Shinigami

Most Shinigami pass for ordinary humans, though their bodies are built entirely of pure Reishi and stay invisible to anyone without spiritual awareness. Their frames vary far more widely than a human's, running from the tiny, childlike Yachiru Kusajishi to the towering Sajin Komamura, an anthropomorphic wolf standing near three meters tall. Their standard dress is the black shihakusho worn over a white undergarment, with the Zanpakuto commonly tied at the sash.

Every Shinigami holds a deep well of Reiryoku, whose pressure, or Reiatsu, keeps pouring out until the heart finally stops. They age far more slowly than humans and endure enormously longer, with some living past a thousand or even two thousand years while still fighting in their prime; decapitation is about the only sure way to put one down. Vents at their wrists release that spiritual pressure, and their combat rests on the four arts of Zankensoki: sword work, unarmed Hakuda, high-speed Hoho, and the spells of Kido. Each carries a Zanpakuto, low-ranking officers issued a plain Asauchi while stronger fighters grow blades of their own that unlock Shikai and Bankai. Some diverge from the norm, such as the Hollow-empowered Visored or the handful of Shinigami living in exile.

Their duties cover konso, the soul burial that taps a wandering Plus on the brow and sends it on to Soul Society or, for the wicked, to Hell; the cleansing of Hollows, whose sins are washed away so they return as Pluses; and the wider governance of how souls move between the worlds. Candidates train at the Shin'o Academy, the roughly two-thousand-year-old school founded by Yamamoto. Working in the living world, they lean on tools such as gigai bodies, guiding jigokucho butterflies, a limiter seal that caps a captain's or lieutenant's power until they call for its release, Denreishinki phones that track Hollows, soul-forcing Gokon Tekko gloves, artificial and modified souls, and devices that rewrite the memories of humans who glimpse the supernatural. A human can even become a Substitute Shinigami by taking on a Shinigami's power, a transfer the Soul Society forbids, and is handed a special badge to monitor them, as happened with Ichigo Kurosaki.