihime won not because kubo had any plan for it, but for all the hate orihime got in the beginning of the series so he just gave her a lot more presence and ultimately winning to troll his haters sadly
And then kubo even wrote the script to the fade to black movie
@@crownlotus6007 he didnt
No he made orihime with ichigo to troll anyone but because thats what he always wanted
@@lolsnez7542 I would have to politely disagree, the proof is in the plot. In the end of bleach, ywhach was gonna destroy everything because it was becoming the fufilled timeline, after ichigo beat ywhach he could still come back. So everyone had to make this timeline the most unfulfilled; ichigo marrying orihime when he doesn’t even care for her like rukia and staying in karakura with his boring life when he’s not even supposed to be allowed there bc he’s too strong and he hated that boring normal life, rukia marrying renji even though she’s more fond of ichigo and renji did attack her and almost kill uryu, uryu became a doctor even he doesn’t want anything to do with his dad, and chad became a boxer which goes against his entire character and story of “using your fists to protect others.” Also when kazui touched ywhach reiatsu when it reappeared, he completely disappeared.
@@crownlotus6007 you know thats a lie right? No one had to make a time line in which they are sad, thats an excuse made from people who cant read and missunderstood juha bachs words
For me, their friendship is more interesting, then their possible romantic development.
Then my question would be: What negative difference would you expect there to be?
Of course "IHs" had to come here. They're funny.
Don't act like you guys were any better lol
@@frobsonsdesenhos I don't even care anymore, just thought at the time that yall get too pressed to defend a so called "perfect canon ship", thats all. Peace.
@@flipmonke IH? IR? What about IchiShida??
@@ununun9995 Peak
I think canon matters...if the series didn't end the debate then you can have videos like this with no problem but people who stay in denial for what they wanted and perceived can be critiqued
thank you so much for this video. it made me think about my favorite ship in a new way and explained a lot. 🧡💜
the anime also got rid of a lot of interactions between ichigo and orihime early on, made her character into much more of a bimbo, and got rid of their friendship that had already existed prior to rukia coming along and that was potentially going to develop into something more. i think ichigo even had a potential crush on orihime early on that was taken out of the anime cuz the anime team thought he was going to end up with rukia and wanted to make that more obvious.
point is, the ichigo orihime thread is better and less out of the blue in the manga.
i like both ships
Best female gaze explanations on TH-cam I ever seen
Worst*
To this day I still think the best kind of love in fiction (and out of fiction) is the type where the two characters are equal but different, the type that challenges each other to continue to be the best versions of themselves, the type to smack some sense into each other and to bring hope to each other when all hope seems lost, the type that the two are individuals but they come to a mutual understanding of each other. Ichigo x Rukia's soul-bond is a great representation of this kind of relationship. Another one, dare I say, is Naruto x Sasuke :D But it's almost impossible to have Japanese authors end their stories in these pairings in a mainstream shonen manga, especially the second one.
you described ichigo and orihime