Bleach: Meet Guenael Lee – The Creepy Old Man Who Attacked Isane & Yachiru!

While there are many of them, except Ishida (who shared his Schrift with Yhwach), James & Mask, and the Lloyd Twins, the Sternritter’s Schrift were generally unique, i.e., one Schrift was assigned to one Sternritter. But, in the case of Sternritter V, a total of three such Sternritter appeared, and in this article, we are going to present Guenael Lee to you.

Guenael Lee was a Sternritter and a member of Yhwach’s army who was initially introduced as the original Sternritter “V” – “The Vanishing Point,” but it turned out that he was, just like Shaz Domino, a creation of Gremmy Thoumeaux, the real Sternritter “V” – “The Visionary,” who could materialize anything he thought of, including a human being. Guenael was a creepy-looking old man who attacked Isane and Yachiru, and he could disappear from space, as well as the memories of his opponents, although he was still successfully beaten by Yachiru. Gremmy himself ultimately destroyed him, as he simply had no use of him, despite Guenael’s pleas to keep him alive.

The rest of this article will be dedicated to Guenael Lee and his story as it happened on the pages of Bleach. We are actually going to explain who Guenael Lee is, what he did, and why he is such an enigma in the story. We will answer four main questions about this guy, so stick with us if you want to know what happened. This article will contain many major spoilers, so be careful if you haven’t actually read the Bleach manga, as this article will reveal a lot.

Guenael Lee was a creepy figure with a very problematic ability

During the second invasion of the Seireitei, Isane, and Yachiru were hiding in a secret room where the two of them were healing the wounded; at the time, they were taking care of Captains Otoribashi and Muguruma. When Yachiru returned with some stolen goods, a creepy old man suddenly appeared behind Isane and disappeared almost instantly, leaving Isane confused, as she could not remember anything.

And while Yachiru was able to punch the creepy old dude before he disappeared, she, likewise, had trouble remembering whom she had attacked. At the same time, the creepy old guy was very much present, and ahead of the next episode, we can confirm that he is Guenael Lee.

Guenael Lee was initially introduced as the Sternritter “V” – “The Vanishing Point.” His ability was to appear and disappear in front of his enemies as he wanted, and as he disappeared, they had absolutely no memory of him, which means that he could hit them as he wanted, and they would never know how they ended up with the injury. He is a small, wrinkled, older-looking man with glasses and lush pink hair. Guenael’s eyes are not both looking ahead but pointing in two opposite directions. Furthermore, it seems to be a habit of Guenael to always have a big grin on his lips, which always shows his teeth.

His attire is the standard white uniform of a Sternritter and a hooded trench coat. He loves to play with his opponents and show them off, using his specific abilities to suddenly appear and just as suddenly disappear before his opponents’ eyes, embarrassing the opponent with taunting questions. Furthermore, Guenael judges his opponents by their appearance, commenting on Yachiru Kusajishi’s hair color and physical appearance and labeling them as wild mountain monkeys, beasts, and small beasts for their crude, violent actions against Guenael. Guenael also states that Yachiru’s naïve, instinctive actions remind him of a monkey.

Guenael Lee seemed to be a formidable opponent, but it did not turn out like that. Guenael first appears after Rukia Kuchiki’s fight against Äs Nödt, in which the latter died. Lieutenant Isane Kotetsu of the 4th Division & 11th Division’s Lieutenant Yachiru Kusajishi have fled to safety from the Quincy. However, Isane has doubts as to whether Quincy really hasn’t discovered the two Shinigami in their hiding place or whether this is just an illusion.

Just as Isane expresses her doubts, Guenael suddenly appears behind Isane and clutches her back. He explains that he has been observing the two Shinigami for a long time and is now taking action himself to defeat the two. Yachiru attacks Guenael directly, and it looks like she punches Quincy in the face. However, Guenael can easily dodge the attack with his Vanishing Point ability. Furthermore, Yachiru doesn’t seem to be able to remember what she was trying to hit immediately after being attacked by Guenael’s specific ability.

Guenael sneers at this attempted attack while explaining his epithet “V” and his ability “Vanishing Point.” He can dodge further attacks from Yachiru and easily wound them with attacks in his invisible form. However, when Yachiru’s attacks become dangerously precise, he disappears again from Isane’s and Yachiru’s memories. The moment he reappears, he is immediately reflexively attacked by Yachiru and slightly injured in the cheek before he can disappear again.

When Isane asks how she can attack someone she doesn’t even know, as he might be both a friend and a foe, she replies that she “had a feeling.” Guenael cannot understand this irrational action and angrily decides to kill her before she can become dangerous to him. Meanwhile, Yachiru takes her Zanpakuto and explains to Isane that he attacks them whenever Kenpachi has a bad “feeling” about someone.

When Guenael then tries to stab Yachiru from behind, she reacts faster, and although Guenael disappears quickly enough, he is hit in the bridge of the nose. Yachiru then explains the ability of her Zanpakutō, Sanpo Kenjū, to the startled Guenael. Yachiru then attacks Guenael with her Zanpakutō again, but he manages to escape at the last second with his The Vanishing Point abilities, thus evading death away for the time being.

But then, another Sternritter, Gremmy Thoumeaux, suddenly appears and explains that Guenael is just a figment of his The Visionary’s abilities, i.e., that he is just a materialized figment of his imagination. He says he can’t imagine a future for Guenael anymore, and despite Guenael’s pleas to save him as he could still be of some use, the supposed “Sternritter V” dies, his body being shredded out of nowhere.

Guenael Lee was as real as the kid Gremmy – which means that he wasn’t

While the answer is more or less clear, we simply wanted to tell you again that Guenael Lee was never real. He was a figment of The Visionary’s imagination, but not an actual person. Gremmy’s The Visionary is a very powerful ability that allows Gremmy to materialize anything and everything he imagines. So. if Gremmy imagines something, then this image becomes a reality. Whether it’s a status change, a terrain change, an object, or even a living person – if Gremmy can imagine it and concentrate on it long enough, it will become real.

Interestingly enough, despite being figments of Gremmy’s imagination, his living creations – both Guenael Lee and Shaz Domino – were sentient beings and had their own will, freedom to act, as well as their own consciousness. This is why Shaz Domino was able to have his own adventure in the short story we walked about and why Guenael Lee was actually able to act on his own and ultimately beg Gremmy to spare his life.

This is a very complex relationship, but if you actually know that even Gremmy, the child we’ve seen, is just a manifestation of The Visionary, as the real Sternritter “V” was just a brain in a small dome, you can begin to understand how complex and powerful The Visionary actually is and how and why Guenael Lee was actually there like he was.

Why was Guenael Lee unable to kill Yachiru?

Ultimately, we would also like to raise one final question before wrapping this article up, and that concerns Guenael Lee’s fight with Yachiru. Namely, on paper, Guenael Lee was the ideal fighter. He was efficient, he could hide his presence, and he was, basically, impossible to fight, as he could disappear completely while coming to kill you from the back. So, how was he unable to defeat Yachiru? Not that we’re implying that Yachiru is weak – she certainly isn’t – but she never had the fighting experience to face such an opponent; it wasn’t like she was Zaraki, who would slice Guenal Lee in seconds, probably using a similar approach to the one he used when he fought against Tosen’s Bankai. So, what exactly happened where?

Well, the main problem here is how Yachiru was fighting. Namely, we have to understand, first, that she was a piece of Kenpachi’s Zanpakuto, Nozarashi. As such, she carried a piece of his soul and was connected to Kenpachi on a much deeper, more fundamental level than you’d actually imagine, seeing how the two of them were the series’ comedy duo in many situations. Secondly, she was around Kenpachi all the time – she trained with him, and she watched him fight. Because of these two facts, Yachiru, despite not being as powerful as Kenpachi, learned how to think like Kenpachi and how to fight like Kenpachi.

This is why her approach to fighting was similar to Kenpachi’s and since Kenpachi would have had absolutely no trouble dealing with Guenael Lee, Yachiru also found a way to defeat him. She was fightin using her instinct, without much thinking. She had a tingling feeling that made her conclude that Guenael was an enemy, and as soon as she would sense that tingle again, she would instinctively react and was able to hit and injure Guenael Lee when the two of them faced off during the second invasion. Guenael Lee had never seen such an approach to a battle and he was, to say the least, baffled by her way of fighting.

He was also furious because of that, so much that he insulted her by calling her an animal, comparing her fightng style to that of a common animal that was also fighting using only her instinct and nothing else. In that aspect, Yachiru’s instinct was enough for her to eventually surpass Guenael Lee and to stop him from defeating her, and this was probably the reason why Gremmy ultimately killed him, as he had no use for someone whom he deemed so weak.