Visored

The Visored are Shinigami who have taken on Hollow powers, standing as the mirror image of the Arrancar, Hollows who instead gained Shinigami traits. Outwardly they pass for ordinary humans, and only when they summon a Hollow mask do their borrowed powers surface, mingling Hollow and Shinigami spiritual pressure through a process called Hollowfication. Every member is a onetime captain or lieutenant, marked as both criminal and traitor by Soul Society for crossing the ultimate taboo.

Roughly a century before the main story, Aizen engineered a wave of disappearances that left a group of elite officers Hollowfied. Kisuke Urahara and Tessai Tsukabishi spirited them away to the living world, where Urahara worked out a means of stabilizing their bodies. Holding no true grudge against the Gotei 13, the Visored later descended on the fake Karakura Town to declare themselves enemies of Aizen and allies of Ichigo Kurosaki. Several rejoined the Gotei 13 afterward, and the group returned once more to help in the Thousand-Year Blood War. Donning a mask grants huge surges in speed, strength, endurance, and spiritual energy, along with Hollow techniques such as Cero, though each member can sustain the mask only for a limited span that stretches with training.

Eight Visored stand apart from Ichigo Kurosaki, five men and three women, all former officers of the Gotei 13. Shinji Hirako, who first sought Ichigo out, leads the loose fellowship, joined by Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi, Love Aikawa, Kensei Muguruma, Hachigen Ushōda, Hiyori Sarugaki, Lisa Yadōmaru, and Mashiro Kuna. Ichigo counts among their number by the group's own reckoning and uniquely mastered a full fusion with his Hollow while keeping control. Shinji, Rose, Kensei, and later Lisa would eventually take up captaincies within the Gotei 13 once again.