thebrownsf-fdatabase:

    Yoruichi Shihōin is a major supporting character in the manga and anime series Bleach, written by Tite Kubo. Some minor spoilers to follow.

     She first appears as a talking cat in early parts of the manga, accompanying mysterious shopkeeper Kisuke Urahara. Because of her masculine voice in this form, the characters and readers assumed that she was a man. She taught Chad and Orihime Inoue how to control their newly-received spiritual powers. Yoruichi goes with Ichigo’s group to the Soul Society to save their friend from execution, where she reveals her human form and past to them. Born into a powerful noble family, she was the Captain of the 2nd Division of the Gotei 13, the Soul Society’s army. But a hundred years prior, she, Urahara and others had fled to the human world after being framed for a crime. The person behind their exile is still at large, and Yoruichi focuses on training Ichigo and his empowered friends to fight this antagonist. Along the way, she deals with Suì-Fēng, current 2nd Division Captain and her former student, who feels betrayed by her disappearance. 

     Yoruichi is a very powerful shinigami, with multiple talents. Alongside her unique shape-shifting ability, she is the inventor of the Shunkō technique, using her fighting skills and Kidō (spell casting) together to create energy blasts and stop an enemy from acting. Called the ‘Flash Goddess’, her mastery of speed and hand-to-hand combat is so great that we have yet to see her wield her Zanpakuto to fight, relying solely on her physical abilities and strength to defeat opponents. Being a former Captain, she is a stealth expert and a top strategist.

    She is portrayed as a playful, smart, relaxed woman, who doesn’t even take her powerful social standing in the Soul Society seriously. Yoruichi enjoys teasing with others, even transforming from her cat form naked just to shock someone. However, her main role is as a teacher for Ichigo and his friends, and she takes that seriously. Her training is tough and unforgiving, but always provides results. She currently appears in the Bleach manga, published in Weekly Shōnen Jump in Japan and Shonen Jump in North America; its recently ended anime series; and in the videogames based on the series. She is voiced in Japanese by Satsuki Yukino, and in the English dub by Wendee Lee.

      Yoruichi’s actual ethnicity has been a source of some controversy. She’s been called anything from African to Indian to any sorts of combinations. Some murkiness over how the Soul Society actually works doesn’t do any good - it’s hard to tell if the Soul Society we see is the only one, or if it’s only for the Japan. She isn’t the only dark-skinned character their, either. And some of the others have more generally African features. Personally, I never came up with a good guess, and I’m not sure we need one. Making a complicated explanation for brown characters’ presence implies that they’re somehow less legitimate than white ones, regardless of what you think of the fictional or historical setting they’re in. Some people do the opposite - come up with long-winded rantings on how certain brown characters just cannot exist, due to whatever reason. This actually has less to do with historical fact or accuracy, and more to do with someone being upset that there’s a brown person in their media. I’ll refer to what happened to a certain Harry Potter character and fans’ reactions to him later.

       I won’t be going in any certain order, I’m just sort of going from series to series, and returning to them later. Thanks for reading.