Can't Fear Your Own World is a Bleach light novel spin-of. After the rushed conclusion of the Bleach manga, many open questions remained. Can't Fear Your Own World (CFYOW) is set conveniently at the end of the Thousand-Year Blood-War arc (TYBW) and attempts to tie up some loose ends, which makes it stand out compared to the other Bleach novels. It was announced right at the end of the Bleach manga and involves a lot of popular characters. For those reasons, CFYOW has gained attention by the fandom.
CFYOW has remained a bit mysterious, as there were only unofficial translations available for the western audience. The only access I was aware of was the Bleach: Brave Souls mobile game. It was in 2020-2021 when an official English translation was finally released.
CFYOW picks up right at the conclusion of the TYBW arc and starts strong by reintroducing the surviving Espada as well as Squad 0, whose fates were unknown at the end of the manga.
The actual main story of CFYOW starts a bit later, after Soul Society was rebuild following the war. The common Soul Reapers were fed a lie about the war: that it was to protect the Soul King, who supposedly remained save in the royal palace. In reality, Yhwach has absorbed the Soul King and after his defeat, Yhwach’s remains were used as the lynchpin to hold the worlds together.
Shuhei Hisagi is introduced as the protagonist of this novel. He’s struggling to restart the Sereitei Bulletin (Soul Society's news magazine) and is pushed into writing about the new head of the Tsunayashiro clan: Tokinada.
Tokinada is the main antagonist of the novel. He slaughtered his entire clan to become the head of the most powerful noble family of Soul Society. Honestly, he’s a despicable person but written quite interestingly. At his command we find Hikone, a kid that is set to become the next soul king.
Hikone is Tokinada’s pawn artificially created with the help of Aura Michibane. Hikone is described as a kid around 15 years old and quite attractive, but you can’t tell if it’s a boy or a girl. The way it’s preached throughout the novel makes it quite creepy and distracting at times, and it contrasts with their artworks which portray a way younger and more uncanny looking character. What’s more, Hikone was created from the fragments of all kinds of beings in the world of Bleach, uniting the powers of Soul Reapers, Hollows and Quincies. This fact and the age of 15 seem to parallel Ichigo, which feels quite satirical. Hikone’s significance and story arc were one of the bigger disappointments for me, as I couldn’t care less about this character.
Aura Michibane is a mysterious figure. She is a cunning and manipulative woman affiliated with the Fullbringer Yukio, as well as Tokinada. I quite enjoyed her character arc in the later half of the novel.
CFYOW uses as vast cast of characters from the main series, as well as a few original ones. With Hisagi as the protagonist, we get many characters he is or was involved with. Most of the Gotei make an appearance, especially Shunsui as the head captain. The novel uses all the surviving Arrancar and Sternritter, we even got most of the Fullbringers. Squad 0, the known members of noble families, and of course our new antagonists are involved here and there.
As you can see, the novel uses way too many characters. This is in typical Bleach fashion. Bleach is infamous for its vast cast of characters it can’t possibly all use in a meaningful way or develop enough to satisfy the audience. It’s the same problem here. I can’t understand why the novel would make use of so many characters, especially when some of them were believed to be dead in the first place. Fanservice can’t explain all of that, as the cast also includes characters the casual Bleach fan would have never heard of like Nanana Najakoop, or Roka Paramiac. Why go through all the trouble of finding elaborate explanations why these characters are alive and waste time for little payoff? All those Quincies and Arrancar and Fullbringer aren’t directly involved in the main conflict, just kind of there to fight against each other and the general antagonist in the later course of action, in a similar fashion to the last strokes of TYBW.
To justify being a spin-of focusing on Hisagi, CFYOW has forcefully excluded the actual main cast of Bleach. As for Ichigo, the explanation feels weak, he just happens to be out of town when all hell breaks loose and for once can’t step in to save the day. Whatever.
Even with its three long volumes packed with 1200ish pages, CFYOW doesn’t manage to build satisfying arcs for even the small selection of characters it features heavily apart from Hisagi and the new antagonists. This wouldn’t be much of an issue if it also portrayed the characters correctly.
Hisagi became a decently popular character after the reveal of his shikai in the Fake Karakura Town arc but didn’t get much development after. His bankai was teased in TYBW and confirmed end of series, leaving him as sidenote. CFYOW doesn’t so much build on Hisagi’s character as rewriting him. Now his character is mainly described as being the editor-in-chief of the Sereitei Bulletin, acting as a dutiful reporter. What’s more, he’s very much still attached to Kaname Tousen, his former captain he had to kill in the war against Aizen. His resolve back then seemed absolute, but in CFYOW he repeatedly still calls Tousen “captain” and holds his teachings very high, despite the path of corruption Tousen was led to. I find this spin on Hisagi very disappointing, it more so reminds me of Momo Hinamori’s character arc. In contrast, Hisagi seemed to cope better with moving on after Aizen’s betrayal and became de-facto captain of his squad. In CFYOW he seems to be broken and stuck in the past, while struggling to become the most soul-reaper-like soul reaper. We didn’t get enough of Hisagi in the main story, but what we get here feels like a different character at times.
Another major character focus for CFYOW is Grimmjow. His appearance can be considered fanservice in a way, as he is quite popular, and his fate was unknown at the conclusion of the manga. CFYOW fails to do him justice though. He gets reduced to a battle-maniac who jumps at any conflict causing havoc. This is noted by Nelliel at various time. She complains about and takes action against Grimmjow, this overly strict behavior also feels out of character for her. At first, the novel portrays Grimmjow as the preditor he is and fits his temper in occasionally, but I don’t like the arc that unfolds. Grimmjow wants to prove himself against Hikone who invaded Hueco Mundo. By searching for them in Soul Society, Grimmjow ends up in a conflict with Luppi, who is still part of Mayuir’s corpse squad. Grimmjow’s character arc in CFYOW is limited to Luppi’s revenge and interweaves these characters to an uncomfortable level. The conflict doesn’t even get resolved, making it quite unsatisfying.
Grimmjow jumps at any bout he can. This characterization fits Kenpachi better, who also gets some spotlight in the novel. Kenpachi’s main fight is off screened though, and what we see of him in turn is more reminiscent to Grimmjow’s pride over prey. The character writing fails to use its canon material correctly.
CFYOW shines by expanding on Bleach’ world building. The canon left many unresolved issues and even plot holes, CFYOW tries to fix some of those.
Bleach introduces four main noble families, of which we know only two, plus the Shiba clan which has lost its status. CFYOW confirms five clans including the Shiba clan and introducing the Tsunayashiro clan as one of them. What about the fifth clan? Well, CFYOW refrains from making any statement about them. It feels like a forced ambiguity it leaves, especially when using Yoruichi as the Shihoin representative who left her clan a century ago. Why not make it four clans including the Shibas? The canon left that much room for interpretation.
CFYOW hints at the answers for several open questions Bleach left, such as the fall of the Shiba clan or the backstory of Ginjo. His motives are expanded upon, but ultimately, it refuses to give a proper explanation.
One thing it satisfyingly answers though are the origins of the Soul King and the creation of the worlds (Soul Society, Hueco Mundo and the world of the living). I won’t spoil it here, but this was honestly the biggest bone CFYOW threw at the fandom. This gives some perspective to the motives of Aizen and Yhwach, which was somewhat missing in canon.
Another thing CFYOW expands upon is Hisagi’s inner world, meaning the place his zanpakuto spirit resides. In canon, we only ever see Ichigo’s inner world, leaving you to wonder how the inner worlds of other soul reapers look like. In this way, CFYOW delivers a fitting answer for Hisagi.
CFYOW reveals the bankais of Hisagi and Shinji, while providing reasons why those couldn’t be used before. Ever since the Soul Society arc, some of the most asked questions in the fandom were the identities of the bankais we haven’t seen yet. While this is also a major score for CFYOW, we can’t expect to see all the unknown bankais. It makes sense within the confines of the story, but we still don’t know the bankais of some major characters CFYOW uses, most notably Aizen and Jushiro.
As you might already guess, I’m quite critical towards CFYOW and its writing style. It honestly feels like a really elaborate fan fiction. The Tsunayashiro clan turns out to be the most powerful and influential clan in the history of… the Bleach universe honestly. Like Aizen in canon, Tokinada is involved in many shenanigans such as the death of Kaname’s friend which led to his path of becoming a Gotei captain and his ultimate downfall. The Tsunayashiro clan is also responsible for the visual department of the Sereitei, basically controlling surveillance and the flow of information. This apparent significance is ridiculous, making you wonder how we never heard of them before.
Tokinada is portrayed as extremely dangerous. It was quite interesting having another antagonist on Aizen’s level of intellect. Tokinada motivates a ridiculous game of wits and deceit, his words alone are extremely dangerous as he knows how to turn his opponents’ arguments around. When the actual fighting proceeds, Tokinada proves to also be a very dangerous foe to raise your sword against. It just feels like an asspull how powerful he and his clan are in the big picture. Their zanpakuto is stupidly strong as well, its ability sounds like something a kid would come up with if they wanted to create the most overpowered weapon ever.
As careful it avoids giving any actual answers, there is one thing where CFYOW contradicts Bleach. Hisagi apparently hasn’t achieved bankai yet but does so by visiting his inner world. Bleach has previously established a soul reaper achieves Bankai by manifesting their zanpakuto spirit in the outer world. The details for Hisagi are honestly quite similar how Ichigo tamed his inner Hollow in the early Arrancar arc.
Hisagi’s bankai was also somewhat disappointing for me. I won’t tell too much here, but it’s the type that does the opposite of its shikai and isn’t useful in a one-on-one fight… if you plan on defeating your opponent anyway. With such an ominous zanpakuto as Kazeshini, Hisagi’s bankai feels out of place. Instead, it ties to Hisagi’s inner conflict, which is partially made up by CFYOW’s own spin on the character.
Like many times in Bleach before, the judgment of Soul Society is based on the ancient rules of aristocracy leading to easily written conflicts for the main characters to struggle against. Other plot devices rely on arcs we already had in Bleach, at one point CFYOW yet again threatens to destroy Karakura Town. We get many cases of convenient but elaborate excuses like how Seinosuke managed to leave the Gotei despite it being a service for life, ultimately just disguising the problem. Generally, CFYOW loves to delve into tangents of half-assed explanations that were honestly quite boring to read and take up a lot of space that could be otherwise used to progress the story. These explanations often use analogies from the known Bleach lore, for example forcing comparisons to other zanpakuto abilities.
Another quirk it shares with Bleach and drives to its extreme is the constant cutting between scenes. Initially, chapters were somewhat short. After a while, CFYOW starts to add more and more scenes to each chapter. We get a story set up in one scene and cut to another dimension where something seemingly unrelated happens. Then we get an explanatory tangent or cut back to the first scene, but in the next chapter instead of progressing the plot we get a backstory. Consequently, it’s common to see 100+ page chapters. It gets worse in the second volume. It’s the longest one, but basically consists of only one fight that takes almost 500 pages to unfold. To be fair, as a light novel, the pages aren’t very dense. Volume two is a single battle across at least 3 different locations across the worlds, constant cutting back and forth included. This gets worse as we get all fractions in the Bleach universe fighting each other and regrouping to fight yet another character who shows up. While this style is like how Bleach did things at the tensest of moments of major arcs, it feels so much worse in CFYOW.
The thing is, CYOW kills of its own plot threads by the constant change of scenes. One reason many of the prominent characters don’t get their time to shine is that their sub plot is occasionally cut short when another tangent opens, or when we need to move the main plot forward suddenly. It even leaves some of its major conflicts unresolved. At this point you need to accept that this novel only tries to give some characters more screen time while keeping you hooked with some empty promises about how it may or may not reveal critical information on the Bleach lore. By how contrived the plot threads are, the action sequences can be quite enjoyable though.
At some point I must talk about the English translation of the novel. Unless you are fluid in Japanese, the English version is probably your only way of experiencing it. Sadly, there are some problems with it. To my shock, the official English translation wasn’t much better than the fan translation I dropped earlier because of awkward language. I’m sure some or most of the weird expressions are caused by the light novel format (this is the only light novel I’ve read so far). I don’t want to believe this is a common occurrence of light novels though.
The weird use of language is mostly tied to dialogue scenes, where we get things like “formed their mouth to speak”. If this was used sporadically, I wouldn’t be complaining as it surely is a literally device in the genre, but it’s overused so much that it gets exhausting. There must be a better way of translating a light novel into English, so I’ll call this a poor translation. The occasional spelling errors reinforces my assumption.
Another oddity is the inconsistent use of Japanese vs. English terms. Like most works of Japanese media, Bleach has created vocabulary specific to its lore. Most Bleach fans should know what “Arrancar” or “Zanpakuto” means for example. CFYOW chooses to translate some of these terms to English like “Soul King” or “Soul Reaper”. Curiously, some of the translated terms don’t match the established translations like “assistant captain” instead of “vice-captain”. Other terms are kept Japanese though, which gets problematic with terms that aren’t that well known in the fandom like “Saketsu” (a Soul Reaper’s chain of fate) or “Hakusui” (a Soul Reaper’s source of spiritual pressure). It gets even worse with some terms that I couldn’t remember hearing before at all, and probably were introduced in CFYOW like “Osho” or “Kyougoku”. If the meaning of these were explained in the novel, I must have forgotten. It took some guess work figuring out what the characters were even talking about at times.
One last thing I have to address is if the novel is canon or not. The fact that it builds and expands on Bleach lore puts some weight on this question. We know that Tite Kubo himself was working together with the author of the novel and provided the sketches and artworks for the volumes. Just how much he was involved in the writing and worldbuilding aspect, we don’t know. As it is an official Bleach release, we have to assume Kubo was agreeing on the general points of CFYOW, some of its worldbuilding sounds like something Kubo could have written. We don’t know how much of it were the ideas of Kubo vs. the novel’s author Narita.
The fact that CFYOW contradicts Bleach canon on some details paints a different picture. The author uses a character from a previous Bleach novel he had written and who is dead in the canon. The writing steps too far in some places, like the significance of the the Tsunayashiro clan we have never even heard of before, making it sound like the crazy fantasies of a Bleach fan that don't fit into the canon. Another thing to consider is the fates of many characters we didn’t get to see in the final chapter of Bleach. We technically don’t know if Kisuke, Yoruichi, or any of the Espada that were involved in the war survived. CFYOW confirms them alive, which most Bleach fans might appreciate.
In the end, I don’t think CFYOW can be considered canon in its entirety, it diverges way to far from the main story. Some aspects could fit into the canon of Bleach though, and at least some details that provide closure to open questions should please most fans. I’d say pick and choose what aspect you consider canon or not, I don’t think there’s a clear answer.
Can’t Fear Your Own World promises to tie up the open ends of the Bleach manga. It reintroduces popular character, reveals bankais that didn’t have to opportunity to fit into the main series and provides critical answers to the bigger picture of the Bleach universe. The original characters of the novel stand out as intriguing villains rivaling some of Bleach’ antagonists.
In my opinion though, CFYOW can’t keep its promises. In many cases, it refuses to give clear answers or doesn’t dare to step deep enough into the lore of Bleach. It uses way too many characters from the main series for no apparent reason and brings back minor characters believed to be dead. The characterization quite differs from how they are portrayed in canon and combined with the scale of disconnected lore it introduces, feels like reading a fan fiction. What’s more, the writing has all kinds of issues like weird use of language, unnecessary tangents and contrived sub plots that lead nowhere. I attribute parts of this issue to the challenge of translating a Light Novel into English, but even excusing those, CFYOW was a disappointment. You might appreciate the open writing style, but I came here to get answers and not to ask more questions.
We get some insight into the worldbuilding of Bleach and the reveal of two bankais, which might be enough to justify the novel. The vast cast ensures most Bleach fans will find some extra screen time for their favorite characters, so this alone might be enough to enjoy CFYOW. As for me, the dives into the past and inner workings of the Bleach universe inspired me to revisit the series. With the release of a sequel chapter to the Bleach manga and the dawn of a TYBW anime I’m once again hyped for one of my favorite series of all time. As little as I could enjoy CFYOW, there was at least something to be gained from reading it.
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