Minazuki Bankai has always been something of a weird and special case ever since its first reveal in Chapter 526. We have had basically no idea what this thing can actually do. Unlike virtually every other ability in Bleach, Unohana’s Bankai came with no explanation whatsoever, meaning that in the years following fans have tried their best to piece together what the abilities of Unohana’s Bankai actually were and What Is Mean by Minazuki Bankai, using the most and abstractive clues and we all kind of can hoped that when the anime finally got round to adapting this part of the story, we might finally get some closure, as to know what Unohana’s Bankai’s abilities actually were.
Maybe some kind of an explanation or even just a better look at what this thing actually is. And now, that time has finally come. The fact that Unohana had something of an unusual Bankai is revealed in Chapter 526, the battle during her fight with Kenpachi Zaraki.
Bankai Minazuki Meaning? Do We Finally Know What It Does?
Unohana’s surprise activates her Bankai at the start of the chapter. We don’t really see any kind of activation on the very next page, the Bankai Minazuki seems to already be activated, and the fight continues from there. There is no explanation given as to what it can do, no showcase of any potential abilities and while some may have found that refreshing, the vast majority of the Bleach Community was left scratching its head, and it was made even worse when she died in the next chapter and her Bankai disappeared.
What could we actually gauge from the chapter itself, well, her “Sword” seems to be replaced by some kind of a crimson blood-like whip that could have also been acid as it seemed to bubble and hiss upon activation.
After this moment, she would continue swinging it around as though it were a normal sword. But what compounded this issue, what made things even more confusing, was that this was immediately followed up by a sequence, a strange ethereal dream-like sequence, where both she and Zaraki were stripped down to the bone. Their very flesh seemed to melt away, and they both turned into these dueling skeletons.
Many took this to be a confirmation that Unohana’s blade or her whip, whatever it was, we couldn’t really tell, was coated in acid and was literally dissolving both of them down to the bone. Then Unohana would proceed to revive both of them, and the fight would continue. This was also reinforced by the name of her Bankai, “Minazuki”, meaning “all things end” kind of again playing into the idea that Unohana was dissolving everything around her into Nothing.
The Acid Theory was the more popular one overall, and it was one we chose to stand behind as well. There was a second theory running concurrently, and that was the Sequence where Kenpachi and Unohana were turning into skeletons was just a dream, a vision, a metaphor that Kubo was creating, showing both of these fighters as being stripped down to their very base instinct, removing them of the inhibitions of their pretences and revealing to us as the reader who both of these people act actually were in their heart, in their very soul being, embodiments of both death and battle.
In Acid Theory, the fact that a Bankai and a Shikai are generally at least somewhat linked and with the Unohana Shikai, she would heal people in the ‘Stomach Acid’ of her gigantic manta ray, so it only made sense that her Bankai would generate an acid, that kills everything it touches.
The other theory I had however was built on the foundation idea, that Unohana’s blade was now made of the blood accrued from all of her victims from thousands of years past. I thought this was cool as it gave her a similarity to Yamamoto whose one Bankai allowed him to resurrect the charred corpses of his own victims. Unohana would do similar in that it would summon the blood of all those she had killed during her time as a criminal.
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