"魂 燃え立つ 天の降るとも" having "魂" read as "こころ" and "天" read as ”雨"? (Bleach)

Question

In Bleach Sennen Kessen-hen, at the end of each episode, an old poetic-style line or two is read to invoke the next episode. But I wonder whether it's actually some old poetic style of speech, or if it's just some ultra-chuuni thing.

At the end of S1E5, an old man speaks:

魂{こころ} 燃{も}え立{た}つ

天{あめ}の降{ふ}るとも

In particular, 魂 (tamashii) and 天 (ten) are given completely non-standard readings. I can see how the words relate (tamashii is more spirit, kokoro is more soul. ten is more heavens, ame is more of the rain).

My question is: is this legitimate old-style japanese poetry, or is this a case of being chuuni and assigning furigana/alternative readings because you're feeling extra cool/deep?

Fwiw, both readings absolutely make sense in context, whether it's the soul or spirit burning, or whether it's rain (i.e. tribulations) falling, or the heavens falling.

Answer 1

魂【こころ】 is a reading that is neither standard nor traditional, and it does give off a chuni vibe. However, when you only look at the second line, it appears like a normal piece of a traditional Japanese poem. 天【あめ】 is a real ancient reading that has been in use for over 1000 years (cf 天叢雲剣). The play on words between 天【あめ】 and 雨【あめ】 is a traditional kakekotoba. (Does "heavenfall" have any meaning in this part of the work?) とも is a conjunctive in classical Japanese. Of course, these two lines correctly follows the (5-7-5-)7-7 rhythm of a traditional Japanese waka. So I'd describe these lines as "mostly in the style of traditional waka, but with a bit of modern element that might be called chuni-ish".

Here is the list of poems in Bleach, and I can see very few are written in the style of traditional waka. While they are still poems, they basically belong to contemporary Japanese poetry written in contemporary Japanese. And most of these poems are quite serious as contemporary poetry, and must not be labeled as chunibyo. If I were told that they were written by a famous poet 70 years ago, I would readily believe it. (That does not mean they look "old".)