Bleach: What Is “The Zombie” & How Exactly Does It Work? Giselle’s Power Explained!

If you line up all the Sternritter seen in the Bleach, each of them would probably be special because of one thing or another, but Giselle Gewelle might – singlehandedly – be the most intriguing one due to a number of reasons. Giselle Gewelle has both an interesting story and a very intriguing set of powers and abilities. In light of that fact, we will tell you a bit about her special power, “The Zombie”, which has made her one of the best-written Sternritter in the series.

Giselle Gewelle’s power is called “The Zombie,” and it is a manifestation of her “Z” Schrift. In that aspect, Giselle can use her blood to turn people into zombies, both living and dead ones, which then become her pawns. Her ability also gives her exceptional regenerative skills and the ability to heal others.

The rest of this article will be focused on Giselle Gewelle, the Sternritter “Z” – “The Zombie,” who had a very important role in the second Quincy invasion of the Seireitei, as she clashed with a large number of characters, including Kenpachi, Ichigo, and Mayuri. This article will focus a bit on her story but more on her powers; the story will be told only when we need it to actually explain the powers we are talking about, focusing on her base ability, not her Vollständig. If you’re not fully up-to-date with Bleach, we must warn you that this article will be spoiler-heavy, so be careful how you approach it.

“The Zombie” is an incredibly powerful ability, but it is not invincible

Giselle Gewelle has definitely left her mark on Bleach. She is an incredibly intriguing character. While there is certainly space to talk about her story and powers, this article will be dedicated to the latter, as we have decided to tell you everything you need to know about Giselle’s power, The Zombie.

As you know, each of the Sternritter has an individual, unique ability associated with their Schrift. Yhwach gave all Quincy who have become Sternritter a Schrift. This means that they now each carry one of the letters of the alphabet, which is both their epithet and the initial of their individual powers given to them by Yhwach.

Yhwach can assign a letter several times at the same time, either with the same powers or with two different powers, representing the corresponding letter. As for Giselle, as we’ve said, her Schrift is “Z,” which stands for “The Zombie,” which is also the name of her unique power.

So, what does The Zombie actually do? The Zombie is a very layered skill, and Giselle actually has several aspects of this ability that she can use in battle. She has demonstrated them on more than one occasion. The first aspect of The Zombie is Giselle’s night invulnerability; she can be defeated and killed, but she is immune to most types of attacks.

She cannot be cut, as she simply regenerates, and she can withstand extreme force without injury. Even with the biggest cuts, she can still talk and walk as if nothing had happened. Of course, Yhwach can defeat and severely injure her, as was seen later in the manga, but she is immune to most other attacks. This is probably because her The Zombie also extends to her; she is not a zombie herself, but she seems to have some zombie-like traits that help her in battle.

The second aspect of her power is related to her blood, which is not toxic but acts as a sort of poison for those it touches. Namely, Giselle Gewelle gains complete control over another person’s body once they come into contact with her blood. Those affected then become her “zombies,” which Giselle can command at will and even force them to commit suicide. But, the process is not as simple as you might think.

Namely, certain conditions must be met for another person to become Giselle’s zombie. What is important to say here is that her power also works on Quincy, which is rare in their case, as Quincy powers usually don’t work on other Quincy. However, we’ve seen it happen (PePe was also able to put Meninas under his control with his power).

As Giselle explained, for her power to work on another Quincy, the Quincy in question must be dead. This is why Giselle had to kill Bambietta first to transform her into a zombie, as she herself explained in the manga. It is unknown if her power would work on weaker Quincy while they’re alive.

As for the Shinigami, Giselle herself has explained that it is much easier for her to control them, as even a brief contact with just a drop of her blood will turn a Shinigami into her pawn. This is what happened when the 11th Division attacked and cut her, after which they came into contact with their blood and became her zombies.

This generally works even on those who contact Giselle’s blood by proxy, i.e., those who attack her zombies and then come into contact with her infected blood. This is why it is exceptionally difficult to fight her if you’re a Shinigami, as Shinigami most often rely on blades, and since blades cut, blood is often present, and we have now established just how dangerous her blood is.

Of course, this has limitations, which we will address below, but the general idea that Giselle’s blood should be avoided is true. Giselle was well aware of this, so she taunted Ikkaku and Yumichika to cut her, but they did not fall for her trick.

If a Shinigami is weaker, the blood will affect him even if he is alive and completely healthy. Still, if a Shinigami is stronger – Lieutenant or Captain level – they will either have to be dead or dying for Giselle’s power to work on them. This is, in that aspect, similar to how her power is applied to other Quincy, as we have explained above.

Another important aspect is the healing ability of The Zombie. Namely, using the Reishi of her zombies, Giselle can heal her allies and even mend cut limbs, as she did when she reattached the arms of both Candice Catnipp and zombie Bambietta.

The duration of The Zombie’s power is also up to Giselle, but as we’ve seen in the Can’t Fear Your Own World light novel, she is able to maintain the effects for a prolonged time, but she needs to feed her zombies her blood from time to time if they are to survive, which is why Bambietta has such cravings all the time, as she has become addicted to Giselle’s blood.

Also, the effect of her zombification can be reversed, as Mayuri’s special pods revealed. Still, it takes a lot of toll on the user and drains a lot of their life energy, but it heals them completely, as Mayuri did to Toshiro, Rangiku, Muguruma, and Otoribashi. Now, this is a general overview of The Zombie and its effects. In the next section, we will discuss this ability’s limits.

The limitations of “The Zombie” are significant but not overly apparent

As you could have seen, The Zombie is one of the trickiest and most potent abilities that the Sternritter have shown us. But, of course, it is not limitless, and there are certain downsides to it, which is what we are going to discuss here in this section.

The first issue is that, as we have said, Giselle’s blood cannot be so easily applied to stronger opponents. This is why Ikkaku was not affected even though he came into contact with the girl’s blood; this could be remedied by Giselle using a lot of her blood to infect her opponents, but how could she come into such a situation during a fight?

She is not a strong fighter, so unless she encounters an enemy that is already down, she won’t be able to control stronger opponents. This also explains why she was able to control Toshiro Hitsugaya, Rangiku Matsumoto, Kensei Muguruma, and Rojuro Otoribashi, all of whom were either dead or in a near-death state when Giselle arrived. Still, in Ikkaku’s case, her powers were useless, as he was not close to death.

Another major downside are the Arrancar, or Hollows in general. Because Hollows are “toxic” for the Quincy, Giselle’s powers are either severely limited or don’t work at all. She was unable to control the four Arrancar that Mayuri Kurotsuchi had revived, but this is an unclear issue – it has been suggested that she was unable to control them because they were already “undead” (as Mayuri revived their corpses), but it is also possible that her abilities would be severely limited when faced with a living Arrancar.