Who Is Mera in Bleach, What Are Her Powers, and Why Is She Important?
The Soul King Palace is, of course, best known as the home of the Soul King, as well as the Royal Guard in Bleach. But, although Kubo never really revealed the whole infrastructure behind the Soul King Palace, we have managed to find out about some of its other inhabitants, save for the Captains of the Zero Division. One of them is Mera Hiuchigashima, who appeared alongside Ōetsu Nimaiya in his palace, the Hōōden. Although she is a supporting character only, due to the fact that not many people know about her, we have decided to introduce Mera to you in this article.
Mera Hiuchigashima is actually a female Zanpakutō Spirit that lives in the Hōōden palace and works with Ōetsu Nimaiya. She is his bodyguard, and security guard, as well as a reliable and loyal assistant in the Zanpakutō forging process. She is one of many Zanpakutō Spirits that live freely in Nimaiya’s palace, but unlike most other “Zanpakutō girls”, Nimaiya gets on her nerves and she doesn’t support his immature behavior at times.
The rest of this article is going to focus, as you’ve probably deduced for yourselves, on Mera Hiuchigashima, the most famous Zanpakutō Spirit seen in Nimaiya’s palace in the Soul King’s realm. Mera is a recurring secondary character who definitely stood out among the many new characters introduced in the series’ final arc, so we have decided to tell you everything that there is to know about her. Spoilers from the manga are going to be present, so be careful how you approach the article.
Who is Mera in Bleach?
Mera Hiuchigashima is actually a female Zanpakutō Spirit that lives in the Hōōden palace and works with Ōetsu Nimaiya. She is his bodyguard, and security guard, as well as a reliable and loyal assistant in the Zanpakutō forging process. She is one of many Zanpakutō Spirits that live freely in Nimaiya’s palace. Unlike the other major Spirits from the palace, Mera is not a “fangirl” of Nimaiya and is rather harsh towards him. She disapproves of his immature behavior, as seen when she blatantly kicks (his ass) in front of Ichigo and Renji while he was pranking them. On the other hand, she is very loyal to Nimaiya and regularly helps him.
Mera has red, spiky hair that is tied into a short(er) ponytail in the back. For the first time, Mera makes an appearance to inform her Master of Ichigo Kurosaki and Renji Abarai’s arrival at the Hōōden for their specialized training with the Royal Guard. Mera shows up in the Palace’s main room shortly after she arrives, berating her Master for not being serious enough to train Ichigo and Renji rather than spending his time welcoming her. The two Shinigami are later brought to the actual Hōōden by her, and Ōetsu to begin their training with the Asauchi. After Renji passes and Ichigo fails the training, Mera is tasked with recovering him from the palace and taking him away, which she does easily and without much effort (sure, Ichigo received a good beating by the Asauchi so he was exhausted, but still, Mera’s skills were quite impressive).
Mera instructs the two Shinigami to enter the Hōōden once they see it is nothing more than a modest cabin. As a result, they both tumble towards the area where the Asauchi are. After three days of training, Ōetsu makes the decision to exclude Ichigo from the Hōōden for failing to demonstrate his status as a “genuine shinigami.” Ichigo is consequently sent back to Karakura Town by Mera. Ichigo chooses to go back to the Soul King Palace after learning about his background and the mystery surrounding his birth, but he is unsure about how to achieve it.
Mera suddenly materializes at that same moment and claims to have arrived just in time. They emerge right away in the Hōōden, where Mera explains that they must establish a precise round-trip time in order to unlock the Chōkaimon and that the master determined she would only send it for one night because keeping it longer would be pointless if she didn’t make any changes.
Nimaiya summons his five Zanpakutō Spirits, his bodyguard, including Mera, to assist him when he decides to restart constructing Ichigo’s Zanpakutō. Ichigo’s Asauchi is quickly pinned to the ground in front of him by the Royal Guard, and Mera then launches a massive flame of fire from her mouth to start the casting. Nimaiya completes forging Ichigo’s “new” Zangetsu alongside Mera and her other companions. She later observes as Ichigo grabs his new Zangetsu while it’s still being forged by Nimaiya. Interestingly enough, the process was so complex that all the water from the sea surrounding the forge simply evaporated.
She is seen once more as she notices the presence of Yhwach, Jugram Haschwalth, and Uryū Ishida arriving at the Soul King Palace.
What are Mera’s powers?
Being a Zanpakutō Spirit, Mera’s powers have not been revealed in full detail. We don’t actually know how she came to be and why her powers shaped up to be like they are – whether it was an accident or intended by Nimaiya – but we assume that she is the embodiment of a Fire-based Zanpakutō, mainly because she can breathe fire, a fire so strong that it helps Nimaiya in the process of creating the Zanpakutō. She also seems to be faster and stronger than your average Shinigami, but we don’t know how much.
Why is Mera important?
Mera’s role as a supporting character in the Bleach series is mostly of a background nature. Sure, she was a source of quite a few giggles during Ichigo’s and Renji’s training in the Soul King Palace, but aside from that, we haven’t seen much of Mera in the series. We do know that she is vital in the Zanpakutō forging process because the fire that she breathes is used by Nimaiya during the procedure. This means that her actual role is quite important, but it is a background role and has to be acknowledged as such.
