Bleach (ブリーチ, Burīchi?, romanized as BLEACH in Japan) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tite Kubo. Bleach follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki after he accidentally obtains the power of a shinigami from Rukia Kuchiki. A shinigami is a Japanese death personification similar to the Grim Reaper. Gaining these abilities forces him to take on the duties of defending humans from evil spirits and guiding departed souls to the afterlife.
Artificial Souls
Artificial souls are a type of soul mass-produced by the shinigami. Issued in pill form, they are used to to force a shinigami out from his gigai during protracted stays in the living world, and come with a pre-programmed personality that animates the shinigami's body until his return. In addition to the mundane versions, a series of experimental souls authorized and created by shinigami researchers also exists. Known as modified souls, these were meant to hunt hollows by possessing soul-less human bodies and supercharging a particular aspect of them (for example, strength or speed). The shinigami decided to scrap the project due to the inhumanity of forcing dead bodies to fight, leading to the destruction of all modified souls. Those that were manufactured but had yet to possess human bodies were also to be terminated, but some escaped. The only modified soul in the original manga is Kon. In the anime, however, three others live in gigai created by Kisuke Urahara.
source: endless-bleach.com
Hollow
The hollows are the major antagonists of Bleach. They are evil ghosts who reside in Hueco Mundo but travel to the living world to feed on the souls of the living and dead alike. Like shinigami, hollows are made of spiritual matter, cannot be detected by ordinary humans, and use their internal spiritual power to fight. While most hollows can be overcome by the average shinigami, some can surpass a shinigami captain in strength. All hollows wear white masks, except for a few called arrancar that have been able to remove most of their masks and tap into the powers of the shinigami. Although they carry zanpakutō, the sword is used to modify the body of the arrancaritself. Tite Kubo has used a Spanish motif to name hollows and arrancar throughout the series.
source: endless-bleach.com
Shinigami
Shinigami (Soul Reapers in the official English editions, Death Gods in most subtitled versions) are the psychopomps of Bleach. They are souls with inner spiritual power, recruited from the ranks of the residents and nobility of Soul Society. Like all spirits, they cannot be detected by normal humans. Shinigami use their soul slayers (zanpakutō) to perform soul burials on pluses. Shinigami also use zanpakutō and demon arts (kidō) to fight their archrivals, the hollows. Some shinigami have acquired hollow powers using illegal methods; they are known as the vizard.
source: endless-bleach.com
Plus
Benign ghosts in Bleach are known as pluses (Wholes in the official English editions). A plus is the spirit of a person who has died. A chain, known as the Chain of Fate, protrudes from the chest and binds the plus to a location, object or person that they felt close to in life. The soul can move about freely if the chain is broken, but this also causes the chain to corrode. Normally, pluses are sent to Soul Society by shinigami in a ritual called soul burial before this corrosion becomes significant. However, if the Chain of Fate is corroded entirely before a soul burial can be performed, a hole will form in the chest of the soul where the chain was once anchored. Such souls are driven mad and become evil ghosts known as hollows. If the Chain of Fate is torn out deliberately, this also leads to spiritual degradation.
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source: endless-bleach.com
All Bleach characters are souls. Living humans contain souls within their bodies. Disembodied souls, spirits, have a form composed of particles of spiritual energy called ectoplasm, with an anatomy similar to an ordinary flesh body. This form encompasses all of the spirit's being; there is no distinction between mind and body.
Humans
The humans of Bleach are much like the residents of modern Japan. Most humans cannot see or sense spirits in any way. However, souls can inhabit artificial human bodies that are visible to ordinary humans. One in 50,000 humans is a medium with some awareness of nearby ghosts, but only a third of these are able to see them clearly. Some humans naturally have both the power to sense and the strength to fight with spirits. Other humans can gain the ability to do so by spending time around a large source of spirit energy.
source: endless-bleach.com
