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

[LaZodiac]

Be interesting if the army of quincys got beaten here but then it turned out they had their own civilian areas.

Yamamoto decides their to dangerous to be left to live and its up to the heros to stop him. Effectively making the whole invasion of the SS a reason to show off who Ichigo is going to be fighting at the end.

...if that happens I...ok, I won't FORGIVE Bleach, but it'd be interesting if it happened.

Another question might be why is Unohana just chilling in her office. People are DYING.

The Quincies seem like a group that'd shoot the medic first. Probably.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Another question might be why is Unohana just chilling in her office. People are DYING.

...Her office is the hospital, the healer is right where she needs to be. Even if she's apparently like...the third strongest captain and should probably be fighting.

[Cero Oscura]

...Her office is the hospital, the healer is right where she needs to be. Even if she's apparently like...the third strongest captain and should probably be fighting.

Looks to me like people are getting killed far from that hospital. Besides, she doesn't look that busy to me. But, I see your point.

Grr. Sometimes it's the little things in Bleach that bother me more than the big things.

[Maugan Ra]

I'm not too bothered about Unohana being at her Division. She's protecting the wounded and her Squad. The Sternritter are apparently split up all over the Seireitei, so running around hunting them down would only compromise her ability to defend the injured. Especially given that individuals like As Nodt certainly don't look like they'd blink twice at the idea of massacring non-combatants wholesale.

What we can't see on-panel is the pile of half a dozen dead Sternritter in the corner of Unohana's office...

[LaZodiac]

I'm not too bothered about Unohana being at her Division. She's protecting the wounded and her Squad. The Sternritter are apparently split up all over the Seireitei, so running around hunting them down would only compromise her ability to defend the injured. Especially given that individuals like As Nodt certainly don't look like they'd blink twice at the idea of massacring non-combatants wholesale.

What we can't see on-panel is the pile of half a dozen dead Sternritter in the corner of Unohana's office...

I'd agree with this if it weren't for the fact that every Sternritter we've seen who has a name except for "beansprout", the guy with Bach, is dead or fighting a captain. She has no one to have dead at her office, I'm fairly sure.

[Tenno Seremel]

AFAIR one of the Q side belittled(?) Aizen once, no? Would be rather weird if they wanted to free him.

[LaZodiac]

As far as I recall the one who said that was Oppi, who seems....less then polite. I feel as though he'd probably belittle Aizen even if he was a goal.

[Friv]

I'd agree with this if it weren't for the fact that every Sternritter we've seen who has a name except for "beansprout", the guy with Bach, is dead or fighting a captain. She has no one to have dead at her office, I'm fairly sure.

We've only seen ten of the Sternritter so far, and three of those were introduced post-death (plus a fourth who was introduced, I think, one panel before his death). If there is one for each letter of the alphabet, that leaves sixteen more than could be just about anywhere, including dead in Unohana's office.

Seriously, though, a hospital full of wounded people would be a very major target for people trying to utterly obliterate their enemies. Keeping one of your powerful people there to defend the hospital from attacks is a sound tactical move, especially if you're fighting on the defensive.

[darksolitaire]

We've only seen ten of the Sternritter so far, and three of those were introduced post-death (plus a fourth who was introduced, I think, one panel before his death). If there is one for each letter of the alphabet, that leaves sixteen more than could be just about anywhere, including dead in Unohana's office.

Quincies are the sort of people who just might have Sternritters for Ü, Ö, ß and Ä.

[Socratov]

excuse me for derping, but does anyone find it funny that the only 2 bankai that cannot be stolen are a claok type of bankai (concentrating on the body and sword cloaking the user in their respective zanpakuto) where the old one is the sun and then new boy is the moon? Light and dark, yin and yang, etc... (only just noticed lol, I'm probably late to the party as well ) feel free to insert the conspiracy keanu meme in this post

This would lead me to beleive the final fight will take place between ichigo and captain genocide

On the bankai itself, I think a bankai matures over time. A bankai is the full and complete release of the zanpakuto. I agree with the building of a great spiritparticle effect etc. with one minor detail: to control the bankai (or full release) of a zanpakuto you need to force it into submission as a demonstration of control over your abilities. The fact that you can means you have achieved bankai. If you can't it means fully releasing the zanpakuto is too straining on the shinigami or (even worse) might have a chance of having a zanpakuto going haywire. That level of control is why in the anime filler of muramasa (I consider it canon) the ones with bankai could use their shikai and the ones who don't couldn't. the fact that they have beaten their zanpakuto into submission means they have thut much more control over their zanpakuto, even able to control them a little when their control has eroded to the point of the zanpakuto leaving them.

this is also what sets Ichigo apart. he has a strong personality (he is a determinator) so strong control over zangestu, but his spiritpreassure leaks out constantly showing he has actually no control over his abilities (also helped by his partly hollowfication). That fact that he got his hollwofication under cotnrol means he has achieved so much more control that hsi abilities improved drastically. This is most notable in his bankai where his spritipressure flow is increased, but his spritpressure is made denser. More control equals denser spiritpressure, means stronger effect of his bankai (the peak is seen in the finale of his fight with Aizen where doesn't leak reiatsu at all opening such big can of whoopass it's unbeleavable).

Back to aging bankai: the fact that you grow older means you grow more experienced (and thus more proficient) in controlling your reiatsu. if you can control the flow in such a way that you can focus all yoru energy (or the energy in the form of your zanpakuto) into a fine edge of cloack or different aspect it means a straight powerbump. the fact that commander genocide has had the longest time to perfect his control (and even then presents side effects like eradicating all water in seireitei) and thus woudl be very good at this resulting in his too awesomely and too powerful bankai. he's literally perfected his bankai.

how would this work you ask? No one has seen him do that after all else poeple would have seen or at least known his bankai. that is where Jinzen comes in. Remember Ichigo in the Dangai? he didnt train physically, he trained in his mind. He sougt to control his zanpakuto in such a manner that he would be in total control, and thus at maximum power. By training in your mind you gain control (but no physical power) over your spirit while communicating with your zanpakuto gaining some sort of enleightenment. You can litterally train in yoru mind to create the experience in controlling your zanpakuto.

the fact that Ichigo can just a way to the top in a straight line while everyone moves in infinite hairpin corners is ridicilous at best. Even worse, Ichigo is the only thing about Bleach that is really badly written IMO. (No Aizen was okay becuase he had the time to do the research and prepare, even you and I can become chessmasters liek in the trope in a couple of hundred years, let alone a couple of thousand)

[Callos_DeTerran]

...Why are we assuming that the water evaporating all over the Seireitei is a result of Commander Yamamoto being unable to fully control the power of his own bankai? Doesn't anyone else think that the water and moisture is evaporating because it's just getting that hot? Yamamoto seems to have nigh perfect control of his bankai, to the point he can deliberately allow his opponent to see it, it'd be weird if he couldn't stop something like that. What's far more likely is the raw heat coming off of his zanpakuto is what's evaporating the water and is all but confirmed by Unohana's worry of 'I hope you (Captain Genocide) finish your battle before your own power destroys the Seireitei'.

Yamamoto's essentially on a time-limit to beat Juha before his own bankai..well...I guess before it burns the Seireitei to the ground because of the heat.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Please do no take this seriously
[Insanetrolllogic]
Aizen planned all of this, he instigated the Sternreiser to attack soul society by weakening their forces with the attack on Karakura, he knew he couldn't force old man genocide to unleash his bankai inside SS by himself. Now he plans to either scape from the Maggot Nest (he is kept there right) and join the fight to stall Yamamoto long enough for his bankai to destroy SS or he hopes the Boss is strong enough for that (him being the chessmaster he is I am inclined to favour the former) giving him an even more refined King's Key[/Insanetrolllogic]

[Frozen_Feet]

Fan theory time: Hueco Mundo is a desert because one time Ol' Man Genocide was pissed off for too long.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Fan theory time: Hueco Mundo is a desert because one time Ol' Man Genocide was pissed off for too long.

My new personal canon.

[Socratov]

...Why are we assuming that the water evaporating all over the Seireitei is a result of Commander Yamamoto being unable to fully control the power of his own bankai? Doesn't anyone else think that the water and moisture is evaporating because it's just getting that hot? Yamamoto seems to have nigh perfect control of his bankai, to the point he can deliberately allow his opponent to see it, it'd be weird if he couldn't stop something like that. What's far more likely is the raw heat coming off of his zanpakuto is what's evaporating the water and is all but confirmed by Unohana's worry of 'I hope you (Captain Genocide) finish your battle before your own power destroys the Seireitei'.

Yamamoto's essentially on a time-limit to beat Juha before his own bankai..well...I guess before it burns the Seireitei to the ground because of the heat.

well, obviously reiatsu is still leaking out. He may have the best control, but that doesn't make it perfect. Especially becuase no one seems to mind the heat (if it is even there). Mind you, to evaproate that much water the heat would be really screwing with the people over there (it would need to be really hot to evaporate water at that rate in such a large area, the rest of the shinigami wouldn't be able to actually BE there).

[Dante & Vergil]

well, obviously reiatsu is still leaking out. He may have the best control, but that doesn't make it perfect. Especially becuase no one seems to mind the heat (if it is even there). Mind you, to evaproate that much water the heat would be really screwing with the people over there (it would need to be really hot to evaporate water at that rate in such a large area, the rest of the shinigami wouldn't be able to actually BE there).

My personal fan theory: Anything made of reishi uses actual physics as a guideline, and all sorts of crazy **** goes down, similar to the Never Never in the Dresden Files.
While I'm here, I need a question on something else in the series.
When did the Hogyoku get placed inside Rukia? I've been going over this and I can't honestly think of it ever being mentioned, other than the fact that it had happened.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Sword that incinerates everything and armor that incinerates everything. No wonder he didn't use it against Aizen. He'd probably trick the other captains into running towards Yamamoto and lol as they burned.

[HandofShadows]

When did the Hogyoku get placed inside Rukia? I've been going over this and I can't honestly think of it ever being mentioned, other than the fact that it had happened.

It was when she got her gigai from Urahara when she first lost her powers.

[Ramza00]

It was when she got her gigai from Urahara when she first lost her powers.

Had to be earlier for supposedly according to aizen (assumming we taking aizen at his word) the Hogyoku granted two wishes to Ichigo and Rukia

1) Ichigo wanted the power to save his family
2) Rukia wanted to die/lose her powers for she was self destructive after Kaien's death

So Urahara gave Rukia the Hogyoku sometime in the 100 years prior to the start of the series. Urahara then after the Ichigo / Rukia power transfer gives Rukia a special gigli that suppress spirtual power so she would become almost impossible to track and thus fall of Aizen's radar.

Aizen though was a step ahead of Urahara and knew the location of the Hogyoku was in Rukia prior to Rukia being transferred to the real world. Thus Urahara's plan was never going to work in reality.

[Dusk Eclipse]

IIRC Rukia loosing her powers was a side-effect of the Gigain whose primary function was to de-power the Hogyoku.

[HandofShadows]

Form the Bleach wiki

http://bleach.wikia.com/wiki/Gigai

Rukia's First Gigai: This Gigai appears to be unique in that instead of allowing the soul to recover, it actually gradually lowers the host’s Reiatsu until they become a normal Human with no spiritual powers whatsoever.[13] It was also untraceable to keep the wearer’s Reiatsu hidden from other souls that may be looking for the host. This Gigai was given to Rukia by Urahara in order to permanently seal the Hōgyoku within it, thus keeping its immense power, out of Aizen’s grasp.[14] After Rukia's capture, Aizen made sure that the Gigai was destroyed

[VanBuren]

IIRC, Captain Xanatos mentioned that it was the Hoagie that caused Rukia to lose all her powers and not just half when she transferred them to Ichigo in the pilot.

[Friv]

IIRC, Captain Xanatos mentioned that it was the Hoagie that caused Rukia to lose all her powers and not just half when she transferred them to Ichigo in the pilot.

He did indeed. Which is a problem, because it was specifically inside a temporary body that she didn't get until after that event occurred.

So either he was lying, or Kubo forgot an important event in his own series. Care to place bets on which one I think it was?

[VanBuren]

He did indeed. Which is a problem, because it was specifically inside a temporary body that she didn't get until after that event occurred.

So either he was lying, or Kubo forgot an important event in his own series. Care to place bets on which one I think it was?

Er... no. Urahara says he sealed it in Rukia's soul. Which is also an issue, but a different one.

[Frozen_Feet]

As Aizen himself lampshaded, we can't really trust he telling the truth. We don't really know where the truth begins or ends when it comes to his words.

We do know, from what happened, that Urahara gave a buggy Gigai to Rukia and somehow sealed the Hogyoku within her at that time. This much had to happen, because a) that's the only time Urahara could've place the orb within Rukia and b) clearly it was there, otherwise Aizen wouldn't have been able to get it.

[Ramza00]

• Captain Aizen in Chapter 401 says Rukia lost all her spiritual power to Ichigo due to the Hogyoku. Rukia wanted to lose it for she was being self destructive (she didn't want the responsibility to protect since she failed to save her friend.)
• Captain Aizen in Chapter 175 tells about Rukia's special gigai that supposedly Kisuke gave Rukia so it would not allow Rukia to recover her spiritual powers and made her untraceable once enough time has passed.

So assuming he is not lying in one of these two incidents we can establish two different assumptions about Rukia's lost powers.

• She lost her powers due to the Hogyoku allowing Ichigo to steal all her spirtual power instead of just half.
• She never recovered her spiritual power due to the Special Gigai that Kisuke gave Rukia for Kisuke was trying to hide the Hogyoku.

Thus assuming that Aizen never lied (which we can't be sure of) Kisuke must have hidden the Hogyoku in Rukia soul in the last 100 years and prior to her meeting Ichigo. That or the author made a mistake.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Yeah Rukia clearly had the Hogoyoku in her prior to the start of the series. We don't know when but that and the gigai were always mentioned as separate events. Not as clearly as they could have been but a simple point like it being tied to the gigai was never actually made.

This hasn't changed since the end of the Soul Society arc.

[Drolyt]

• Captain Aizen in Chapter 401 says Rukia lost all her spiritual power to Ichigo due to the Hogyoku. Rukia wanted to lose it for she was being self destructive (she didn't want the responsibility to protect since she failed to save her friend.)
• Captain Aizen in Chapter 175 tells about Rukia's special gigai that supposedly Kisuke gave Rukia so it would not allow Rukia to recover her spiritual powers and made her untraceable once enough time has passed.

So assuming he is not lying in one of these two incidents we can establish two different assumptions about Rukia's lost powers.

• She lost her powers due to the Hogyoku allowing Ichigo to steal all her spirtual power instead of just half.
• She never recovered her spiritual power due to the Special Gigai that Kisuke gave Rukia for Kisuke was trying to hide the Hogyoku.

Thus assuming that Aizen never lied (which we can't be sure of) Kisuke must have hidden the Hogyoku in Rukia soul in the last 100 years and prior to her meeting Ichigo. That or the author made a mistake.

Assuming your summarization is correct (I don't feel like looking up the quotes), isn't another possibility that it was the Hogyoku that forced Rukia to surrender all her power to Ichigo, but Kisuke's Gigai that prevented her from recovering her powers? Of course this explanation requires that the Hogyoku was acting over a distance, but that might actually make sense, the reason weird stuff started happening all over Karakura town was because of the Hogyoku.
Edit: I guess the only point I disagree on you with is that I think the Hogyoku could have acted on Ichigo and Rukia even though it was still in Kisuke's possession.

[VanBuren]

Assuming your summarization is correct (I don't feel like looking up the quotes), isn't another possibility that it was the Hogyoku that forced Rukia to surrender all her power to Ichigo, but Kisuke's Gigai that prevented her from recovering her powers? Of course this explanation requires that the Hogyoku was acting over a distance, but that might actually make sense, the reason weird stuff started happening all over Karakura town was because of the Hogyoku.
Edit: I guess the only point I disagree on you with is that I think the Hogyoku could have acted on Ichigo and Rukia even though it was still in Kisuke's possession.

I was actually thinking the same thing. Especially as he cited the Hoagie as the reason Chad and Orihime In-The-Way got their powers, which would imply that you don't actually have to be right there for the Hoagie to work its destiny changing shenanigans.

Which made Chad's third superhero origin story.

[Ramza00]

Assuming your summarization is correct (I don't feel like looking up the quotes), isn't another possibility that it was the Hogyoku that forced Rukia to surrender all her power to Ichigo, but Kisuke's Gigai that prevented her from recovering her powers? Of course this explanation requires that the Hogyoku was acting over a distance, but that might actually make sense, the reason weird stuff started happening all over Karakura town was because of the Hogyoku.
Edit: I guess the only point I disagree on you with is that I think the Hogyoku could have acted on Ichigo and Rukia even though it was still in Kisuke's possession.

You may actually have a point about close distance vs far distance for while Chad was standing right next to Rukia when he gained his powers I do not remember Innonue being anywhere near Rukia.