Shinobu Eishima

Eishima keeps his red hair long, the bangs swept across to the right of his face. Over the usual black shihakushō he layers a high-collared white jacket with long sleeves, the coat that appears to have marked Ninth Division officers during Kensei's first run as captain. His sealed Zanpakutō carries a dark blue hilt above a triangular guard of bronze.

Quiet and level-headed, Eishima comes across as a serious sort. He pitches in with his fellow officers to keep Kensei's temper in check, physically restraining the captain whenever Mashiro Kuna's antics push him too far, and he seems far less rattled by the lieutenant's behavior than Kensei ever is.

Eishima first appears when Kensei and a group of senior Ninth Division officers are dispatched to look into residents disappearing from Rukongai. Along the way they rescue a youthful Shūhei Hisagi along with his companions from a Hollow, and when Kensei orders the boy to smile, Eishima remarks that expecting as much is asking too much of him. Once the fighting ends, Mashiro, who missed the battle, reports ten empty shihakushō left near the site; Kensei ties that number to a vanguard sent in earlier, hands out orders, and tasks Eishima with alerting Central 46 to the first Shinigami victims.

Later that night, with Kensei and Third Seat Heizō Kasaki resting, Eishima and Kaname Tōsen stand watch outside. When Tōdō returns from the Twelfth Division and offers to relieve Tōsen, Tōsen refuses, and Eishima explains that the three of them are rotating short guard shifts before sending Tōdō to cover another spot. Moments later his cry rings out as he is attacked, and Kensei and Kasaki rush outside to find both Eishima and Tōsen lying bloodied on the ground. The wounds prove fatal, placing him among the case's first fallen Shinigami.