Bleach: How Did Ishida Survive Auswahlen?

Uryū Ishida is a character from Bleach that we have not written a lot about, even though he is actually one of the main characters in the series, but due to his increased role in the Thousand-Year Blood War Arc, we are going to be writing about him much more than you’d expect. As a Quincy, Ishida was initially torn between his Quincy Pride and the friendships he has made over the years, but he seemingly decided to disregard the latter while accepting the first, betraying his friends in the process. When he joined Yhwach, he was immediately named his successor by Yhwach himself, with one of the reasons being that he survived Yhwach’s Auswahlen nine years prior. How did he do it? Keep reading to find out!

The exact process has not been explained, but Uryu Ishida has been confirmed as the only Gemischt Quincy (impure Quincy) in the series who has immunity to Yhwach’s Auswahlen. Why and how he has it was not explained in the manga (although the anime could remedy that), but he not only survived Auswahlen, he also retained all of his powers, whereas all the other Gemischt Quincy either died or lost their powers.

The rest of this article will be dedicated to Uryū Ishida in the most extensive way imaginable, as we will tell you both about his story and his powers and abilities, as both are relevant if you want to fully understand the answer to this question. We will tell you what happened nine years before the main timeline, how Ishida was affected by it, and why he is considered so special, even in the eyes of the other Sternritter. There will be major spoilers for those who have not read the manga, so be careful how you approach the article.

Ishida obviously has immunity to Auswahlen, but the details were never explained

The story of this article started 1,000 years ago, when Yamamoto defeated Yhwach, but was not killed. According to the legend, Yhwach would reawaken after 999 years and then destroy the world and shape it into a new one according to his own will. Nine years before that, Yhwach would start regaining his powers, and that is when the main event we will talk about happened.

Nine years prior to the current timeline, Yhwach activated his Auswahlen. Namely, being the creator of all the Quincy, Yhwach can redistribute their powers at will, as they are essentially all his. He can completely drain any Quincy, even the Star Knights, of their powers, after which the victim is extremely weakened or dies directly.

The absorbed powers are then available to Yhwach himself, which he can use to strengthen or heal. However, he can also pass them on to other Quincy in order to raise them from the dead and increase their powers immensely. This is called Auswahlen.

Nine years prior, Yhwach activated his Auswahlen, but only partially, deciding to only take the powers of the Gemischt Quincy. This is why Kanae Katagiri, Ishida’s mother, as well as Masaki Kurosaki, Ichigo’s mother (who had since become a Gemischt Quincy because the Hollow White infected her), were affected, with both of them dying in the end (although not from the same cause: Masaki was killed by the Hollow Grand Fisher, while Kanae died of a silver blood clot which was a direct consequence of Auswahlen).

Now, as Ishida was the son of an Echt and a Gemischt Quincy, he was also a Gemischt Quincy, and he was, by all means, supposed to be affected too.

But he wasn’t. Not only did Ishida not die from Auswahlen, like his mother, he retained all of his powers and seemingly suffered no consequences. Ever since then, he has been wondering why he survived, whereas his mother died, although both of them were in the same position.

Now, we all know what happened later – Ishida trained with his grandfather, Soken, to become a Quincy, despite his father, Ryuken, forbidding him to do so, and he would later become an ally and close friend of Ichigo, Rukia, Chad, Inoue, and Renji. So, despite being a Quincy, Ishida became a firm ally of the Shinigami, but when Yhwach finally woke up and started his war against Soul Society, Ishida’s loyalties were tested.

After discovering the secret history of the Quincy, Ishida secretly met with Yhwach’s second-in-command, Jugram Haschwalth, who welcomed him to the Sternritter. This was a genuinely unexpected action, and even though Ichigo and the others had a lot on their plates already, they were nonetheless concerned for their friend. Ishida valued Quincy pride that much is clear, but he had grown so close to Ichigo and the others that nobody anticipated that he would just uproot everything to follow a ruthless tyrant like Yhwach.

And Yhwach welcomed it with open hands. Not only did he make him a Sternritter immediately, but he also named him his successor, which caused a significant rift among the other Quincy. He would also go on to give Ishida a Schrift (“A” – “The Antithesis”), claiming that Ishida possessed a power that had the potential to be greater than even his own.

But, when Ishida asked why Yhwach named him his successor, Yhwach was glad that someone questioned his decision and decided to explain. He explained what he did nine years prior and how the Gemischt Quincy lost their lives.

And while Ishida’s mother died, Ishida survived, which was a sign of amazing power from Yhwach’s perspective. And while Ishida said that he found out the answer as to why he survived, it was never revealed to us, so we don’t actually know why Ishida was able to survive Auswahlen, whereas all the other Gemischt Quincy suffered consequences.

Ultimately, we do know that Ishida has immunity to Auswahlen. That much has been revealed, but Kubo never really revealed the details of this immunity. We know it’s there, as Ishida could resist it on multiple occasions. And while the manga was not really that precise in explaining this, maybe the anime will fix this, seeing how many additional scenes the anime actually contains. Due to this power, Ishida was able to resist Yhwach, and he was able to use his power to help Ichigo kill him in the end.

Whether it is due to Ishida’s specific heritage, probably something from his father’s side (remember, Ryuken was also unaffected by Auswahlen, and we know that Yhwach’s Sternritter did not value Soken and his teachings that much, so it could be a consequence of that fact), or something else is unknown at this moment.

We know that he is immune to Auswahlen, which helped him survive despite being a Gemischt Quincy. We also hope that the anime will fix the manga’s issue in this aspect and that it will, ultimately, provide us with some additional information that will properly explain why Ishida is immune to Auswahlen.