User blog comment:Njalm2/Nanja's Point of View: Shinigami Edition/@comment-136273-20150503184455

Lots of lofty arguments used here to make all Shinigami seem godlike. Last time I checked that was technically a profession, not a supernatural species entirely separate from humans as you seem to imply.

Humans are us. Souls confined to corporeal vessels.

Souls "freed" from their bodies inhabit the Soul Society. They are subject to different rules but still, they were us. And will become us again when they reincarnate.

Certain Souls possess noteworthy spiritual power. Those Souls may get recruited and trained so they become Shinigami. Like, you know, a guy can train and become a professional soldier? Not entirely the same but the analogy is definitely here.

What I believe was the underlying thought in the "Shinigami are Humans" statement was that they aren't anything separate from us. They're basically powerful Souls that used to be and will be Humans again at some point. They aren't a long-lived race. How do we know how long all Shinigami live? Some may age visibly in a century and others may live a few millennia without any notable changes.

Mind that out of several thousand fairly unimpressive Shinigami there are about a few dozen who partially apply to that "not-human" view of yours. And even then, those particularly powerful, long-lived Shinigami do not come from a long line of powerful, long-lived supernatural beings who evolved that way. They just happen to acquire such traits upon death and transition to SS. They do not define their personality from the get to, though they surely do influence them as they continue to live for centuries and millennia.

Then, there are those who were actually born Shinigami. Now those guys are definitely brought up much differently than a human would thanks to that enhanced lifespan and unlimited powah from the start. But here's the catch: there's rather few of them. Viewing thousands of Shinigami through the prism of a few outstanding cases, now that is a fallacy.