Rukia Kuchiki
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is a character in the manga and anime series Bleach, by Tite Kubo. Rukia is a shinigami. She meets Ichigo Kurosaki, an everyday high school student, and through a set of circumstances, he obtains her powers, forcing her to take up residence in his home and him to take her place as a shinigami.
Introduction
As a result of Ichigo's draining of her powers, Rukia is forced to live in a gigai (faux body), an artificial construct designed to perfectly mimic a human body, while she recuperates. During this time, she convinces Ichigo to assume her duties. Unfortunately, Ichigo's new duties set off a flurry of activity both in the human and soul worlds. An increased amount of hollows (and at one point, even a Menos Grande, a sort of Superhollow) come to the human world and are dispatched in one form or another by Ichigo, Rukia, and eventually a group of friends whose own powers awaken after prolonged exposure to Ichigo's increased abilities. Additionally, she utilizes the services of the Urahara Shop, run by former shinigami Kisuke Urahara, to provide extra materials and support as needed.As Rukia remains longer in the human world, she begins to grow comfortable with the life she is living there - too comfortable, it seems, to even work to restore her powers. Fearing she is growing too attached to the human world, she runs away from Ichigo's house. Unfortunately, shinigami from Soul Society, in particular her childhood friend Renji Abarai, and older brother, Byakuya Kuchiki, come to arrest her and nearly kill Ichigo in the process. She then begs him to forget about her, and returns to Soul Society as a prisoner. She begs for Ichigo to forget her because she doesn't want him to be killed.
Character outline
Initially born into a lower class, she still retains her modesty even as a member of the nobility: she is graceful and "clean," yet chooses to talk to ordinary people.Although she tells Ichigo that she is nearly ten times older than him, she is endearingly clueless about the ways of the world (especially in the case of juice packets) and learns to speak modern Japanese through the manga she reads.
She is an accomplished actress, being able to act her way through a number of tough situations. Ichigo seems to be the only one to always pick up on it and accuse her of pretending. She also seems to enjoy drawing (rather badly). Rukia loves Chappy the Rabbit and is rather put out when she is unable to obtain Chappy Soul Candy because of its popularity in Soul Society.
Her attitude towards Ichigo varies throughout the series. At times, she is a bickering adversary, and at other times, she worries about him and dispatches advice like a wise old sage. Most scenes are shown with her and Ichigo yelling and making faces at each other. However during her time as a prisoner in Soul Society, she said that Ichigo was the person she could trust the most.
However, there is a deeply serious side to Rukia as well, best shown during the time she was taken back to Soul Society for giving her powers to Ichigo. In her time in Soul Society, which she spent in various holding cells, she is constantly seen resigned to her fate or in deep thought.
She and Ichigo have similar feelings of loss and guilt. Ichigo thought he was responsible for his mother's death and Rukia thought she was responsible for Kaien's death.
Residence
Due to her circumstances, Rukia lives in Ichigo's closet with Kon; she uses the bedroom window as an entryway into the Kurosaki household. Additionally, she has obtained casual clothing and school uniforms for her day-to-day activities, some of which were stolen from Ichigo's sister Yuzu, and the rest of which were likely supplied by the Urahara shop, though this is not certain.Several months after the incidents at the Soul Society, Rukia returns to the living world with five other shinigami to combat the rising arrancar threat. She manages to convince the Kurosaki family to let her stay with them (albeit using a flimsy sob story that instantly convinces Yuzu and Isshin), and moves out of Ichigo's closet and is to share a (now very crowded) room with Karin and Yuzu.
Rukia's powers
Rukia, a shinigami of the 13th Division, has a standard array of skills required of shinigami troops. Upon her introduction, she has the basic-level zanpakutō, of which she seemed to have only mastered the rudimentary skills.Rukia's greatest strength is her knowledge of the demon arts (kidō), a set of magic spells she can use in the performance of her duties; amongst her known skills are those for binding, purifying, and destruction. She is able to use these abilities at a limited level even when in her gigai (though during the Bount Arc, her spells seem to match Renji's in power when he is in spirit form). Renji says that Rukia is also useful because of her speed.
Rukia is an unseated member of the 13th division, though this is only because she was held back from promotion to a seated officer by the request of Byakuya Kuchiki, her adoptive brother. Byakuya did this because he didn't want Rukia to be exposed to battles, which are much more deadly for seated officers, who are required to fight stronger opponents. Consequently, her powers may actually have initially been stronger than previously believed.
Kisuke Urahara gave her a special gigai body when she gave her shinigami powers to Ichigo. This body is special in that instead of healing the user so they can regain their powers, it decreases their energy until they have no spirit power left, thus turning her into a regular human. This is a result of Urahara choosing to conceal the hōgyoku (lit. Orb of Distortion), a very powerful artifact, inside Rukia's artificial body. She did not actually know about this, which led her to believe that she was being executed for other crimes, namely giving her shinigami powers to Ichigo and exceeding the allowed time limit in the living world. The actual circumstances behind the planning of her execution were all a part of an elaborate conspiracy by Sōsuke Aizen to retrieve the hōgyoku attached to her soul.
Since the events at the Soul Society, Rukia's shinigami powers have made a near complete recovery and she has revealed that she is fully capable of executing the shikai (initial release) of her zanpakutō.
Sode no Shirayuki
Considering she lost her shinigami powers to Ichigo, it was also assumed she lost her sword as well. In chapter 201, Tite Kubo finally reveals the name of Rukia's zanpakutō.Having finally regained enough of her shinigami powers (since she was no longer using Urahara's gigai), Rukia reveals her zanpakutō's name to be Sode no Shirayuki (袖の白雪 or 袖白雪, roughly sleeve of white snow). Sode no Shirayuki is regarded as one of the most beautiful zanpakutō within Soul Society and is completely white, including the hilt, crossguard, and blade.
The command phrase for its initial release is Mae (舞え, lit. dance!); the blade turns white and a white ribbon forms from the hilt. Like Kaname Tōsen's Suzumushi and Kisuke Urahara's Benihime, Sode no Shirayuki possesses more than one ability.
With the phrase some no mai, tsukishiro (初めの舞、月白, lit. First Dance, White Moon), Rukia can create a circle of influence around her intended target and freeze everything within the circle from the ground upwards until it reaches the sky. The command tsugi no mai, hakuren (次の舞、白漣, lit. Next Dance, White Ripple) releases a frontal attack that shoots a massive frozen wave. Several ice layers are formed on the range of the attack.
Trivia
- Bleach creator Tite Kubo assigned several characters theme songs which are used to give insight to characters that might not normally appear in the run of the manga or anime. In Rukia's case, the song is "Wing Stock", by Ashley MacIsaac.
- On a cover in volume one of the manga, Rukia's name is put, in English, as "Rukia Rotwood." The kanji in her name, 朽木, translate as "rotten wood."
- Apparently, Rukia has trouble finding clothes that fit.
- Rukia's inability to draw well is a running gag in the series; her drawings of people seem to resemble teddy bears and rabbits.
- She likes to climb to high places, rabbit-themed items (evident when she reveals she wanted a "Chappy the Bunny" soul candy dispenser), and her favourite foods are eggs and cucumbers.
- According to Kubo, when (in book five) the semester final exam scores were announced, Rukia's rank was 302 out of 322. With the exception of Japanese, she failed most of her exams.
- Rukia had consistently been the second most popular Bleach character in Shonen Jump's polls until her position was usurped, recently, by Tōshirō Hitsugaya.
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