As you can guess from the title, this will be a Bleach/HP crossover. Now before you break out the pitchforks and start the ridiculing, I believe that Bleach/HP has great potential for crossovers, such as Dresden Files/HP. The universes would be rather easy to reconcile because they both take place (at least in the beginning of Bleach) in the 'real world'. Pretty much every type of crossover has been written for HP fanfiction, but I do not know of anyone attempting this particular cross, so I would like to provide some ideas/discussion for anyone who's interested. Now, I'm not that creative, and I would never make it as an author, but I will provide two starting plots if anyone wants to take the challenge. The first scenario would be like Shezza's fics in that it takes elements from the series, but it largely remains in the HP universe. The second scenario is a more complete crossover where Harry is hurled headfirst into the Bleach universe. I will explain these to the best of my ability.

Scenario #1

The story starts in the beginning of OOTP. Harry is walking back along Magnolia Crescent after spending some time at the park. Instead of meeting up with Dudley, and being attacked by Dementors, Harry hears explosions and sounds of destruction coming from the next street over which no one else seems to notice. Harry, with his "saving people thing", rushes over to the source of the sounds of the sounds and comes to a stop, his mouth hanging open in shock. 20 meters in front of him, a strange little asian girl dressed in black robes, and wielding a sword, is battling a huge monster, something straight out of a nightmare. He notices a few peculiar features about the monster. It has a strange hole in it's chest area, and it's face is a leering white mask. The girl saves a passerby from a swing of the creature's claws, and takes the hit instead, suffering a grievous wound to the stomach. Harry, throwing his own safety out the window as he sees the girl is about to be killed, rushes over to aid the girl. He comes up alongside of her and casts a spell to momentarily distract the creature. The wounded girl explains to him in gasping breaths that he can't defeat the creature with mortal magic, and must stab himself with her sword in order to gain the power to save themselves from the creature. Harry, on a leap of faith, does as she says and becomes a Shinigami. He uses his newfound strength, speed, and reflexes to to destroy the monster with a clumsy slash to it's face.

This is the starting point to the story if you use the this scenario. If you go with this scenario, the story should mainly focus on Harry struggling with his new abilities, interactions with Rukia, and taking out Hollows in the Greater Whinging area over the summer. There should be lots of conflict, not only with Hollows, but also evading the Order, making sure they don't find out his new activities, getting through the trial for his use of magic (Fudge bashing and intelligent/sarcastic Harry is recommended), and making sure the Dursley's don't find out about Rukia who has taken up residence in Harry's closet. Eventually you have Harry returning to Hogwarts for his fifth year, and you can do whatever you want in regards to the plot in canon OOTP and what you want to do from there. There are several problems you have to get around, which I will explain: Wizards do not know about Shinigami, Hollows, and Soul Society. Something about large concentrations of mortal magic repels Hollows. For Harry to continue his Shinigami duties at Hogwarts, you will have to come up with 2 plot devices mainly. 1, you would have to give an update to Rukia's "cellphone Hollow alerter" to make it detect Hollows that appear in London. 2, you would have to come up with a Shinigami portkey like device which transports Harry from Hogwarts to London and back. You can follow the Soul Society arc with Rukia getting captured if you want, and Harry going in solo to rescue, or you can ignore that arc entirely and just focus on Shinigami!Harry in Hogwarts, and the conflicts that arise with balancing his OWL classes, investigating his strange visions and mind magic, friends, teachers, while keeping his Shinigami duties secret. You can also skim over OOTP if you want and go to the later books.


Scenario #2

This scenario starts out in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic at the end of OOTP. Harry has just chased down Bellatrix, attempted the Cruciatus, and followed her to the atrium. Voldemort is there, and casts the Killing Curse at Harry. Dumbledore is a few seconds too late in getting to the atrium, and as a result, Harry dies from Voldemort's curse (Harry is NOT a Horcrux). So Harry dies and crosses over to Soul Society. While in life a rather mediocre wizard with a weak grasp on wand magic, Harry is rather spiritually powerful, and has a strange affinity and control over his spirit energy. Harry's potential is witnessed by a passing by (Vice)Captain, and is enrolled in the Shinigami school. Harry proves to be a natural at the whole Shinigami thing, and quickly rises up through the ranks, like Hitsugaya, to become a Vice Captain, or Captain. If you do this scenario, the story should focus on Harry's crossing over to Soul Society, the discovery of his abilities, and his rise through Soul Society from the school to the (x)squad, and eventually to the (Vice)Captaincy. This should focus on his conflicts of being a genius/natural, the jealousy that arises among his fellow Shinigami, and the relationships he forms with various people in Soul Society. Once Harry reaches (Vice)Captaincy, you can follow the Soul Society arc with him interacting with Ichigo/Rukia/Ishida and everyone else, the war with Aizen, or assign him to the human world where he proceeds to take revenge on those who have wronged him. You can have him wtfpwn! Voldemort and the Death Eaters (Shinigami the power he knows not?), and work everyone over like he does in so many Azkaban!Harry fics. There's so many things you could do, these are only a few suggestions.

The main problem with this scenario is that you have to REALLY know your Bleach, from characters and powers, to the smaller, trivial things that make up the Bleach universe. Also, you will have to overcome the difficulty of assigning a non-retarded, cliche, or already used power for his Zanpaktou. Another problem is that I imagine writing duels in Bleach (with the swords, powers, etc) would be a helluva lot harder than writing your plain old magic duels in HP.

Ok, I hope that wasn't tl;dr for you guys, so I'll finish it up with a few short rules.

RULES

1. Harry MUST be a Shinigami. However you decide to do it, this is the main plot point that the story should revolve around.

2. No more than 1 original character. OC's often ruin otherwise awesome stories, so keep the limit to OC Shinigami's down to 1 or so. There is a huge cast of characters in Bleach, so there really is no need for OC's.

3. About Pairings. It's really up to the author. If you want to have Harry stuffing Rukia's taco, that's up to you. If you do have Harry/Rukia, or any other pairings, it must not be a central part of the plot. Also, if you do have pairings, keep the gratuitous lemons to a minimum. Shit gets old after awhile.

4. Harry cannot use wand magic in Shinigami form. Also, Harry's Shinigami powers do not affect his regular form, meaning that Harry doesn't suddenly become on DD's or LV's level with wand magic, and he doesn't manifest animagus, metamorphmagus, etc powers. His regular form and Shinigami form are completely separate, and do not affect each other (This only applies if you follow Scenario #1).

5. No uber powerful Harry at first. You must show a reasonable progression of power, although this applies more to Scenario #1 than #2, as in #2 Harry is a natural and progress many times faster than the average Shinigami.


Well that's about it. I've been thinking about this for a long time, and it took me a few hours to write down, so I hope this is not all in vain. Someone (hopefully more than one), take this up.

 

Honestly, I don't like either scenario. Scenario 2 is the typical "Insert character X into universe Y" that really doesn't work too well, while Scenario 1 is the same, except with Rukia getting inserted to the HP world.

Both have a rather prominent problem in the form of the language barrier. Harry doesn't speak Japanese, and Rukia doesn't speak English. This should still take place in the Harry Potter world, in my opinion, so we're going to alter scenario 1, completely ignoring Scenario 2 for the rest of this post.

Simply put, Shinigami are based upon Samurai, then given special powers. This is known. So, we replace the Shinigami with something based upon something prominently British, perhaps Longbowmen (Quincy, maybe?). Or, maybe you could keep to the swords thing, but give Harry a Zanpakutou that's sealed up in a European blade (I'm thinking Longsword or Broadsword; though I do love a good Zweihander, we all know that Harry could never carry one of those).

For that matter, make the character that introduces Harry to the Soul Society an Englishman, or a woman if you so choose. It really doesn't matter, just make it someone that's distinctly English. Someone from other European (hell, maybe even American, though it would be best to avoid that route) nations would work too, but an Englishman would be easiest, and could best relate to Harry due to an identical, or at least similar culture.

From that point, the Hollow-tracking phone thing works just as well, I suppose.

OCs are not that bad, so long as they're done well. In this case, unless you're having wizards as Shinigami (whom would definitely have a different name), you're going to need a large OC cast for this to work well.

 

Yeah, #2 is definitely the weaker one. Most people hate fics that take Harry away from the canon wizarding world. If done right, it could be great though.

Meh, you can use a plot device to make Shinigami understand and speak English, or any other language. It is safe to assume that Hollows don't spawn only in Japan, so it is probably safe to assume that not all Shinigami only speak Japanese. The reason why everyone speaks Japanese in Bleach, is because obviously it's an anime made in Japan, not that Shinigami can only speak Japanese. This isn't really that much of a problem.

There is no need to change the Shinigami. Yes, they are based on samurai, but if we assume there are Shinigami all over the world (which is a pretty safe assumption), then they do not necessarily need to change their appearance to fit whatever country they are in. Remember, people lacking spiritual ability (aka Muggles), cannot see Shinigami. If they have to use a gigai for whatever reason, then yes, they would use the attire of whatever country they are in, but in Shinigami form, the universal attire is black robes.

And you can have Harry's Zanpaktou a Longsword or Broadsword. There is no reason why it has to be a Katana, or any other type of Japanese sword. You could make it an arab scimitar, a sickle, or any other shape. It really doesn't matter as long as it's release is not retarded.

Yeah, you can have Harry save a caucasian Shinigami, but it is easier to use canon characters instead of making OC's. Actually, there are a lot of characters that appear caucasian in Bleach. I would say that not all Shinigami appear to be of asian descent. I'm just kind of against creating unneccessary OC's, but it's up to the author really.

OC's are not bad if they are done well, but this doesn't need a large cast of OC's or even most of the canon Bleach characters to work. An example would be Denarian Renegade/Knight. While there are a few OC's, it's mostly just HP characters with a few Dresden Files characters thrown in.

 

While I like crossovers (I even read the crappy ones when I have nothing else to do), the fact is that even with a 'good' plot you need a GOOD writer to have a readable fanfic and not a fangirl-ism of the UbEr-AwsomNess to have Harry in Shinigami clothes.

As for the plot themselves, they are, as stated by Demon Vigilante, rather basic "Insert character X into universe Y" but not really bad.

Being in a HP forum, I doubt that the second one would get any attention from anyone. The first one might make an interesting story but you have the problem (Demon Vigilante said it too) of the culture shock, Harry's english and Rukia Japanese, although maybe the spirits can be undestood by whoever is capable of seeing them, they're spirits after all.

Attempting to cross a Manga with a Book is rarely done well but I would like to see a thing like that come to life.

I seem to remember a HP/Bleach crossover where Harry=Hitsugaya that wasn't so bad and completed but I don't remember the name.

 

Agreed.

True, but these are not necessarily bad. Bad authors have generally ruined these kind of crossovers, but it's not inherently bad.

Though it appears so on the surface, there really isn't a culture shock. Simple plot devices make this irrelevant (refer to my second post in this thread).

Haven't seen this. Link?

 

*Sigh*.....fucking katanas....

 

What are you insinuating?

 

What I'm suggesting there is that they are like that because it is culturally relevant to Japan. It is not culturally relevant to Europe, so you may as well change it to fit.

In my opinion, it would just be better for it to be an OC in this case. *shrug*

The Dresden Files are culturally relevant to Europe/America. Bleach is not. Using Dresden characters, thus, is easy, because they already fit the culture. Again, the Japanese characters from Bleach do not, because they are Japanese.

For that matter, I rather doubt that there's only one Soul Society. Personally, I think there are actually several, and that the one featured in Bleach is the one centered over Japan/Asia. The fact that the characters from Soul Society speak Japanese to one another (even when the others are not around) adds to this.

 

Personal quip: Any crossover featuring swords that are not Gryffindor's will blow.
General quip: Potter Law XXVII

 

Be that as it may, I think that if you were to change it around it would detract from the fic.

If done well I have no complaints.

True, that was probably a bad analogy. I really don't see how it is a problem though. The only real Japanese parts about the Shinigami are the swords and the robes. Even then, robes are found in all cultures, not just Japan. Also, not all shinigami have the typical Japanese katana. Some have different sword designs, so even that can be argued against. And I would like to say that not all the characters in Bleach are Japanese. Ichigo, Chad, Ishida, and the other non Shinigami characters are obviously Japanese, but who says that the Shinigami as a whole are Japanese? They speak Japanese because it's an anime made in Japan, not that they are Japanese themselves, or that Japanese is the only language they speak. I really feel that this isn't too relevant, and can be explained fairly easily.

This is just speculation. Sure there might be other Soul Societies, but there is evidence to support that, and if you are going to make a crossover fic, it's best to stick with the source material and what we know.

This is dumb. Denarian Knight/Renegade has Harry wielding a katana, and that is one of the best fics out there. Generally it is bad, but there are exceptions.

Also, this is a Bleach crossover. It is pretty much impossible to make a Bleach crossover without swords.

 

Of course there are exceptions to the rule - there's exceptions to every rule, really. But it's not just the fact that katana-wielding Harry stories typically fail: they tend to fail magnificently. I just feel like nobody could write a Bleach/HP story to satisfaction, no matter how talented.

 

Oh come on now. There are plenty of authors here at DLP who could do a good job with it if they are fans of Bleach. It would be best as a novel length fic, or a long term project, but it's not impossible. I wouldn't have thought there could of been a great Firefly/HP crossover, but nonjon went and proved me wrong. If there's a will, there's a way.

 

All I'm suggesting is you give them body armor and European swords. They're still "Shinigami," they still do a Shinigami's job, they're just more culturally relevant this way.

As I consider this more, I'm increasingly thinking it would be better to have Quincy!Harry than Shinigami!Harry.

The sealed sword is always a katana unless it's not sealed very well (see Ichigo at the beginning of the series).

The words "think" and "doubt" suggest that I was only speculating.

The sword Harry has in Denarian Renegade/Knight is a katana? I didn't know that...granted, I haven't read too far in (only about 10 chapters of Renegade), but you'd think I would have realized this...I thought it was a longsword or something similar.

 

So did I, but I've barely scratched the surface of it. Meh, I stand by what I said - no one would do this crossover justice.

 

I feel that we should just agree to disagree. I disagree with this because it would change an important part of the Shinigami. In my opinion, the robes can be reconciled much easier than it could be changed to body armor. You obviously disagree with this so further argument is uneccessary.

I'm open to this, but I still prefer Shinigami!Harry. The plus side would be that he wouldn't have to change forms as Quicy's use their power in their mortal bodies, unlike Shinigami which can only use their full power in spirit form.

I'm not too sure of this. What about this guy? His sword is always the weird multi clawed thing if I'm not mistaken. Also, I think there are a few other characters whose sword is not a katana in it's sealed form.

I'm certain it is a katana. I don't feel like going back to check, but I will concede it if I'm wrong.

 

I honestly don't think the robes are that important to the character. It would be better to change them to something more culturally relevant to England, and I'm not going to change my opinion. You won't, either, so yeah, agree to disagree is for the best.

Shinigami can't use their power at all in their mortal bodies.

Initial release. He doesn't have his sword fully sealed, so it's stuck in its Shikai form. The same can be said for Kenpachi, who can't seal his sword.

Huh...odd. Until I'm told this explicitly later in the story, or by Shezza himself, I'd prefer to keep thinking of it as a longsword, personally. Annoys less that way.

 

Ah yes. I confused this with the fact that they can't use their full power in the mortal world. They have to get special permission to use their full power when in the mortal world (as seen in one of the earlier Arrancar episodes).

this makes sense

I don't get the hate for the katana. Katana's (katanae?) are much more efficient and deadly than european longswords and broadswords. Why hate on it simply because it's not native? I'll go back and see if I can find it for you.

edit: meh. I went back and skimmed over a few chapters of Denarian Renegade, and it's just called a sword. I guess I'm wrong on this one.

 

You are not wrong. While I don't remember if Shezza truly wrote it in his fic, the sword that Harry have is a katana (for me he uses the term 'sword' as it's largest sense, a long lenght of metal that can cut).

You can know that if you've read the books the Dresden Files, at some point in the story Harry Dresden is given a Sword whose knight is dead and he have to keep it for the next Knight, it's clearly described as being a katana within a wooden cane-like scabbard. In TDR Michael brought this second Sword with him at the graveyard and Harry Potter pick it up. You can frequently see mention of the cane-scabbard in TDK, and within it, the sword is a katana.

And as for the link to the story, I'm sorry but I cannot remember it's name, it's 5:40am and I'm too tired to search, I have to sleep

 

Honestly, the hate seems to be my thing only; at least I'm the only person on the forum who makes a lot of noise about it. The katana for me is like Ginny (or "Gin Slut", I hate that term but whatever) is for most other members. I don't actually hate the weapon at all - if I had to choose a sword to fight with, I'd pick a katana or similiar Japanese weapon every time. As far as my martial arts training, I've never even held any European sword.

But in HP fanfiction, it just sucks to me - it's not "right". But again, it's my own pet peeve.

 

That's cool.

Your "katana" is my "gun". I can't stand guns in HP. It's almost a sure red x if someone starts busting caps in an HP fic.