User blog comment:Lemursrule/Bleach Fandom: The Real Enemy!?/@comment-6497595-20130215025809/@comment-5341204-20130215195800

In addition to Godisme's comment - aren't _all_ of the classes of being in Bleach fundamentally human? Quincies and fullbringers are both living humans with special powers. Hollows are souls of dead humans that went insane and started eating other souls. The inhabiants of Soul Society are all souls of dead people (pre-reincarnation, as I recall from Rukia's artwork in the first arc); those who are shinigami are ones who manifest power and learn a specific method of channeling that power. Vaizard and Arrancar are both somewhere between insane cannibalistic beast and people who channel their power in a specific manner involving swords and black japanese clothing.

And, as far as the original poster is concerned, he has cause-effect completely backwards. A successful writer (usually) develops character first, then builds a setting around them. (Plot can go at any point in there, but is irrelevant to this discussion). So without Ichigo (I think it's safe to say he's the primary character), the shinigami would not exist. And even going by the more strict definition of human generally used in Bleach (living, not Quincy) - he is human. Or part Quincy, part creepily anatomically correct android designed to be posessed by spirits. Regardless, he's not someone who falls under the general definition of shinigami - being dead, living in Soul Society and indoctrinated in the academy there - yet still has powers that largely resemble theirs.