The first time we hear about Quincy is during the introduction of Ishida Uryu. We get to know that Quincy are a race of spiritually aware humans who can kill Hollows.
They are said to be opposites of Shinigami and Ishida seems to consider them enemies. They were only a small part of the story in the beginning but eventually became an integral part of the Thousand Year Blood War Arc.
I will try to explain the origins, powers, abilities and the most notable Quincy we encounter in Bleach, to do this properly we will require the aid of the manga and hence this will contain some spoilers. So be warned!
Quincies are humans who have a heightened sense of spiritual awareness. They can use the reishi and create weapons which can completely exterminate the Hollows. They have an opposite philosophy to Soul Reapers and are considered their anti-thesis.
1. Who exactly are Quincy?
Quincy are humans who are spiritually aware. Throughout history, they have divided themselves into two types: Pure blooded or Half blooded.
Quincy can use the reishi and combine it with their Reiryoku to create weapons. They generally tend to do well in places with higher Reishi concentrations like Soul Society and Hueco Mundo.
As noted by Urahara, Hollows are infectious to Quincy. Unlike Soul Reapers who can fuse and form Visoreds, for Quincy, Hollows are highly fatal. Hence, these Monks of Destruction hunt them down.
The method used for taking down Hollows is vastly different from what we see during Shinigami purification.
Quincies completely wipe out the existence of Hollows which causes an imbalance in the number of souls and will ultimately lead to the destruction of both worlds. This makes Quincy a natural enemy to Shinigami who seek balance.
2. Quincy: Origin And Fall
Yhwach is said to be the father of all Quincy and his blood flows in every single one of them. While some consider Yhwach to be the first Quincy, that is not true. Quincy have been around way before.
The father of Quincy has a unique ability to share his soul with other people of his kind and can also take the powers back as he wishes.
Yhwach attacks Soul Society 1000 years before the start of the story. He duels with Yamamoto and they find themselves at a stalemate.
After this episode, Yhwach is sealed away. Shinigami and Quincy have never been able to see eye to eye and this caused extermination of Quincy 200 years before the start of the Series.
Some pure-blooded Quincy escaped the extermination by hiding in an alternate dimension with Yhwach. Few pure-blooded and half-blooded Quincy were left on Earth.
Quincy who were left behind tried to reconcile with the Shinigami but the recent war forces the Death Gods to opt out and kill the remaining ones as well.
3. Yhwach’s Ideology
While Shinigami believe that the balance must be maintained between the two worlds, Yhwach believes that both worlds should be kept the same. Life and death should be one, only then people would live fearlessly.
Yhwach wants to make his ideology come true and the first step towards this is to kill the Soul King who maintains the balance between these worlds.
4. Is Yhwach the strongest Quincy?
Yhwach is the strongest Quincy and also their leader. He has many abilities like flawless healing, future alteration, power bestowal and soul absorption. It was a highly difficult job to defeat him even after an incredible power-up by Ichigo.
He has an immeasurable amount of reiatsu that puts the Espada to shame. He has defeated the right-hand man of Soul King with ease and was able to bring multiple Quincy to their feet just by using his reiatsu.
5. Sternritter: Who are they?
Sternritter is a group of extremely powerful Quincy who have been assigned a Schrift by Yhwach. Schrift is a way that Yhwach shares his power by assigning a Holy Letter with Sternritter.
Sternritter are extremely powerful and are on a much higher level than captains. They gave Soul Society an incredibly hard time with their abilities which differed based on the Schrift assigned to them.
6. Is Ichigo a Quincy?
Ichigo is mixed blooded Quincy, as his mother Masaki, pure blood married Isshin, who is a Shinigami.
Yhwach is also revealed to be the reason behind Masaki’s death. On the day that Grand Fisher arrived, Yhwach took away the powers from all the Quincy.
Ichigo’s lineage was foreshadowed by Kubo when we see him use Blut Vene unconsciously to stop the bleeding from the wound inflicted by Kenpachi during the Soul Society arc.
Ichigo later wields two different Zanpakuto, one with his Shinigami/Hollow power and the other with his Quincy powers.
7. About Bleach
Bleach is a Japanese anime television series based on Tite Kubo’s manga of the same name. The anime series adapts Kubo’s manga but also introduces some new, original, self-contained story arcs.
It is based in Karakura Town on a 15-year-old high school student Ichigo Kurosaki who becomes a substitute Soul Reaper when Rukia Kuchiki, a Soul Reaper, puts Soul Reaper powers in Ichigo. They barely manage to kill the hollow.
Although initially reluctant to accept the heavy responsibility, he begins eliminating some more hollows and also discovers that several of his friends and classmates are spiritually aware and have powers of their own.
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