User blog comment:CoolJazzman/9 years ago???/@comment-7858751-20130515020050

Ichigo was, in fact, 9 years of age when Masaki died. Ichigo also started out to be 15 in the beginning of the anime and manga.

But you also have to realize that episode 18 (chapter 58) was everybody's last day of school. School then started back up in episode 110 (chapter 183), which would have made him 16 years of age at the time. And on top of that, after the whole seventeen month timeskip for when they defeated Aizen would make Ichigo 17 years of age.

So yeah, Ichigo is 18 years of age now and probably has had his powers for about a year now, much like Night486 said. Which means nine years have, indeed, passed.