[4] Early plans for the story did not include the hierarchical structure of the Soul Society, but did include Ichigo's Soul Reaper heritage.[1] Characteristics Soul Reapers can only be seen by other spiritually aware beings, which excludes most humans. Additionally, they can be injured and ...
How Ichigo recovers from this will be crucial; if he continues to take it in stride like nothing has happened, it will feel like all the time spent on the Soul Society characters (Rukia in particular) was wasted, but similarly, Kubo can’t have Ichigo go too far in the other direction...