Bleach V: Well that was a waste of time (Fullbring? What's that?)

[Sotharsyl]

I haven't heard anything about this in a while, but I have high hopes.

Didn't Keanu Reaves say he wanted to be Spike or something, it could have been a fake rumour though.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Didn't Keanu Reaves say he wanted to be Spike or something, it could have been a fake rumour though.

I heard rumours to that effect, and fervently hoped they where unfounded.

[Turalisj]

I heard rumours to that effect, and fervently hoped they where unfounded.

Because we know Spike is such a fountain of emotion and thus outside of Keanu Reeve's normal casting

[Drolyt]

Didn't Keanu Reaves say he wanted to be Spike or something, it could have been a fake rumour though.

I've seen it quoted in a number of places, and it is on MTV's website (that's the Wikipedia citation for some reason) among other places, so I think it is accurate.

I heard rumours to that effect, and fervently hoped they where unfounded.

Why? I like Keanu Reaves, at least sometimes. Also he kind of looks like Spike.

Because we know Spike is such a fountain of emotion and thus outside of Keanu Reeve's normal casting

Right. There are certain roles Reaves does well, and I think he could do a good Spike.

[Turalisj]

Right. There are certain roles Reaves does well, and I think he could do a good Spike.

I think so too. The idea though, is often met with a mix of shock/horror/disgust.

[Friv]

Right. There are certain roles Reaves does well, and I think he could do a good Spike.

Yeah, it's not like they were offering him the lead in Akira.

(*so glad he turned that down*)

Anyway, I'm not so sure anymore. I think Reaves could have been a good Spike ten years ago, but he's pushing fifty, and the character he was based on was 27 years old. You can easily push Spike into his thirties and keep his style, and you can make Keanu at forty look like he's in his young or mid-thirties, but I feel like once you move him into middle age, it doesn't work as well. The ship is rapidly sailing away on that casting.

But given that the movie's been dead in the water for a year and a half at least, I think it's a moot point.

[MammonAzrael]

Right. There are certain roles Reaves does well, and I think he could do a good Spike.

I think he could do a solid Spike, but only when Spike is mildly bored and just living. I don't think Reaves would make a good Spike, be unable to send out that quiet but deep passion and emotion, when we start to see his scars, particularly involving Vicious, Julia, and the Red Dragon Clan.

[Drolyt]

Meaning this: The original author wanted to end it several times, at least four, but wasn't allowed to. If Bleach stays true to it's heritage, we'll be seeing it go on for the next ten years.

I'm not saying anything about the quality, but the length. Bleach is a phenomenal cash cow and Shonen Jump will want to milk it for all it's worth until, like DBZ, the end result is a dried out husk. Okay maybe I'm a bit bitter over the quality of GT.....

This conversation was from a while ago, but I decided to bring it back because I recently realized that I'd never seen the interview where Toriyama stated this, and if you believe this site, he never did. He did state that he wanted to end it at the end of Dragon Ball (ie after the Demon King Picollo Arc) but that was the only time. Odd, since I had thought it was after the Frieza Arc that he said that, but I cannot find the evidence of that. So yeah.

[Turalisj]

Toriyama isn't exactly known for his great memory.

[Drolyt]

Toriyama isn't exactly known for his great memory.

"Who's Lunch/Launch?"

[Arakune]

Way to be subtle in trying to justify Old Man Genocide actions in wiping out the Qincy, Kubo. Did you found it too hard to make Soul Society a bunch of psychopaths?

[Friv]

Way to be subtle in trying to justify Old Man Genocide actions in wiping out the Qincy, Kubo. Did you found it too hard to make Soul Society a bunch of psychopaths?

I guess the new comic is out. Lesse...

I'm actually not sure I follow your complaint. At all.

Anyway, we already had justification for Soul Society's purge of the Quincy. It was a difficult decision made because they were going to destroy the world and refused to stop.

[thubby]

new chapter. something is about to happen. all fear my precognition!

anyhow. so he looks exactly like an arrancar, but isn't. this was done because...?

[Friv]

new chapter. something is about to happen. all fear my precognition!

anyhow. so he looks exactly like an arrancar, but isn't. this was done because...?

If I had to guess, it's the same basic process that creates the arrancar, but it's not an arrancar because it's fusing hollow-powers with Quincy-powers instead of with shinigami-powers. You still get the fancy hollow half-mask, but you have a crazy magic superbow instead of a crazy sword and beastform.

[Arakune]

Anyway, we already had justification for Soul Society's purge of the Quincy. It was a difficult decision made because they were going to destroy the world and refused to stop.

The problem is that we only had the word of Soul Society on this fact, and that no other organization could prove that the Quincy killing hollows actually would lead to the end of the word.

They are absurdly secretive on the inner workings of the spiritual worlds, almost everything is classified even to high ranking captains and excluding a few select nobody even know where to look at, the society itself is extremely corrupt, and for those who watch anime you can't turn a corner without finding something Soul Society did that create the antagonist of the week.

The only evidence they have that Quincy killing souls is 'bad' is because the hollow doesn't purify itself and go to Soul Society. There was nothing that could prove the souls won't reincarnate straight out into the Living World, or that the spirit particles won't form Object Souls (as show in the Fullbringer Ar) eventually.

Now with the Quincy being proven wrong and becoming the new villains, the Genocide was just, necessary and the Quincy had it coming for them, while at worst the shinigami involved were just a bunch of *****.

[jindra34]

Anyway, we already had justification for Soul Society's purge of the Quincy. It was a difficult decision made because they were going to destroy the world and refused to stop.

Just pointing out if the issue arises from Quincy taking out hollows, then there was another solution; namely being good enough at their job to beat the Quincy to the punch every last time. Too bad that would have made SS hyper competent.

[Psyren]

Quirrancar!

Now we know what happened to them all, I guess. (Maybe?)

[Friv]

The problem is that we only had the word of Soul Society on this fact, and that no other organization could prove that the Quincy killing hollows actually would lead to the end of the word.

They are absurdly secretive on the inner workings of the spiritual worlds, almost everything is classified even to high ranking captains and excluding a few select nobody even know where to look at, the society itself is extremely corrupt, and for those who watch anime you can't turn a corner without finding something Soul Society did that create the antagonist of the week.

The only evidence they have that Quincy killing souls is 'bad' is because the hollow doesn't purify itself and go to Soul Society. There was nothing that could prove the souls won't reincarnate straight out into the Living World, or that the spirit particles won't form Object Souls (as show in the Fullbringer Ar) eventually.

Now with the Quincy being proven wrong and becoming the new villains, the Genocide was just, necessary and the Quincy had it coming for them, while at worst the shinigami involved were just a bunch of *****.

See, I never got any of that from the original Quincy stuff. Hell, even Ishida said that he didn't hate Soul Society for wiping out the Quincy as a whole. While I understand unreliable narrator as an issue, there was never anything given to suggest that Quincies didn't destroy souls utterly, or that Soul Society would make that degree of mistake. The entire Quincy storyline was, "They fought with hatred and wouldn't accept that Hollows deserved better than obliteration, and so they died".

What I'm saying is, I took all of the things that you're talking about as a given, so the fact that they are now provably true is... exactly 100% what I expected.

[danzibr]

I have a question. I started rewatching the series and in the very first scene of the very first episode, well... I'm pretty sure it's Hueco Mundo, but what's that black stuff that seems to be growing?

EDIT: Also, I won't be happy if Bleach ends before we see all the captains' bankai. Except maybe Kenpachi.

[Drolyt]

Way to be subtle in trying to justify Old Man Genocide actions in wiping out the Qincy, Kubo. Did you found it too hard to make Soul Society a bunch of psychopaths?

I'll be honest, I don't follow your criticism. At any rate I'm not surprised, I had a feeling it was not an Arrancar.

[HandofShadows]

Quincy vs Soul Reaper War Part II.

One question though. If Quincys destroy souls totaly and it causes major problems, then why hasn't anyone even said anything about it to Uryu. Come to think of it Orihime and Chad might destroy souls as well.

[darksolitaire]

One question though. If Quincys destroy souls totaly and it causes major problems, then why hasn't anyone even said anything about it to Uryu. Come to think of it Orihime and Chad might destroy souls as well.

That struck me strange at the beginning as well. Only thing I can imagine is that Ishida destroying hollows is much less harmful then clan of quincy destroying hollows. Go and figure.

[Tavar]

That struck me strange at the beginning as well. Only thing I can imagine is that Ishida destroying hollows is much less harmful then clan of quincy destroying hollows. Go and figure.

Considering we know that souls do leave the cycle if they end up going to hell, I'd imagine that there is some method by which new souls are added to the world's supply. I'd say the issue was the Quincy Clan was widespread enough that they outstripped the world's natural re-supply mechanic, and thus they were hunted down. A few quincy, however, wouldn't cause such a problem. Also, restrictions were likely lower during the war.

[Anteros]

The Quincy are obviously not going to be the main bad guys of this arc guys. They don't have swords. We can't have a Bleach arc without sword fights.

This seems pretty obvious.

[Drolyt]

That struck me strange at the beginning as well. Only thing I can imagine is that Ishida destroying hollows is much less harmful then clan of quincy destroying hollows. Go and figure.

Given that Ishida Soken (Uryuu's grandfather) attempted to reconcile with the Shinigami, I imagine that maybe the Ishida clan discovered a way to purify the hollows without a Zanpakuto? Other than that, it might have been too much trouble to wipe out the last Quincy family. It isn't clear how powerful Ishida Ryuuken is, but it is implied that he is Captain level. Since he inherited Soken's power but isn't interested in being a Quincy himself, it is likely that Soken was even stronger before passing his powers down. It would take at least a Captain to deal with them, and they were likely hiding themselves the same way Ukitake's group was, so the Shinigami might not have known where they were until Uryuu revealed himself.

[Psyren]

The Quincy are obviously not going to be the main bad guys of this arc guys. They don't have swords. We can't have a Bleach arc without sword fights.

This seems pretty obvious.

Hollow Seele Schneider, maybe?

[Frozen_Feet]

anyhow. so he looks exactly like an arrancar, but isn't. this was done because...?

Well, the Quincy were mortals at one point. All Mortal Spirits have a chance to become Hollows - in the Bleach setting, dying is not the end of you (unless ironically enough, you're killed by a Quincy).

Which means... even if Quincy were eradicated from the material world, their spirits should be somewhere in the spiritual one. Even if Mayuri captured them all and destroyed their souls once, they could've been reincarnated...

About Hell: Bleach is quite clearly influenced by Japanese mythology, and in oriental view of the world, Hell is not the ultimate fate of bad souls - they eventually get redeemed and returned to the cycle. I've not seen Hell chapter movie, was there something there to imply otherwise?

[tyckspoon]

Current guess:
This arc will not in fact have much to do with Quincies. What is actually happening:

We know there are factions in Soul Society that are not happy with how things are run there. One of these factions has figured out how to consume other spiritual beings for power, similar to how Hollows do it. This is why the Rukongai citizens are disappearing- they are either being taken for power or, if sufficiently angry at the SS rulers/propagandized, willingly sacrificing themselves to create champions who might be able to fight.

Thing is.. your normal Plus SS citizen is really pretty pathetic. They don't provide enough power to consider fighting the Shinigami, nevermind the commanding officers, not without performing massive genocides/sacrifices. But they *can* provide enough power to get to the living plane, where there are a pretty good number of more spiritually-powerful beings that are still weak enough to be overcome: Hollows. These would-be Soul Society rebels hunt down and consume them, which is why SS's monitoring equipment is reporting them as 'destroyed'. Eventually this process does what playing with Hollow power always does in Bleach, and you wind up either becoming a Hollow (and probably get put down by Ichigo) or ending up as whatever Mr. Not-an-Arrancar is.

(I'm not entirely convinced he's got Quincy as a base for his powers, since we just *had* an entire arc about evoking power out of objects and that doesn't look a lot like the energy-bow constructs Ishida uses, but it does seem to be what Kubo is trying to make us think.)

[Drolyt]

Well, the Quincy were mortals at one point. All Mortal Spirits have a chance to become Hollows - in the Bleach setting, dying is not the end of you (unless ironically enough, you're killed by a Quincy).

Which means... even if Quincy were eradicated from the material world, their spirits should be somewhere in the spiritual one. Even if Mayuri captured them all and destroyed their souls once, they could've been reincarnated...

About Hell: Bleach is quite clearly influenced by Japanese mythology, and in oriental view of the world, Hell is not the ultimate fate of bad souls - they eventually get redeemed and returned to the cycle. I've not seen Hell chapter movie, was there something there to imply otherwise?

Assuming this is the Buddhist Hell, which is what the Japanese would be most familiar with, there are different levels (similar to the layers of Western conceptions of Hell) and you end up in a different one depending on your Karma. The worse the level, the longer you stay as well (to cleanse the spirit/clear your karma), and some levels require you to stay there ridiculous lengths of time, longer than the scientifically established age of the universe. In some versions the very lowest level, reserved for truly abnormal levels of evil, really is eternal.

As for the Quincy, I imagine they ended up in Rukongai. Did they retain their powers? I'm assuming not, or they would have continued their war and ended killed a second time and reincarnated. Perhaps, being pluses, they used Hollowification as a round about way to reclaim their Quincy powers.

[jindra34]

Assuming this is the Buddhist Hell, which is what the Japanese would be most familiar with, there are different levels (similar to the layers of Western conceptions of Hell) and you end up in a different one depending on your Karma. The worse the level, the longer you stay as well (to cleanse the spirit/clear your karma), and some levels require you to stay there ridiculous lengths of time, longer than the scientifically established age of the universe. In some versions the very lowest level, reserved for truly abnormal levels of evil, really is eternal.

Actually the Japanese hell has levels by sin, and you stay at each level until your deemed to have suffered enough/atoned for the sins that put you there then move on to the one below, until your at the bottom where you're reincarnated. If I got everything right. And how the SS would fit into it I have no clue.