Warning: Spoilers for Bleach: Thousand Years of Blood Battle episode #15 Fans are eagerly looking forward to it Bleach: Blood of the Thousand Yearsanime’s added new scenes at the end of the series, and the show was delivered, with new scenes featuring Ichigo in a mysterious place called “Irazusando.” But what is this place, and where do these new scenes even come from?
Basically, Irazusando is loosely translated as “the way of no return”, which is in line with what Ichigo was told before he decided to take on this challenge. Ichigo was warned that those judged unworthy would die on the path, and he chose to go down there, despite Ichibe’s urging. The path itself is a mysterious place, a black void containing what is known as a Torii gate, an entrance that often leads into shrines or other areas of religious significance. The path also seems to open up on its own before Ichigo, meaning he doesn’t appear closer to the gate than when it started.
Ichigo’s New Original Anime Scene From the Bleach . Novel
However, the phrase Irazusando has a little more meaning to it. Sandō is the name of a path leading to a shrine that passes through the Torii gate. In other words, Irazusando is the path that leads to a divine place, such as a temple. Many fans have speculated that this test for Ichigo is part of a plot revealed in Ryogo Narita’s novel Bleach, Can’t Fear Your Own World, a story set after the Thousand Years of Blood. In that book, it is revealed that Squad Zero had a special plan for Ichigo during the Quincy War, intended as a backup should all other plans fail. That plan was to turn Ichigo into a vessel for the Soul King.
Soul King is basically the god of Bleach and Squad Zero directly serves him. The Irazusando test, based on the poem Ichibe reads in the episode, seems to indicate that this is just a test that the potential vessels have to go through. What’s perhaps more interesting here is that Ichigo doesn’t really understand why he’s going through this ordeal, implying that Squad Zero’s plan is to use Ichigo against his will, if need be. That shows that Squad Zero is not benevolent and this has happened to others before, all of whom have died. It definitely shows Ichigo’s lack of interest in life, especially since Soul Society could use all the help they could get.
New scenes of Ichigo in Bleach hint that Anime could add more original content
Can’t Fear Your Own World was written with assistance from Bleach creator Tite Kubo, so most fans already consider it a classic, but integrating its elements into the anime seems to confirm that fact. Most interestingly, if the anime is currently showing the Irazusando storyline, that means it could actually have an impact on upcoming events, thus hinting at an even bigger difference between the manga and the anime. It will be interesting to see if this comes true in the upcoming episodes of Bleach: Blood of the Thousand Yearsor if these new ones Ichigo scene would have no greater impact.