Tite Kubo's Bleach follows the story of a group of people called Shinigami, who shepherd souls from the land of the living to the land of the dead and work to maintain balance between the two. There are probably some real perks to being a Shinigami and having all sorts of spiritual and magical powers at your disposal.
But we can imagine there are also some real downsides to living outside of the human world and having to interact with it differently because of that. Here are five ways that we think being a Shinigami would be pretty cool and five ways that it’s probably completely awful.
10 Great: Help Lost Souls
You can’t go wrong with a little job satisfaction, and we bet that Shinigami often feel pretty great about what they get to do on the day to day. The main job for Shinigami is to guide lost souls into the afterlife once the person in the human world they’re connected to has died.
While it’s probably a challenging task, the Shinigami do have a special place in the way the universe works, and they make sure that the souls in their care get to the places they need to go.
9 Sucks: They Can Be Incinerated
One of the things that gives Shinigami their power is their Reiryoku, which is the spiritual force within them. Shinigami can manipulate this force in order to use it during battle and can control its release, called the Reiatsu, with a vent on their wrists.
This all sounds pretty good, except that it’s possible for this vent to get blocked up, which doesn’t give the pressure of the Reiatsu a release. Essentially, this means that a Shinigami can get burned from the inside out by their own spiritual power. That’s got to be a pretty big downside to having it.
8 Great: Invisible To Those Without Spiritual Powers
It definitely seems like it would be pretty great to be able to move around the world without worrying about people seeing what you’re doing. Shinigami are actually invisible in the human world, except to people who have spiritual powers.
This means that they can mostly go about their business of fighting Hollows and collecting lost souls without anyone even noticing they’re there or being affected by it. It honestly seems pretty ideal to be able to do our jobs without outsiders who don’t know what’s going on interfering or freaking out.
7 Sucks: Invisible To Those Without Spiritual Powers
On the other hand, being invisible might not necessarily be all it’s cracked up to be. Sure, it makes it easier to move around in the human world, and it generally keeps humans safe and out of their affairs, but it also must get pretty lonely.
Yes, there are other Shinigami to talk to, but being able to interact with the human world, especially considering that Shinigami used to be humans, would probably be a nice reprieve. Plus, when things go badly with battles in the human world, it would probably be much more pleasant to just be able to explain what happened, instead of having to come up with some other excuse for it.
6 Great: Get Paid
This is one of the best things about being a Shinigami, in our books. Their jobs certainly seem like something they just have to do because they’re Shinigami and not something that is actually a profession.
But contrary to that belief, Shinigami do get paid for their services, which is probably a great incentive to show up for work to shepherd those lost souls. On top of that, they can earn a bounty for killing Hollows. A steady salary and the possibility to earn commissions? That sounds like a pretty good deal.
5 Sucks: Soul Governance
On the other hand, paid work also means accountability, and Shinigami aren’t just running around saving lost souls and killing Hollows. Much like police officers, there’s also all the paperwork that goes into doing their jobs at the end of the day.
Shinigami are responsible for making sure that there’s a good balance of souls in Soul Society and traveling back to the human world for reincarnation, which means there’s a lot of keeping track of that flow and making sure everything is as it should be. This sounds pretty tedious to us and doesn’t seem like it would be the best part of the job.
4 Great: Longevity
Because Shinigami don’t live in the human world, they don’t age in the same way that humans do. That means that they’re very long-lived, and they don’t appear to grow older at the same rate that humans might.
While they’re not immortal, the idea of remaining young and healthy for much longer than humans seems like a pretty good deal, especially since Shinigami spend most of their lives around the souls of the dead. Not having to worry about getting old for a long time means they can continue to do their jobs but also can enjoy the perks of being young.
3 Sucks: Spiritual Powers Are Limited
Shinigami have pretty powerful spiritual abilities, which are necessary since they are often fighting creatures that have their own impressive powers. But when Shinigami have to go into the human world, their powers are limited by about 80 percent of what they are in the spirit world.
This is to keep them from causing too much destruction or putting humans in too much danger, which definitely makes sense. But still, when you’re used to operating at a certain level, being forced to change that level seems like it would be pretty frustrating, and if the Hollow they’re fighting is really strong, it can also put them in a lot of danger.
2 Great: Hard To Kill
Similarly to the fact that Shinigami are long-lived, they are also pretty hard to kill. This is good since so much of their job is violent and involves trying to kill things that are trying to kill them.
While Shinigami aren’t invincible, they can sustain injuries and survive them when the same injuries would probably kill a regular human. The only surefire way to kill a Shinigami is to cut off their head. Having that kind of security in knowing that you’re probably going to be okay no matter what happens has to be a pretty good perk of being a Shinigami.
1 Sucks: Can Become Hollowfied
This is probably one of the biggest perils of the job that Shinigami have. Hollows are essentially corrupt souls that didn’t go over into Soul Society after they died. Remaining in the human world for too long causes them to turn into powerful creatures that consume human souls, living or dead. Shinigami sometimes try to Hollowfy their souls, which means to mix their souls with that of a Hollow in order to obtain more power.
But they’re almost impossible to control, and Shinigami can become monsters who can’t understand reason and sometimes their souls will self-destruct. While this isn’t something every Shinigami does or has to do, the fact that it’s a potential path for Shinigami to become more powerful, often at the expense of their own souls, is pretty horrific to us.