With the post I made about the names of Izuru’s parents, I really wanted to explore drawing Shizuka, Izuru’s mother.
Since most of Soul Society is inspired by Edo period fashion and such, I wanted to design Shizuka to be wearing the older, Heian style of hair and clothes. To show the Kira family as being old, but also no longer relevant. A “forgotten” clan. I also went for Heian because I wanted it to be a callback to Noh theatre, with Izuru’s father’s name including a reference to a theatre stage, I found it fitting.
She doesn’t wear a whole ton of layers, only a couple, as she is not of high nobility. In Heian era, the more layers a noble woman wore, she higher her status.
I wanted her to look just like Izuru, same shape of face and nose. Same hair and eyes.
I also had the thought that she was kinda mentally unwell, a trait that Izuru also inherited, and that she perhaps had committed suicide when Izuru was still young, leaving him all alone, as they were the last two living Kira clan members.
I want to draw and explore her character more soon!
Hey remember when I used to write bleach meta? Anyway, I picked that hobby back up and posted it on twitter, but I thought I’d post it here too. And the reason I do it here and not on my personal is bc more bleach fans follow this blog.
An exploration of the names of Izuru’s parents.
Starting with Izuru’s mom: Shizuka Kira. Shizuka literally translates to “quiet” or “kind”. It is a rather common Japanese first name for girls. But it’s not the name itself that’s odd here, but the way it’s written.
The kanji for Shizuka is 静 (sometimes with some more strokes to add more meaning). But that’s not how her name is written on her grave, her name is written in katakana, not kanji. シヅカ. Shi zu(tsu/du) ka. Why is that strange? Well, it’s simply extremely unusual to write a person’s name in katakana, as it is the phonetic spelling. When a name is written like this it’s usually the name of a foreigner, so to write a name as common as Shizuka like that is unique. There is another character in Bleach whos name is unusually written in katakana. Izuru. イヅル Note that both their names are made up of three kata, and sharing the same one in the middle: zu/tsu/du. This shows clearly that Izuru was named after his mother.
So that’s that for the mom, what about his dad? Well that’s a whole other thing. His name, Kagekiyo, is strange to begin with, seeming a lot more like a name of a place, rather than a person. Kage means shadow. Kiyo means “pure, to purify, to exorcise”. That in itself is odd, but then we get to the writing.
景清 Kagekiyo. The kanji for Kiyo is not that strange, but the kanji for Kage IS. Simply put it’s a very old way of spelling, so rare that it’s barely used anymore in modern day writing. Sam and I did some digging and we only found two people of note who had the Kagakiyo name, and was spelled the same way. A samurai, and military lord from the Heian era. In other words, no one in like a thousand years. But why is the kanji strange? It is an old way of writing. 影 = the current, modern way of writing kage. Meaning shadow, bad omen 景 = how it’s written in Izuru’s dad’s name. You can see how the old version of the kanji is integrated in the new one. And so it CAN be read as “shadow”, but is ALSO can mean “stage”, as in, for a play. Or scenery. So like I said before, just very strange, someone had to deliberately use the old way of writing for his name, instead of the modern, common way
So, you could interpret his name’s meaning as either “shadow purification”, or “bad omen exorcism” BUT ALSO “stage purification” or “scenic (view) exorcism”
In conclusion, the names of Izuru’s parents, and actually Izuru himself, are very odd. All three have first names that are not written as they are “supposed” to. Bad and suspicious vibes come from the Kira family.
OH ALSO, just wanted to add. Sam and I had a little talk about all this, and going by the names, it would make the most sense for Shizuka to be Kira by blood, and Kagekiyo by marriage. As Izuru was named for his mother.
AAaahhhh!! As an artist it’s always such a joy to see character sketches as those can give out details that might have been hard to figure out when watching the finished work or just seeing additional stuff…omg.
Does anyone have translations of the notes on some of them?
