Warning: Contains spoilers for Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War episode #22.
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War episode #22 has just aired, and it censored a controversial moment in its English release. Episode #22, “Marching Out the Zombies”, started the central conflict with the Sternritter Giselle Gewelle, and in a surprising turn of events, Yumichika revealed that Giselle, despite presenting as female, was assigned male at birth. Considering that Giselle is referred to as female both in-universe and out, the sudden reveal sparked a tremendous amount of discourse surrounding Giselle’s gender and sexual identity, and it’s something that persists today, years after it first happened in the manga.
The reveal of Giselle’s gender identity was a major surprise in Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War and the anime censored a controversial moment within it in an odd way. In both the anime and the corresponding manga chapter, Yumichika’s reasoning for calling Giselle a man was that she “reeked of semen”, and while the anime originally kept that line, the Hulu release played a completely different scene where Yumichika simply says he found her out. That might have been done to avoid invoking a terrible stereotype, but it’s still odd that the anime would have two different versions of certain scenes, regardless.
Bleach’s Anime Cut Yumichika’s Transphobic Insult
The controversial moment in Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War that was censored revolved around Giselle’s gender and sexual identity, so it stands to reason that that needs to be clarified as cleanly as possible. Based on what was stated in episode #22, it can be assumed that Giselle was assigned male at birth, something further supported by Tite Kubo, himself, reaffirming on his blog that Giselle is physically male. However, Giselle presents as female and is addressed as such by characters and other material, including the Can’t Fear Your Own World novels, so Giselle is most likely a trans woman or, at the very least, doesn’t identify as male.
At the end of the day, though, Giselle’s gender doesn’t matter all that much. Whichever gender identity Giselle is meant to identify with doesn’t change the core of her character, and it’s something that is never even brought up after her initial arc. The bigger point of discussion stems from how the English release of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War censored key moments surrounding Giselle and sex, as that would be a surprising turn of events regardless of what Giselle identified as.
Bleach’s Western Censorship Avoids A Terrible Transgender Stereotype
The most logical reason behind Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War’s censorship on Hulu is likely to avoid the series being accused of invoking a major stereotype surrounding transgender people. It’s unfortunately common for fictional stories to have biologically male villains dress as women to commit violent and sexual crimes, and that, in turn, feeds into the stereotype of trans people being violent predators. Immediately after the reveal of Giselle’s sex, she’s depicted as a sadist who’s physically aroused by abuse, so it would be easy to see her character as transphobic, and as such, it makes sense that Hulu would want to avoid having the anime be associated with that stereotype.
A side effect of this censorship, however, is that it helps to fix Giselle’s character. Because of the sexual themes associated with Giselle, the idea of her being a transphobic character is often at the center of discussions surrounding her, but with Hulu editing out the scene where it’s stated that she “reeked of semen” and other sexual moments, Giselle’s sadism can be viewed separately of her gender and sexual identity. While that doesn’t completely justify the anime engaging in censorship, it does help to keep the focus on the parts that are important to Giselle and Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, and the anime is all the better for it.
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War releases new episodes Saturdays on Hulu.
Sources: Twitter, Reddit.
