[nniL_90]

When i think about it, i remember there was a person in this forum who said that maybe the are souls from the whole world in Soul Society then the most be:

1 Shinigami are not just japan but Europa, America, Mexico and Afrika osv?

2 Or is just Soul Society just for japan and rest of the countrys around like Kina who speaks the same and have the same relgion? And we others have maybe heaven like so many belive these dayes??

Since i can not remeber the shinigami have been far away from japan/SS to another Country feks Australia. ( I now Bleach are from Japan and then most be most focus on Japan) But

So that little group of shinigami cant take care of all the souls in the world and defeat all the hollows so i tink 1 most be right

[conanfan3344]

I think the Shinigami that we are reading about is a branch in Japan, that takes care of the hollows in Japan and there are other branches out there for other parts of the world

[Aigirl]

Good! Because I wouldn't want to end up in that bureaucratic hell of an afterlife!

However, I've been very impressed by Kubo's use of other languages, such as English, German and Spanish, throughout the series. Even "Soul Society" is English.

So Kubo's vision of the Afterlife is a bit ethno-centric. I can live with that (as long as don't have to die into it! )

[yasiru89]

(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)