What you need to know before TYBW

February 13

HMD: Okay so Ichigo kurosaki is a high school student who has been able to see ghosts his whole life. One day he runs into Rukia, a soul reaper who hunts hollows. Hollows are souls that have been corrupted. When she reaps them they are then able to pass on to the soul society. A hollow attacks ichigos family and rukia gets injured. In order to save his family he stabs himself with her zanpakto (sword) and takes her power. Rukia then joins highschool with him so that when she gets called on a mission, she can haul ichigo off to defeat Hollows. She gets this sort of human body from this mysterious dude with a straw hat and wooden sandals

Enter Orihime (my least favorite) who is a quirky girl who cant cook and lives on her own after her brother died. Her brother has been haunting her and becomes a hollow. This is the episode where ichigo realizes hollows used to be human souls. Unnecessarily has an existential crisis.

A dramatic episode existed where Ichigo found his reasoning to continue being a soul reaper. He realized that when he was a child, he was walking on the beach and thought he saw a girl drowning. At the time he couldnt distinguish ghosts from real people. He went to go save her and his mother ran after him bc to her it just looked like he was going to drown himself lol. Turns out though that it actually wasn't a ghost. It was actually a lure from a Hollow called the Fisher who puts out drowning girl lures like that to attract humans that they can eat. So ichigo's mom was munched on by a Hollow. This is something he found out on the anniversary of her death and he vows to have his revenge to prevent others from dying by the fisher.

Kon is introduced and he is like this modified artificial soul that is basically put inside a pill and takes over ichigo's body when he has to run off and do hollow shit. He causes a lot of problems but in the end is put inside the mouth of a lion stuffed animal that he takes over

Chad's whole episode is he discovers a bird that can talk but is bad luck, everyone who takes care of the bird dies. So he protects the bird and delivers it to rukia and ichigo so they can let it pass on to the Soul Society (afterlife)

So both orihime and chad can see ghosts now and start developing freaky powers as a result of being around ichigo's spiritual pressure who is now half soul reaper.

Last of the main characters is Ishida, a pretentious pos who wields a bow that can exterminate Hollows. By exterminate though i mean like he shoots them and the soul is destroyed, it doesnt get to go to the afterlife, its just gone. This is a feature of the race called the Quincy. They exterminated hollows with their bows which was a problem because apparently there is a set number of souls in the afterlife and in reality and if too many spirits are destroyed there are too many living souls more than dead which upsets the balance of the universe. The entirety of the Quincy race were subsequently slaughtered and Ishida is the last one. This isn't why he hates soul reapers though. He hates them because his grandpa used to try and plead with the soul reapers that they should work together and went ignored. One day his grandpa faced a whole lot of them that he couldnt handle on his own and was killed, the reapers showed up two hours late. This is revealed through a 3 episode run where Ishida encounters Ichigo and goes "you suck im better, lets make a contest to prove it" where ishida sets out hollow bait and attracts a whole bunch of hollows to the city, thereby endangering the lives of everyone in the city. Whomever defeats the most wins.

However, too many show up and it attracts a menos grande (which is a hollow made up of thousands of hollows fused together) and they are all like oh shit this is bad. Ichigo is just like hahaha no plans, just cut and attacks it with Ishida who he has talked sense into and is now allies/frenemies with. Ichigo forces the big bad to retreat just based on a cut containing all of his spiritual pressure. But oops, he let that power out all at once and he cant control it, its trying to tear him apart. So ishida takes his little bow, absorbs all of the power ichigo cant control and shoots it into the sky. This little few episode arch ends with rukia voicing her concern that the soul society is going to take notice of the bigass hollow that showed up and is going to come investigate. Which is bad bc what her and ichigo have been doing is apparently illegal. She isn't allowed to give out her soul reaper powers ig

C:shit the quincy sounds like a duck
C:dick

HMD: he absolutely is

C: and i remember orihime being more useless than sakura

HMD: I remember enjoying his character later.but i think that i just enjoyed like the frenemy relationship with ichigo

HMD: Yes i hate Orihime so much. She gives me such hinata vibes it makes me want to vomit. She's like a mix of hinata and sakura dude.

C: also isnt her power dolls related?
C: fuck dolls man
C: but like the worst qualities of the two

HMD: They're fairies that live in her hairclip that her brother gave her before he died
HMD: Chad has a strong monster arm

C: chad is a good chad tho
C: That wields the strength of chad power
C: it's like a collective source raw of all chad power

HMD: I think i hate Sakura more bc at least from what i remember Orihime doesnt go off on her own to go after the big bad, she just joins an expedition to go save ichigo with chad and ishida
HMD: She doesnt give me pickme girl energy
HMD: But she is very useless all the time

C: That's fair
C: I think she loses every fight she's in

HMD: As she should. Shes trying to be something she's not. You arent strong. Stay home.
HMD: You literally are not and cannot help

C: "But my fairies"

HMD: The hate list is as follows
Sakura
Orihime
Hinata

C: Understandable

HMD: But like also, Sakura eventually gets good
HMD: It takes 700 episodes
HMD: But like she contributes later

C: Far too many

HMD: Orihime just continues to be useless
HMD: And at some point Orihime gets literally kidnapped and is a damsel in distress

C: We shall see what's Shes like in the revival I guess

HMD: I have changed my stance XD
HMD: Orihime is the worst