Bleach VI: We Want Our Baby Bach Ribs (Aizen pull)

[Drolyt]

Spoiler

Show

I'm not sure I understand all the hate towards this chapter. It makes absolute perfect sense when you take in everything from the very beginning(as someone else already mentioned). I mean, Ichigo, before he has his bankai, is just barely able to squeak out a win against Kenpachi. Then Kenpachi is somehow able to beat Nnoitora, who beat the crap out of Ichigo(who, might I add, is now something like 5-10x more powerful then he was in his fight against Kenpachi). How else would you ever be able to explain that difference, other then exactly how Kubo has shown it to be?

Spoiler

Show

I don't really mind this last chapter, but there are other possible explanations. I had been working with the theory that when Zangetsu gave Ichigo power to fight Zaraki it brought Ichigo close to his full possible strength, so that he was stronger then than when he had his Bankai. I figure at that point Zangetsu was in control of most of Ichigo's power, but after that Shirosaki gained the upper hand. My theory made a lot of sense I think, but the actual explanation is cool too.

[Frozen_Feet]

Additionally, all this explanations really requires is that Kenpachi subconsciously does the same kind of thing that we know he consciously does from his first appearance.

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Plus, I found the fact that Unohana is "cheating" and healing him back each time to be a relief - because it means Kenpachi isn't breaking the rules of the setting.

[The Troubadour]

Spoiler

Show

Then Kenpachi is somehow able to beat Nnoitora, who beat the crap out of Ichigo(who, might I add, is now something like 5-10x more powerful then he was in his fight against Kenpachi).

To be fair, Ichigo was completely exhausted from his fight with Grimmjow at the time. But yeah, I liked Kubo's explanation - and it was a lot simpler than I actually thought it would be.

This really just adds to my belief that there is literally nothing Kubo can write that will not cause someone to scream "Ass Pull".

Agreed. Hell, lots of things people accuse him of Ass Pulling were actually foreshadowed.

[LaZodiac]

Though Ichigo being a Quincy hasn't been foreshadowed at all, except for the faint hint of "something is suspicious about Ichigo Dad, during the Fullbringer arc"

[Somewhere]

Kubo can be hamfisted with his writing, recycles plot arcs, never got around to revealing certain villains' motivations, can be meme-tastically lazy* with his art, copped to turning to designing new characters whenever he gets writers block, has forgotten most of our original living human crew, and should stay the hell away from ever giving numbers to anything again**. But I don't really recall asspulling being a major knock on him .

Oh, yea, one more: Ichigo's super specialness. Which is probably the current explanation for how he got a zanpakutoh after the training with Urahara back at the beginning of soul society arc, given the recent position on the origin of zanpakutoh.

*admittedly, this isn't as bad as the hilarious laziness of Togashi and his scribbles

**I'm not referring to something like the espada numbering scheme. I'm thinking of something like..... this.

[LaZodiac]

Yha. Kubo atleast TRIES to explain his things. His explanations are often bad, but or lacking, but dangit he tries. Sometimes.

[Drolyt]

*admittedly, this isn't as bad as the hilarious laziness of Togashi and his scribbles

Geniuses are allowed to be lazy.

[Anteros]

**I'm not referring to something like the espada numbering scheme. I'm thinking of something like..... this.

Because in a Manga where people can teleport, they should never attack from behind? I'm sorry, but if you're mobile enough to do it in a fight then of course you attack from behind. That's just common frigging sense.

"Nah, I think I'll choose to move in from the side with the pointy objects instead."

[Somewhere]

Bah, link doesn't auto-scroll to the desired post. Edited and hopefully fixed it

And if that still doesn't work, then scroll down to where The Daz works out estimates on # of hollows which must exist to compose Aizen's army alone.

Edit: The double asterisk was attached to my complaint about how terrible Kubo is with numbers. The corresponding footnote at the time linked to someone complaining about teleporting and attacking from behind. Did anybody seriously think that I was complaining about that based on my post?

[LaZodiac]

Bah, link doesn't auto-scroll to the desired post. Edited and hopefully fixed it

And if that still doesn't work, then scroll down to where The Daz works out estimates on # of hollows which must exist to compose Aizen's army alone.

Edit: The double asterisk was attached to my complaint about how terrible Kubo is with numbers. The corresponding footnote at the time linked to someone complaining about teleporting and attacking from behind. Did anybody seriously think that I was complaining about that based on my post?

....that's...that's hilarious. All those souls!

[Hadrian_Emrys]

So, she's not a berserker. For that, I admit I was bracing for the worst.

Instead, we just have a bland power ramp that could have been executed better. I can live with that. I mean, bland is a step up for Kubo. This is progress.

[darksolitaire]

has forgotten most of our original living human crew,

Kubo slowly but surely reaching is reaching memetic status.

Spoiler

Show

[Dscherro]

I'm not referring to something like the espada numbering scheme. I'm thinking of something like..... this.

If we take Wikipedia's numbers and The Daz' calculations, nearly one third of every human ever either became a hollow or was absorbed by one.
OK, since Gotei 13 only existed for a thousand years or so this actually might be possible.
But Daz himself assumed only one soul being devoured per hollow on average, so more likely nearly every human ever, plus neanderthals and homo erecti and whatever else*, was eaten by hollows.

*I think I remember Rukia mentioned something being a million years old (Soul Society?) but I might be wrong.

[Drolyt]

Edit: The double asterisk was attached to my complaint about how terrible Kubo is with numbers. The corresponding footnote at the time linked to someone complaining about teleporting and attacking from behind. Did anybody seriously think that I was complaining about that based on my post?

I didn't think that was the post you wanted, but I couldn't figure out which one you did want until you gave us the fixed link. To be fair, I think the attack from behind thing is overused by Kubo. As for the numbers, they are probably slightly high simply by virtue of the fact that there seems to be less Vasto Lorde than the person who posted that thought. Still ridiculous though. Kubo needs to check his math, it should not take more than a billion souls to make one Vasto Lorde.

[Morph Bark]

Bah, link doesn't auto-scroll to the desired post. Edited and hopefully fixed it

If we take Wikipedia's numbers and The Daz' calculations, nearly one third of every human ever either became a hollow or was absorbed by one.
OK, since Gotei 13 only existed for a thousand years or so this actually might be possible.
But Daz himself assumed only one soul being devoured per hollow on average, so more likely nearly every human ever, plus neanderthals and homo erecti and whatever else*, was eaten by hollows.

*I think I remember Rukia mentioned something being a million years old (Soul Society?) but I might be wrong.

Daz doesn't take into account non-human souls, though. During the Hueco Mundo arc, we were shown some non-human Hollows, presumably coming from non-human souls, such as a small lizard.

This comes down to whatever creatures might have souls (in Bleach), but if there are Hollow-lizards we can assume that reptiles and birds do, as well as mammals. I do wonder what kind of creature Bawabawa is supposed to come from, but I'll just chalk it up to it being a higher form of Hollow that just happened to take that form, despite it being unable to speak.

This brings the soul count much higher and makes the end result of those many Hollows much more reasonable, at least compared to Earth.

[Dante & Vergil]

The post by The Draz also assumes that, for example, it takes 3000 adjuchas to make a Vasto Lorde, when I'm pretty sure, at any menos stage, it's just normal hollows to be devoured, regardless of strength and/or rank.
Also, it's not as if data collected by member of Soul Society has been exact, like when Hitsugaya made the mention of a Vasto Lorde's strength, namely because Soul Society almost never came across one, leaving the with rough estimates.

[LaZodiac]

Kubo slowly but surely reaching is reaching memetic status.

Spoiler

Show

Ok, here's another thing. Kubo, for all he does, he does one thing very very VERY well. He is really good at making himself look like a freakin badass.

[Morph Bark]

Ok, here's another thing. Kubo, for all he does, he does one thing very very VERY well. He is really good at making himself look like a freakin badass.

A trait shared with many fashion designers, such as the memetic Professor Badass.

[LaZodiac]

True enough. Speaking of costume designs, I think a series where Kubo DOES THE CHARACTER DESIGNS, but someone ELSE does the writing, might be pretty great. In order to appease him, have the main character have a friend like Sakura from Card Captor, always making new fancy outfits to put him or her in. Thus, he'll have his fashion designs, and we'll have characters that look cool.

[Anteros]

Bah, link doesn't auto-scroll to the desired post. Edited and hopefully fixed it

And if that still doesn't work, then scroll down to where The Daz works out estimates on # of hollows which must exist to compose Aizen's army alone.

Edit: The double asterisk was attached to my complaint about how terrible Kubo is with numbers. The corresponding footnote at the time linked to someone complaining about teleporting and attacking from behind. Did anybody seriously think that I was complaining about that based on my post?

The complaints in this thread don't always make sense, and you did link directly to a post complaining about that so I just assumed rather than trying to read the entire thread you linked. Sorry for that.

OK. So he's complaining that it would take something like 30 billion hollows to make Aizen's army. This is unbelievable because why again? Sure, there's only 6 billion or so people alive right now...but Hollows don't age or die of natural means. They kill each other, but that only leads to them absorbing each other's power.

This means that Heuco Mundo contains every single spirit that soul society did not save in the entire history of forever. Also, we see hollowed animals as well as humans in Heuco Mundo. It's not really unreasonable to believe that there are literally hundreds of billions of souls down there.

[Morph Bark]

This also means that at some point, Soul Society was ruled by dinosaurs.

Think about it.

[Anteros]

This also means that at some point, Soul Society was ruled by dinosaurs.

Think about it.

No...no it doesn't.

[Kaez]

Well then, where did the dinosaurs go if they don't get to go to to Soul Society? You dinosaur hater!

Also if we can have giant fox people, why can't we have dinosaurs!

[Frozen_Feet]

I've run the numbers myself several times, and you can get results consistent with what's seen in the series without invocation of non-human souls. Give me a moment.

[Anteros]

Well then, where did the dinosaurs go if they don't get to go to to Soul Society? You dinosaur hater!

Also if we can have giant fox people, why can't we have dinosaurs!

They're not intelligent. I don't think we've seen anything non intelligent in soul society. They would have hollowfied.

I've run the numbers myself several times, and you can get results consistent with what's seen in the series without invocation of non-human souls. Give me a moment.

Yeah, they estimate about 100 billion people lived over the course of humanity. Including animal souls (which we have seen in Hueco Mundo) just increases it further.

[Frozen_Feet]

http://www.bleach-gotei.com/index.ph...bly-never-did/

[Dscherro]

Ah, found it!
Chapter 476, page 12: Soul Society hasn't changed in one million years (imlpying it's even older than that).
As long as Rukia wasn't exaggerating for no reason (since she was talking to herself) SS was most certainly run by neanderthals, homo erecti and other hominins at some point.

[Frozen_Feet]

This also means that at some point, Soul Society was ruled by dinosaurs.

Think about it.

They've had a long time to die and get reincarnated as something else. :p

Also, Rukia was clearly exaggerating. Remember, Gotei was founded within last two thousand years.

[thubby]

Ah, found it!
Chapter 476, page 12: Soul Society hasn't changed in one million years (imlpying it's even older than that).
As long as Rukia wasn't exaggerating for no reason (since she was talking to herself) SS was most certainly run by neanderthals, homo erecti and other hominins at some point.

only if you assume bleach works on the same timeline as our history. which, given the population math that's been linked, can't really be the case.

[Dscherro]

Also, Rukia was clearly exaggerating. Remember, Gotei was founded within last two thousand years.

But why, and why so much? To herself? One million years are just too ridiculous to make any kind of sense, even as a hyperbole.
Just stay away from large numbers, Kubo (and way too many other authors to list).