(I'll go along with this one, heh heh) - I don't think the conception is ethno-centric at all, you see what actually happens is; people who're into manga are protected by Shinigami and those who aren't get eaten by Hollows (or sucked into hell for wasting their lives without manga)! Pretty simple! That way they only need to spare Shinigami outside of Japan once in a while for people like us!
ha ha ha!!!!!
See it makes sense!
I say its actually ethnically diverse, after all the idea of Shinigami came from that of the Grim Reaper of Western culture! And you're underestimating the size of Soul Society- Seireitei is like the UN (albeit MUCH more powerful and with the capacity AND initiative to actually do something- maybe we'll call it US-N?), Shinigami can be about anywhere, seeing as Soul Society is an entire dimension sepearate of the living world!
Also in another thread (I think it was the 'where do Quincy go when they die' thread) I suggested that Soul Society may not be 'heaven' (as Rukia suggests) after all. If a hell exists and is not Hueco Mundo, what's to say a heaven does not exist that is not Soul Society? Given SS and HM are antitheses to each other!
So don't think that Yama-ji is Jesus (there was another thread here that hinted this, ha ha- but then again why not- in Narnia Aslan is supposed to BE Jesus- not allegorical but AS IS!), and 'Souls' have been shown to NOT be eternal (this goes against the very definition of Soul if you think about it) atleast as far as Soul Society. (I think they were said to dissipate into the spirit particles that make SS? What's not to say this isn't just a part of another chain? that the spirit body also decays, and there's another realm, and so on)
And who knows, it might be like that South Park episode where Kenny commands the forces of heaven! God takes care of everyone else and Japanese people are taken care of by Soul Society (archangel Michael comments how Japanese people have no souls- hilarious! ha ha) |