List of Soul Reapers in Bleach

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This is a list of Soul Reapers (死神, Shinigami, literally, "death gods") featured in the manga and anime series Bleach, created by Tite Kubo. Soul Reapers are a fictional race of spirits who govern the flow of souls between the human world and the afterlife realm called the Soul Society. The series tells of how Ichigo Kurosaki becomes a substitute Soul Reaper in Karakura Town in place of Rukia Kuchiki. He assumes her duties to protect souls and put them to peaceful rest, as well as to fight against dangerous, lost souls that could not rest, called hollows. As the series progresses, however, Rukia is captured by the Soul Society's Soul Reaper military for giving her powers to Ichigo, and she is sentenced to death. Ichigo and his friends go to save her and are forced to fight against many of the Soul Society's Thirteen Court Guard Squads. Eventually, the fifth Squad Captain Sōsuke Aizen, the third Squad Captain Gin Ichimaru, and the ninth Squad Captain Kaname Tosen all defect from the Soul Society at the time of the rescue and start a plan, interrupting Ichigo's battles, to gain greater power with the arrancars, focusing the story with the main antagonist Sōsuke Aizen. In the final arc, the real one is Yhwach, the son of Soul King and father of Quincy.