Ichigo Kurosaki

Ichigo is a 15-year-old who attempts to cultivate a detached image, for which he keeps his eyebrows constantly furrowed. Ichigo has natural orange hair, a fact that annoys many bullies in his school, who constantly pick fights with him.[14] Ichigo claims that he does not care what others think and seems to enjoy fighting the bullies. Ichigo has been friends with Tatsuki Arisawa since he was young when he trained karate at the same dojo as her. Tatsuki is his oldest friend and they go to the same school now. While in junior high school, Ichigo met and befriended Yasutora "Chad" Sado, a boy from another school who helped him out of a fight. Chad, although extremely strong, was often the target of beatings because he refused to fight for his own sake due to a promise he had made as a child to his grandfather. Upon discovering this, Ichigo made a pact with Chad in which they both agreed to fight and risk their lives for something the other was willing to risk their life for. Ichigo comments that thanks to Rukia his life changed, and thanks to her he is able to protect the people he cares for.[15]

Ichigo's zanpakutō is named Zangetsu (斬月?, literally "cutting moon").[8] Unlike most Soul Reapers, who can seal their zanpakutō after releasing it, Ichigo's zanpakutō is always in its shikai form. Its sealed form is that of an ordinary zanpakutō, but over-sized as a result of Ichigo's uncontrolled spiritual pressure. Zangetsu's spirit takes the form of a middle-aged man, voiced by Takayuki Sugo in the Japanese anime and by Richard Epcar in the English dub.[20][21] Zangetsu is portrayed as wise and calm in most matters, and fond of testing Ichigo in unusual ways, many of which have a purpose completely contrary to the stated goal. Zangetsu's special ability is the Getsuga Tenshō (月牙天衝?, literally "moon-fang slices the heavens", translated in the English anime as "piercer of heaven"), a wave of spirit particles released from his blade's edge. Correspondent to the name, the wave is shaped like a crescent moon.[22] Zangetsu's bankai, named Tensa Zangetsu (天鎖斬月?, literally "heavenly chain cutting the moon"), shrinks the sword down to a fully black one while his uniform also changes to an outfit similar to Zangetsu's. Ichigo's bankai is a compression of his spiritual pressure, rather than a vast expansion as is usually the case. By compressing his power, Ichigo can move at incredibly high speeds.

In addition to his Soul Reaper powers, Ichigo partially becomes a hollow while reobtaining his Soul Reaper powers with the help of Kisuke Urahara.[24] This leaves him with an arrogant inner hollow spirit that grows in strength as the series progresses and tries to take control of his body to fight. This control has manifested itself in several ways during the series, first as a berserker rage and later as a physical transformation during his fight against Ulquiorra Cifer. The inner hollow takes form as Ichigo's evil alter ego and mirrors his looks and personality. The hollow also states that he wields the instinct to kill while Ichigo instead uses logic to defeat opponents.[25][26] Ichigo is taught to control his hollow by the Visoreds, allowing him to call upon his hollow powers at will and without sacrificing control by donning his hollow mask.[27] Ichigo can initially only maintain this form for eleven seconds, but the limit and strength of it increases substantially during his fights in Hueco Mundo.[28][29][23]

Immense Strength: Even without his Shinigami powers, Ichigo has shown himself to be deceptively strong, as shown from his ability to smash a man's head through a concrete floor.[5] When he is in his Shinigami body, Ichigo's already impressive strength is greatly enhanced, most commonly shown from his ability to effortlessly wield his large Zanpakutō with a single-hand. His overall abilities are great enough that he was able to fend off three Shinigami lieutenants with a single punch each; one of which shattered one of their Zanpakutō at the same time. His strength is also great enough to stop repeated axe blows from Jidanbō and hurl Rukia several meters into Renji’s arms and still send them both skidding several meters more, both feats with a single-hand.

Immense Endurance: While only a teenage Human, Ichigo has shown himself to be a highly resilient man, as shown from his ability to safely break free from a binding spell (albiet a low-level one) and withstand an assault from a large hollow.[6] When in Shinigami form Ichigo's physical endurance is strengthened to the point he can continue fighting effectively after most injuries and can survive attacks that would easily kill normal Humans effortlessly. It was stated by Rukia that a Shinigami's life force is their spiritual power. As such, Ichigo is able to withstand attacks that would be fatal to most Shinigami. He could even withstand a point-blank Cero blast from Ulquiorra Cifer. Even Aizen, who once nearly cut Ichigo all the way in two, was amazed at Ichigo's ability to survive such a blow. Uryū once stated that Ichigo was a monster in this regard.[7]

Advanced Growth Rate: According to both Aizen and Urahara, Ichigo's most astounding ability is his growth rate: he grasps the basic control of advanced techniques in days where it would take several years for even the most gifted Shinigami. Shortly after getting Shinigami powers and with no previous training, began learning advanced spiritual energy sensing techniques by sheer instinct, as he proved he can use a spirit ribbon to find Yuichi Shibata (in bird form).[8] Another example of his growth rate is the amount of time he took to learn the Bankai of his Zanpakutō, which he learns in two days (albeit with the assistance of a special device invented by Urahara that was originally intended for three days). For a normal Shinigami, this same feat would require several years of combat experience and at least ten additional years of special training. He also gains mastery of Flash Steps while training with Yoruichi, which was done over the same period as his Bankai. Besides his improvements in his Shinigami abilities, Ichigo was also shown able to greatly increase the time he could maintain his hollow mask from eleven seconds to considerably longer amounts of time. In the Hueco Mundo arc, during his first fight with Ulquiorra, he is instantly incapacitated by one Cero blast even with his Hollow mask (which broke within a second), but only a few hours later, he is able to withstand another Cero from Ulquiorra without undergoing Hollowfication and can analyze Ulquiorra's movements much better than before, whereas he "felt like [he] was fighting a machine or a statue", and failed to predict and counter his attacks. This feat, as Ichigo explains, was done either by experience, because Ichigo has become more of a Hollow, or because Ulquiorra has become more of a Human.

High-Level Intellect: Despite his somewhat punkish attitude, Ichigo has shown himself to be analytical, perceptive, and deductive. In his high school, Ichigo's grades are almost always near the top, despite his work as a substitute Shinigami. Aside from that, Ichigo appears to be able to determine the pattern of his opponent's battle methods and correctly deduce a proper counter-strategy to defeat his opponents attacks; such as in his battles with both Ikkaku Madarame and Renji Abarai, where he would have been successful in dodging their weapons, if not for unforeseen abilities. He is also fairly charismatic, and while some of his monologues aren't entirely inspirational and philosophical, he's able to gain the trust, respect, and friendship of even his greatest adversaries, often due to his inwardly compassionate nature and remarkable combat prowess. Additionally, it's worth noting that Ichigo has impressive leadership skills, and will sometimes act as the de facto leader of the Ryoka, despite the fact that Uryū and Renji occasionally compete with him over leadership responsibility (often due to their proud natures, equally-impressive intellect, combat prowess, and leadership skills), as seen in the Soul Society and Arrancar arcs respectively. Ichigo does exert some amount of power and authority over Urahara at times, likely due to Ichigo's aforementioned charisma, coupled with Urahara's respect for him. He will also devise and execute strategies with high speed and precision (although not nearly as much, and not in the same league, as people like Aizen and Urahara), and will personally lead rescue missions and large-scale assaults against his enemies.
Ichigo's resolve reflected in his eyes.

Determination: It seems that Ichigo's power, both in terms of how much spiritual energy he can access and his actual fighting abilities, is tied to his determination or will to win. It's shown that when he focuses on victory, his strength is enhanced. In the anime, this is depicted by his eyes glowing bright blue and occasionally his being engulfed in a bright blue aura. The same is included when he is in his Vizard form, in which case his glowing is yellow. This effect has been shown while he was battling Renji for a second time, and when he defeated his inner hollow. In his last battle against Grimmjow, Ichigo had most of his mask beaten off and was on the verge of collapse as Grimmjow prepared his finishing blow. However after noticing Orihime, who was saddened by watching him get hurt, Ichigo managed to catch Grimmjow's hand without effort or looking, and gripped tight enough to prevent him from moving away. Ichigo then managed to make a clean slash into Grimmjow (despite the fact he had lost most of the benefits from his hollow mask), whereas before most of the damage that he had inflicted that actually made Grimmjow bleed was from Getsuga Tenshō attacks. In his second battle with Ulquiorra, even after taking a direct hit from Ulquiorra's Cero Oscura and nearly incinerated, he is seen to be able to continue to fight and even use Getsuga Tenshō.

Ichigo was born as the son of Isshin Kurosaki and Masaki Kurosaki, 15 years before the main storyline. His sisters Karin Kurosaki and Yuzu Kurosaki were born a few years later. During his childhood, Ichigo was signed into a karate class by his mother. In the class, Ichigo met and was eventually befriended by Tatsuki Arisawa, who would beat Ichigo in every match they had. Tatsuki would also help Ichigo if he was being picked on by bullies and cheer him up if he was upset.

On June 17th, when Ichigo was nine years old, he was taken home from his karate class by his mother. He saw a girl near the river and saw her falling into it. Concerned, Ichigo ran after to save her, unaware that the girl was really a lure from the Hollow Grand Fisher. Masaki, concerned about her son's safety, ran after Ichigo to protect him, but she was killed by Grand Fisher as a result. Because everyone loved Masaki very much, Ichigo blamed himself for his mother's death and went missing for some time before being found by a very concerned Tatsuki. With the death of their mother, Ichigo, Yuzu, and Karin all changed drastically. Ichigo still blamed himself for his mother's death as time went on.

Three years before the main storyline, Sora Inoue was brought to the Kurosaki Clinic from a car accident. Ichigo met Orihime Inoue, Sora's younger sister during this time. However, Sora died in the Kurosaki Clinic.

Ichigo eventually entered Mashiba Junior High School. During this time, Ichigo had finally defeated Tatsuki in a karate match and left the class soon afterwards. Ichigo regularly got into fights with thugs, due to the unusual color of his hair. During one of these fights, he met Yasutora Sado. He mispronounced his name on his name tag as "Chad", and continued to call him as such from that day. They made a pact to protect each other and have remained good friends since. Because of the amount of fights they got into, Ichigo and Chad were given reputations of being gangsters themselves.

Ichigo and Chad eventually went to Karakura High School, and their reputations followed them as well, causing a few classmates (namely Keigo Asano) to be nervous about their presence there. During a fight with a gang led by Reiichi Ōshima, Ichigo and Chad met Mizuiro Kojima and Keigo Asano, the latter of which they saved. While Keigo was initially afraid of Ichigo and Chad, both he and Mizuiro eventually became friends with them.