Bleach: Is Captain Kensei Muguruma Dead?

Regarding Bleach characters, the Visored have always been a specific group, but it was interesting to learn that all of them were once powerful members of the Gotei 13, some of them even Captains. One of the latter is Kensei Muguruma, who was the former Captain of the 9th Division, and both Tosen’s and Hisagi’s mentor, and he has been reinstated to his position after Aizen’s downfall. Kensei Muguruma is a powerful and intriguing character who definitely has one of the more intriguing stories in the series, filled with various situations, which is why it is only natural that you might wonder what happened to him. In this article, we will tell you whether Rojuro Otoribashi died in Bleach or not and what happened to him in the story.

As of the time of writing, Kensei Muguruma is alive and well in Bleach. He was initially Hollowfied by Aizen and then wounded in Fake Karakura, but recovered and was reinstated as Captain of the 9th Division. During the Quincy Blood War, he actively participated in the battles and was seemingly being killed by Mask De Masculine, first, and then Gremmy Thoumeaux, later; Giselle Gewelle eventually zombified him, but Mayuri Kurotsuchi managed to free him of her control and ultimately return him to normal, and he was later seen alive and well.

The remainder of this article will give you a detailed overview of Kensei Muguruma’s fate in the Bleach series. You already know what happened and how it happened, so we will just bring you the details so you know the whole context. Be careful, though, as the article will contain many spoilers, so if you don’t know all the details, be careful how you approach the text.

Muguruma was a powerful fighter, but he was caught off guard by Mask, then seemingly killed by Greemy, then zombified by Giselle, but he is now, thanks to Mayuri, alive and well

About a century ago, Kensei Muguruma was the Captain of the 9th Division with Mashiro Kuna as his Lieutenant, although she could easily annoy him because of her childish behavior. During an investigation into several mysterious missing persons cases in Rukongai, he defeated a gigantic hollow and, in the process, rescued Shūhei Hisagi, who would later become the Lieutenant of the 9th Division.

During the night, his entire group was attacked by one of his own people, Kaname Tosen. He used his Bankai to ambush everyone. Kensei was then Hollowfied like Mashiro had been moments before. He then appeared as a half-Hollow and attacked Hiyori Sarugaki and Shinji Hirako first.

Shinji, Lisa, Love, Hachigen, and Rose initially managed to restrict him and Mashiro until they were also Hollowfied by Aizen. Urahara and Tessai then managed to save them from Aizen and Tōsen. However, all of them, as well as Urahara and Tessai, were forced to flee Soul Society. Urahara fled with them to the human world, where they could live undisturbed with the special Gigai that Urahara made for them, and they began to refer to themselves as Visored.

In the present timeline, he was initially seen with the other Visored while helping Ichigo train to control his Hollowfication. He has proven himself to be one of the toughest fighters among the Visored, which is why he was such a competent mentor for Ichigo at the time. He also still had the same dynamic with Mashiro.

After the Visored arrived in Fake Karakura Town, Shinji asks if any of them have anything to say about one of their former Gotei 13 acquaintances. Kensei, like many others, rejects this offer, as Shinji goes to have a talk with Yamamoto. After everyone has brought out their Visored masks and wants to fight against the Menos Grande, Kensei starts killing the appeared Gillian with his fists. After defeating most of the Menos Grande, Mashiro was annoyed that he hadn’t left her any. Kensei, in turn, replied that he would let her have Hooleer, which made Mashrio very happy.

When Mashiro Kuna fights Wonderweiss Margela afterward, Kensei warns her not to overdo it as she has had her Hollow mask on for too long. However, Mashiro does not want to hear it and misjudges the time, which is why, when her mask disappears in the middle of the fight, Wonderweiss hits back and injures Mashiro so much that she can no longer fight. When Wonderweiss is about to give her the coup de grace, Kensei intervenes and saves Mashrio from him.

He takes Mashiro to safety and tells her that he doesn’t want to avenge her. He just wants to hit this “runaway brat” with his fist, whereupon he activates his Bankai Tekken Tachikaze against Wonderweiss. You only see how both of them collide, but the rest of the fight is not shown.

However, since Wonderweiss later interferes in the fight between Yamamoto and Aizen and even gets involved in a fight with Yamamoto, it can be assumed that Kensei probably lost his fight. Later, he and the rest of the Visoreds are healed by Retsu Unohana. After Aizen’s downfall, they were allowed to return to Soul Society, and four of them – Shinji, Rose, Kensei, and Mashiro – accepted the offer and were reinstated back to the Gotei 13.

Seventeen months later, Kensei is again Captain of the Gotei 13 with Shinji and Rose. Like many other Captains, he greets Ichigo when he surprisingly shows up in the Soul Society after his fight with Ginjo. Like all the other Captains, he is shocked to hear that Ichigo is demanding Ginjo’s body to bury in the human world, but ultimately accepts his reasons and agrees with Yamamoto’s decision to allow Ichigo to do it.

When the Sternritter launched their first invasion of the Wandenreich, Kensei Muguruma was among the Captains who intervened in the fighting, but his fight was not shown initially. After the first invasion ended, he took Hisagi outside the Seireitei to learn Bankai; he let Mashiro Kuna train with him, promising him that Mashiro would kill him if he did not get serious. Through him, we later find out that Hisagi activated his Bankai, but he berated him because he could not use it before being defeated by Mask De Masculine.

Kensei saved Hisagi from being killed by Mask De Masculine and intervened in the fight alongside Rose. Kenesi quickly activated his Bankai and used his enormous strength to maul and kill Mask De Masculine. But, he did not know that James was the actual holder of “The Superstar” so when James screamed for Mask to come back, the Sternritter rose up, stronger than before, and easily defeated Kensei, becoming immune to his attacks, and left him in a near-death state. Rose then intervened but also lost, so the two Captains had to be saved by Renji and Rukia, with the latter taking them to Isane, who managed to stabilize them.

Still, Gremmy Thoumeaux soon attacked Isane and seemingly killed both Kensei and Otoribashi while they were still recovering, with their Spiritual Pressures disappearing. They were later, probably sometime during the fight between Kenpachi and Gremmy, turned into zombies by Giselle, who tried to pit them against Mayuri, but Mayuri being Mayuri anticipated this and first freed them of Giselle’s control and later, using his invention, de-zombified them and returned them to normal.

He was later seen in the “No Breathes from Hell” one-shot, which showed us that Kensei Muguruma is, as we have said, alive and well in Bleach and that he has recovered from everything that happened during the Quincy Blood War.