Weird thing to do with ages in SS

[ManjiSTP]

Note To those that can't be bothered to read all of this; basically - I watched episode 40 just now and was very surprised to see that when Rukia still looked the same age back when Kaien was killed, Ganju looks like a little boy! What the hell is that all about? Scroll down for screenshots...

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The longer, more in-depth version: A few of the conversations I've been having on here tonight have mentioned the lifespan and ageing rate of people in Soul Society. At one point Undying and myself were talking about the fact that shinigami must live longer than the regular souls in Rukongai. I raised the point, "What about Kuukaku and other such people?" to which Undying replied something about the fact that they have strong spirit power so they should be counted as shinigami rather than regular souls when it comes to life expectancy and so on.

That's a fine point, and there's nothing wrong with it. It made perfect sense - afterall, it's not as if being a shinigami is some sort of magical transformation (ok, so episode one makes out like it is) but really, it's just a job that any soul with strong spirit power can become. Like anyone with high accuracy can become a sniper or anyone with high stamina can become a long-distance runner. That's how I see it anyway.

However, when the whole thing seemed settled I got something to eat and decided to eat it in front of a random episode of Bleach. As it turns out, I randomly chose episode 40 and was very surprised to see that when Rukia still looked the same age, Ganju looked like a little boy. It was when Rukia brings Kaien back to the Shiba house, and tells them that she killed him.

Here are some screenshots of Rukia and Ganju. I have no idea how I missed this before.
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/6409/01xc8.th.jpg (http://img141.imageshack.us/my.php?image=01xc8.jpg) http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/5692/02sf5.th.jpg (http://img141.imageshack.us/my.php?image=02sf5.jpg) http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/6881/03tt2.th.jpg (http://img141.imageshack.us/my.php?image=03tt2.jpg)
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/1656/04fe7.th.jpg (http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=04fe7.jpg)

I'd like to hear Undying's, and anyone else's, ideas and explanations for this. :D

[Sun Dao]

Doesnt the whole "how old you look" thing have to do with the power you posess? At least for the people who live in SS, I remeber something about that. One of the reasons Yamamoto(sp) looks soo old is because hes soo stong.

While Ganju died as a child, he could have gained an immense(for that of an avg. soul in ss), amount of power and thus "grew up".

Agian though I could be, and probably am wrong.

[ManjiSTP]

That's a nice idea, but it would also make Aizen relatively weak, and Hitsugaya would be weaker than almost all other shinigami. Also, how old does Komamura look? :p

[natto]

It may just be a screwup XD Some people had said that a spirit with more power/reiatsu age slower or something, but Rukia definitely has more reiatsu than Ganju, so she should still be young while Ganju is older. >A> A weird explanation is those who are shinigami age faster than the average spirit? But that makes no sense. >________> That's not a benefit either. *coughs*

Okkkayyy, no clue. D: Loophole!!

[ManjiSTP]

Well actually, an explanation could be that shinigami age slower, not faster, than regular souls. Think about it... Rukia hasn't aged while Ganju has... Therefore she is ageing slower.

But still, it opens up loads of other confusing things that I don't think most people have considered before. Such as, since one could assume that shinigami age slower, Kaien must have been way older than Ganju to appear about 24 when Ganju appears about 13, since Kaien had been a shinigami for so long that Ganju's appearance should have overtaken Kaien's in age. That's not necessarily a loophole, buy jusy an odd and interesting thing to consider none the less.

Anyway, I'm going to bed now. I'll come back and check this tomorrow some time.

[Sun Dao]

That's a nice idea, but it would also make Aizen relatively weak, and Hitsugaya would be weaker than almost all other shinigami. Also, how old does Komamura look? :p
:P Another illusion maybe?
Wasnt the age thing somewhat explain during the flashback with renji and rukia towards the middle of the SS arc? I know they covered this issue somewhere, just not sure where.

[Kabane]

Well you never know. How old was Rukia/Ganju at that time? How much Time has passed?

EX: if Rukia projected the appearance of a 17 year old while Ganju projected that of a 12 year old. Five more "years" wont affect Rukia that much as woman stop aging after an early age, while Ganju would grow rapidly during adolescence.

[natto]

It depends on how long Rukia knew Kaien, I think she was placed in 13th Division before she even fully completed the Academy, 'cause she was adopted by the Kuchiki family. e__e; Depending on the time between meeting Kaien and Kaien's death, and the rate of how shinigami's age.. There were those first few eps that stated Rukia was about 10x her apparent age, which would be roughly around 150, so she was physically around 15? I'm not sure when she left the academy, but when she entered, Rukia looked around ~12/13? (Maybe?) It really doesn't make sense if you think about it, 'cause her age apparently shifts around alot. :[


edit; BLEACH HURTS MY BRAIN. ;;__;; wait, how much of this do I have to spoiler. gahhh~

[Rorschach]

my theory is that since so little souls qualify to become shinigami (not entirely sure about that statement, but whatever), the ones who currently are age slower so they can be around longer to do their job (unless they get killed) or that since everyting is made of spirit particles in SS. so people that have high spirit energy might have high levels of particles it would take longer to... ummm, hmmm decay like radioactive elements? no... ahh diffuse is the word i was looking for.
maybe...

[Mashu-truth seeker]

I think its a plot hole :p

But going with a speculatory angle I think if your going with the Power=longer lifespan then probobly ganju aged much faster during the period as a "child" then got trained up, gained power and now is growing older in the normal shinigami period of time. Same with Rukia and Hitsugaya and all the rest. It seems once they got a little older and more powerful they started to age slower, Hitsu especially beings this theory makes the idea possible that he is supposedly a prodigy and since he became powerful at such a young age now he'll have a longer life in general therefor being able to become stronger than most shinigami because of the length of time he'll have to train etc etc...

[Ollson]

Becoming a Shinigami gives you powers (like Kidou and Shunpo).
It hasn't been explained exactly what powers are given when becoming a Shinigami.
One of them is most likely slower ageing.
In all of the flashbacks where they show Rukia's "life" before she became a Shinigami.
The has different ages, so she aged back then.
Now when she's a Shinigami there hasn't been any ageing (well, probably some but there's no changes in her apperance).
I don't think it has anything to do with having a high reiatsu.
And we don't know that Ganyju died at a young age, you don't have to have died to be in SS.
The reason Yamamoto looks so old is probably because he is old.

[blah]

I think souls there age slower as they get older.

[Rukia chan]

Maybe when you are a kid in SS you age until a certain age and then the aging process slows up? I have no clue. All I know is Rukia is about 500 years old. Cause in Episode 1 Rukia said to Ichigo that she had lived 10 of his life times. which would be 100 years each life normally. so that makes her about 500 years old.

[Undying]

Hmmm. Interesting. I see several possible theories here:

(1)Notice that the time that has passed from the point where Kaien died (and Ganju was a little kid) is about 50 years. And since Ganju looks about 12, and Rukia 17, we can deduce that those 50 years affected them in the same way 5 years would (Ganju looks about 18 or so. Or maybe even 20. For simplicity's sake, say he looks 17). Rukia hardly changed (as to be excpeted), while Ganju grew. The same applies to Toshiro, who in the same amount of time (or close enough to it) grew from a 7-8 year old to a 12-13 year old. From here, we can deduce that the way you appear depends on: A your physical age (as in, Toshiro was 7 even though in years he was more), and B your power (Reiatsu), as can be deduced from the other Shinigami who are thausands of years old (at least three of them are) and yet aren't aging.
From this theory, we can deduce that Shinigami, or any other person with Reiatsu and the ability to use it (such as Kuukaku, Urahara, Yoruichi, etc.) will age at an extremely slow manner.

(2)Shinigami don't agre after a certain point. In other words, once a Shinigami reaches a certain age (note: in the term 'Shinigami' I include all beings capable of Reiatsu manipulation that are spirits, i.e. anything that has Spirit Power and is not a Quincy), he or she will simply stop there and cease aging. This is supported by the apparent stopping in Renji's and Rukia's aging rpocess.

(3)The aging depends on one'e power. Derived from theory #1, it's basically stating that if you have power, you will stop aging as soon as you've reached your peak. Therfore, Yamamoto is jsut so old because he is so powerful.

All from the top of my head. Enjoy.

[ManjiSTP]

No, Rukai chan... 10 times of Ichigo's age would be 150! :D She doesn't say "life times" but more like "ten times your age" or something like that.

The point still stands, no matter how much being in SS affects your lifespan/age rate, they were both in SS so they would have been equally affected. Also, Rukia does look very young, so if it was something to do with the younger you are, the quicker you age, Rukia would age pretty fast since she looks certainly less than 20, particularly in the body where she looks about 14.

As I said, the particularly intriguing thing is Kaien's age compared to his little brother. If we can assume that being a shinigami makes you live longer and therefore age slower (this seems to be a required assumption to make sense of anything in SS) then that means that Kaien could only have seen Ganju when Ganju was a little baby. The reason is that, given how fast Ganju has aged, and considering that Kaien was away for long enough to become a VC, he must have left quite a long time ago and therefore Ganju must've looked only about 1 or 2 at that time! This means that Ganju and Kaien probably hardly knew each other... :o

Edit

I think we should also get the apparent ages of character straight.

I'd say that Rukia now, and in that flashback, is no older than 22. And that's being generous. As I said, her body looks about 14, and that's not particularly going off breast size... Actually, more off torso size relative to legs and head size and hand size compared to head size. I should point out that in a fully developed adult, the head is an 8th of the total height of the person, and the length of the hand should be more or less equal to the height of the face.

Ganju, going off bulk, head shape and voice should be about 28 or thereabouts. I feel that he acts far more immature than he actually is.

Ganju in the flashback looks to be around 12 to 15. It all depends on his personal maturation rate. I've known people aged about 11 that looked 17 to strangers.

[Ollson]

Undying, the only one of those that i think could work is the first one.
Because on the second one; it seems pretty weird that the age where they stop differs for each person.
And the third one; if your power governs your age then how come Hitsuguya and Yachiru looks so young?

[Undying]

Because they haven't reached their peak yet - therfore they still age. OR they have reached their peak already and can no longer mature.

@Manji: physical appearance varies from person to person, you know. Ganju appears to be 28 or so, 'tis true, but I have a friend who's 16 and appears to be 18-19, and that's whan he's unshaven. I, on the other hand, may sometimes appear a couple years younger (I'm 17). And so since Ganju grew from 12-14 to 16-18, it still makes perfect sense.

[natto]

If it's about age and reiatsu connection, then a good possibility would be Undying's. :> Power = slower aging, which could explain why Hitsugaya/Yachiru have barely aged in time, because of their power.

Though, Yachiru looks like she's aged like.. what.. from age 2/3/4 (baby?) to around.. 6 or 7 now. lmao >_>;

Though, Shinigamis probably don't STOP aging, they just get to a point where it is so slow, that for probably every 70-100 years or something, they appear to age only one year? That would support Genryuusai's aging, since he's been there since SS existed, which was a couple 1000 years.

[Hattori]

You forget that Rukia is a Small Asian Girl. Several of my friends who fall into this catagory stopped growing when they were 16. They were about five foot four.

[Damier]

Then again, people like Genryuusai could have already been old when he became a Shinigami.
That would be quite logical as to explain why Aizen looks half his age; he could have become a Shinigami at a much younger age.
It's probably a combination of a bunch of reasons, though ...
And Ganjyu looks Isshin's age, lol.

[Sun Dao]

As of ep 96; the question has been.. somewhat looked into? :B Maybe KT reads these boards lmao.

Ran'tao stated she was a really old shinigami, and had to rest for HALF A DAY! Think this could be why we hardly ever see Yama-jii fight(besides him being a bg character). Agian, even though Ran'tao is older than MOST shinigami, she still appears to only be about 30 or so.. well that disproves what I stated on the first page, but I guess that only adds fuel to the fire..

[Undying]

But then, why is it that Urahara, who appears to be somewhere in his late twenties at best, doesn't seem to rest half a day?

[Sun Dao]

Hm, but ow old is Urahara? Is it ever said? Also it could be that his gigai is just made to look young, have we ever seen him out of it? -_^

[Damier]

Her entrance was quite flashy. She said that she had barely any reiatsu and her Shinigami powers sealed away, so that would possibly be the reason for her to need to rest; to replenish her energy.

[Sun Dao]

Yeah, but people who arn't a shinigami dont rest for half a day.. they have almost no reiatsu to speak of. Also we all know how going to the supermarket or something will tire an elderly person out, I suppose seeing all the fighting and meeting a bounto and all that other stuff that happened would have tired her out.

[TwilightFlower]

I agree that what tired her out more than anything was her flashy entrance. She doesn't have a whole lot of power and she must have used quite a bit of it at that point.

Although her appearance is intriguing, we must remember that she is a filler character, so we must take what she says with a grain of salt.

[Mashu-truth seeker]

Urahara is the same age as Kuukaku, he said he was at least... She doesn't look more than 30...

And with the new filler char this really does make the age situation a plot hole IMO... unless he really stretches and tries to explain...

[ManjiSTP]

You forget that Rukia is a Small Asian Girl. Several of my friends who fall into this catagory stopped growing when they were 16. They were about five foot four.

You raise a good point, but I was taking that into account. My point in this thread was how much older Rukia looks, and I was taking into account the thing that you just mentioned.

I'm no stranger to the changeability of age appearance. I'm 23, but sometimes when I'm walking towards the bouncers on the doors to a club I feel, and therefore act, so awkward that I inevitably get asked for ID - simply telling them my DOB always works though. On the occassions where I'm drunk and/or cocky enough not to get awkward I never get ID'd.

[IcYxWiNd]

lol i think tiz cuz rukia is a shinigami and ganju is jsut a rokya.

[ManjiSTP]

But being a shinigami isn't like a class change in Final Fantasy V... It's not like you suddenly change or anything. It's just a job you can do if you're good enough. Ganju fought a 4th seat shinigami and more or less won.

Also, it's really just the way that it complicates things with Kaien that I'm interested in. Kaien looks about 25, though technically you could say he looks 15 as he looks the same as Ichigo. Anyway, if being a shinigami somehow slows down your aging, that would mean that whenever Kaien became a shinigami he looked the same age, and...well basically this is real headache giving stuff if you try to figure it out...but if he looked the same age X amount of years ago when he joined, how much younger would Ganju have looked/been X amount of years ago, and what I'm really getting at, wouldn't he have actually just been a little baby. Furthermore how much younger would Kuukaku have looked/been X years ago? Now her and Ganju look about the same age, and they now also both look older than Kaien did in the past as he died.

If it is to do with being a shinigami, then Yoruichi and Urahara should have aged more rapidly recently - but they haven't aged at all since Urahara was in SS and since Yoruichi met Soi Fong for the first time. If it's to do with inherent power levels then some of the real idiotic shingami like Maki-Maki would be VCs and Yachiru would be cleaning the sewers with Hantarou. :p There are even complications to do with Isshin's age, like how old was he really when he met Masaki? He must have also aged at least slightly human-like or else people would have noticed.

Then what about Ichigo? If it is (though I don't see how it can be) to do with being a shinigami then won't he stop aging now that he is one? And again, if it was to do with inherent power he is so much more powerful than most people so his soul would look really old, but it looks like he normally does. That also raises the point about how come people's souls always look just like their body? Their body's age is governed by biological laws and all that, but the soul supposedly isn't, yet for all the exaplanations of what makes the soul look as old as it is, it looks exactly like the body it belongs to. Hmmm.

Lastly, if it's to do with how close you are to your potential (suggesting that no matter how good she is, Yachiru has a long way to go, whereas Yamamoto is pretty much maxed out) then wouldn't most souls stay as babies forever as they'd never advance, or alternatively all look ancient as they're already at maximum? Also, bankai would logically make you look older.

[Undying]

I don't think that becoming a Shinigami is what slows your aging down, since Shinigami is just a title for someone who carries a certain job (and so the Vizards can also be classified as Shinigami). Rather, it's what comes with being a Shinigami that counts, namely the ability to control Reiatsu, the Reiatsu itself, Zanpakutou, powers, etc.

I believe it has to do with Reiatsu control. In fact, I would go as far as to say that any person who has a good enough Reiatsu control can control his appearance to an extent (age wise - I'm refering to 'him').

People like Kuukaku, Ganju, and others, I would say that they are classified as Shinigami in the above, but not as 'Shinigami', the job.

[ManjiSTP]

But that doesn't explain what controls the age outside of their reiatsu control. That is, when left to its own devices how does age influence different people? Also, I'm proud of my point about how the spirit shouldn't always look the same age as the body it's from! :3

[Undying]

But that doesn't explain what controls the age outside of their reiatsu control.
What controls your age?
That is, when left to its own devices how does age influence different people?
How does it influence you?
Also, I'm proud of my point about how the spirit shouldn't always look the same age as the body it's from! :3
Allow me to be a little blunt: WTF? O_o

[ManjiSTP]

Undying, Undying, Undying... *pats Undying's head* :D

My point is, that you say that you believe that reiatsu control is what governs the age. I am saying that let's accept that for the moment. Now, reiatsu control is not what controls the body's age - that is controlled by science and all that jazz that I don't understand. So, if these two seperate forces control the age of body and soul, why is it that the body and soul look to be exactly the same age?

[Undying]

Because it is the Soul the governs the body, since it is far superior to it in all terms.

And patting me on the head isn't good for your health, Manji.... ;)