Introduction[]
Expaling how the Bleach Cosmos was created, and the current Cosmology.
Cosmology[]
This will be rather short, Im planning to do a more detailed one in the future, but for the purpose of this blog this will be enough.
- Soul Society and Living Wolrd
Doing them together because they are described as 2 faces of the same coin, meaning they have the same size, visually speaking they are also drawn with the same size as dimensions. Soul Society and the Living Wolrd are never called planets in the strict sense of celestial body, never, in fact Soul Society is called a realm in the very 1st chapter of Bleach.
The pic above is a canon map for the cosmology, what we see are the 2 dimensions linked by Dangai, and separated and filled by Garganta all around.
This will help us to determine the size, in fact, starry skies are shown to exits inside the dimensions, and it is also explained and shown that Garganta is not the outer space, it is just a black void of reshi without any celestial body, that exists outside the dimensions which Shinigami can even use to travel between them.
I want to mention also this, anothe rimportant point is that the outer spaces are acknowledge by the people multiple times as I proved in the following pics.
This means, each pocket dimension has its own outer space.
The actual size of the dimension is universal in size, the Living world has shown starry skies, we know planet earth exits, we know Kubo acknowledge the existence of Mars, Orihime was studying a book regarding stars in the universe, London exits due to Burn the Witch being inside Bleach; we even know real-life famous people exist on the planet earth, this basically confirms us that the living world is inspired to our IRL universe, with literally nothing contradicting this notion, and Soul Society is a mirror copy of it.
Another important detail, is the fact that eveything in Soul Society is made by Reishi, while everything in The living World by Kishi, confirming this, it is verbatim stated that you need to change your physical matter into spiritual matter if you want to enter into Soul Society.
- Garganta
Garganta is a void of Reshi that exists all around and houses all the dimensions in Bleach, it keeps them attached, it is said to have a completely different flow of time, meaning that each dimensions is completed separated by their own space-time, and it streches to infinity, worth mentioning that by visual alone is way bigger than Soul Society and The Living World.
- Dangai
Dangai is a tunnel that connect Soul Society and Living World, it exists outside time and space.
Thanks to this, we Know that the Dangai is durable enough to tank inside itself Senna's explosion, an explosion strong enough to stop the collison between the realms. Meaning Dangai durability could range from Multi-Galaxy to Universal due to the size of the realms.
This is actually consistent since, Reio created the Danagi with the purpose to separate SS and WOTL.
- Hueco Mundo
Hueco Mundo is another dimension, completely detached from Soul Society and WOTL, inside the Garganta. We dont see any starry skies although we know the dimension contains at least a Planet and a Moon.
There are actually other dimensions but they are not relevant for this Blog, also because their size is mostly unknown.
Conclusion:[]
- SS: Universal in size, different flow of time because filled by Garganta
- WOLT: Universal in size, different flow of time because filled by Garganta
- Garganta: Bigger than both SS and WOLT, it has a different flow of time, possibly infinite
- Dangai: Exists outside time and space, Multi-Galaxy to Universal Durability.
- Hueco Mundo: at least a planet and a Moon
Cosmology size -> At least Universal+ to Low Multiversal
Lore Explanation[]
This is how Bleach current Cosmos is structured but things werent like that at the start.
An important concept in the lore of Bleach is the primorial world or sea of origin (原初の海に帰すことだったと聞いている), which is the place were Reio was born from nothing starting the circulation of Reishi, a place of Chaos were things were mixed and the concepts themself of life and death didnt had a meaning at all; it was a world without the fear of death where the figures of Shinigami and Souls, werent a thing, since the concept of life and death didnt existed in the first place.
It is explained by Ichibei that to bring back that old world, all the 3 main realms need to dissaper completely and that's not the only thing, to bring back that World the Garganta itself need to be completely destroyed.
This mean, that those Dimensions and the Garganta were created by Reio in the first place. In fact is stated multiple times that Rei-o created the Soul Society but let's get into a more depth explanation:
Reio power was needed to create the current cosmos as it is currently structured, saw as omnipotent, omniscent and almighty being, from a world prior to even the birth of the Soul Society and WOTL he formed a new cosmos, creating also laws that regulates the reincarnation cycle itself, and giving a meaning to the concepts of life and death, separation and distinction of Kishi and Reishi; to follow the desire of the first 5 powerful ancestors, he created everything, a Wolrd where people could die and became souls, a world where souls can reincarnate into living being, a world where hollow could lives withot getting erased from the existence; and then, let intentionally the ancestors seal and brutally mutilate him after he saw all the future, and maybe a hope in the new universe.
その全能の力を「楔」として、五人は新たな世界の基盤を創り上げた。尸魂界、現世、虚圏。
With Reio’s almighty power, they created the fundations of a new world (universe in this context). Soul Society, World of the Living, and Hueco Mundo. (The 3 dimensions already explained)
Another important detail explained before, that actually confirms what stated above by Lore, is that the realms outer spaces have a different composition too, meaning they could not even coexist in first place, since at the start there was only a single place! as a result of separation of kishi and reishi, Reio created the very outer spaces of each dimensions, the dimensions, the Dangai, and the Garganta.
Memory of Nobody (Additional)[]
Somethign interesting is also what happen in Memory of Nobody, which actually still support our view to the cosmology, first of all we know that the "realms" are in 2 different dimensions, meaning they are not on the same space, then we see 2 black orbs which sadly (or maybe not) doesnt look like planets since planets are not black neither look like that from space, those 2 orbs actually, may be the whole realms; in fact they are called dimensions.
Conclusion:[]
Reiō tiering: At least Universal+ to Low Multiversal