Hollowfication



Hollowfication is the process to describe when a shinigami gains hollow powers. In doing so, the shinigami's strength greatly increases as well as their agility, speed, strength, and stamina. The particular group of shinigamis who have gone through hollowification are the Vizards. There are eight members of the Vizard, whom were all either captain-class or lieutenant-class (excluding Ichigo Kurosaki). As Aizen stated, "a normal soul can't contain the prototype" when undergoing hollowification, therefore, shinigamis have to be the ones who encounter hollowification.

After a shingami obtains hollow powers, they have to don their hollow mask in order to have access to it. The mask eventually wears off for a certain period of time. The time interval is different for each Vizard. For example, on her first try, Mashiro Kuna could hold her mask for at least 15 hours without tiring. On the other hand, Ichigo could only maintain his mask for 11 seconds at first. This is the reason they go under special training to build up their stamina so they could hold their masks for a longer period of time. The appearance of each hollow mask is different to every individual.

The Vizards fell victim to hollowification as a result of Sōsuke Aizen's experiments, to create a Shinigami/Hollow hybrid. It is unknown how Aizen acheived this process but it was considered a failure because they weren't perfect hybrids.

A thing to be noted about hollowfication is that the shinigami who aquire hollow powers also gain the status of hollows (i.e. Menos, Adjuchas & Vasto Lorde) though this has only recently been seen in the manga. In the most recent chapters, ichigo's hollow forms evolves into what can only be noted as an adjuchas level hollow evolving into a vasto lorde. Most probably this is definately linked to the amount of spiritual power available to the shinigami in question. All the vizards so far who have been seen in their hollow forms (in Bleach: Turning back the pendulum arc) have appeared as adjuchas level hollow. This is probably as only captain class shinigami can handle their hollowfication, so their hollow forms have probably already reached adjuchas level. When Ichigo was training with the vizards, his hollow form was seen as that of an adjucas level hollow. However, in the recent chapters, his hollow form closely resembled that of a vasto lorde (including his battle abilities which wee proven when he defeated Ulquiorra in his released state in only a few minutes) proving that he had in fact evolved. Thus, this proves that when a shinigami goes through hollowfication they can infact evolve basd on the amount of spiritual pressure they have. Though this might only have hapened in the case of Ichigo Kurosaki due to his vast amount of spiritual pressure that has been noted by almost every character since the beginning of the series.

(See Shinigamification and Hollowfication/Shinigamification)