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Personality: Stubborn, hot-headed, short-tempered, and impulsive, yet caring and considerate despite his outward appearance, Ichigo is generally a lively individual, though he can be serious when the situation requires it and at times, can get downright depressed if things go bad. Usually any major changes to his mood are caused by something big, and the moment that hurdle's been cleared, he's back on track as his usual self. Because of his “tough-guy” image that he's spent years to acquire and perfect, he's usually seen with a scowl on his face... not that it's an accurate representation of who he is.
Ichigo's entire being revolves around protecting others. As a child, he heard his father mention that the name “Ichigo” [written with the kanji 一護 (一 being one and 護 being protect)] meant “one who protects”, and so he decided that he wanted to protect his mother, which extended to his sisters after they were born, and from there expanded even further to include his friends and the people around him. Ever since hearing it, he's pushed himself very hard to live up to the meaning behind his name. He wanted to protect his family, so he ran himself through and became a Shinigami. He wanted to protect his friends so he jumped headfirst into danger and charged into two separate worlds with an army of five at most at his side. He wanted to protect his town so he blindly jumped through an experimental Garganta that very possibly might not have entirely stable to get back in time. He wanted to protect that girl standing along the river and rushed down to the water's edge... but he couldn't protect his mother when she went after him. Because of that, Ichigo also has a little bit of a guilt complex.
Masaki's death when he was 9 hit him hard, and for years after, he held the belief that it was his fault. It wasn't until Rukia came along that he had a chance to confront the real culprit and finally acknowledge that his mother's death wasn't really his fault... but he still failed her. It gave him the strength to continue on in hopes that he could make it up to her by becoming strong enough to avenge her, but the pain stayed with him, transforming itself into a guilt complex and a fear of failure.
He isn't the sort to buy into the popular crowd. In fact, he doesn't care what someone is, he cares who someone is, and this can be evidenced in his choice of friends as his closest are pulled from the ranks of the "odd" kids, from the freakishly tall gentle giant Chad and the standoffish sewing machine Ishida, to the quirky and bubbly Inoue and the dead-and-loving-it Rukia... even Keigo and Mizuiro. And when he considers someone a friend, they immediately fall into the category of "people I want to protect". He doesn't really discriminate, and even if the person happens to be an enemy, he tries to see the reason behind why they would do whatever it is they're doing, even if he doesn't see it until after the fact. This does NOT apply to actual battle times, though.
In battle, nicety goes out the window. If his friends are injured, he will go for blood and exact revenge on their behalf. The closest thing his personality can be likened to in these times is "an eye for an eye". He will trash-talk an opponent if that opponent displays any behavior that Ichigo sees as deplorable, and will fight for all that he's worth, but he draws the line at cheating. If a fight can't be fought in a fair and legitimate manner, he wants no part of it. He'd even refused aid from his inner Hollow because it would tip the scales unfairly in his favor. If he's going to lose, then he wants to lose by his own power and if he's going to win, he won't accept aid that will be seen as an unfair advantage.
There are times when he falters, though. If he loses a major battle, he has a tendency to fall into a depression and self-loathing (usually stemming from his guilt over failing in protecting whoever it was he was trying to help) and his performance suffers. Fear is also another stumbling block, as evidenced by his fear of his Hollow resulting in his inability to properly do a hollowfication, which resulted in his getting beaten on by Yammy in Hueco Mundo. In those times, it takes a strong push to get him back on track, but it can be done.
Actual battles aside, he will get physical if provoked. He states early on that his hair gets him into trouble because upper-classmen pick fights with him over it, and because of his short temper, he won't back down. Haircolour isn't the only reason he gets into fights, but regardless, when he's pushed -or if someone he cares about is pushed- he won't hesitate to take the other person down. He's even been shown to take on several people at once and come out with minimal injuries to himself while the others end up on the ground.
He's something of a fail when it comes to remembering names and faces, is more than little uncomfortable (though he will peek!) when it comes to sexual situations and scantily clad or naked women, and really doesn't have much love for authority figures -he refers to them just like he refers to everyone else: by name/nickname/some other “cold” address. Titles are something he doesn't use often, but some tend to fare better than others in that department: Ukitake is “Ukitake-san”, Byakuya is “Byakuya” (though he'd prefer otherwise), and Yamamoto is “gramps” (the guy doesn't even get a first name, just a label!).
Yes, his hair is orange. It's natural and saying otherwise will give you an annoyed ginger to deal with.
Yes, his name can also be taken to mean both “strawberry” and “one five (15)”. And let's not mention how he tends to broadcast the “15” thing in his wardrobe, either. He'll get irritated and testy over it if you bring it up.
In some of the newest chapters, Rukia states that even after everything, Ichigo's personality hasn't changed. He's exactly the same as he was in the beginning -still stubborn, short-tempered, strong-willed, and protective, but also just as caring and compassionate. Even after everything, he still hasn't changed.
Background: Before Rukia, Ichigo's life was similar to that of any other Japanese teenager with one teeny tiny difference: he could see and converse with ghosts. Not in the spiritual medium way, but in the "Sixth Sense" way that he saw them as clearly as he saw anybody else. That ability culminated in the death of his mother, and turned Ichigo from a sweet momma's boy into a secretly sweet momma's boy hidden beneath a tough guy image.
And then he met Rukia... and shoved her sword through his chest in a move that technically should have killed him but instead had him sapping her Shinigami powers dry and taking them for himself.
For a while, he was essentially her stand-in, taking out the enemy in her place and helping to make his hometown a better place for mankind and spiritkind alike. This didn't escape notice from the mothership, though, and it wasn't long before two Shinigami were dispatched to bring Rukia in. He tried to intervene, was run through twice, and left for dead on the premise that even if he survived, he would no longer have any sort of spiritual power.
Yeah, they were wrong.
After an insanely intensive "training" regime with Urahara in a massive how-does-this-fit-down-here chamber beneath his rinky-dink shop, Ichigo had his powers back and was on his way with a small army of four others to Soul Society: Home of the Shinigami in order to save Rukia from the clutches of Certain Death.
While there, he stormed the Seireitei, beat up some of the Shinigami Captains, was beat up by the same Captains, achieved Bankai, broke every bone in his body using said Bankai, started to Hollowfy for the first time, saved the girl, made new friends, and still lost the war because the Big Bad escaped by using a Hollow tractor beam. He hung around Soul Society with his new pals for a while until everyone was patched up, then went home . . . and left behind the girl he rushed into Soul Society to save.
But it was okay, because they were done trying to execute her.
Soon after he got home, he encountered Shinji who tried to recruit him for the Visored Army, but he didn't trust them because their 401K and pension plans left a lot to be desired and thus turned them down. Around that same time, Ulquiorra and Yammy showed up to check out Ichigo and because Yammy got hungry, Ichigo's friends got involved, and then he showed up and was beaten like an orange-headed stepchild. More of their buddies show up later, and Grimmjow eventually pounded Ichigo into the pavement.
Ichigo decided that he needed help. Getting tossed around in battle like a ragdoll was all well and good, but it hurt and was a little counterproductive, so he sought out Shinji and the Visoreds to demand training. Needless to say, they take him and forcibly train him, first on the NordicTrack and then in actually using his little gift from Urahara: his inner Hollow who showed up once before in Soul Society. The result left him looking like an albino Godzilla on steroids, but he could control it.
When Grimmjow and crew came back, Ichigo STILL got pounded.
Apparently Orihime couldn't take it anymore and went with the enemy thinking she'd be more useful to her friends if she were with them for some reason, and when Ichigo found out, he was very much not happy. He tried to get the Shinigami to help, but they essentially disowned him... so he got a crew of two others together and they stormed Hueco Mundo: Home of Aizen and Friends.
There they met a snot-nosed brat, a giant tapeworm, a tiki mask with arms and legs, and Pesche (there is no other way to describe him). They also met up with Rukia and Renji who had snuck out with Byakuya's help and they all attempted to get into Las Noches.
Many fights later, Ichigo encountered Ulquiorra who told him that Rukia was dead, then showed him that he was Number 4, poked him in the chest, and ran off going Neener neener neener~!
Grimmjow, who wasn't content with his earlier victory, showed up to fight Ichigo and the two of them went at it... until Nnoitra appeared and tagged Grimmy out with his big double-bladed stick. Nnoitra and Ichigo fought for a while, then Ichigo was knocked down, and the snot-nosed brat turned into a hot, busty centaur and was going to finish it, but turned back into the snot-nosed brat before she could be useful. And then Kenpachi walked in and took over so Ichigo could go find Orihime, who started the whole mess by running away with Ulquiorra.
Ichigo eventually found Ulquiorra, who was probably torturing Orihime with his bad mime skills, and they fought. It ended -sort of- when Ulquiorra had to go into his SuperSecretSecondReleaseThatNobodyKnowsAboutCheatMode and blew a hole through Ichigo right in front of Ishida and Orihime who showed up to check out what was happening.
Ishida lost an arm.
Orihime did the only thing she was capable of doing by this point because of the botch job done to her character and bawled, begging the slightly dead Ichigo to save her because she had phenomenal cosmic powers but didn't want that itty bitty living space and thus refused to use them.
And lo and behold, Ichigo turned into a Wannabe Minotaur and mauled Ulquiorra. Then he fed Zangetsu to Ishida. And mauled Ulquiorra some more. He managed to come back to his senses though, and had no clue what he'd just done. In fact, he even commented on the fact that "Wasn't there a hole in my chest?" because he understood what was going on about as much as the reader did. After he bawled about not wanting to win by using his SuperSpecialAwesomeShonenHeroCheatModeThatOnlyGetsStrongerAsTheSeriesGoesOnUntilHe'sSoOver9000He'sPushing900000000 and Ulquiorra turned to ash grateful to not have to deal with the insanity anymore, Ichigo went to go fight Yammy because the other characters needed to get their obligatory panels in before the pay week was up. He didn't get to do much before Byakuya and Kenpachi arrived and threw him out by telling him to shut up, put on his man panties, and go home because Aizen wanted to trash his world so he'd better go protect it.
He jumped into the Garganta to leave Hueco Mundo with Unohana, who kissed his ass with "Oh! You're the only one who can beat Aizen!" and didn't believe him when Ichigo pieced together his own power gauge. She patched up what Inoue hadn't and he proceeded to show up and fail to make a sneak attack on Aizen.
And Momo was run through. And Hitsugaya was hacked up. And a lot of others were taken down, but not out because that would leave Kubo with fewer characters for the reader to get confused with. And Daddy showed up.
Ichigo fought Gin, who did a pretty good job at thrashing him, and revealed that Ichigo was too afraid to stand against Aizen. Then Aizen and Gin went to go to the REAL Karakura, which was inside Soul Society, and take out some lives.
Daddy took Ichigo and together they went through the Dangai where Daddy set up a hyperbolic time chamber so that Ichigo could train and force Zangetsu to reveal the final Getsuga Tensho. Which he did, but it took a while... sort of. Fortunately, DBZ had already worked out the time chamber's kinks and so only an hour passed in the real world, while in the Dangai, Ichigo was training for about 2000 hours (about 3 months).
When he came out of that, he looked the part. According to Keigo, he looked taller, though it might have just been that his hair was longer. And he got laughed at by Aizen who basically called him a moron for throwing his reiatsu away. Yes, you heard right. Aizen couldn’t sense Ichigo. Even Tatsuki said she couldn't sense him, though she COULD sense Aizen.
That little mention means that his SuperSpecialAwesomeShonenHeroCheatModeThatOnlyGetsStrongerAsTheSeriesGoesOnUntilHe'sSoOver9000He'sPushing900000000 was no longer the strongest move in the book. In fact, he went from being A Few Steps Below God to being Kubo’s Little Midlife Crisis. Not exactly a pretty picture.
Then the fight between Ichigo and Aizen started when Ichigo grabbed him by the face and forcibly changed locations. They swung their swords, Aizen attacking, Ichigo defending, and mountains crumbled. Literally. And then we found out that it's Ichigo's sword that was breaking the place. And Aizen was all OMGWTFBBQ? And then Ichigo was all "I'mma gonna show you my move that we kinda pulled out of our collective asses! Uh... I mean, the final Getsuga Tensho!"
And he started to smoke. And then BOOM!
He got some armor plating, a Mortal Kombat-esque Sub Zero style mask, a physique that would make a lot of men jealous (though he still has those stupidly dainty ankles Kubo wtf he can’t walk on those...) AND A MULLET! Apparently in Bleach, your level of power seems to have direct correlation to the length of your hair. When did this become a Bible story? I do not remember there being a Samson and Delilah in here :|
ANYWAY!
He got his new duds and then used AssPull... er, Mugetsu, and SOMETHING happened, but we don’t know what because apparently it was too hot to be shown in any explainable manner on tv (or in the manga). We don’t even get one of these while we wait!
But whatever it was, it happened and Butterflaizen's reign of terror was over.... though not really because Ichigo “defeated him”, but because Ichigo bought enough time and hit him hard enough for the Sparkly Rock that Aizen was fused with to go “REJECTION!” and activate a kido that Urahara shot him with earlier to
Speaking of months, that's about how long he slept afterward. I'm really hoping this happened over a school break. He gets Rukia and the others to stop crowding his bed long enough for him to go outside and lo and behold... nothing. Then Rukia slowly faded away as well and Ichigo was left a normal kid.
...
But it didn't end there, because Kubo apparently thought that would make a great MIDWAY POINT instead of an ending, so we trudge onward!
17 months later...
Ichigo couldn't see ghosts. No spirits, no inklings of spirits, no nothing. He still had his Substitute Badge, which no longer worked, and the physical fitness of so many battles fought, though. As he told Keigo, “After 16 years, I've finally gotten a normal life”, which sounded like he was totally cool with not having his powers. In exchange, he started whoring himself out around school for money -this club this week, that one next week, and so on.
However, there was one little problem with whoring: he already had another job that apparently he called out from all the time. So when he called for another week off, he got yelled at, and no sooner had he hung up than a bunch of people showed up to fight him for knocking out 7 of their buddy's teeth... because apparently it's okay to knock out 4 or 5, but 7?? Inconceivable! Ishida tried to finish it, but all he did was argue with Ichigo while they beat up the other guys.
And then Ichigo was grabbed by the face by a woman, wrapped in tape, and thrown into her kidnapper van. Turned out the woman (Ikumi) was his boss, and she was going to untape him, but they got company from a big guy who wasn't Chad who liked ramen but wasn't Naruto. He wanted them to investigate a guy (Guy = Isshin = Daddy) -or so he said- but was more or less pushed out verbally by Ikumi. His parting shot was to go check out Urahara's shop... so Ichigo did. And found Karin. And then got Big Ramen Dude's name, which is Ginjo.
And Ginjo planted that little bug in his mind because Ichigo started to miss his powers. And started to realize just how much he liked having them. After inviting Inoue to his room, he bolted out later that night because of a call saying Ishida was attacked. There was nothing else he could do, since Ishida wasn't talking, so he called the X-Cution Hotline on the card Ginjo gave him, because where else to turn than people you don't know?
And then Chad sort of disappeared.
And when he went out with Ginjo, he learned that they wanted to get his powers back... which should've seemed kind of shady, since they didn't know him, but oh well. They're not bad people, right? Look what happened last time he met with people he didn't know! Xcution = Shinji & the Visoreds TAKE TWO!
So the story goes that they know every rock and tree and creature has a life, has a spirit, has a name... and they use those souls of things to help them paint with all the colours of the wind. They draw out the souls and make them help them. To demonstrate (after the explanation) he made his necklace turn into a sword by using the “soul” of the necklace: a skill they called Fullbring.
And then Chad re-appeared.
And Ginjo explained that they all had parents who were attacked by hollows before they were born, thus they got funky powers. And they want to get rid of said powers, so they need Ichigo to have his because he's the only Shinigami/human hybrid in the mix and they have to give theirs to him. And so Ichigo said yes, because he's kind of a sucker for a sob story.
AND THUS TRAINING BEGAN! Again.
However, this wasn't Urahara's shop, and it was no Visored Hollow/NordicTrack regime. This was... slightly ridiculous.
Thanks to Riruka's Fullbring, Ichigo wound up Skipper sized and inside a makeshift Barbie house with a stuffed pig that contained a yakuza guy. Fortunately, Chad gave him a hint before Mr. Pork could pound him into bacon bits, but then the timer went off and Mr. Pork turned into a big ugly Pork 2.0, and Ichigo's Shinigami Badge turned into the manji that was Tensa Zangetsu's guard. And then he used that to beat the pig. As if that wasn't ridiculous enough, he had to get splattered with Riruka's sneeze in order to get out.
On the way home, Chad sensed something funky about Inoue, so they rushed over to find... nothing. So! Ichigo went back to Ginjo to get some answers, and instead heard about Tsukishima, a Fullbringer who defected. On the way home, he saw Daddy out for a night on the streets with Urahara, who then decided they'd best take it elsewhere and left.
NEXT TIME had him in a fish tank with Jackie and her Fullbring, Dirty Boots -she gets dirty, she gets stronger. Eventually, she got to be too strong for Ichigo's basic attack, but Ichigo already had that accounted for, and then his Fullbring seemed to go out of control, but he kept pushing himself. The fish tank broke and they were both ejected, her in her fancy duds, him cloaked in black reiatsu. And that was when Ichigo met Tsukishima, who'd arrived while they were in the tank.
He found out Tsukishima was the one who attacked his friends and then attacked him, but before he could do anything, he was “saved” by Yukio, who stuck him into his PSP. Yes, this is weird. Apparently it also blocks off reiatsu, so that was where Ichigo trained next, with Ginjo.
They got health gauges and a nice barren landscape of nothing, and the fight started. Not long after, Inoue was dropped in as a healing item to tend to Ichigo... who had been beaten to a bloody pulp. Inoue healed him, and they went at it again up until Ginjo slashed him across the face for letting his thoughts wander, blinding him. Then Ichigo realized he could see Ginjo's reiatsu... and he exploded. And gained a funky looking suit of armor/bone thing that was apparently his Fullbring. Why is this arc not over yet?
Then he went home to find... Tsukishima. Whose ability was apparently to insert himself into the memories of everyone he cuts with his Fullbring. Yes, he is a canon self-insert! The Mary Sue of the Bleach-verse! Ichigo flipped and screamed at him, then Keigo and Tatsuki showed up all “Yey! Shuu-chan!” and then Tsukishima called Inoue... which was when Ichigo lost it. And attacked him. And was ordered to apologize by everyone. So he fled. He was picked up by Ikumi, who then turned out to be one of the Shuu-chan Supporters, and so he ran... AGAIN. And met up with Ginjo, who was the only sane one.
Yukio showed up and led them to some big mansion in the middle of the woods where they were throwing some sort of “Yey! He's not mad at you, Ichigo” party, but Ichigo just wanted him dead. Ginjo destroyed the stairs, and then Ichigo became Spiderman and did his crazy wall climby-clingy thing to attack Tsukishima. He even managed to lop off an arm... but then Chad and Inoue showed up and Inoue fixed the arm. Ichigo wound up almost having a breakdown-throwback-to-Ulquiorra-”This-isn't-how-I-wanted-to-win!” because it wasn't why he wanted to get his powers back.
And then Tsukishima hit Ginjo, who was defending Ichigo.
And then things really got confusing when the formerly hospital-bound Ishida showed up.
Apparently all of that? Was one big sack of shit that Ginjo had been spoon-feeding Ichigo, because the one who attacked Ishida was Ginjo, who was in cahoots with Tsukishima. But he was slightly too late, because Ginjo took that opportunity to cut Ichigo while Tsukishima used his sword (but not his Mary Sue powers) to drop Ishida. Ginjo then revealed that he was a douchebag and stole Ichigo's Fullbring for himself, causing Ichigo to curl up and cry in the rain.
But then he decided he didn't want to just cry about it, he wanted to demand it back, even though Ginjo wasn't going to turn around and hand it over after taking it. He didn't get to scream much, though, before he had yet ANOTHER sword punched through him, courtesy of Daddy and Urahara.
...or was it?
It took 459 chapters, but we're finally back to Chapter 1! As soon as he was able to see her, it turned out to be Rukia on the other end of the sword, and she was able to transfer Shinigami powers back to him. Ginjo insisted Rukia's power alone wasn't enough to make a dent in him, but that was when the Soul Society-to-Living World's PA System kicked on to a familiar voice... and Byakuya, Renji, Kenpachi, Ikkaku, and Toshiro came through the gate.
Ichigo's power, as Rukia explained, was like an Everlasting Gobstopper: He lost the outer color against Aizen, then Ginjo took the next color, but there were still more layers underneath that hadn't been sucked out. And then Ichigo swung his sword and ZOMGSTRONGBLAST happened, and Ginjo was all “Haha! Your Getsuga Tenshou is weak!” but Ichigo was all “...that wasn't Getsuga. That was just me dicking around”, and then he used Getsuga Tensho and blew away the rain clouds... and sliced the mansion behind Ginjo in... um... I guess that would be half? Another shot and Ginjo seemed to be gone.
And that was when Ichigo was able to feel out everyone's reiatsu in the jolt Rukia gave him. Apparently by giving him a fuel injection of every Captain and Lieutenant in Soul Society's reiatsu, they could jump start his battery and he'd be able to use the rest of the juice that wasn't touched.
BUT GINJO WASN'T DEAD YET. He was also the first Substitute Shinigami. Huh... didn't see that one coming.
By using Ichigo's Fullbring powers, Ginjo survived. And gave the other Fullbringers a fuel injection of Ichigo-powers, but Ichigo knocked them all down. Not quite enough to take them out, but they all fell down... or not. Yukio saved them, and then shut each of them in with one Fullbringer. Ichigo got Ginjo. And Ishida, who was still on his side, but was now fixed slightly thanks to Rukia. They wound up arguing while Ginjo stood around for a bit. When no plan could be found, Ichigo charged in straightaway, same as always. Unfortunately, Ginjo had Ichigo's power, so they were using the same attacks and skills.
But then Ginjo told him about how Soul Society -or Ukitake, more to the point- was this evil mastermind who gave him the Substitute Badge as a means of keeping an eye on him and suppressing his reiatsu... and then Ichigo went bankai. He didn't care about the badge, because the way it was given meant there was a choice: he could decline or he could accept, and he chose to accept. Then again, given his reiatsu, reining it in wasn't necessarily a bad thing, either.
And then Ginjo went bankai, and the fight kept going. Eventually, Ginjo's sword was broken and he fell to Ichigo. Tsukishima staggered out and tried to attack Ichigo from behind, but Riruka popped out of Rukia's chest and took the blow. Later, Ichigo was supposed to go to Soul Society to ask for the corpse, but...
...and thus his canon point.
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