User blog:Schiffy/BG9: Man, Machine, or Something Else Entirely?

So, in light of the recent chapter, I've started to think about good ol' BG9. We haven't seen much of this guy (for the remainder of this blog post, I will be referring to BG9 as a male, just to make things easier for writing purposes).

After this week, it's safe to say we've seen a considerable amount of Stern Ritter "K" to make some assessments. In his first appearance, he stole Jakuho Raikoben. Beyond that, he didn't do or say much. It was a good 47 chapters before he even did anything again, and that entire scene was centered around Bazz-B, so he only said one line.

But now that Kubo's hiatus is over and the fight has begun once again, BG's finally doing something important. Unlike his leader's "calm" method of destroying the Seireitei, BG9 takes a less subtle approach and just blasts his way into the Ōmaeda family residence. Real nice. He then just starts grilling Ōmaeda about information he doesn't even know, and doesn't believe him when he says so (and Ōmaeda's a moron; when he says he doesn't know something, he sure as hell doesn't know it, said as much himself). But let's look at it from his point of view, rather than from a reader's. If I wanted an answer to a rather important question (important in my eyes, that is), and my only source of information didn't give me jack, I'd be a little peeved, too. So what does BG9 do to prove he wants an answer? He stabs an innocent girl through the stomach. Totally a reasonable reaction, right? Yeah, sure. Anyway, what with blowing a hole in Ōmaeda's house and stabbing little his sister to the point that removing the blade would kill her, I think we can say that BG9 is on a slightly different page than Yhwach and Haschwalth, who are all for ending this whole battle quickly in the name of some faux "peace", and just takes the direct approach in getting what he wants. Anyway, onto the most important part of this entire spiel:

What exactly is BG9?

This guy has been hiding behind a mask the entire time. The most we've seen of his face is a glowing eye behind the slits in the mask. That glow is certainly somewhat robotic. Secondly, every time he's spoken, his speech bubbles have been boxes, which is not the norm for Kubo characters. This could lead us to believe that he is some sort of robot, and even more so given that his arm seems to be a Gatling gun.

Now, time to point out to blaring inconsistency in the possibility of BG9 being a robot, and that inconsistency's name is Isaac Asimov. For those not familiar, Asimov thought up the Three Laws of Robotics, which are as follows:


 * 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
 * 2) A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
 * 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

As soon as he stabbed Mareyo, he immediately broke all three of those in one go. Now, you could easily say that it's Kubo, he can do what he wants, and it's his manga. If he wants to defy Asimov, he can do so. But this entire bit with BG9 is just so unlike Kubo's normal standard of writing, even for the noticeably more violent Quincy Blood War arc.

So what do I think BG9 is? He could be a conditioned killing machine, but if I had to guess, I'm going with him being half man, half machine, all evil, essentially the anti-Cyborg.

I'd honestly like to hear some other opinions, so please, discuss.

(I think I made too many non-Bleach references for one post)