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

[HandofShadows]

On Ichigo's sword

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What intrigues me, is the 3rd panel in the 3rd page, where the Zero Captain mentions that "not even one shinigami was able to awaken their zanpakuto without one of his asauchi". Perhaps is my English comprehension failing me, or a mistake in the translation.

But are the zanpakutos of the shinigami (swords) and the asauchi only related by habit?

Meaning that to unlock a zanpakuto an asauchi is not necessary, just it has always been done that way.

The new quincy (the leader of which is probably family to Ichigo) have sword, and they unsheathed them, so it is not necessarily impossible that Ichigo's sword is a quincy's sword.

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The thing is that Ichigo's zanpaktuo acts utterly like a normal one. Even to the point of sending souls to the SS. Here is a wacky idea Isshan "loaned" some part of his zanpaktuo to Ichigo. Isshan did know the ultimate technique. Either that or some Quincy can act much like a Soul Reaper. Notice that the SS didn't really seem that worried about Ishida.

[Mando Knight]

Speculation:

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Quincy's signature ability isn't archery, no matter how much Uryuu proclaims it... it's power absorption.

Ichigo, being born of a Quincy and a Shinigami, inherited the power of a Quincy and therefore absorbed the power of the Shinigami.

Then, as new powers were revealed around him, he absorbed those, too.

He is... the ultimate Quincy.

[Somewhere]

Speculation:

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Quincy's signature ability isn't archery, no matter how much Uryuu proclaims it... it's power absorption.

Ichigo, being born of a Quincy and a Shinigami, inherited the power of a Quincy and therefore absorbed the power of the Shinigami.

Then, as new powers were revealed around him, he absorbed those, too.

He is... the ultimate Quincy.

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Well...
Considering that the Vandenreich leader's name is now officially romanized as Yhwach...
Presumably that makes him the Bleach version of YHWH (or his name, at least)
And with Ichigo being his son, that makes Ichigo the Quincy messiah.

[DiscipleofBob]

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Well...
Considering that the Vandenreich leader's name is now officially romanized as Yhwach...
Presumably that makes him the Bleach version of YHWH (or his name, at least)
And with Ichigo being his son, that makes Ichigo the Quincy messiah.

Wait...

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His official romanized name is Yhwach?

That's not a name, that's someone trying to cheat at Scrabble.

How do you even pronounce it?!

I swear, some of these mangaka should read the fan translations just because the theorized romanizations are actually decent.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Speculation:

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Quincy's signature ability isn't archery, no matter how much Uryuu proclaims it... it's power absorption.

Ichigo, being born of a Quincy and a Shinigami, inherited the power of a Quincy and therefore absorbed the power of the Shinigami.

Then, as new powers were revealed around him, he absorbed those, too.

He is... the ultimate Quincy.

Nice thinking but there's a minor problem.

We know Ichigo absorbed the power of a Shinigami but we also know it happened in chapter 1 from Rukia.

Other fact: Ichigo never had a Zanpakuto spirit, he had an inner hollow. Zangetsu and the inner hollow were the same thing from that start according to themselves ages ago.

[Somewhere]

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IIRC, Viz has been translating his name as Yhwach, but this surfacing is what takes it from translation style to official.
http://i.imgur.com/Et2B0pA.png

As for pronunciation....
The katakana is Yuuhabahha
Speculation is that it's supposed to come across as YHWH, or YHVH. When you see a b sound in katakana, it can mean it's either supposed to be a b sound, or it's supposed to be a v sound. Also, supposedly the 'ch' sound in German is represented with 'ha' in katakana.
But going past the katakana to how it's really supposed to sound? I don't know. Any German speakers in the house want to tackle this?

[LaZodiac]

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Then, do Quincies do the communing with their powers' spirit thing too? Like Ichigo with Zangetsu.

And when Ichigo got his whatever-it-is-now powers in beginning of Soul Society arc from Urahara's training, how would Urahara know to put him through this training program in the first place?

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It's mentioned by other people, but perhaps that has to do with his Vizard/Fullbringer powers. Speaking of which, are Vizard just Fullbringer Shinigami?

Also, it might be an inheritance from his Shinigami father. Like, Isshun has Zangetsu as his sword as well, maybe Ichigo's version is his Dads.

[Somewhere]

Eh, works well enough for me given present information.

...would it be crossing the line for me to suggest that continuing along the possible analogy of...

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... Ichigo being the Quincy messiah would be a way to skirt around the question of, 'so how do gigai reproduce/how can Isshin have living kids'?

[HandofShadows]

...would it be crossing the line for me to suggest that continuing along the possible analogy of...

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... Ichigo being the Quincy messiah would be a way to skirt around the question of, 'so how do gigai reproduce/how can Isshin have living kids'?

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Well, they ARE his kids. Just look at them. Maybe Isshin is not in a gigai? From very early on some people in the SS where remarking on how Ichigo looked like Kaien Shiba. And we know for certain now that Isshin is a Shiba. And this also explains why Kukaku and Ganju where so willing to help Ichigo. Kubo may make some stuff up as he goes, but he clearly had this set up for a very long time.

[Somewhere]

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But if he's not in a gigai, then shinigami can assume living, physical flesh form, skipping the reincarnation cycle?
And if he is in a gigai to take physical form, then... well, Urahara is supposed to be capable of making Armitage III-level realistic bodies?

[darksolitaire]

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But if he's not in a gigai, then shinigami can assume living, physical flesh form, skipping the reincarnation cycle?

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Cool idea actually. It means Shinigami is something else then just sword fighting and fancy name. Can't spell death god without god and all that jazz.

Unless Ichigo and his sisters are actually randomly dead, and Urahara and Isshin are pulling a job of swapping their gigais every now and then to a more mature ones without them noticing.

[Anteros]

Gonna stop with the spoilers now since anyone who scrolled past an entire page of spoilers without going to read the chapter deserves what they get.

I highly doubt that Ichigo isn't an actual soul reaper. The whole reason he has a hollow is that he almost failed the process to become one. Also, he had to be outside of his body to access his powers...which is not true of Quincy. He also explicitly is part of the bloodline of a powerful shinigami captain as well.

Also, none of the Quincy weapons we've seen function anything like Zangetsu. Not only is it a sword, but it also has a name, and 2 stages of release. Plus all the shinigami specific training that Ichigo underwent throughout the series that probably wouldn't have benefited a Quincy. Besides, I think Mayuri would have noticed while studying Ichigo's zanpakuto that it wasn't real if that were the case.

It's an ok theory, but there's a lot of evidence against it.

[Dscherro]

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IIRC, Viz has been translating his name as Yhwach, but this surfacing is what takes it from translation style to official.
http://i.imgur.com/Et2B0pA.png

As for pronunciation....
The katakana is Yuuhabahha
Speculation is that it's supposed to come across as YHWH, or YHVH. When you see a b sound in katakana, it can mean it's either supposed to be a b sound, or it's supposed to be a v sound. Also, supposedly the 'ch' sound in German is represented with 'ha' in katakana.
But going past the katakana to how it's really supposed to sound? I don't know. Any German speakers in the house want to tackle this?

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Well, this doesn't even look remotely german anymore, but that it's supposed to be reminiscent of Yahwe or YHWH seems like a good guess. We seem all to agree that the ch is supposed to be spoken like in german or scottish.
The real problem is the yh: I don't know if silent letters are normally represented in Katakana, but the h could be another ch-sound. If the y is a you-sound we have something like Ychwach or Ywach; such combinations may exist in some languages, but most here are probably not used to pronounce things like this.
For me the y is now an it- or ee-sound, which doesn't fit with the Kata, but it's possible with the romanization. So Ihwach (Eewach) or Ichwach - much nicer, if you're used to the ch-sounds.
But that goddam yh could very well be something completely different.

[Morph Bark]

Clearly Misaki just absorbed Isshin's spirit particles and had a phsyically-immaculate conception.

Thrice.

[maximus25]

So, if Ichigo is like the Quincy messiah by virtue of being born, what does that make his sisters?


When will they manifest powers and go fight hollows?

[chainer1216]

So, if Ichigo is like the Quincy messiah by virtue of being born, what does that make his sisters?


When will they manifest powers and go fight hollows?

well, we know karin, or whatever her name is, can see ghosts, thats pretty much all ichigo could do in the first chapter. so she's probably just waiting for a sword through the chest.

[Thrawn183]

So, how do we know Ichigo's father didn't die, reincarnate, and essentially go through exactly what Ichigo's gone through to get his powers as a human?

Especially if something wonky happened and he kept his memories after death, allowing him to work towards regaining his powers or something.

[Drolyt]

On Ichigo's zanpakuto, we know you can have a zanpakuto without being a shinigami, the Arrancar had them. In their case the zanpakuto simply sealed their full powers, but maybe that doesn't have to be the case? Ichigo apparently had some fullbring power to begin with since he was exposed to a hollow at an early age, and the fullbrings seem to manifest however they please despite supposedly coming from the same source as hollow powers. Later he borrowed Rukia's shinigami powers, then when he lost those Urahura got him new powers, but he did that by developing Ichigo's hollow side. Given that Shirosaki said that he and Zangetsu were essentially the same thing it is reasonable to suppose that the source of hollow and shinigami powers are the same or very close. Whatshisname seems to think that no shinigami can develop their powers without one of his Asauchi, maybe that is connected to how Ichigo's hollow side kept trying to take over? Maybe they are needed to focus a shinigami's power properly? Anyways, I think we can reasonably claim that Ichigo's zanpakuto is not normal, but was probably just a fullbring from the beginning, thus why learning fullbring somehow got him his sword back, it wasn't that he was learning new powers, that was his power from the beginning.

Which now that I think about it makes the fullbring arc far more interesting. If only Kubo's writing could keep up with his good ideas.

[Turalisj]

So, if Ichigo is like the Quincy messiah by virtue of being born, what does that make his sisters?


When will they manifest powers and go fight hollows?

Females? And thus not mattering in Bleach?

I mean, apparently Rangiku is still no closer to her bankai than when before Hitsugaya was a seated officer.

[LaZodiac]

Eh, works well enough for me given present information.

...would it be crossing the line for me to suggest that continuing along the possible analogy of...

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... Ichigo being the Quincy messiah would be a way to skirt around the question of, 'so how do gigai reproduce/how can Isshin have living kids'?

Well, maybe that's why the Spirit King is (apparently) interested in Ichigo.

[Ramza00]

So who wants to bet that we are now going to see why the Shiba clan is a "former" great house instead of a great house.

[Frozen_Feet]

In order of likelyhood, there are at least 3 points at which Ichigo could've attained his Zanpakuto:

1. He inherited it from his father.
2. He gained it when Rukia gave him her powers
3. He gained it because of Urahara Kisuke, who planned his restoration as a Shinigami.

More importantly, there's a fourth point at which he attained his current Zanpakuto.

1. He gained it when combined might of Gotei was used to give him back his powers.

This is important, because the Zangetsu he got at the end of Fullbringer arc might not be exactly the same as the one he had before.

Looking at it, it seems that in almost any case, Ichigo's Shinigami powers have been thrust upon him by some outside source. They are hardly a result of natural growth. So it's no wonder if he's not considered a "true Shinigami" - he has all the associated powers, yes, but he lacks the nature and the training to be one.

[Silva Stormrage]

Females? And thus not mattering in Bleach?

I mean, apparently Rangiku is still no closer to her bankai than when before Hitsugaya was a seated officer.

To be fair with Rangiku, she doesn't really train much... and when we see her try to communicate with her zanpakto its a hilarious failure. I am not THAT surprised that she still hasn't gotten bankai.

[Drolyt]

To be fair with Rangiku, she doesn't really train much... and when we see her try to communicate with her zanpakto its a hilarious failure. I am not THAT surprised that she still hasn't gotten bankai.

I think the bigger issue is how few people do get bankai. I mean, it isn't really an indictment for her to not have it when 99.9% of shinigami don't have it.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah, people really shouldnt complain about her not having reached Bankai, when most Shinigami doesnt even reach Shikai.

[Turalisj]

She's apparently been a lieutenant for that entire period of time though, which just about every other first seat has been able to do.

[HandofShadows]

So, how do we know Ichigo's father didn't die, reincarnate, and essentially go through exactly what Ichigo's gone through to get his powers as a human?

Especially if something wonky happened and he kept his memories after death, allowing him to work towards regaining his powers or something.

Think it might be easier than that. I think Urahara might be involved. Recall that he has a gate that can turn a living person into a spirit and send them to the Soul Soceity. Might it be that he can reverse the proccess? Convert a soul into a living person?

[HandofShadows]

To be fair with Rangiku, she doesn't really train much... and when we see her try to communicate with her zanpakto its a hilarious failure. I am not THAT surprised that she still hasn't gotten bankai.

Rangiku and her zanpakto are very similar. In that they ar both party girls and are lazy. It would actully be a much larger surprise that she achived bankai then her not achiveing it.

[lord_khaine]

She's apparently been a lieutenant for that entire period of time though, which just about every other first seat has been able to do.

yes..?

That still place her among the elite of SS, i dont see the issue here?

[LaZodiac]

A new chapter happened, but I don't think anyone noticed.

Especialy because only two things happened this chapter.

1: Nothing

2: FLASHBACK TIME

Bleach is wonderful.