This is a list of Soul Reaper characters featured in the anime and manga series Bleach, created by Tite Kubo.

In the series, Soul Reapers, known as shinigami (死神, shinigami^? lit. "death god(s)") in the Japanese anime, are a fictional race of spirits who govern the flow of souls between the human world and the afterlife.

Soul Reaper are departed human souls that have gained supernatural powers. Their bodies are composed of ectoplasm which mimics normal human anatomy. Soul Reaper can only be seen by other spiritually aware entities, which excludes most humans, but otherwise are solid entities capable of influencing their environment. Additionally, they can be injured and die like regular humans, though it takes considerably greater injuries for the latter to occur than it would in regular humans.

The most prominent power possessed by a Soul Reaper is their zanpakutō, a sword generated from the Soul Reaper's soul. Soul Reaper naturally give off spiritual energy, which varies greatly in magnitude with the strength of a Soul Reaper. A zanpakutō is a physical manifestation of this force concentrated into a blade.^[1]

Soul Reaper operations are based out of Soul Society, which is the afterlife in Bleach. Travel between the human world and Soul Society is extremely limited and monitored, but some Soul Reaper are stationed in the human world to carry out their duties and therefore must often travel between the two. In addition, it is a crime for a Soul Reaper to remain in the human world longer than a certain time limit. A Soul Reaper's duties include leading Pluses (ghosts) to Soul Society in a practice called soul burial (konsō), and the cleansing of hollows (evil spirits).^[2]