On Sōkyoku Hill, at the end of the Soul Society arc of Bleach (chapter 178 of the manga, episode 62 of the anime), three captains rise into the sky inside columns of light brought down by the Menos Grande. They are Sōsuke Aizen, Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tōsen, captain of the Ninth Division of the Gotei 13, blind since birth, who fights by sensing other people’s spiritual pressure and whose sword, Suzumushi, knocks opponents unconscious with a high-pitched sound. From the ground, wounded, his best friend, Captain Sajin Komamura, demands to know where his justice has gone, if he became a Soul Reaper for a dead friend. Tōsen calmly answers that he follows the path of least bloodshed, that justice is always found on that path, and that the path he walks now is therefore the path of justice. That answer is the whole character: a traitor who does not see himself as a traitor, but as the only one who is still just. (Spoiler warning: this case file reveals his motive and his end in the Fake Karakura Town arc.)
// The theoryHow conscience is switched off without changing values
Albert Bandura started from an uncomfortable question: how can a person who holds moral standards, and believes in them, do harm, sometimes atrocious harm? His answer, set out in Social Foundations of Thought and Action (1986) and summed up in a 1999 article on inhumanities, is moral disengagement. Moral conduct is sustained by self-regulation: we anticipate guilt, and that holds us back. But that self-sanction can be switched off case by case, without abandoning one’s values, through eight mechanisms. Some reframe the act: moral justification (I do it for a higher cause), euphemistic labeling and advantageous comparison (others are far worse). Others dilute responsibility: its displacement onto an authority and its diffusion within the group. Others minimize the consequences, and the last ones target the victim, who is dehumanized or blamed. With Barbaranelli, Caprara and Pastorelli (1996) he built a scale to measure it, which today predicts everything from school bullying to corporate fraud.
A motto that works as an anesthetic
Tōsen activates at least four mechanisms. The first is moral justification: his cause is justice, with a capital J, and everything he does is measured against it. The second is euphemism: “the path of least bloodshed” names a conspiracy that includes stabbing comrades. The third is advantageous comparison: Tōsen singles out Kenpachi Zaraki as a demon who lives for blood, and next to him his own violence looks measured and reasonable. The fourth is the displacement of responsibility, and Aizen himself puts it into words: a hundred years earlier, when Shinji Hirako asks Tōsen why he betrayed his captain, it is Aizen who answers that Tōsen has betrayed no one, that he has simply carried out his orders faithfully (chapter -100, episode 211).
// The subjectThe avenger with his sword drawn
The series shows him in three moments that reveal the mechanism at work. The first is his fight against Kenpachi Zaraki (chapters 139 to 148; its climax comes in episode 53 of the anime). Before using his bankai, Tōsen explains why he cannot stand him: ever since Zaraki killed the previous captain of the Eleventh Division, Tōsen has seen him as a demon who feeds on violence and will one day destroy the peace. In the middle of the fight he remembers his friend, a woman who dreamed of becoming a Soul Reaper to keep the world at peace, and the oath of justice he swore at her funeral. The second moment comes in Hueco Mundo (chapter 213, episode 122). Grimmjow has attacked Karakura without permission and lost five Arrancar. Tōsen asks Aizen for permission to execute him; in the end he cuts off Grimmjow’s left arm and obliterates it with a spell. His argument is that killing without a great cause is mere slaughter, and that the same slaughter in the service of a great cause is justice. Grimmjow accuses him of making it personal; Tōsen answers with the cause.
Kaname Tōsen
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// The crackWhen the disguise falls off by itself
The third moment breaks the comfortable reading. In Fake Karakura Town (chapters 383-387, episodes 289-291), Tōsen puts on a Hollow mask, runs his former lieutenant Shūhei Hisagi through with his sword and admits to Komamura what lies beneath the motto: if someone joins an organization for revenge and ends up forgetting it and serving that organization happily, that would be the real debasement; goodness and justice are not the same thing, and living in peace without avenging his friend would be evil. The euphemism is gone. Komamura, in his memory, had already sensed a lie in his words back then: Tōsen often spoke of the world she loved, but never said that he loved it. The flashback in chapter 387 completes the wound: his friend had died at the hands of her husband, a Soul Reaper, and Tōsen begged Central 46 to explain why it would not punish the killer, until the guards dragged him away. The manga does not say who the husband was; the novel Can’t Fear Your Own World (Ryōgo Narita, 2017-2018) gives him a name, Tokinada Tsunayashiro, of one of the great noble houses.
Here the theory has to tread carefully. Bandura describes mechanisms that need not be conscious lies, and Tōsen is no cynic: he weeps when Komamura asks him not to lose himself in revenge, and he thanks him. His grievance, moreover, is real: an institution let a murder go unpunished. But explaining is not excusing. Neither the three Ninth Division officers he killed a hundred years ago, nor Hisagi, nor the people of the town Aizen wanted to destroy had anything to do with that verdict. And the series drives the irony home: with his Arrancar-style release, Tōsen gains sight, revels in it, calls Komamura ugly and fails to dodge Hisagi’s sword, which pierces his head. Dying, while he can still see, he asks to see a little more of his lieutenant’s face. He never finishes the sentence: his body bursts in front of them both, and Komamura screams Aizen’s name.
Impunity manufactures avengers
Tōsen is the portrait of a cycle criminology knows well. Tom Tyler showed in Why People Obey the Law (1990) that people comply with the law above all when they perceive that institutions apply it fairly; when a court protects the powerful, the law stops feeling like their own. That grievance is the fuel, and moral disengagement is the engine that turns it into violence without guilt. The result is a paradox: the man who could not forgive the killer’s impunity ends up placing himself above any judgment, because his cause justifies everything. That is why mottos are worth listening to: when someone needs to keep repeating that theirs is the path of least bloodshed, it is worth counting the blood.
Three key ideas
- Moral disengagement (Bandura, 1986; 1999) explains how people with principles do harm without guilt: they justify the act by a higher cause, disguise it with euphemisms, compare themselves with someone worse and displace the responsibility onto whoever is in charge.
- Kaname Tōsen, the blind captain of the Ninth Division, betrays the Gotei 13 with Aizen and Gin under the motto of the path of least bloodshed; with it he justifies having stabbed his captain a hundred years ago and cutting off Grimmjow’s arm.
- The crack: in Fake Karakura Town he himself admits he was driven by revenge for a friend whose killer went unpunished; the grievance is real, but it does not excuse the harm done to people who had nothing to do with that verdict.
Sources · further reading
- Bandura, A. (1986). Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory. Prentice-Hall.
- Bandura, A., Barbaranelli, C., Caprara, G. V. and Pastorelli, C. (1996). “Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement in the Exercise of Moral Agency”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(2), 364-374.
- Bandura, A. (1999). “Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities”. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 193-209.
- Bandura, A. (2016). Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm and Live with Themselves. Worth.
- Tyler, T. R. (1990). Why People Obey the Law. Yale University Press.
- Kubo, T. (2001-2016). Bleach. Shueisha. Chapters 146-148, 178, 213 and 383-387; chapter -100.
- Abe, N. (dir.) (2004-2012). Bleach. Studio Pierrot. Episodes 53, 62, 122, 211 and 289-291.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
Who is Kaname Tōsen?
Kaname Tōsen (“el capitán ciego”) is a villain from Bleach, analysed on KRIMINIS through the lens of criminology. He says he only follows the path of least bloodshed.
Why does Kaname Tōsen become a villain?
Kaname Tōsen, of Bleach, and moral disengagement: the blind captain of the Ninth Division betrays the Gotei 13 swearing to follow “the path of least bloodshed.” Bandura explains how people kill and still feel just.
Which criminological theory explains Kaname Tōsen?
Kaname Tōsen's case is analysed through Moral disengagement. Moral disengagement (Albert Bandura, 1986; 1999) explains how people with principles do harm without feeling guilty: they justify the act by a higher cause, give it euphemistic names, compare themselves with someone worse and hand the responsibility to whoever gives the orders. Kaname Tōsen, captain of the Ninth Division in Bleach, betrays Soul Society alongside Aizen and Gin in the name of justice and “the path of least bloodshed,” until he himself admits that what drove him was avenging a friend whose killer went unpunished.
