Highlights
- The 9th episode of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2 addresses the controversial handling of Giselle Gewelle's gender identity through Yumichika's interactions with her.
- Giselle despises being called a man and experiences a menacing transformation when her gender identity is referenced.
- Yumichika's fights, particularly against Charlotte, reveal a connection between their queer-coded beauty-loving personalities and their understanding of beauty.
The following contains spoilers for BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2, Episode 9, "Marching Out The Zombies", available on Hulu and Disney+.
The following also contains mentions of transphobia that may be triggering to some readers. Please proceed with caution.
Fans of BLEACH who have read the manga have been pensive about how the anime would handle a particularly controversial element in the Thousand-Year Blood War: the handling of Giselle Gewelle's gender identity. In the 9th episode of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2, "Marching Out The Zombies", the 11th Squad 3rd and 4th Seats Madarame Ikkaku and Yumichika Ayasegawa encounter Giselle, with Yumichika using particularly violent language in his interactions with her, with his reveal of her being biologically male (AMAB).
Various moments in this season have indicated that Giselle absolutely despises being called "a man", as Yumichika puts it; however, beyond that, one BLEACH content creator on X (Twitter) noticed that there were actually two different versions of the episode – the one on Disney+ cuts out something else that Yumichika says to her before their battle. Given the manner in which Giselle's sex and gender identity have been referred to in BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War, the interactions with Yumichika and Charlotte, and the deliberate misgendering of Giselle are things that warrant discussion.
Gigi
Sternritter Z – The Zombie, Giselle Gewelle is a petite girl with long black hair and antennae-like extensions coming out of the top of her head that give her the basic silhouette of a cockroach. She wears a small version of the standard military cap worn by the Wandenreich, offset slightly in a style reminiscent of a fascinator (or hatinator), and she has an oversized jersey that goes past her waist. She wears black leggings and white boots – as one of the Bambies, Giselle's approach to the Quincy attire is particularly stylish when compared to her other colleagues. With her unimposing frame, Bambi leans into a hyper-feminine, "girly" kind of aesthetic in looks and in mannerisms. This appearance is also something that aids in her ability, as she uses reverse psychology to goad her enemies into attacking and getting sprayed with her zombifying blood.
This strategy proves to be ineffective against Yumichika and Ikkaku, who can feel that they're being pushed into attacking her, which could be playing into a trap. When Giselle describes herself as a helpless little girl, Yumichika scoffs at her while covering his nose, telling her that it's obvious that she's "a man". In the Disney+ version of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2 episode 9, the next line is cut out, but in the original version and the manga, Yumichika goes on to say that she "reeks of semen". Whenever her gender identity is called into question or referenced in any way, Giselle's eyes lose their sparkle and a menacing look replaces her usual doe-eyed flippant personality. The series has thrown a number of these moments into the mix, and this episode is on some level, a "big reveal". Beyond the crudeness of Yumichika's language, there's an ideological difference at play when it comes to Yumichika's fights; one largely informed by his (and sometimes, his opponent's) understanding of beauty. His flamboyant, beauty-loving personality is supposedly a queer-coding of the character, whose Zanpakutō is every bit as flamboyant, aesthetically inclined and vain as he.
Coding
Many of the encounters in BLEACH are a meeting of like minds, or clear ideological opposites. When Yumichika fights the Arrancar Charlotte Chuhlhourne in the World of the Living, the fight forces Yumichika to reveal his Zanpakutō's true ability and uniqueness. With the name Fuji Kojaku, Yumichika's Zanpakutō assumes a "half-released" state because it dislikes the name and the colour invoked by that name; while Yumichika himself dislikes his Zanpakutō's true abilities because they are largely reminiscent of Kido, which is unbecoming for a member of the battle-hungry, violent and rambunctious Squad 11 that he calls home. The fight against Charlotte forces him to reckon with himself, especially because Charlotte constantly points at their inherent similarity as "lovers of beauty", but this also a nod at their queer-coding.
Charlotte's appearance and gender identity for the most part is masculine, but because of his employment of a delicate tone and mannerisms, and a flamboyant narcissism, he is a reflection of Yumichika, who's beauty is more of the "bishonen" type. It's no mistake that Charlotte returns in "Marching Out the Zombies" and engages Giselle once more. When the other Kurotsuchi Zombie Unit Arrancar take out the zombified remnants of Squad 11, Charlotte attends to Giselle based on a perceived similarity between the two. When he says that, Giselle is noticeably angered by the comment, asking rhetorically what exactly about herself is so similar to Charlotte. What he was alluding to is their feminine mannerisms, and their assigned sex being male. Series author Tite Kubo has also confirmed "Giselle is a guy".
Disturbia
Giselle, while pretending to be unthreatening, is very easy to see through in terms of the falseness of this persona. Underneath the thin layer lies a deeply twisted and sadistic individual who denies being a sadist, but is shown deriving much pleasure from the suffering of others. Bambietta's demise at the hands of Giselle after her loss to Sajin Komamura, and Giselle's subsequent description of Bambi's zombification indicate a level of depravity that Yumichika is troubled by. In the Disney+ version, she says that Bambi's terrified face contorting in agony as Giselle killed her off made her "excited"; however, the version based on the dialogue in the manga has Bambi saying that it "made her wet" (a reference to female sexual arousal). Evidently, Giselle is not pretending to be a helpless girl but in full belief that she is one – hence her violent reactions to being misgendered. There's a rather disturbing scene in which Zom-Bambi regains some level of sentience and begs desperately for Giselle's [something] while drooling uncontrollably. Giselle beats Bambi while calling her "dirty", telling her that her "reward" will come later.
Readers of the manga know that the zombified Bambi has become dependent on Giselle's blood for the maintenance of her faculties – if she doesn't get the blood, she dies permanently. However, the way in which the scene plays out leaves room for the interpretation of sexual undertones, which creates a whole other miasma around Giselle and further darkens the interactions she has with her former teammate, as well as Yumichika's description of Giselle as a "sick, perverted freak". What adds to the idea that Giselle is sadistic is that she could have easily healed Bambietta as she did Candice, using the reishi from dead Shinigami to restore Candice's severed arm. The ability itself is also a major nod at the depth of the abyss that is Giselle Gewelle; as it makes grants her full control over other people, an inherently sociopathic desire especially in how she plays with the lives of her victims. On one hand, Giselle's character having such profound levels of darkness but also emotional reactions to being misgendered make for a rather interesting character, but on the other, the language used and kinds of allusions made about the character make parts of the recent episode a tough watch.