@@Level-iy5ye Pretty much when the villains in the middle of a story a easily killed off to make room for the final villains (i.e. the Espada’s being killed of to make way for the Quincies’ return)
@@tbone8129I don't know if anybody ask you this but what do you think of szayel being Espada number 0 in a night novel and him probably being the main or secondary villain of the hell arc when it releases ? Edit Whoops my bad I thought you were the guy sorry
@@Level-iy5ye I mean he did have a brother that died and it was never out-right stated how it is possible for an Arrancar to have sibilings or a family. My head cannon is that Szayel split himself into two beings like how Starrk did with the litle Arrancar that follows him and turns into his guns. So after when Both of them die they are both sent to hell and both fuse back into the #0 Espada that you were mentioning or at least stronger than like base-Yammy,Arronyero,Zomari, and maybe Grimjow and Nnotora. After that it especially gets iffy.
Also, Kubo is more interested in drawing cool stuff than developing a good story. I always liked to compare a chapter of Naruto to a chapter of Bleach: Kubo can pull off amazing two-pagers with really dynamic movement, but almost nothing happens in one chapter in terms of story, while in Naruto Kishimoto uses small panels with less dynamical fights, but you get a huge ton of storytelling.
@@MarcinSzyniszewski Bleach mainly focus on character arcs than the world building, but normies won't appreciate that stuff who like flashy combat and cool transformations.
@@lust-sama3920Bleach has an overabundance of all of those things you just said. This is a rather hypocritical view, especially considering that Ichigo probably has just the exact same amount of transformations as any other anime protagonists, if not more.
Some brief corrections.. Vasto lorde Was forshadowed by white “If you ever die or lose control I’ll take over.” With what we know about white being zanpaktuo spirit later “I’ll protect you “ is from white to ichigo. While Ichigo doesn’t go into vasto lorde ever again, Horn of Salvation is a thing, and it’s explained he doesn’t use hallow mask any more for fullbring and blade is me reasons.
I dislike how the immense jump in power for his hollow happened in the background. Also even though White warned Ichigo not to die again, what ended up happening was there was no consequence except Ichigo and his friends were all saved from an opponent who 100% would have killed them all otherwise.
Hey man, I really like your stuff, and I’ve read a few of the comments, but one thing I wanted to touch on was when you talked about Ichigo pulling out a form we’ve never seen before to beat Ulqiorra. The truth is, the show had been building up to that point for a while. We first see it when Ichigo fights Byakuya and White (Ichigo’s Hallow) takes over for a bit and starts obliterating him. This was the first hint that Ichigo’s overall true strength is more than what even Ichigo knows. That’s why White laughs at him and tells him he doesn’t even know how to use this Bankai. Later on when Ichigo is training with the Visards, he’s struggling to keep his hallow under control, and in his inner world White gives him the speech of the king and the horse. When Ichigo finally gets it, white concedes but warns him that if Ichigo isn’t careful, he’ll take over and replace him as the king. When Ichigo fights Dordoni, Dordoni says after he’s been beaten by Ichigo that he’s too “sweet like chocolate” and that he needs to become a monster to survive here. In Ichigo’s fight with Grimmjaw we see that at first he’s been outclassed by Grimmjow because he’s holding back since Orihime is scared of him and he’s not fighting on instinct, but with his logic. But when he gets reassurance that she wants him to stay alive, he fights properly and beats Grimmjaw. This again shows that part of Ichigo’s ability are being hindered by his own mental state. Now on to Ulqiorra. Ichigo spends majority of this fight being absolutely outclassed by Ulqiorra as a way to show him dispare. Then when Ulqiorra kills him, White makes good on that promise he made to Ichigo that if he ever lost, he’d take over as King. So when he transforms, it’s basically White fully manifesting because Ichigo is no longer there to stop him at all. And he fights with a lot more instinct and ferocity than Ichigo does. The only reason Ichigo is even able to regain control is because Uryu intervenes and cuts off his horn, otherwise White would have completely obliterated Ulqiorra. The truth is, if Ichigo had fought with the same killer instinct and ferocity as White, he’d have done the same thing to Ulqiorra himself. But he was limited by the “sweet chocolate” human nature that Dordoni had told him to get rid of in the past. I hope that clears up a little why I disagree with the take that Ichigo’s power up came out of nowhere. It had been sufficiently lead up to.
Hey, first of all thanks a lot for watching and engaging I really appreciate it. Second of all I really like your explanation here, I think reading it this way does make a lot more sense in the story. I still feel like maybe the evolution could have been shown more (so it wasn't such a massive jump), or there could have been more consequences for dying and losing control to White (like Sukuna in JJK) but yeah I do like how you've explained it.
I tend to agree with the theory that the 4th having a second release is because the fandom was not impressed with his first transformation which really didn't do much to change him basically just giving him some horns and a different jacket So the author just redid his transformation hand waving it that he has a second transformation Which makes sense to me as honestly his second transformation doesn't really seem to change much about him in terms of physical power it seems more of just a cosmetic change And if you think about it for more than a minute the second transformation really seems like it breaks the lore of the story because their transformation is simply them reabsorbing power they already had that they voluntarily placed within their swords or other weapons so in other words they're transformed states are actually just their normal state and what we see is their normal state is actually the transformation So what is this second transformation he's already return to his natural state by reabsorbing the energy from his sword
I think Kubo just really wanted to have something "special" for his main character fight, and didn't think enough about the story implications of his decision. There was no reason Ulquiorra's release couldn't have just been what was his second form.
17:04 "I firmly believe that the Top 3 Espada should've required multiple Captains teaming up at once, forcing them all into 1v1 duels really diminishes how powerful they're meant to be" (#1 Coyote Starrk) fought (Shunsui, Ukitake, Love & Rose) it was a (1v4) - Shunsui was losing and Ukitake, Love & Rose had to jump in. - Then when Love & Rose started losing Shunsui literally snuck him. - It was so underhanded Love & Rose don't believe they won fairly and they confronted Shunsui. - If Shunsui fought Starrk (1v1) alone with [Zero 0] help he would've died, because his AOE Bankai had friendly fire he couldn't use it. (#2 Baraggan Louisenbairn) fought (Soifon, Ōmaeda & Hachigen) it was a (1v3) - Soifon almost died of Respira before Ōmaeda cut her Arm off. - It was impossible for Soifon to prepare her Bankai if Ōmaeda didn't stall. - Barragan survived 2 Nukes to the face and Haschigen had to sacrifice his arm to Respira so they can defeat him. - If Soifon fought Barragan (1v1) alone with [Zero 0] help she would've died, because nothing could kill Barragan besides his won power. (#3 Tier Harribel) fought (Toshiro, Lisa & Hiyori) it was a (1v3) - Toshiro was losing so badly that he resorted to using Hyōten Hyakkasō and encasing her in Ice (basically a seal) - When she was freed she completely demolished Toshiro, Lisa & Hiyori at the same time. - In the end, they couldn't even defeat her till Aizen showed up and betrayed her - If Toshiro fought Harribel (1v1) alone with [Zero 0] help he would've died, she completely overwhelmed him even during the 1v3 assist. - At the beginning of the TYBW Yhwach literally traveled to Hueco Mundo to (personally) deal with her himself. So can you please clarify what you mean by the 1v1 duels diminishing their powers when they all won their respective 1v1 Duels, which prompted multiple Captain Class characters to intervene and assist them in defeating the Top 3 Espada? Because what you're critiquing the show for did happen in the show, they were jumped by multiple characters. If you removed the Vizards from the equation, all the Captains were dead.
"Because what you're critiquing the show for did happen in the show, they were jumped by multiple characters. If you removed the Vizards from the equation, all the Captains were dead." you are saying this like Yamamoto couldn't have just enter and kill all 3 Espada anytime he wanted. Or Kyoraku if he sacrificed his team mates using his Bankai. Toshiro defeated Harribell ALONE, if Wonderweiss didn't come to help she would have stayed frozen forever. Or how Wonderweiss also helped Barragan and Starrk(taking out Ukitake).
Hey man. Let me clarify, because I still have an issue with how the fights were structured. 1. Starrk. The beginning of the fight is mostly Kyoraku fighting a released Starrk without even using his zanpakto ability. Ukitake fighting with him is good, but it's still just 2 captains. If the Vizards had fought at the same time as these 2 I think that would have been more fitting, but instead they "tag out". The 2 Vizard don't inflict any notable damage on Starrk, and when Kyoraku returns he beats Starrk 1 vs 1 with his shikai. And nobody releases a bankai at any point. 2. Barragan. Soi Fon and Hachi on their own is again too small a group. Omaeda doesn't count because he's just there for comic relief, and if it was more serious Barragan should have 1 shot him then focused on the major opponents. And arms in Bleach aren't really significant wounds since they can be so easily healed. Kubo has characters lose limbs and have them replaced all the time. 3. Harribel. Hitsugaya keeps pace with her for the entire fight practically, despite previously struggling against Luppi who is 3 ranks below Harribel. Lisa and Hiyori did help, but they're both vice captains so we only had 1 captain effectively supported by 2 vice captains against her, whereas it should have been multiple captains. So really what I would have preferred is multiple captains, simultaneously, not only using shikai, in a more desperate fight. As I said in the video, Aizen had so much faith in the top 3 but they couldn't even kill any of the vice captains they faced. If Yamamato had fought as well, he'd have killed all the top 3 espada on his own probably.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt saying they are "vice captains" is dumb as they have captain lvl reiatsu "vice captain" is a title not their strength Against harribel he used multiple abilities and not just his basic ice splash and hit Same with kyoraku we know how much damage he's shikai abilities do Look at how Lille fell He even snuck Lille with isane from a shadow in his nose Yamamoto has no arm And wounds can easily be healed Kenpachi got his ear drums destroyed Arm broken and ripped off then poisoned, bro is alive and is the strongest captain to ever exist It's fiction wounds can be easily healed, even soul damage
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt You can have a problem with the fights I don't have an problem with that. My issue is you criticizing the Top 3 Espada for being forced into a 1v1 scenario when they were not. "The beginning of the fight is mostly Kyoraku fighting a released Starrk without even using his zanpakto ability" - No, Starrk was not in his released state at the beginning of the fight, he released after Soifon and Toshiro activate their Bankai. - Shunsui literally activated his Shikai immediately when Starrk released, and caused Ukitake to join the battle. "Ukitake fighting with him is good, but it's still just 2 captains" - ????????????????????????? - Exactly it's 2 captains, I genuinly don't know why you are trying to downplay Captains class characters. "If the Vizards had fought at the same time as these 2 I think that would have been more fitting, but instead they "tag out"" - They didn't tagged out, Ukitake got injured by Wonderweiss, Starrk injured them to the point they couldn't even use their Hollowfication anymore, the Shunsui ised that opportunity to sneak Starrk. "The 2 Vizard don't inflict any notable damage on Starrk and when Kyoraku returns he beats Starrk 1 vs 1 with his shikai. " - ????????????????????????? - They literally forced him to abandon his Pistols and use the Cero Wolves which use life force Energy. - Love then used (Hifuki no Kozuchi) ability on Starrk and hit him so hard he was coughing Blood on the Floor. - Yeah he snuck him after Love & Rose had severly damaged him and forced him to use his Ace Attack. "And nobody releases a bankai at any point." - ????????????????????????? - Shunsui and Rose Bankai's are AOE they cannot use them near Allies they will be caught in Bankai. - It's the same thing with Shinji, bro have you really watched Bleach??? "Soi Fon and Hachi on their own is again too small a group" - They are 2 captain class Soul Reapers, WHAT ARE TOU TALKING ABOUT bro. - Captains are not some fodder shinigami, I don't understand do you see Captains as like Jonins or something? "Omaeda doesn't count because he's just there for comic relief, and if it was more serious Barragan should have 1 shot him then focused on the major opponents" - Ōmaeda is the reason, Soifon is Alive dude. - She would've died from Respira if Ōmaeda was not there. - She would've not been able to prepare her Bankai if Ōmaeda was not there. - Ōmaeda was stalling not Fighting Barragan. "And arms in Bleach aren't really significant wounds since they can be so easily healed. Kubo has characters lose limbs and have them replaced all the time." - They are significant wounds in the MIDDLE OF A BATTLE. - Ulquiorra cutting off Uryu's arm is not insignificant, Grimmjow & Yamamoto losing their arms is not insignificant. - Even Yhwach criticized Yamamoto for not asking Orihime to heal his arm back because it's a disadvantage. - And no body parts cannot be healed easily, Yamamoto & Grimmjow are an example, there is no getting your arm back without Orihime reversing time. "Hitsugaya keeps pace with her for the entire fight practically" - No, he doesn't, he was being overwhelmed. - Toshiro even noted that he was gonna lose if the battle went on and his Bankai was running out. "Lisa and Hiyori did help, but they're both vice captains so we only had 1 captain effectively supported by 2 vice captains against her" - You categorizing the Vizards as Vice Captain/Lieutenant Level is an insane amount of downplay.. - The fact that you put the Vizards on the same level as Ōmaeda, Rangiku, Tetsuzaimon, Ikkau, Momo, Yumichica, Izuru, Hisagi, genuinley is crazy to me. - I don't even know what to say because it's factually wrong, they are Captain class. "whereas it should have been multiple captains" - That's because it was. "So really what I would have preferred is multiple captains, simultaneously" - That's because it was. "in a more desperate fight" - They. Were. Gonna. Die. They were deperate. "If Yamamato had fought as well, he'd have killed all the top 3 espada on his own probably" - I genuinlly cannot understand why you see (Barragan, Starrk & Harriblel) losing to Yamamoto as a nagative. - The fact that Aizen & Yhwach both preemptively sealed away hims powers at the beginning of their battles is a tastament to how powerful he is. - Aizen craeted Wonderwiess a being who's entire existance is to counter Yamamoto, and he beat him with his fists. I genuinley believe you need to refresh yourself on Bleach because I think everything you typed is absurd. The fact that you believe Starrk, Harribel, Barragan lost in a 1v1 is absurd to me. The fact that you consider 2 Captains as nothing is absurd to me. The fact that when you look at the Vizards you see Lieutenant Level characters is absurd to me. I appretiate the video, even though I don't agree on some parts.
i personally think kubo was all over the place when it came to scaling, the espada were supposed to far above captains but majority of the captains barely got stronger from the previous arc and they started to beat the espada kind of easily and the qunicy just a fanfict group to me , half of them are forgettable and the rest either some kid writing for powerscaling, like ywach literally didn't need to be that crazy broken , its the reason why kubo wrote himself into a corner in the end
Couldn't agree with you more. The Quincy were awful to me, at least the espada abilities were relatively grounded and were in the same vein as some of the earlier abilities in bleach. But in TYBW too many of the Quincy had ridiculous god mode hacks abilities, that guy with Miracle was never even beaten from what I remember. He was literally unbeatable until Yhwach just absorbed him.
I definitely wanna see your thousand year blood war video. I have my own that im working on but i like you perspective, kubo does have good ideas but awful execution. Hope you make more bleach content
Stark dying was poor decision in my honest opinion he should’ve survived & become king to help with his whole loneliness arc with the exception of grimmjow nniqutora & ulqiorra all the other espadas were wasted and a majority of their fights didn’t progress story bruh I skip so much stuff in hueco mundo cuz it didn’t matter with the exception of ulqiorra n grimmjow fights none of the others espadas fight matter
Completely agree, and yeah it would have been nice for Starrk to survive and maybe even cooperate with the shinigami as the new ruler of Hueco Mundo. Why Kubo kept Harribel alive of all people I really don't understand.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt Perhaps it was meant to be a way of signifying the importance of sacrifice considering that aspect of death was the last remaining out of the top 3 (tying into a theme of the show regarding the necessary sacrifices to protect), although even if there wasn't a particular reason for it I really enjoyed seeing the true power of Ayon against Quilge, that scene made Harribel's fraccion a lot more threatening imo (since I doubt her fraccion would've survived if Kubo decided to kill Harribel)
For me the big problem Bleach had later on is that it went full shounen, by which I mean it was likely pushed further and further down the path of "get to the next fight faster", common in this genre. This means fights start getting rushed through and some even happening offscreen and with no time for characters to spend time with each other or even time to flesh out villains. This is also why romances tend to fail horribly in shounen. This reaches its peak when the Quincys are introduced as the manga was so fast paced that they had to lengthen fights in the anime. Aside from that the Quincys were definitely a terrible faction. They don't feel like a coherent group, they are all at each other's throats and they aren't really how one would have envisioned them. One would think they'd be a group that resemble Uryu's family and were essentially a whole civilization surviving within the Wandenreich. Instead its a lot of randomly designed characters with no friends or family with quirky powers. They feel more like Hollows than Humans in personality.
Great insights I agree with everything you said. It's no surprise that interest in Bleach dropped off hard towards the end and led to its early cancellation. Your thoughts on the Quincy are the same as mine. I'd also add there were way too many of them, so you can barely keep track of them all and they get very little development or focus.
"They don't feel like a coherent group, they are all at each other's throats" That's literally the whole point of the sternritters, they aren't supposed to be some kind of team. This is done to show the Quincy nature. "No friends or family" They don't need any to be well written characters, (and this kinda blatantly wrong as Bazz B and Jugram were friends.) And yet again this does show the Quincy nature, because Quincy's naturally don't care about friendship or familial bonds😅.
@@TamakiDamoismyhusbando I don't think you get what I was saying. I'm saying I don't like the direction they took the Quincys. Has nothing to do with how they turned out and their nature based on this direction. What I'm talking about is how they were viewed prior to their introduction and so any lore introduced after their introduction is irrelevant to this. Such as the "No friends no family". Ex: Uryu's family was an actual family with a legacy. If the Quincy's were taken in this direction I would have liked it more.
@@darken2417 As I said they don't need friends or family to be well written, plus them not having families without legacies makes sense as they were randomly chosen by Yhwach, other than Jugram they were all unremarkable people. And they don't exposition dumps for their backstory when they are introduced, characters aren't fully developed when they are introduced. And them being unremarkable is something I liked, it explains their actions and as to why they are evil. Uryu was not evil because he was taught to be a good person, most Quincy families with legacies would want their kids to be respectable. Although I would agree that some Quincy weren't given a direction as Kubo had health issues.
@@TamakiDamoismyhusbando Yes I know the lore that isn't my contention. I already know they were randomly selected, which is a detriment to all of their motivations and since they don't act like normal people. It also doesn't explain why they are loyal to fight in this war. If they were Quincy families then there would be a grudge there, it would be revenge or maybe survival since they were already almost wiped out once. My point is that since they are just random people they don't have a connection to Uryu and thus no reason to think Uryu would actually join them. Thus it was obvious that Uryu was always against them. Alternatively we could have gotten a civilization, one that is clearly not evil. Maybe even one that we at times want to see win. Could have also gotten parts where we follow those characters like how the Soul Society was followed prior to Aizen's fake death. Learning about the enemies, their friends, their families, their motivations, etc. This would have been my preference.
I definitely agree that the Espada should've been the final threat rather than the Quincies, I feel like it makes more sense for the hollows (enemies of soul reapers, humans, and quincies) to be the dominant threat at the end of the anime, they're a poison to all forms of existence - even their own. Oh yeah, also great video! Only 2k subs??
Yeah it's also a shame because the hollows are the original enemy, back from episode 1, but they end up sidelined. Maybe Kubo lost interest in them or wanted to try something different, I don't know. And thank you much appreciated! I'm fairly new to youtube still but been really enjoying doing videos so far.
Nice video I agree with pretty much everything you said but I still love the espada and the arc! xD the video has reminded me of how much I like the characters and bleach in general especially when I first watched it
Thanks! Yeah I do still really like the espada they're such a cool group of characters. But for me bleach ended with Aizen being sealed, I really don't like anything that happened after that.
While I do agree with some of the critiques a lot of what you’re saying is just from ignorance and not understanding the story. It seems like you just liked some of the Espada and were mad that they didn’t do as well as you think they should have. You also mentioned how Aizen had been so wrong recruiting and relying on his top Espada when it was a waste in the final battle but that isn’t all there is to it. Aizen wanted to be a king above all so he took control of the wild Hueco Mundo to not only learn more about hollows and shinagami but also become the king he wanted to be. Now I’m gonna go through some of the Espada’s critiques 10. Yammy was pretty underutilized so I’m fine with what you said 8. The reason Mayuri doesn’t use the drug again is because it requires absorbing Mayuri 7. Although I agree Zommari would have been more dangerous if he was a supporting role against a competent opponent it still would’ve been a one maybe two use trick. And also the point was that Zommari, an even stronger foe than Aaroneiro, was now trying to kill Rukia who he thought was almost defenseless 6. Most of what you said I agree with but to be a truly good fighter in bleach you can’t just surrender to instinct. You can get far but never reach true potential. When you combine instinct and battle iq that’s when you become a competent fighter 5. The reason Shikai Ichigo was able to beat Kenpachi was because of his immense growth and his Quincy powers. He rapidly gained a ton of power from his Quincy powers and natural growth which was enough, just for a little bit, to match Kenpachi’s growth and beat him. Also his Quincy powers were foreshadowed by Kenpachi not recognizing the closing of wounds technique and all the crosses in Ichigo’s house 4. The vastolorde form was not random. It was foreshadowed by white and Ulquiorra himself stating Ichigo’s fluctuating power at some points during their first encounter even surpassed his own. The reason it’s never used again is because it is never necessary or needed. It is definitely referenced considering that’s the form white takes in his inner world and his hollow mask is shown to be at its final stage resembling the vastolorde face. 3. Toshiro was never weak he just had bad matchups against Aizen who is so much stronger. While I do agree Harribell felt a little underwhelming the fight was still decent but I understand critique. 2. This is mostly just you liking Barragan. Yeah he could have done more but he wasn’t fighting more people. He also could only use his true respira during his resurrection. In the Quincy arc he would have at most killed Omaeda and put a few out out of commission, because we see nothing to the degree of multiple vice captains dying ever. We only see them being put down for the rest of the arc. 1. The reason Starkk’s ceros seems less impactful is because they are normal ceros. Grimmjow used a gran Rey cero in his final fight with Ichigo and Ulquiorra used Cero Oscuras after he used his resurrection. The reason a hole was in Ichigo was because he was literally defenseless against a point blank Cero Oscuras. Also the reason Shikai was only used is because at the point where Bankai would necessary only Shunsui could use his which would affect his allies. (Vizard can’t use their bankai and mask at the same time unlike Ichigo). The Espada overall were used for their intended purpose and most (not all) were fleshed out. The fights were not only battles of swords but also ideals.
Hey, no problem at all appreciate you taking the time to write this out and engage to be honest. I get what you're saying about Aizen but he specifically stated he believed the top 3 espada would be enough to defeat the Gotei 13 present in Fake Karakura, even putting this aside as the primary antagonists of that whole series of arcs I think it's really a failing that they couldn't accomplish anything significant. If I compare them to the Akatsuki in Naruto, even though they all ended up defeated they did get a series of wins that were meaningful. They successfully collected the tailed beasts (although mostly off screen), Hidan killed Asuma, Pain single handedly defeated and flattened Konoha, and killed Kakashi, etc. Running through the specific espada: 8. I still think it's neglected, even if in universe it must be absorbed if I was Mayuri I'd invest some time into other methods of delivery for such a powerful weapon. He could even load it into darts or something to inject the serum directly into enemies. It feels like Kubo just used it once to win the fight then not again. Which is a common theme with Mayuri, he always seems to have the perfect counter to each enemy (except when he fought Ishida way back in the save Rukia arc). 7. Yeah agree with what you said, but I still stand by Zommari's supposed speed not really making sense. 6. Yep agreed to be fair. 5. I wonder how much Kubo had planned out re: Ichigo's heritage. To me it always felt like something he retroactively added later, and I assumed either Zangetsu or his hollow temporarily closed his wound. I'm not sure to be honest, you could be right. 4. Good point that Ichigo's reiatsu at its highest matched Ulquiorra. I just find Ichigo frustratingly inconsistent, I get that his mental state often holds him back but sometimes he feels extremely weak (struggling with Dordoni before using his bankai) but then sometimes he's overwhelmingly powerful. Unohana later tells us he has at least twice the reiatsu of a captain but his zanpukto feels really underwhelming, outside of its first use, and he should be dominating more of his fights. But he often seems to be the underdog, outside of some key moments. I loved the moment where he dominated 3 vice captains without even using a weapon, for example, but we get really few moments of Ichigo overpowering his opponents like this. 3. From what I remember, Hitsugaya was struggling with Luppi so it seems strange how he's able to keep up with Harribel. But yeah otherwise seems we're in agreement. 2. For me I just find it a shame that the King of the Hollow wasn't even able to kill off Omaeda who's kind of a joke character. Respira is a really cool ability, and since none of the rest of the espada were able to get any big wins it would have been good to at least give Barragan one. 1. Yeah agreed. I actually forgot the Vizard can't use their bankai and masks at the same time, is this stated in the manga? I could well have forgot it's been a while.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt I think while making this I actually forgot about Luppi vs Toshiro 😂. I’m assuming in the fight he was restricted by the device that makes soul reapers in the human world but honestly I cannot remember. Also the Vizards not using bankai is because they technically could but it’d be so draining that it’d end almost instantly. Also as a die hard bleach fan I wouldn’t mind Omaeda dying
Great video. Some of the weird power scaling in Bleach had explanations, but just because there are explanations doesn't mean it was good. I think it's fine that Ulquiorra was the strongest Espada. Aizen wanted to test Ichigo so he gave Ulquiorra his second release, which in turn made him stronger than the rest of the Espada.
Thanks! Yeah the power scaling in Bleach is really all over the place, and by the end of the series it was just off the chart. True fair point about Ulquiorra, it makes sense that Aizen would want to test Ichigo, but I still wish the top 3 were more powerful or even resembled the threat Ulquiorra was.
@@fangsilver1977 my problem is that it doesn't really feel earned next to espada like Ulquiorra,Halibel, and starrk cause the first time we see him he just gets his ass kicked and near the end we find out he the strongest and still know next to nothing about him.
It was nice and well planned Strongest are based on numbers Only change is ulquiorra being the strongest after Using segunda and yammy second release Yammy second Res Ulquiorra second Res 1st Res yammy Stark Barragan Harribel Ulquiorra
My biggest problem with bleach is how ichigo's bankai was handled. Against Byakuya His body couldnt handle his bankai's power and it slowly made him weaker and more tired "low stamina dbz moment" But then right after ss arc he has no downsides, Like he mastered it of screen.
Completely right, also I hate how the whole deal with his bankai is he becomes insanely fast, but this is NEVER shown effectively again since everyone can just keep up with him for some reason. His bankai feels like his shikai.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt His bankai suffers the same fate as super saiyan. They get used as base combat forms and a new form needs to be used as the "Power up" hollowfication & ssj2/3. The bount arc actually had ichigo unable to use his bankai until his body recovered. I really loved that idea.
@@FrancisL4D Funnily enough I watched the Bount arc without realising it was filler, since I was a lot younger and Bleach was one of my first anime. I enjoyed it at the time, although my memory is quite hazy now.
To this day I weep for the loss of Ulqiorra, he should have survived or returned as a purified soul reaper or something, heck I’d accept him coming back as ichigo and orihime’s kid
Good video but I will say that Kenpachi's whole gimmick is that he's constantly holding himself back, subconsciously as well, which is the only reason he lost to Ichigo. Also it's decently clear he tends to grow in strength FAR faster than any other character in the series, even more than Ichigo. So those two reasons explain why he lost to Ichigo but yet was crazy strong later on. I believe it's mentioned later in a novel as well that Aizen was concerned about fighting Kenpachi and that's why Aizen made sure he was sealed up in hueco mundo, most likely waiting to fight him until Aizen gets his god form.
His growth is just crazy, I wonder if Kubo planned him out fully from the start or added it in later. That's interesting about the novel though, funnily enough I'm trying to think if Aizen and Kenpachi ever interact in the anime and I don't think they do.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt zaraki was foreshadowed since his entrance, after losing/drawing against shikai ichigo he fought 2 captains while wearing his eyepatch. The question you should ask is just how much more powerful was Ichigo while working with old man zangetsu. Every time OMZ has helped Ichigo he has always made crazy leaps in power.
Getting no diffed by a kenpachi isn't an anti feat Kenny adjusts his power to his enemies Only reason i hate yammy is because he transformed twice and didn't 1. Shake the las noches 2. Destroy it Whereas top 4 need to transform outside
The only possible reason I can think of for the Yammy thing is that he didn't use any ability of gran ray cero or greater, I've not read those chapters in a while but I believe he mainly used regular cero, punches, and stomps (he wasn't effectively utilising his massive reiatsu pool, considering the lack of powerful abilities he showed his transformation seems more of an endurance type simply giving enormous amounts of reiatsu)
Honestly that's less of a character trait and more of A cop out by the author because he always wants that character to seem badass so that character is just going to be however strong the author needs him to be Honestly it's just poor writing Because the author clearly realized that he wanted to keep using the character but had made the character weaker than the protagonist shikai so the author just slapped a band aid on that characters story saying ah he just changes power to whatever is convenient to the story And even then it just doesn't make sense
my problem with the quinces was that there were WAY too many of them to even care about , it was literally a-z in #. I know that you could say the same thing for the Espada but there is a bare minimum of ones of importance(10) while I couldn't tell you for the quinces cause all of them just got like 1-2 fights. I also think the power escalation gets ludicus by TYBW cause now these people a using their imagination as powers and future sight, but they still lose even though the only thing the gotei 13 do is just release there bankai. I hate how repetative these fight after fights can be when the only factors to consider is "who has unleashed their FINAL FINAL form last in the fight?"
100% agreed. 10 characters in a villain group feels like the upper limit to me, having more than 30 characters to keep track of in TYBW is just absurd. And yeah the powers made absolutely no sense in TYBW, it's like Kubo had been held back then went completely off the rails. Every power had some ridiculous god mode or hack that couldn't be dealt with without some other form of hack. It's funny to compare something like Renji's original bankai to the stuff we get by the end of the series.
Yeah, a Bankai is extremely powerful, why do you think they preemptively tried to seal them away? You saying "the only thing the gotei 13 do is just release there bankai" as if it's some weak ability is absurd. That's how Bleach works, their powers have different Forms (Shikai / Bankai / Resurrección / Letsz Stil / Vollständig)
@@OmenLamb Bankai are only as powerful as the arc demands them need be, Soul society Bankai's are kinda a joke in End game Bankai's. N just releasing your "final" form gets boring after lots of 1 sided fight and I notice it especially when there are characters fighting that I just don't care about or the design of the bankai is boring, uninteresting, or ugly. I think the fights should have implemented stuff like Kido or something to spice up the W's. I also think Bankai isn't the strongest possible form for a soul reaper cause of Dangai Ichigo.
@@davidkuykendall3778 "Bankai are only as powerful as the arc demands them need be, Soul society Bankai's are kinda a joke in End game Bankai" - That's because when the characters get stronger, their Bankai evolves with them. - Naruto Part 1 Jutsu are a joke in comparison to the End Game Jutsu, that's in every Shonen. - The one thing that cas been consitent is that Bankai's are extremely powerfull in every ARC we have seen. "N just releasing your "final" form gets boring after lots of 1 sided fight" - I don't think Bleach is a show for you, I think you'd enjoy other shows in which Transformations are a non-factor. "I think the fights should have implemented stuff like Kido or something to spice up the W's" - I understand what you're saying but I personally don't wanna see Sternritters, the Schutzstaffel or Yhwach losing to a Kido Spell, that's just me. "I notice it especially when there are characters fighting that I just don't care about or the design of the bankai is boring, uninteresting, or ugly" - Understandable, I justdon't think the concept and system of Zanpakutou reaching different level like (Shikai & Bankai) is for you, and since you love Kido I think you would enjoy Spell-based shows like Black Clover, Magi and Fairy Tail more than something like Bleach. "I also think Bankai isn't the strongest possible form for a soul reaper cause of Dangai Ichigo" - Yes & No. - This has always been extremely had because Ichigo and Aizen reached Trancendence by Fusing with their Zanpakutos. - Ichigo so far is the only character to ever get there 'Naturally' the issue is Ichigo is a Hybrid not a regular Soul Reaper. - Aizen is aslo a Hybrid who archieved this state but in an "Abnormal' way with the Hyogoku's power. - So we don't know if it's possible for a non-hybrid pure blooded (Soul Reaper / Hollow / Quincy) to archieve that state, normally without the Hyogoku.
@@OmenLamb I think the Qunicies lack cohesion unlike Espada which why I favor them 1)I'm half and half with you about the Bankai getting stronger. 2) In Naruto pt 1 you get introduced to Summoning Jutsu, 8 Gates, reanimation jutsu, Reaper Death Seal, and shadow clones. all these jutsus carry over seamlessly into part up until like mid-end of the war arc cause they were previously established. 3)I really do like transformations in anime, I'm a Ben 10 fan and thats it's whole gimmick.The difference is that it has just about as many characters in bleach but a 3rd of them are the same charcter, which allows for that show to have its cake and eat it too. 4) I apprecite your recommendations, I just like to know a character's arsenal n kit so I can think in my head how the fight would go and be more engaged in the fight.like each jutsu someone like part 1 naruto and sasuake have are things that are suited to a specific role. 5)I reread the manga about the dagai training,and now that I thought about It.why didn't Ichigo tell the soul society about the dagai training or how come his dad only know the inner workings inside the danagi.I'm pretty sure somebody like mayuri or Kisuke would know about the dangai. So why don't they take all the leiutanants and background soul reapers into the Dangai to train until they get Dangai or at least Bankai. They have all the time in the world to prepare in their and that would have made the TYBW arc more believable with the soul reapers beating the quincies if everyone in their army had a bankai or Dangai rather than Ywawch getting beat by some bum ass arrow(I'm still disapointed by how underwelhming it was). 6) Even after trying to critisize bleach I still had a fun time both anime and collecting the manga.Ulquiorra is my favorite character/villian and ichigo is easily my favorite mc out of the big 3.(luffy just too dumb for me to care n naruto was great underdog until when we find out more about him.) I'll probably not watch the anime cause I remember reading it and thought it was inticimactic as hell but I probably play the bleach game coming out because Arrancar arc is my favorite arc.
The author of this story was awful about backing himself into a corner with the villains he constantly would have the heroes find a very good way to win the fight only for it to be revealed that that effort failed but also that was the best move that the heroes could do so suddenly the author has no effective way to get rid of the villain and has to think up some much Lamer way to off them in the next chapter and that's the thing they would only last one or two more chapters after the good solution and good ending to the fight gets squandered just for a cheap twist at the end of a chapter The more I think about it honestly I think that might have been the author's biggest weakness as a writer was his constant blundered endings to fights due to his constant insistence on keeping the fight going for one or two more chapters more than it needed valkyrie for example got a perfect ending to the fight where all three of the captains team up to deliver their absolute best and managed to disintegrate his body down to nothing only for the author for no good reason brings Valkyrie back in a even stronger form just for that form to not even launch a single attack before it's lamely killed by the main villain who for no reason decides to kill his own men because the author is ending the story soon I know you praised the way rank two Is defeated by his own power but I think the better ending to the fight would have been if the nuke missile being blown up in his face inside the magic cage would have been a much better ending to the fight as after that rank two never does anything of significance he just yells for a bit takes his opponent's arm then dies in a chapter of two anyways Rank 6 has the same problem As the main protagonist falls to despair only to get some motivation from orahime and grab rank sixes arm before slicing him down the Middle vertically That would have been the perfect ending but no story had to keep going for another chapter two where rank 6 just yells a bit does some lame blue energy clause that looks really dumb because the claws go in the opposite direction And there's quite a few other fights that follow the same trend
Yeah I do agree with you. Bleach, to me, has a serious problem with ridiculous hack and god abilities clashing against each other, so many of the battles have no rhyme or reason for what happens and we can't really accurately predict how the abilities will interact. Like Gremmy should be totally unstoppable but he somehow loses to Kenpachi who can only use brute physical force. And Gerald should have died, like you said, but was made so ridiculous and op that he ends up just getting absorbed by Yhwach. The fights were much better at the start of the series, but afterwards they just devolved into a mess.
Haha that's my bad, they are for sure a fantastic group I love FMA. I guess the only difference I'd point out is they're more "henchmen" for Father whereas the Espada, at least in theory, more have their own motivations and goals.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptthere wasn’t anything else that could’ve stopped Barragan so it was a smart move, if they didn’t Barragan would’ve killed everyone
@ashanime5655 the problem is that hachi has this op kido to transport anything, anywhere he likes, which u would assume be very useful in plenty of situations, but is never used again. It was just a plot device to k1ll off barragon in a cheap way
@@XAsh_black Because the ability to transport anything inside of an opponents body at will instantly is more overpowered than any other soul Reapers think about it he could just transport a hand grenade inside any character's head There's nothing they could do to stop it Main antagonist dead Head of the Soul Reapers dead All five members of the Soul Reaper Royal Guard Dead ability to rewrite someone's name with ink is very powerful but not as powerful as instant hand grenade in your brain so basically this character now as I just explained is stronger than almost doing another character in the story literally the only power better is the almighty and the guy with that power didn't even have it for most of the final arcs So even he could have had a grenade to the brain
You know when you think about it the ability to transport anything into an opponent's body is so overpowered that suddenly this side character with little to no Hype Is suddenly one of if not the strongest character in the story he can just warp a hand grenade into an opponent's brain aizen Yamamoto That weird form the main protagonist takes at the end of this arc the Quincy king Before he gets almighty Any member of the Royal Guard Any member of the Quincy Royal Guard Are all instantly dead to that ability he can kill any of them with hand grenade to brain and I see no reason why his power wouldn't let him do that if he can transport his arm into an opponent why not hand grenade
That's Hachi right? Yeah that's true I didn't think about that...tbh Bleach is so inconsistent with it's abilities and powers that it's hard to keep track of anyway.
The point being that the espada were shown to be much weaker than the Quincy, who felt like an actual threat. And the TYBW arc has awful power scaling anyway.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt you did not counter my point you just made another wrong point Bleach doesn't have awful scaling the fans like yourself are just mad a certain character isn't above another
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt the espada aren't at all weaker or at most aren't that weak compared to the sternritters Base grimjow chased askin and Res grimjow killed him Nel could also endure gift ball deluxe to save them Top 4( mostly ulquiorra and stark ) should be comparable to base Lille as he was forced to use volstandi by shunsui
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptYou can't scale power in bleach just by shikai < bankai and their equivalent. The series shown that each form can be trained.
@@XAsh_black What the hell are you talking about? Bringing up a villain in a later arc to justify why a previous one who was hyped up to high heaven being stronger than captains simply by a Shikai is absolute shit writing. Bleach absolutely has the worst scaling out of the history of the big 3 shounen during its time. Absolutely undeniable. I feel so bad for the Uploader having to deal with so many delusional Bleach Fans
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptMy major problem with One Piece, post-timeskip, is that the art style, while objectively better, feels so glossy now. I really appreciated the lines and shading of the previous style. That and Sanji. I get that he was on an island of only guys for like 2-3 years, but come on. He's intolerable, nowadays.
@@xavierthomas5835 Yeah unfortunately lots of the crew are now suffering from extreme flanderisation. They felt much more real and genuine pre-timeskip, now they feel like hollowed out versions of their previous selves.
@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt Which, honestly, might simply be due to the length of the story. Keeping track of exactly how to characterize each character in your story, as well as creating proper jokes to fit them can be overwhelming after so much time. Some things get scaled down, and others get scaled up.
There are so many Shinigami that we could have had the top 3 Espada kill some of them…the Vizards would have been enough to replace them. But again it was rushed….yeah the top 3 got jumped which yeah is a good measure they were tough but it just wasn’t portrayed well enough
Yeah very true, funnily enough I feel like the Vizards ended up kind of wasted as well since there are a lot of them too and not really enough room in the already bloated cast.
Not having Barragan (THE KING OF HUECO MUNDO) Fight Yamamoto (Head captain of gotei 13) is such a waste. Could've been a great way to showcase yama's power.
Yeah Yama not taking part in any fights was kind of silly. He even tells off the vice captains lol for making him fight against Ayon. Weird sense of ego holding him back there?
9:20 Mayuri is known for creating several types of unpredictable drugs like the one he used up against Toshiro, it’s what his characters known for and why he’s one of the most dangerous Captains without needing a Bankai
I like Mayuri, but every fight he ends up pulling out a new drug or bit of equipment, some of which are incredibly useful but aren't ever used again. The superhuman drug might have been helpful dealing with the other espada, or even Aizen, for example.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt The Super human Drug he use against Szayelaporro is a Defense weapon in case Nemu were to be devoured by a Hollow, Mayuri explained this and it was literally used again against Pernida in Tybw arc, also Mayuri’s drugs can’t work on Aizen because of the Hogyoku.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptJust want you to know man that your grievances are perfectly founded and well understood. No matter what anyone else says, you have tried your best to objectively critique a story that DOES have notable problems. Above all else though, I really appreciate your humility, patience, and sincerity when dealing with these responses. May Jesus bless your works.
Honestly though i wished the espada ended some captains early. Like seriously imagine the pain momo would have if Toshiro wss killed by harribel or Aizen. This would promote her and rangiku to be better as people and promote two female characters. Another thing bleach really lacks in the grand scheme of things
I'm with you. Bleach definitely has a problem of a lack of many meaningful deaths for the main cast. Even Byakuya got a fake out death in the TYBW arc.
This video seems to be a very Tier 0/Tier 1 reading of Kubo's writing. The Espada were not wasted, they did exactly what they were supposed to do, story wise. It's not just about the fights themselves, like most Shonen anime, it's also about a clash of ideals, emotions and honour. For example, you noted that Grimmjow was cool, you noticed what his fight was about, but you forgot that Ichigo won because he "decided it was time", and just one-shot Grimmjow, to his surprise. Like, as if he could have done that any time. But throughout the fight it's portrayed that Ichigo enjoys fighting, and wants to fight, but he wears a mask because he's afraid of letting completely loose. And so Orihime is also afraid of him. Don't forget that the mask is both literal and figurative. It's a "fake it until you make" it kind of mentality. Meanwhile, during the Ulquiorra fight, he tries the same shtick of putting on a lil mask, only to be throughly folded. The clash of ideals is no longer "destruction vs protection". It's now "I don't give a shit about your values vs protection". And clearly, Ulquiorra "I don't give a shit" Cifer does NOT give a shit. So Ichigo lets loose what he's most afraid of - his instinct and raw lust for battle that he was afraid of for literally the entire arc. It's very likely that Ichigo was stronger in his fight against Byakuya (pre hollow transformation) than for most of of Hueco Mundo, simply because he started being afraid of himself and his own power once it came out in the Byakuya fight.
Regarding the inconsistent power levels you mentioned, like Ichigo being stronger against Byakuya vs in Hueco Mundo, I think this is a way to cover for lazy/inconsistent writing, because it's left to us as the readers to fill in the gaps rather than properly communicated through the series. My impression from the series is that once Ichigo masters his hollow mask, it provides a straight boost to his abilities over his bankai. I agree that the fights were clashes of ideals and emotions, but that doesn't take away from the point (in my opinion) that the Espada failed as a villain group because they were never threatening enough to the main cast. And maybe that's not an issue in itself - but it becomes more of a problem when they were hyped up to the extent they were, only to fail to deliver on the expectations setup by the narrative itself.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt the inconsistent power levels argument comes from the "typical shonen" side, like the expectation of the genre is that every character gets predictable and simple boosts in power at regular intervals. This isn't necessarily the case in Bleach, so where you see inconsistency, I believe it's actually the point. Consider the fact that Ichigo never again has to use his hollow mask for anything post dangai training and fullbring training. Wouldn't that mean he's weaker and intentionally handicapping himself? Obviously not, because he finally understands what the inner hollow wants. He's also no longer afraid to take a life, because he takes Ginjo's without hesitation, after trying to understand him. Until the dangai training, he was afraid to take a life, so he spared all of his opponents, but against Aizen he went all out, with the intent to kill. Kubo confirmed that Ichigo was able to access the full hollow transformation post Ulquiorra fight, but was too afraid of going out of control, so he didn't.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt also could you elaborate what "hyped up" means for the espada in this context? Because the soul reaper captains were just as hyped up in SS arc, and all of them were either no-shows or lost their fights, except Aizen and Kyoraku (which is quite a statement considering one went on to become the head captain at his level, and the other became an antagonist for the next arc). I'd argue the espada did quite a lot more than the captains all things considered.
@@tailez606 But the captains all beat the espada? So I'm not sure how you can say they performed better than the captains did. Can you name a single notable victory the espada had, that had long lasting impact?
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt the point I'm trying to make is that in the SS arc, the captains were hyped up and they lost, but that doesn't detract from the story. Yet when the Espada show up in Hueco Mundo arc and lose, that does detract from the story? Why? They're the "primary group of antagonists for this arc" and they lose. What's the problem with that? Pretty much all of the espada serve some purpose of advancing a given character's mental journey. For Rukia it's coping with the death of Kaien, for Ichigo it's a struggle with his powers, for Byakuya it's reafirming his new stance on his values, post-SS. We learn that Kenpachi, for all his desire for a good fight, doesn't actually want to die and will unlock some of his potential to prevent that. We also learn something about Mayuri, but off the top of my head, idk what it is. For the captains in Karakura Town it's a bit different, since we didn't get to see as much of them during the SS arc, but even there, the fights weren't even 1 on 1. They were multiple high level shinigami vs 1 of the top 3's. That's hardly a faceroll if you ask me. I think all of them could easily beat most captains in straight 1v1s
In my opinion 9 was fine but rukia should have a full fight in his resurrection form 8 this should be renji victory. since he’s a scientist grants maybe he do tricks to make him have more fights. 7 should be uryu victory 6 fine 5 chad victory, I know chad is weak but kubo can pull a dragon ball and let chad absorb the PE he defeated and barley win against nnoritora 4 fine but the final fight should be more even 3 make her face torshiro, soifon, kenpachi , and byakuya 2 he’s a king of huco mundo and have a lot of history. It could be a good battle against Yamamoto. They can even mention the Quincy king to foreshadow him. 1 make him face all the vizards with all the captains use their bankai
This would have been a lot better. Also yeah it would have nice for more of the characters to get their own wins. I think the only change I'd make to your list is swapping around the number 1 and 2 fights.
I agree with most of your points, the Arrancar arc is by far my least favorite. That said I would like to give my take on a few points. 1. The Espada aren't ranked by strength, but by reitsu. Yammy 0 form has more reitsu then other Espada, but he doesn't have any fighting skills or hax, so he gets easilly overpowered. 2. Vasto Lorde Ichigo was foreshadowed, actually Kubo straight up told us like 100 chapters before "If Ichigo is about to die white will come out." I'm not sure if you're anime only, but I can assure you anime didn't do this arc justice. Not only does pacing suck but it completely missed full plot points, Kubo had beef with the directors for how they handled Vasto Lorde, anime made it seem as if Ichigo is getting up to protect Orihime, it was actually White saying "I will protect" to Ichigo. Also, you said you don't like TYBW which is certainly an unpopular opinion. While I do think there was way too many of the Sternritter and Kubo just didn't manage to write them all well enough most of them I do think are handled pretty well.
1. Yeah very good point actually I overlooked this. I guess it kind of leans into Yammy just being a dumb brute who can't use his own techniques effectively. 2. I was anime only for most of Bleach, I only read the Fullbringer and TYBW arcs in the manga. That's such a shame to hear, but not surprising I guess for a shonen show - that line of dialogue for example actually does shift a lot about the scene and makes it much more palatable. Because one of my biggest problems was White manifests, saves Ichigo and his friends, then vanishes without consequence. But it makes more sense if he was acting to save Ichigo rather than Orihime. I've been interested to learn that I'm in the minority of people who don't like TYBW. I might do a video on it in the future, because it'd be good to have a more open discussion with people about what they like and didn't like, and it's hard to summarise all my thoughts in comments.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt I find it funny that the only manga arcs you read are the 2 arcs that anime did well xD. Fullbring arc was handled pretty well and TYBW is done WAY BATTER in the anime. Again, not sure if you're caught up with it but Kubo was sick writing most of TYBW and rushed so many scenes, even made a couple of mistakes and pointless plot points(like NaNaNa spying on Renji). He's the main director working on the anime, fixing all of his mistakes and adding extra scenes he couldn't add to the manga, thus tybw anime is even more canon then the manga. On top of that the animation is top notch, Studio Perriot literally made a whole new studio specifically for Bleach. To answer a questions I forgot in the original comment. Second release isn't an Ulqiorra exclusive, any Arrancar can achieve it with enough training(as confirmed by Kubo in Klub Outside). And to top it off with a fun fact just bc I want to say it somewhere : ). It was confirmed in the LN Szyealporro's hollow hole is on his...little friend...and hollow holes represent unfulfilled desires so, yeah, he had no game.
@@Torifunee Haha I should have known for Szaeyel, that's funny. Yeah I watched the anime for TYBW, the animation was absolutely gorgeous. It's nice to see Bleach return in such a flashy way. I did notice there were already some changes and improvements from the manga, I hope the ending especially gets a drastic rewrite (I know he was forced to end it early before).
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt "I've been interested to learn that I'm in the minority of people who don't like TYBW." You might be encountering a vocal minority of people who do like it. I can't stand TYBW.
Good evening 🌃. I'm fan harribel and Mila rose and sunsun and apacci and coyote stark and grimjaw and ulquorra and bleach series. Everyone have great day and next day and week and weekend and next week and full happiness.
Kenpachi lost to Ichigo on purpose in Soul Society arc and it’s been stated by Unhona that he’s known for making himself weaker in order to enjoy his fights longer
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pthe was basically testing Ichigo to see if he had potential to be a worthy opponent for him and he did, which was why he chose to help him out later in the story due to respect so he could fight him at his best
@@ChillDeathgodSounds like the relationship between Goku and Vegeta before Vegeta was a family man. Main difference being that Vegeta actually fought Goku again, whereas Kenpachi never actually fights ichigo, or even expresses interest in fighting Ichigo again. In fact, he affirms that his greatest fight, to this day, was with Unohana. In the end, this relationship with Ichigo is nigh-meaningless to the story, except for the fact that it allows them to work on the same team without conflict.
Even if there had to be a twist reveal, did it really have to be Yammy? He's such a rubbish character and he accomplished nothing. I would have preferred to just stick with 1 to 10.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptWonderweiss would have been the better 0 Espada…we knew he was always Espada level. Yammy should have just stayed at level 10 and lost to Chad and Renji jumping him…they needed the win.
Whatever happened to that pit full of vasto lordes which were basically Ulquiorra clones? That would have been an interesting twist to see one or more of them show up and have everyone confused on how Ulquiorra is still alive.
You are wrong Kenpachis power increases as he flights as we know so how is that inconsistent? And zangetsu increased ichigos power in that fight like dam Saying kenpachi stayed stagnant with all we know about him is crazy as after his fight with ichigo he literally fought tosen and komamura
I was a little surprised that a lot of people seem to like the final arc with the Quincy, I remember reading the manga when it was first coming out and I thought it was really disappointing.
@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt yeah. I'm hyped to see bleach back and with such nice animation but there are A LOT of people thar talk about TYBW like it's peak and...its just more lost potential. Aside from everything you said in this video, I also think Kubo dropped the ball by not having the Visoreds be the ones to save Ichigo and his friends in Hueco Mundo. 1. They know Ichigo and Orihime and have a connection to them. 2. Soul Society said they wouldn't intervene. 3. It would've given more screentime for the Visoreds to show off and do stuff. 4. We'd get to see shinigami eith hollow powers and hollows with shinigami powers go at it instead of the captains that we'd already seen in action. Shame
@@mahoutsuguy863 The Vizard coming to Hueco Mundo would have been really cool, I never thought about that. Yeah I'm excited to see Bleach back purely because of nostalgia, and it'll be cool to see some of the bankais animated in the modern, flashy style, but it really did remind me of how little sense the final arc made.
Hot take: neither the Arrancar Arc/TYBW Arc should have existed. There should have been an all-out war between the 3 worlds which would lead to guerilla warfare, situational alliances and even possible backstabbing/treason. It would have been a great way to show power scaling and give a real sense of danger.
Interesting idea! To be honest I think they could have left out the Quincy, or maybe have Ishida train a new generation of them. And then the major war could have been between Aizen and the Hollow and the Soul King.
Hot Take(Part 2): I'd rather they have strung out the quincy arc into 2, than have the whole meaningless song and dance with Aizen and the fullbring arc. In the grand scheme of everything going on, they didn't do anything to change the story except introduce even more characters into the story.
It'd also have allowed the quincy to have: 1)more characterization 2) a deeper antagonism of the soul society than they had 3) more believable scaling 4) even more characterization They are sorely lacking definable and diverse qualities.
Harribel was pretty conflict avoidant too, the top 4 Espada were all Vasto Lorde class hollows and they all resemble humans more than their adjuchas and Gillian counterparts not just in appearance but in personality and attitude. Starrk is lonely and values friendship/companionship and is averse to fighting. Barragan craves power but doesn’t have a senseless bloodlust like normal hollows, his identity is simply wrapped up in the notion of being king of the hollows. Harribel is averse to conflict as well, stating she doesn’t want to grow stronger through the sacrifice of others. She has a philosophy and only fights for the sake of her friends, something very showing of her humanity. Ulquiorra is a character defined by stoicism and a lack of understanding of the human heart. He also lacks the insatiable bloodlust of normal hollows and is generally very dispassionate. He can’t understand the human heart but it is this very lack of understanding that drives him to find the answer. He questions what the heart is and what it means, finally gaining understanding of it towards the end of his life. His character arc concludes having gained what his character lacked his entire life. But anyway my point is, the top 4 Espada all have a semblance of humanity, they are all well written save for the fact they essentially don’t do much.
Yeah very good point to be fair, it's interesting how the hollow exhibit more "human" traits the more powerful/evolved they are. It's a bit of a shame it wasn't explored more to be honest, the closest we got was the whole thing with Ulquiorra and the heart, as you mentioned, but sadly it never really led anywhere.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt I totally agree, would have liked to see Starrk and Ulquiorra survive, there’s a real tragedy to Starrk’s death that is really never explored or even thought of after it happens. I feel like the character didn’t really go anywhere and his death could have been more meaningful if he were to for instance, have survived the Fake Karakura Town arc and sacrificed himself to protect the remaining surviving Espada from the Wandenreich during their invasion of Hueco Mundo, dying in order to protect his friends would be a cool resolution to his character arc which was about breaking free of solitude. Ulquiorra was a character whose character arc was wrapped up beautifully, there was such a sense of tragedy knowing he finally understood the meaning of the heart as he fades to dust. If he were to live I think he would have had an arc similar to the one I envision for Starrk, where he attempts to protect the other Arrancars/Espada while also learning how to form attachments. As for Harribel, I feel like her character could have been executed a lot better. Her fight vs Hitsugaya is very underwhelming and I really feel like she should have won considering what Hitsugaya himself said about the Vasto Lorde class hollows, that they were stronger than soul reaper captains. This would have also done more to really establish the Espada as a threat. The impermanence of death for the Soul Reapers drained a lot of tension from the story because there doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of actual stake for the protagonists, meanwhile the antagonists simply die under the exact same circumstances. A good example of this is Hinamori being stabbed through the chest several times but being saved but a significantly stronger character like Starrk is stabbed in the chest and dies. It’s very bizarre. And this is the case for many of the Soul Reapers/protagonists.
Finally something I can agree with, I fully agree, out of the Big Three, episodes 1-65 for me too, Bleach was on top. Then I did watch for Hueco Mundo but when it came to what should be the highlight of the show, I didn't even make it past the fight of the first Espada...Barragan was also such a big disappointment, all talk, no threat. Soi Fon being a Captain still makes me believe nepotism is running rampant in Soul Society. And there I was basically so tuned out already that the best of each episodes was the opening song. I mean, the OSTs were the best part of the Hueco Mundo anyways. And now I had so many youtube shorts popping up and this weird hype about the new anime release...and every time I now hear people hyping the show like its a masterpiece just because there is random info to be found that is never explained in either show or manga, I kinda resent it, because this show for me was all the hype, is now considered the weakest part by those that claim all the hidden brilliance of the show...meanwhile when I watch it, it just often feels...boring. Even losses and tragic events kinda feel like they are calculated, there is just nothing that evokes emotions anymore other than maybe confusion. I appreciate that Blood War wanted to get chaos and fear back into the show but it feels like a hollow shell of its former self. To me at least. Looks pretty, but for its time Bleach always did. That doesn't get me hyped. Kenpachi is an unbeatable god. Ok. Ichigo was always set up to be everything of everyone...cool, but I honestly enjoyed the show more when people were surprised that he got the third highest test scores in his class because he actually learns like a good kid despite everything his outward nature suggests. That got me more excited what else he defies expectations with.
I'm completely with you. To be honest I think people have forgotten the criticisms towards bleach back in the day, there's a reason it was cancelled early. The manga was a mess, and the TYBW arc was the worst arc for me by far, with the only redeeming thing being seeing some more bankais. But the power level was all over the place, the fights just devolved into clashes of ridiculous hacks and god powers, the plot didn't make sense, and the quincies weren't interesting villains.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt I hate the Bankai's in TYBW cause that is how most fight in that arc are won, meanwhile, the quinces have such diverse(although I wish there were some more similarities in kits) like future seeing, fear manifestation, and Imagination yet still lose cause we just haven't seen somebody's bankai yet.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt the fastest sonido just means he's the best at it and he basically shows us as he was able to create clones with sonido Just travelling/ covering distance is basic And all this is just in Their base forms
@@XAsh_black he's not the best at it. He just has the fastest activation of sonido. It's like how fast a person's initial sprint would be. Starrk has shown he has a better overall usage of sonido by using more consistently and traveling longer distances.
@ashanime5655 traveling long distances? No it isn't. Shunsui got specific praise from yammammoto for being able to do that. In most instances in the series, the quick movement techniques r very short ranged. Even many captains were shown to use many flashsteps to even to get to a fraction of the distance that shunsui did with one.
This is me just spit balling but the sternritter should’ve been based on planets with them having like 2 subordinates based on moons or stars that cut it down more so they have more screen time
Wow... That's actually such a good idea. And I can see it fitting into Bleach perfectly. Great idea! I would honestly read a whole fanfic of this (hint hint to any authors reading this).
@@WeebGuru6 I really dig the celestial theme as well, makes more sense since the Quincy kind of have an angelic theme going. Being alphabet letters is just random.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptehh, while I personally, as a Christian didn't appreciate it, the sternritter were based around angels of Jewish Mythology. This goes into the fact that Ywach is another way of saying Yahweh, which is the name of God. Though, I don't think them using EVERY LETTER OF THE ALPHABET, haha, was the right decision. Probably could have just gone into different angels and the like.
i dont like grimjaw. Stark and Barragan are only ones i liked and stark’s release was underwhelming. i guess Szayel was cool when i rewatched. Ulquirro ending was beautiful other than that boring generic emo trope.
It's interesting to see people don't like Grimmjow, I'm actually very surprised. Yeah both Starrk and Barragan were both disappointing, Starrk most of all.
@@jonathanpeterson3603 I am indifferent towards him for the same reason . i don't really understand the difference between him , kenpachi and yammy other than just powerless they are all just battle hungry but his backstory was extremely good though and he has some cool scenes
Most espada are kinda there more as a reflection of the shinigami, aaroniero is more of an emotional battle for rukia, szayleaporro is a more extreme version of mayuri, zommari is kinda a reflection of byakyua at the start of the ss arc (his unquestioning believe in the people above him), grimmjow is a reflection of the parts that ichigo wants to deny about himself, nnoitora is a less honorable and more jealous kenpachi, ulquiorra is basically an obstacle for ichigo to overcome (there‘s more to him obviously), harribel is kinda underused and basically just kinder then the other espada, barragan is a more prideful yamamoto, ans starrk is a very lonely shunsui (also shunsui is extremely strong loosing to him even in shikai is not an antifeat) and yami is just a bad character. Also their not really supposed to be a big threat, aizen just made the group because he had time to kill and thought it would be interesting, he doesn‘t care for them and really doesn‘t need them. There is a lot more to the espada than a lot of people think but it‘s mostly symbolic stuff so it‘s a bit harder to pick up on.
I can defend vasto lorde because it’s white taking over because ichigo wasn’t fit to be king in that moment so he threw him off his back but it not being explained and not being used is my problem
I think it makes sense for the hollow to appear, but the massive, massive jump in power is what I have an issue with. It just conveniently comes out of nowhere to save Ichigo without any consequences since he gets his body back after winning the fight. Shouldn't the hollow have stayed in charge?
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt there was consequences he couldn’t dawn his allow mask as much along with the fact his attack potency dropped cause he was doing what he did pre vizor training holding hollow side at bay
@@WeebGuru6 As soon as he leaves Hueco Mundo he can use the mask again though. And then it's quickly made irrelevant because he learns the FGT, after which the hollow mask is a thing of the past.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt The jump in power is a result of the hollow fully utilizing his power. Ichigo only recently acquired control over hollowfication and wasn't able to use it to his full potential. If you ever watched Naruto it's like the difference between Naruto using 3 Tails Chakra cloak vs 9 tails
Not every Espada was a compelling character, but there were more good Espada than bad. They either had a strong character arc or were instrumental in the development of other characters, like Rukia. Starrk wasn't fighting seriously, yammy being espade zero was bad that's why kubo made his fight off screen, Ichigo beat kenpach because as old man zangetsu said its two against one. From what I am seeing your major complaint is the espada didn't do as much dmagage to the soul society as the quincy, also from this you only thought 3 espade weren't interesting in both character and what they achieve. Starrk dying was disappointing but it also makes his character arc more emotional just like ulqiorra IMO. ichigo wasn't the one that pulled out full hallow it was white and Ichigo determination to protect orohime that caused it
Definitely agree that overall there were most good Espada than bad. But, as you said, my main disappointment is I feel they failed somewhat as a villain group. Or at the very least, failed to live up to their full potential.
To say full hollow isnt reference again is wrong. I also think full hollow ichigo works since there us setup for the hollow taking over and that rampaging berserker form is cool
The top three were definitely the worst handled it was established that the 4th was more than a match for the main hero and I'm not talking about that 2nd transformation of his I'm talking about just his base form And first transformation more than enough to handle the main character Only for the three that are at least stronger than his first transformation to be completely ineffective with two of them basically being toyed with the third and the first 3rd strongest For some reason dinks around with only using her water powers against her opponent's superior ice power but the thing is is that her physical abilities are just so much higher than he is so there's no reason for her not to just rush in and cut him in half she's faster and stronger than him and really toshiro should not even be close do her in terms of speed or strength he has been consistently shown to be a average strength captain at this point in the storyline The second strongest performs the best but he's the only one who gets a favorable mismatch with his opponent being someone who relies almost entirely on close range combat And his Fight is really boring considering he mostly just stands in place and monologs occasionally throwing out some aging power that goes through something maybe takes an arm and then he stops using it to monolog a bit more and in terms of lore this should be an individual who Captain Yamamoto should be freaking out about fighting vasto Lorde are stronger than captains And he is supposedly the best of them At least he is the one who has been able to keep control over an entire plane of existence for at least thousands of years bleach is kind of vague in how far history stretches so he might even be millions of years old at the bare minimum tens of thousands and in all that time in all those 10s of thousands of years nothing has been able to dethrone him You could argue say the 4th of the first are stronger than him but in the 10s of thousands of years no beings like the 4th of the first have emerged that had been able to just kill him and I highly doubt he has simply gotten lucky by having every hollow that becomes stronger than him just like your chance is a loner that goes and hides in a pile of tree needles but for a being that has maintained control over creatures that are stronger than captains for 10s of thousands of years never been defeated by any of these He's honestly doesn't seem that impressive he seems to be way weaker than Yamamoto or aizen and that just does not line up with the lore A being that's able to control beings that are stronger than Captains for tens of thousands of years uncontested Should at least be on par with the head of the Shinigami and more likely he should be superior But note he's number two with two beans being stronger than him lot of people think the 4th second transformation put him above as well and then you even have the light novel that reveals that his own head scientist was apparently at least three times stronger than him as its power was three times stronger than the zero espada which is two ranks higher than him And the first just really ruins any hype for the Vasto Lorde here is a being who was ranked number one And yet he is completely outclassed by his opponent who while yes being one of the strongest shinigami he still shouldn't be as strong as the strongest hollow as it was previously established the strongest hollows are supposed to be stronger than the strongest Shinigami But no he's so outclassed he can't even force his opponent to use their strongest thorn they don't even need to go bankai and his opponent seems to be able to dodge ceros so easily that even when the gun is put literally to his opponents eye point blank the blast is still dodged So he's so outclassed he doesn't seem to even be capable of hitting his opponent even at point blank and even when he finally gets a direct point blank shot to his opponent's back it doesn't do anything his opponent just gets right back up and stabs him in the back as for rank zero honestly that one just confuses the heck at me and I feel like the author changed his mind about his strength midway through because when he first reveals that he's number zero the strongest at first it seems like he's owning up to that he is dominating his opponents even the main protagonist with a new mask Can barely nick his neck And rank zero even directly calls rank six 5 and 4 Trash and he knows about rank 4 second transformation He felt it he knows exactly how strong that form was he felt both that energy and the main protagonist energy in that super hollow form that killed the 4th And he still considered both the 4th and the main protagonist trash basically stating that he's stronger and there's no reason to think that he would be incorrect about that he should even though he's a moron be able to feel someone else's energy and know whether it's more or less than his own And yet when reinforcements arrive and he fights the beings who struggled against rank 5 and 7 Suddenly he's completely outclassed Suddenly he's easier to beat than rank 5 and 7 way easier than rank 5 Only for him to reveal that he has a second transformation just like number 4 only for this form to go completely unused due to the author completely forgetting about it so it cut backs to him dying and his opponents barely damaged it all there's many different fan theories for how rank zero worked with the most common one being that he's only the strongest in terms of raw strength which OK I tend to agree with that but that should be more than enough to beat his opponent I cannot see any logic that justifies him losing to someone who could barely beat the 5th like the 5th almost had his opponent dead and I also just don't understand why the author did it What was the point of hyping up a character to be even stronger than what was supposed to be the strongest only for that being to Get curb stumped by people who've already had a fight that ark And their strengths have already been established to being well neither captain should be capable of beating any of the top 4 and that'd be willing to put money on that both captains combined wouldn't be able to be rank one in base form Nothing is gained by that battle narratively not even on just a dumb popcorn enjoy the fight kind of point so there was no reason narratively to do the rank zero twist there's no height for the fight it doesn't make anybody look good it just Makes things confusing And reflects bad on the author Due to his inability to state consistent And the thing is is that before the zero twist it was obvious to the fandom that he was supposed to fight Chad who at that point was still considered part of the main cast but who had yet to be able to defeat a major opponent and this would have been the perfect time to keep him relevant let him be ranked 10 speaking of Chad do end off my long ass rant that nobody probably is even gonna read kubo definitely had an incredibly major flaw with this story writing that he introduced so many characters that end up going nowhere And oftentimes would have characters for no reason refused to use full power their final sword release in order to create height for seeing it in the future just to never use them again so he might as well have just used the power in their fight earlier And similarly he also has the flaw of characters that just kind of disappear from the story when and that was definitely supposed to be something with them After all one of the key rules of story telling is is if you're going to introduce a character there needs to be a point of them and Kubo kept making the mistake of introducing a huge group of characters and then just picking out maybe one or two of them that are popular in throwing the rest in the garbage
I disagree, it doesn't decline after Aizen reveal at all. Fullbring is easily the best arc, every other arc i had moments where i was bored and just felt like the fights were so much more interesting then characters. The fullbring arc actually makes me teary eyed.
Yeah I did mention that in this video but it still feels kind of inconsistent to me, and kind of retroactive as well. Most of the characters got significant power boosts in the final arc.
People in the comments actually trying to defend Bleachs asspulls is astounding to me. No Ichigo beating Ulq using that asspulled form isnt in anyway foreshadowed, and even if it was, its shit writing to begin with to have some megaform save your ass which you coincidentally never use again. The Vasto Lorde being hyped as stronger than Captain Level opponents was such a bullshit lie in retrospect and really killed the hype. Fucking number 1 Espada taken down by a Shikai.
Wrong again ichigo has a hollow in him like jesus christ and it always protects him in times of crisis so what are you on about? Even aizen expected it to evolve and it did Evolved into a vastolorde
My point was the jump in power and change in appearance is not explained or properly foreshadowed. It makes Ichigo like 50x stronger without him doing anything.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt I just checked your channel, thank God your not a bleach channel Spouting things like white was never foreshadowed In SS arc when hanataro found him he had a hollow mask in his chest basically save him from dying Against kenpachi he would have died, a hollow mask blocked the attack Against yammy and ulquiorra white was trying to take control Even against grimjow He even has his inner fight with white lets not pretend like w haven't seen white before Then again we have an arc " the arrancar arc" dedicated to hollows that explains that hollow evolve and your out here saying it came from nowhere Ichigo at that point was dead literally no resistance against white he died so white just healed him and took over as if ichigo dies he also dies like bro even in filler arcs you have white protecting ichigo Against muramasa he fought zangetsu outside ichigos body while also fighting muramasa with ichigo
@@XAsh_black Not the hollow itself - the severe leap in power. We see hollows evolve by consuming other hollows, but Ichigo's hollow becomes orders of magnitude stronger in the background between his appearances. Ichigo didn't do anything to actively develop the power, other than spamming the mask. Why don't the Vizard hollows evolve in this way as well? The hollow explicitly warns Ichigo not to die again when he suppresses it the first time, implying there'd be some severe consequence. But narratively there are no drawbacks to the hollow after that moment, in the Ulquiorra fight the hollow wins the fight, saves all Ichigo's friends, then Ichigo gets to carry on as if nothing happened. It was a free pass.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt the vizords are different as they are souls/ shinigami that were infected by hollowfication so their inner worlds will have a zanpaktou spirit and a hollow Ichigo was born with white so basically he's zanpaktou spirit is his hollow not and it is the hollow and it grows everyday as that's the basics of a shinigamis zanpaktou with even zangetsu saying he held it back everytime Even aizen expected it to evolve since it's original form wasn't even that way
what do you mean the vasto lorde form is never mentioned again? that's what he fights in his internal world, that's what white truly looks like and it's what ichigos final bankai somewhat resembles. if anything, it's the tailed hollow form we see during the vizard training that is never explained or mentioned again.
It's never really explained properly to be honest. You have the strange lizard form the Vizard fight, which as you said is never explained. Then the next time we see the hollow it's the horned form, and it's not really explained why there was such a monumental leap in its abilities. That form is orders of magnitude stronger than anything we've seen Ichigo or his hollow capable of before, and then Ichigo never uses it again or even really spends much time thinking about it. I know it kind of resembles his true form later but I don't understand why the change and I think it was a bit of a retcon. Also it's quite convenient how it suddenly appears, wins the fight for Ichigo, then vanishes again.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt well, best explanation i can come up with, is that it's related to ichigo dying. as we saw after his first death, his ability to maintain the hollow form increased significantly, so perhaps the more he dies, the more "in-tune" he becomes with the hollow, hence why the second death awakened his true form.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt "You have the strange lizard form the Vizard fight, which as you said is never explained" - It was explained, that (Lizard Form) is how Ichigo would look if he was tranformed fully into a Hollow. - Same as how Grimmjow has a (Panther Form) when he is full Hollow, or Ulquorra) has a (Bat Form) when he was fully Hollow. "Then the next time we see the hollow it's the horned form, and it's not really explained why there was such a monumental leap in its abilities" - Probably for the same reason Hollows have a monumental leap in Abilities when they become Arrancers or Vasto Lordes. - The (Lizard Form = Full Hollow) and the (Horned Form = Vasto Lorde) I hope this makes you understand. "That form is orders of magnitude stronger than anything we've seen Ichigo or his hollow capable of before" - His (Dangai Form) (Final Getsuga Tensho Form) (Fullbring Form) and (Horn of Sulvation Form) are stronger, than that form. "and then Ichigo never uses it again or even really spends much time thinking about it" - He never uses it again because he's stronger than that form, the same way Naruto is not gonna use the 6 Tails form he had against pain. "I know it kind of resembles his true form later but I don't understand why the change and I think it was a bit of a retcon" - It changed because Ichigo changed, that's how Zanpakutou spirits work in Bleach they grow with the Wielder because they are the Wielder. - It's way stronger than that form, it's a combination of his Shinigami/Hollow & Quincy abilities. "Also it's quite convenient how it suddenly appears, wins the fight for Ichigo, then vanishes again" - It vanished because Ulquorra broke it's Horn. - Breaking a Hollows Mask has shown to do severe damage, Neliel struggled to regain her True form because her Mask was damage.
@@OmenLamb Thanks for clarifying some of those. I think my big issue, which I probably didn't explain enough, is the idea of consequences. If you look at older anime with "inner demons", although they're technically meant to be detriments to the main characters, they often just end up helping them without drawbacks. So Ichigo's hollow emerges in the Ulquiorra fight, wins the fight for him, then returns control to Ichigo. Even if it's due to the horn being chipped off, is that really all it takes to suppress the hollow again? He specifically warned Ichigo not to die again, implying it'd have more severe consequences. But narratively he had no long term negative effects. I get what you're saying that hollows become stronger as they evolve, but hollows become stronger hollows by consuming other hollows don't they? Ichigo himself did nothing to evolve his hollow, it just become orders of magnitude stronger in the background between appearances. Why don't the Vizard inner hollows grow stronger like Ichigo's did? I know Ichigo becomes stronger after the FGT, etc. But I also really hate this lol. The FGT really does come out of nowhere, and it's crazy that all Ichigo needed was 3 months training (or however long it was) to become a transcendent being, when Aizen has been planning his own transformation for centuries.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt "If you look at older anime with "inner demons", although they're technically meant to be detriments to the main characters, they often just end up helping them without drawbacks." - The difference between Ichigo and other characters is that those "Inner Demons" are an outside external existence sealed within the Host like (Kurama, Sukuna, Liebe) - Ichigo and his "Inner Demon" are the same existence, they cannot be separated nor transferred to another host. "I get what you're saying that hollows become stronger as they evolve, but hollows become stronger hollows by consuming other hollows don't they?" - That's because a Vasto Lorde class Hollow (Starrk, Barragan, Ulqiorra, Harribel) does not need to consume other Hollows anymore they cannot devolve. - This why so many (Adjucha) class Hollows worked under Aizen because he could turned them into (Arrancers) with the Hyogoku which was a shortcut to removing the effect for them to cosume Hollows, becoming an (Arrancer or a Vatso Lorde) is the ultimate price for Hollows. "Ichigo himself did nothing to evolve his hollow, it just become orders of magnitude stronger in the background between appearances" - That's because his Hollow is Ichigo, it merged with his Soul when he was born when Ichigo gets stronger so does the Hollow. - Ichigo becoming stronger directly effects his Hollow as you see the Marks on the Mask change as he grows. "Why don't the Vizard inner hollows grow stronger like Ichigo's did?" - Because the Vizards Hollowfication is an External Factor, they are not the Hollow. - Ichigo is the Hollow. White is Ichigo. Ichigo is the Zanpakuto. He is the Blade. That's the difference. "The FGT really does come out of nowhere, and it's crazy that all Ichigo needed was 3 months training (or however long it was) to become a transcendent being, when Aizen has been planning his own transformation for centuries." - That's because Aizen was normal Soul Reaper, and he didn't have the complete Hyogoku for centuries. - That's why he was reborn into a (Hollow/Shinigami) Hybrid as soon as he fused himself with the Hyogoku. - Ichigo needed was 3 months of training to (TEMPORARILY) become a transcendent being. - Aizen (PERMANENTLY) became a Transcendent being as his Body is completely fused with his Zanpakutou unlike Ichigo. "Hollowfication means... inserting a Hollow's soul into a normal soul, then breaking the boundary between them to try and turn the original soul into something more powerful. Originally, this was meant to be used to strengthen a Shinigami's soul." - Kisuke Urahara "Do you know about the Shinigami's four basic forms of combat? They are Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hohō, and Kidō. All of them are similar in that they each have a limit. No matter how much innate capability you have, you can never overcome the limitation of a Shinigami's spiritual body. That is where the growth stops. In other words, that is the Shinigami's limit. Is there no way to break that boundary? Is there no way to grow and surpass your innate limitation?" - Sōsuke Aizen Ichigo is the only character that can reach Transcendence (Naturally) because he is a Hybrid, he can cross that Border, the other (Abnormal) way is using the Hyogoku.
Ukitake should've used his bankai in the big show down, I can understand Shunsui not using his but Ukitake's would've hit the jackpot for me but... Whatever...
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptUkitake is to weak physically it’s been stated that one of the reasons why he doesn’t get involved with fights that much anymore and he pretty much humiliated Lilynette without even trying
would have liked it better in the series if Ichigo fought Zommari(7th Espada) cause Byakuya winning makes no sense to me when he got beat by a Soul Society Ichigo not long ago. I also wish Ichigo learned some kido around that time to make his fights more interesting.
Kido was really underused considering how useful it is, I wish more characters in general used it regularly. And yeah you're right, in general Bleach power levels vary too much and seem arbitrary and made up.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt The perfect 2 points in my mind to explain Kido and stuff is during Ichigo's Bankai training or hollowfictation training. Like Ichigo wanting to learn a couple of quick level one spells after finishing Bankai against Byakuya for diversion or trickery with the time to kill before Rukia's execution. Ichigo could have also sought out a Kido master after getting ass whooped by Grimmjow if he really wanted to get stronger. It kinda sucked when Rukia appeared in Ichigo's class once again after soul society to only just fight low-level hollows just to boost his ego. Like just have her teach and explain Kido.
@@davidkuykendall3778 Yeah missed opportunities there for sure. We even get the introduction of the whole kido corps in one of the flashbacks, but then the idea is dropped and never mentioned again.
Waco mundo is when it got immensely popular. The editorial staff made bad calls and made characters staybot comeback for sales. It didnt fall off..you stopped liking it. I think the beatles suck after sgt pepper's..but it was because i didnt like it. But did they fall off after that. No they didnt they were bigger.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt Tybw is the best written and most fulfilling arc in the series it answers Every single lingering question throughout the series has multiple amazing conclusions to beloved characters while also adding More interesting villains to an already iconic cast The fights in the this arc are also stellar Yhwach vs Yama Kenpachi vs Kenpachi Sajin vs bambi Gremmy vs Zaraki Ichibe vs yhwach a lot of the lore is expanded greatly & again reveals answers fans were waiting for Rukia & renji get to shine Orihime & uryu provides excellent PoVs The dynamics of SS were just precursors for Tybw conclusions Arrancar saga was to extend the connections we made in SS Fullbring was for character growth Tybw brings that all together beautifully while STILL being a War ARC and having stupendous impact on all the differing aspects of the series (Lore,reveals,characters,themes)
Barragan as the 0 espada makes a lot more sense, as king of the hollow. We could have even still had a twist reveal, like Aizen was limiting his power or something to keep him in check and he finds a way around it.
I think that Ulquiorra was the only espada that actually had personality and was utilised well somewhat. Grimmjow was boring and bland, overhyped to no end.
Oh really that's interesting. I like Ulqiorra a lot, but I do like Grimmjow as well. I guess he's not especially deep or anything, but sometimes I like just a straight up, cocky villain character.
Grimjow doesn't have a personality? He wants to be king tf you mean. Not everyone needs to be edgy Barragan is arrogant Stark is lazy Arroniero is a glutton probably because he's a Gillian needs to evolve to an adhucha
Grimmjow is "boring and bland". Words I never thought I would hear. Maybe he's boring to you because you can't relate. But if you've ever wanted to be the king (the best in something) or enjoyed the thrill of the challenge, you'd probably find him very interesting.
![SahBabii - Viking [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/D37cL92JX0I/mqdefault.jpg)
They were suffering from middle-arc villian syndrome.
I wish it'd been the "final" arc to be honest, with Aizen as the main villain.
What is middle arc villain syndrome ?
@@Level-iy5ye Pretty much when the villains in the middle of a story a easily killed off to make room for the final villains (i.e. the Espada’s being killed of to make way for the Quincies’ return)
@@tbone8129I don't know if anybody ask you this but what do you think of szayel being Espada number 0 in a night novel and him probably being the main or secondary villain of the hell arc when it releases ? Edit Whoops my bad I thought you were the guy sorry
@@Level-iy5ye I mean he did have a brother that died and it was never out-right stated how it is possible for an Arrancar to have sibilings or a family.
My head cannon is that Szayel split himself into two beings like how Starrk did with the litle Arrancar that follows him and turns into his guns.
So after when Both of them die they are both sent to hell and both fuse back into the #0 Espada that you were mentioning or at least stronger than like base-Yammy,Arronyero,Zomari, and maybe Grimjow and Nnotora.
After that it especially gets iffy.
Here we go, it's like 2016 all over again😫
The TYBW arc got me thinking about bleach again lol, a bit of a blast from the past.
This guys literally trying to pull off a SilverEyepatchwolf move
@@ChillDeathgod I just got flashbacks🤣
All publicity is good publicity
Honestly kubo was being rushed and overworked, the anime made it apparent that they were holding kubo back...
Hm yeah the manga industry is brutal isn't it. I feel like newer authors take more breaks and have healthier schedules but I do feel for them.
Also, Kubo is more interested in drawing cool stuff than developing a good story. I always liked to compare a chapter of Naruto to a chapter of Bleach: Kubo can pull off amazing two-pagers with really dynamic movement, but almost nothing happens in one chapter in terms of story, while in Naruto Kishimoto uses small panels with less dynamical fights, but you get a huge ton of storytelling.
@@MarcinSzyniszewski Bleach mainly focus on character arcs than the world building, but normies won't appreciate that stuff who like flashy combat and cool transformations.
@@lust-sama3920Bleach has an overabundance of all of those things you just said. This is a rather hypocritical view, especially considering that Ichigo probably has just the exact same amount of transformations as any other anime protagonists, if not more.
Some brief corrections.. Vasto lorde Was forshadowed by white “If you ever die or lose control I’ll take over.”
With what we know about white being zanpaktuo spirit later “I’ll protect you “ is from white to ichigo.
While Ichigo doesn’t go into vasto lorde ever again, Horn of Salvation is a thing, and it’s explained he doesn’t use hallow mask any more for fullbring and blade is me reasons.
I dislike how the immense jump in power for his hollow happened in the background. Also even though White warned Ichigo not to die again, what ended up happening was there was no consequence except Ichigo and his friends were all saved from an opponent who 100% would have killed them all otherwise.
Hey man, I really like your stuff, and I’ve read a few of the comments, but one thing I wanted to touch on was when you talked about Ichigo pulling out a form we’ve never seen before to beat Ulqiorra.
The truth is, the show had been building up to that point for a while. We first see it when Ichigo fights Byakuya and White (Ichigo’s Hallow) takes over for a bit and starts obliterating him. This was the first hint that Ichigo’s overall true strength is more than what even Ichigo knows. That’s why White laughs at him and tells him he doesn’t even know how to use this Bankai.
Later on when Ichigo is training with the Visards, he’s struggling to keep his hallow under control, and in his inner world White gives him the speech of the king and the horse. When Ichigo finally gets it, white concedes but warns him that if Ichigo isn’t careful, he’ll take over and replace him as the king.
When Ichigo fights Dordoni, Dordoni says after he’s been beaten by Ichigo that he’s too “sweet like chocolate” and that he needs to become a monster to survive here.
In Ichigo’s fight with Grimmjaw we see that at first he’s been outclassed by Grimmjow because he’s holding back since Orihime is scared of him and he’s not fighting on instinct, but with his logic. But when he gets reassurance that she wants him to stay alive, he fights properly and beats Grimmjaw. This again shows that part of Ichigo’s ability are being hindered by his own mental state.
Now on to Ulqiorra. Ichigo spends majority of this fight being absolutely outclassed by Ulqiorra as a way to show him dispare. Then when Ulqiorra kills him, White makes good on that promise he made to Ichigo that if he ever lost, he’d take over as King.
So when he transforms, it’s basically White fully manifesting because Ichigo is no longer there to stop him at all. And he fights with a lot more instinct and ferocity than Ichigo does. The only reason Ichigo is even able to regain control is because Uryu intervenes and cuts off his horn, otherwise White would have completely obliterated Ulqiorra.
The truth is, if Ichigo had fought with the same killer instinct and ferocity as White, he’d have done the same thing to Ulqiorra himself. But he was limited by the “sweet chocolate” human nature that Dordoni had told him to get rid of in the past.
I hope that clears up a little why I disagree with the take that Ichigo’s power up came out of nowhere. It had been sufficiently lead up to.
Hey, first of all thanks a lot for watching and engaging I really appreciate it.
Second of all I really like your explanation here, I think reading it this way does make a lot more sense in the story. I still feel like maybe the evolution could have been shown more (so it wasn't such a massive jump), or there could have been more consequences for dying and losing control to White (like Sukuna in JJK) but yeah I do like how you've explained it.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt absolutely man! I’m looking forward to more of your videos coming up!
I tend to agree with the theory that the 4th having a second release is because the fandom was not impressed with his first transformation which really didn't do much to change him basically just giving him some horns and a different jacket
So the author just redid his transformation hand waving it that he has a second transformation Which makes sense to me as honestly his second transformation doesn't really seem to change much about him in terms of physical power it seems more of just a cosmetic change
And if you think about it for more than a minute the second transformation really seems like it breaks the lore of the story because their transformation is simply them reabsorbing power they already had that they voluntarily placed within their swords or other weapons
so in other words they're transformed states are actually just their normal state and what we see is their normal state is actually the transformation
So what is this second transformation he's already return to his natural state by reabsorbing the energy from his sword
I think Kubo just really wanted to have something "special" for his main character fight, and didn't think enough about the story implications of his decision. There was no reason Ulquiorra's release couldn't have just been what was his second form.
This is astoundingly well thought out and I appreciate it.
17:04 "I firmly believe that the Top 3 Espada should've required multiple Captains teaming up at once, forcing them all into 1v1 duels really diminishes how powerful they're meant to be"
(#1 Coyote Starrk) fought (Shunsui, Ukitake, Love & Rose) it was a (1v4)
- Shunsui was losing and Ukitake, Love & Rose had to jump in.
- Then when Love & Rose started losing Shunsui literally snuck him.
- It was so underhanded Love & Rose don't believe they won fairly and they confronted Shunsui.
- If Shunsui fought Starrk (1v1) alone with [Zero 0] help he would've died, because his AOE Bankai had friendly fire he couldn't use it.
(#2 Baraggan Louisenbairn) fought (Soifon, Ōmaeda & Hachigen) it was a (1v3)
- Soifon almost died of Respira before Ōmaeda cut her Arm off.
- It was impossible for Soifon to prepare her Bankai if Ōmaeda didn't stall.
- Barragan survived 2 Nukes to the face and Haschigen had to sacrifice his arm to Respira so they can defeat him.
- If Soifon fought Barragan (1v1) alone with [Zero 0] help she would've died, because nothing could kill Barragan besides his won power.
(#3 Tier Harribel) fought (Toshiro, Lisa & Hiyori) it was a (1v3)
- Toshiro was losing so badly that he resorted to using Hyōten Hyakkasō and encasing her in Ice (basically a seal)
- When she was freed she completely demolished Toshiro, Lisa & Hiyori at the same time.
- In the end, they couldn't even defeat her till Aizen showed up and betrayed her
- If Toshiro fought Harribel (1v1) alone with [Zero 0] help he would've died, she completely overwhelmed him even during the 1v3 assist.
- At the beginning of the TYBW Yhwach literally traveled to Hueco Mundo to (personally) deal with her himself.
So can you please clarify what you mean by the 1v1 duels diminishing their powers when they all won their respective 1v1 Duels, which prompted multiple Captain Class characters to intervene and assist them in defeating the Top 3 Espada?
Because what you're critiquing the show for did happen in the show, they were jumped by multiple characters.
If you removed the Vizards from the equation, all the Captains were dead.
"Because what you're critiquing the show for did happen in the show, they were jumped by multiple characters.
If you removed the Vizards from the equation, all the Captains were dead."
you are saying this like Yamamoto couldn't have just enter and kill all 3 Espada anytime he wanted.
Or Kyoraku if he sacrificed his team mates using his Bankai.
Toshiro defeated Harribell ALONE, if Wonderweiss didn't come to help she would have stayed frozen forever.
Or how Wonderweiss also helped Barragan and Starrk(taking out Ukitake).
@@OmenLamb like finally someone gets it this guy is complaining over nothing
Hey man. Let me clarify, because I still have an issue with how the fights were structured.
1. Starrk. The beginning of the fight is mostly Kyoraku fighting a released Starrk without even using his zanpakto ability. Ukitake fighting with him is good, but it's still just 2 captains. If the Vizards had fought at the same time as these 2 I think that would have been more fitting, but instead they "tag out". The 2 Vizard don't inflict any notable damage on Starrk, and when Kyoraku returns he beats Starrk 1 vs 1 with his shikai. And nobody releases a bankai at any point.
2. Barragan. Soi Fon and Hachi on their own is again too small a group. Omaeda doesn't count because he's just there for comic relief, and if it was more serious Barragan should have 1 shot him then focused on the major opponents. And arms in Bleach aren't really significant wounds since they can be so easily healed. Kubo has characters lose limbs and have them replaced all the time.
3. Harribel. Hitsugaya keeps pace with her for the entire fight practically, despite previously struggling against Luppi who is 3 ranks below Harribel. Lisa and Hiyori did help, but they're both vice captains so we only had 1 captain effectively supported by 2 vice captains against her, whereas it should have been multiple captains.
So really what I would have preferred is multiple captains, simultaneously, not only using shikai, in a more desperate fight. As I said in the video, Aizen had so much faith in the top 3 but they couldn't even kill any of the vice captains they faced. If Yamamato had fought as well, he'd have killed all the top 3 espada on his own probably.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt saying they are "vice captains" is dumb as they have captain lvl reiatsu "vice captain" is a title not their strength
Against harribel he used multiple abilities and not just his basic ice splash and hit
Same with kyoraku we know how much damage he's shikai abilities do
Look at how Lille fell
He even snuck Lille with isane from a shadow in his nose
Yamamoto has no arm
And wounds can easily be healed
Kenpachi got his ear drums destroyed
Arm broken and ripped off then poisoned, bro is alive and is the strongest captain to ever exist
It's fiction wounds can be easily healed, even soul damage
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt You can have a problem with the fights I don't have an problem with that.
My issue is you criticizing the Top 3 Espada for being forced into a 1v1 scenario when they were not.
"The beginning of the fight is mostly Kyoraku fighting a released Starrk without even using his zanpakto ability"
- No, Starrk was not in his released state at the beginning of the fight, he released after Soifon and Toshiro activate their Bankai.
- Shunsui literally activated his Shikai immediately when Starrk released, and caused Ukitake to join the battle.
"Ukitake fighting with him is good, but it's still just 2 captains"
- ?????????????????????????
- Exactly it's 2 captains, I genuinly don't know why you are trying to downplay Captains class characters.
"If the Vizards had fought at the same time as these 2 I think that would have been more fitting, but instead they "tag out""
- They didn't tagged out, Ukitake got injured by Wonderweiss, Starrk injured them to the point they couldn't even use their Hollowfication anymore, the Shunsui ised that opportunity to sneak Starrk.
"The 2 Vizard don't inflict any notable damage on Starrk and when Kyoraku returns he beats Starrk 1 vs 1 with his shikai. "
- ?????????????????????????
- They literally forced him to abandon his Pistols and use the Cero Wolves which use life force Energy.
- Love then used (Hifuki no Kozuchi) ability on Starrk and hit him so hard he was coughing Blood on the Floor.
- Yeah he snuck him after Love & Rose had severly damaged him and forced him to use his Ace Attack.
"And nobody releases a bankai at any point."
- ?????????????????????????
- Shunsui and Rose Bankai's are AOE they cannot use them near Allies they will be caught in Bankai.
- It's the same thing with Shinji, bro have you really watched Bleach???
"Soi Fon and Hachi on their own is again too small a group"
- They are 2 captain class Soul Reapers, WHAT ARE TOU TALKING ABOUT bro.
- Captains are not some fodder shinigami, I don't understand do you see Captains as like Jonins or something?
"Omaeda doesn't count because he's just there for comic relief, and if it was more serious Barragan should have 1 shot him then focused on the major opponents"
- Ōmaeda is the reason, Soifon is Alive dude.
- She would've died from Respira if Ōmaeda was not there.
- She would've not been able to prepare her Bankai if Ōmaeda was not there.
- Ōmaeda was stalling not Fighting Barragan.
"And arms in Bleach aren't really significant wounds since they can be so easily healed. Kubo has characters lose limbs and have them replaced all the time."
- They are significant wounds in the MIDDLE OF A BATTLE.
- Ulquiorra cutting off Uryu's arm is not insignificant, Grimmjow & Yamamoto losing their arms is not insignificant.
- Even Yhwach criticized Yamamoto for not asking Orihime to heal his arm back because it's a disadvantage.
- And no body parts cannot be healed easily, Yamamoto & Grimmjow are an example, there is no getting your arm back without Orihime reversing time.
"Hitsugaya keeps pace with her for the entire fight practically"
- No, he doesn't, he was being overwhelmed.
- Toshiro even noted that he was gonna lose if the battle went on and his Bankai was running out.
"Lisa and Hiyori did help, but they're both vice captains so we only had 1 captain effectively supported by 2 vice captains against her"
- You categorizing the Vizards as Vice Captain/Lieutenant Level is an insane amount of downplay..
- The fact that you put the Vizards on the same level as Ōmaeda, Rangiku, Tetsuzaimon, Ikkau, Momo, Yumichica, Izuru, Hisagi, genuinley is crazy to me.
- I don't even know what to say because it's factually wrong, they are Captain class.
"whereas it should have been multiple captains"
- That's because it was.
"So really what I would have preferred is multiple captains, simultaneously"
- That's because it was.
"in a more desperate fight"
- They. Were. Gonna. Die. They were deperate.
"If Yamamato had fought as well, he'd have killed all the top 3 espada on his own probably"
- I genuinlly cannot understand why you see (Barragan, Starrk & Harriblel) losing to Yamamoto as a nagative.
- The fact that Aizen & Yhwach both preemptively sealed away hims powers at the beginning of their battles is a tastament to how powerful he is.
- Aizen craeted Wonderwiess a being who's entire existance is to counter Yamamoto, and he beat him with his fists.
I genuinley believe you need to refresh yourself on Bleach because I think everything you typed is absurd.
The fact that you believe Starrk, Harribel, Barragan lost in a 1v1 is absurd to me.
The fact that you consider 2 Captains as nothing is absurd to me.
The fact that when you look at the Vizards you see Lieutenant Level characters is absurd to me.
I appretiate the video, even though I don't agree on some parts.
i personally think kubo was all over the place when it came to scaling, the espada were supposed to far above captains but majority of the captains barely got stronger from the previous arc and they started to beat the espada kind of easily and the qunicy just a fanfict group to me , half of them are forgettable and the rest either some kid writing for powerscaling, like ywach literally didn't need to be that crazy broken , its the reason why kubo wrote himself into a corner in the end
Couldn't agree with you more. The Quincy were awful to me, at least the espada abilities were relatively grounded and were in the same vein as some of the earlier abilities in bleach. But in TYBW too many of the Quincy had ridiculous god mode hacks abilities, that guy with Miracle was never even beaten from what I remember. He was literally unbeatable until Yhwach just absorbed him.
I feel like the first part of the video can apply to a lot of anime villains so great video
Thanks very much!
I definitely wanna see your thousand year blood war video. I have my own that im working on but i like you perspective, kubo does have good ideas but awful execution. Hope you make more bleach content
Thanks man, I'll definitely look to do something soon on it then.
Stark dying was poor decision in my honest opinion he should’ve survived & become king to help with his whole loneliness arc with the exception of grimmjow nniqutora & ulqiorra all the other espadas were wasted and a majority of their fights didn’t progress story bruh I skip so much stuff in hueco mundo cuz it didn’t matter with the exception of ulqiorra n grimmjow fights none of the others espadas fight matter
Completely agree, and yeah it would have been nice for Starrk to survive and maybe even cooperate with the shinigami as the new ruler of Hueco Mundo. Why Kubo kept Harribel alive of all people I really don't understand.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt tan waifu there u go
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt Perhaps it was meant to be a way of signifying the importance of sacrifice considering that aspect of death was the last remaining out of the top 3 (tying into a theme of the show regarding the necessary sacrifices to protect), although even if there wasn't a particular reason for it I really enjoyed seeing the true power of Ayon against Quilge, that scene made Harribel's fraccion a lot more threatening imo (since I doubt her fraccion would've survived if Kubo decided to kill Harribel)
@@WeebGuru6 Lol most likely.
@@exodus9669 I did enjoy seeing Ayon again against Quilge.
For me the big problem Bleach had later on is that it went full shounen, by which I mean it was likely pushed further and further down the path of "get to the next fight faster", common in this genre. This means fights start getting rushed through and some even happening offscreen and with no time for characters to spend time with each other or even time to flesh out villains. This is also why romances tend to fail horribly in shounen.
This reaches its peak when the Quincys are introduced as the manga was so fast paced that they had to lengthen fights in the anime.
Aside from that the Quincys were definitely a terrible faction.
They don't feel like a coherent group, they are all at each other's throats and they aren't really how one would have envisioned them.
One would think they'd be a group that resemble Uryu's family and were essentially a whole civilization surviving within the Wandenreich.
Instead its a lot of randomly designed characters with no friends or family with quirky powers. They feel more like Hollows than Humans in personality.
Great insights I agree with everything you said. It's no surprise that interest in Bleach dropped off hard towards the end and led to its early cancellation.
Your thoughts on the Quincy are the same as mine. I'd also add there were way too many of them, so you can barely keep track of them all and they get very little development or focus.
"They don't feel like a coherent group, they are all at each other's throats"
That's literally the whole point of the sternritters, they aren't supposed to be some kind of team. This is done to show the Quincy nature.
"No friends or family"
They don't need any to be well written characters, (and this kinda blatantly wrong as Bazz B and Jugram were friends.) And yet again this does show the Quincy nature, because Quincy's naturally don't care about friendship or familial bonds😅.
@@TamakiDamoismyhusbando
I don't think you get what I was saying.
I'm saying I don't like the direction they took the Quincys. Has nothing to do with how they turned out and their nature based on this direction.
What I'm talking about is how they were viewed prior to their introduction and so any lore introduced after their introduction is irrelevant to this. Such as the "No friends no family".
Ex: Uryu's family was an actual family with a legacy.
If the Quincy's were taken in this direction I would have liked it more.
@@darken2417 As I said they don't need friends or family to be well written, plus them not having families without legacies makes sense as they were randomly chosen by Yhwach, other than Jugram they were all unremarkable people. And they don't exposition dumps for their backstory when they are introduced, characters aren't fully developed when they are introduced.
And them being unremarkable is something I liked, it explains their actions and as to why they are evil. Uryu was not evil because he was taught to be a good person, most Quincy families with legacies would want their kids to be respectable.
Although I would agree that some Quincy weren't given a direction as Kubo had health issues.
@@TamakiDamoismyhusbando
Yes I know the lore that isn't my contention.
I already know they were randomly selected, which is a detriment to all of their motivations and since they don't act like normal people.
It also doesn't explain why they are loyal to fight in this war.
If they were Quincy families then there would be a grudge there, it would be revenge or maybe survival since they were already almost wiped out once.
My point is that since they are just random people they don't have a connection to Uryu and thus no reason to think Uryu would actually join them.
Thus it was obvious that Uryu was always against them.
Alternatively we could have gotten a civilization, one that is clearly not evil.
Maybe even one that we at times want to see win.
Could have also gotten parts where we follow those characters like how the Soul Society was followed prior to Aizen's fake death. Learning about the enemies, their friends, their families, their motivations, etc.
This would have been my preference.
I definitely agree that the Espada should've been the final threat rather than the Quincies, I feel like it makes more sense for the hollows (enemies of soul reapers, humans, and quincies) to be the dominant threat at the end of the anime, they're a poison to all forms of existence - even their own. Oh yeah, also great video! Only 2k subs??
Yeah it's also a shame because the hollows are the original enemy, back from episode 1, but they end up sidelined. Maybe Kubo lost interest in them or wanted to try something different, I don't know. And thank you much appreciated! I'm fairly new to youtube still but been really enjoying doing videos so far.
That is a terrible take
Nice video I agree with pretty much everything you said but I still love the espada and the arc! xD the video has reminded me of how much I like the characters and bleach in general especially when I first watched it
Thanks! Yeah I do still really like the espada they're such a cool group of characters. But for me bleach ended with Aizen being sealed, I really don't like anything that happened after that.
While I do agree with some of the critiques a lot of what you’re saying is just from ignorance and not understanding the story. It seems like you just liked some of the Espada and were mad that they didn’t do as well as you think they should have. You also mentioned how Aizen had been so wrong recruiting and relying on his top Espada when it was a waste in the final battle but that isn’t all there is to it. Aizen wanted to be a king above all so he took control of the wild Hueco Mundo to not only learn more about hollows and shinagami but also become the king he wanted to be. Now I’m gonna go through some of the Espada’s critiques
10. Yammy was pretty underutilized so I’m fine with what you said
8. The reason Mayuri doesn’t use the drug again is because it requires absorbing Mayuri
7. Although I agree Zommari would have been more dangerous if he was a supporting role against a competent opponent it still would’ve been a one maybe two use trick. And also the point was that Zommari, an even stronger foe than Aaroneiro, was now trying to kill Rukia who he thought was almost defenseless
6. Most of what you said I agree with but to be a truly good fighter in bleach you can’t just surrender to instinct. You can get far but never reach true potential. When you combine instinct and battle iq that’s when you become a competent fighter
5. The reason Shikai Ichigo was able to beat Kenpachi was because of his immense growth and his Quincy powers. He rapidly gained a ton of power from his Quincy powers and natural growth which was enough, just for a little bit, to match Kenpachi’s growth and beat him. Also his Quincy powers were foreshadowed by Kenpachi not recognizing the closing of wounds technique and all the crosses in Ichigo’s house
4. The vastolorde form was not random. It was foreshadowed by white and Ulquiorra himself stating Ichigo’s fluctuating power at some points during their first encounter even surpassed his own. The reason it’s never used again is because it is never necessary or needed. It is definitely referenced considering that’s the form white takes in his inner world and his hollow mask is shown to be at its final stage resembling the vastolorde face.
3. Toshiro was never weak he just had bad matchups against Aizen who is so much stronger. While I do agree Harribell felt a little underwhelming the fight was still decent but I understand critique.
2. This is mostly just you liking Barragan. Yeah he could have done more but he wasn’t fighting more people. He also could only use his true respira during his resurrection. In the Quincy arc he would have at most killed Omaeda and put a few out out of commission, because we see nothing to the degree of multiple vice captains dying ever. We only see them being put down for the rest of the arc.
1. The reason Starkk’s ceros seems less impactful is because they are normal ceros. Grimmjow used a gran Rey cero in his final fight with Ichigo and Ulquiorra used Cero Oscuras after he used his resurrection. The reason a hole was in Ichigo was because he was literally defenseless against a point blank Cero Oscuras. Also the reason Shikai was only used is because at the point where Bankai would necessary only Shunsui could use his which would affect his allies. (Vizard can’t use their bankai and mask at the same time unlike Ichigo).
The Espada overall were used for their intended purpose and most (not all) were fleshed out. The fights were not only battles of swords but also ideals.
Sorry for the long comment I just wanted to give all my opinioms
Hey, no problem at all appreciate you taking the time to write this out and engage to be honest.
I get what you're saying about Aizen but he specifically stated he believed the top 3 espada would be enough to defeat the Gotei 13 present in Fake Karakura, even putting this aside as the primary antagonists of that whole series of arcs I think it's really a failing that they couldn't accomplish anything significant. If I compare them to the Akatsuki in Naruto, even though they all ended up defeated they did get a series of wins that were meaningful. They successfully collected the tailed beasts (although mostly off screen), Hidan killed Asuma, Pain single handedly defeated and flattened Konoha, and killed Kakashi, etc.
Running through the specific espada:
8. I still think it's neglected, even if in universe it must be absorbed if I was Mayuri I'd invest some time into other methods of delivery for such a powerful weapon. He could even load it into darts or something to inject the serum directly into enemies. It feels like Kubo just used it once to win the fight then not again. Which is a common theme with Mayuri, he always seems to have the perfect counter to each enemy (except when he fought Ishida way back in the save Rukia arc).
7. Yeah agree with what you said, but I still stand by Zommari's supposed speed not really making sense.
6. Yep agreed to be fair.
5. I wonder how much Kubo had planned out re: Ichigo's heritage. To me it always felt like something he retroactively added later, and I assumed either Zangetsu or his hollow temporarily closed his wound. I'm not sure to be honest, you could be right.
4. Good point that Ichigo's reiatsu at its highest matched Ulquiorra. I just find Ichigo frustratingly inconsistent, I get that his mental state often holds him back but sometimes he feels extremely weak (struggling with Dordoni before using his bankai) but then sometimes he's overwhelmingly powerful. Unohana later tells us he has at least twice the reiatsu of a captain but his zanpukto feels really underwhelming, outside of its first use, and he should be dominating more of his fights. But he often seems to be the underdog, outside of some key moments. I loved the moment where he dominated 3 vice captains without even using a weapon, for example, but we get really few moments of Ichigo overpowering his opponents like this.
3. From what I remember, Hitsugaya was struggling with Luppi so it seems strange how he's able to keep up with Harribel. But yeah otherwise seems we're in agreement.
2. For me I just find it a shame that the King of the Hollow wasn't even able to kill off Omaeda who's kind of a joke character. Respira is a really cool ability, and since none of the rest of the espada were able to get any big wins it would have been good to at least give Barragan one.
1. Yeah agreed. I actually forgot the Vizard can't use their bankai and masks at the same time, is this stated in the manga? I could well have forgot it's been a while.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt I think while making this I actually forgot about Luppi vs Toshiro 😂. I’m assuming in the fight he was restricted by the device that makes soul reapers in the human world but honestly I cannot remember. Also the Vizards not using bankai is because they technically could but it’d be so draining that it’d end almost instantly. Also as a die hard bleach fan I wouldn’t mind Omaeda dying
@@AntiZubat I want to say he was unrestricted in that fight but I can't 100% remember either! Lol yeah Omaeda is lame.
Mayuri did use the drug again, against Zombie Toshiro. The effects different because Mayuri never stop experimenting on it.
Great video. Some of the weird power scaling in Bleach had explanations, but just because there are explanations doesn't mean it was good. I think it's fine that Ulquiorra was the strongest Espada. Aizen wanted to test Ichigo so he gave Ulquiorra his second release, which in turn made him stronger than the rest of the Espada.
Thanks! Yeah the power scaling in Bleach is really all over the place, and by the end of the series it was just off the chart. True fair point about Ulquiorra, it makes sense that Aizen would want to test Ichigo, but I still wish the top 3 were more powerful or even resembled the threat Ulquiorra was.
Kubo himself confirmed Yammy being the strongest. And Starrk the 2nd strongest behind him
@@fangsilver1977 my problem is that it doesn't really feel earned next to espada like Ulquiorra,Halibel, and starrk cause the first time we see him he just gets his ass kicked and near the end we find out he the strongest and still know next to nothing about him.
Doesn't matter what you feel @@davidkuykendall3778
It was nice and well planned
Strongest are based on numbers
Only change is ulquiorra being the strongest after Using segunda and yammy second release
Yammy second Res
Ulquiorra second Res
1st Res yammy
Stark
Barragan
Harribel
Ulquiorra
My biggest problem with bleach is how ichigo's bankai was handled.
Against Byakuya His body couldnt handle his bankai's power and it slowly made him weaker and more tired "low stamina dbz moment"
But then right after ss arc he has no downsides, Like he mastered it of screen.
Completely right, also I hate how the whole deal with his bankai is he becomes insanely fast, but this is NEVER shown effectively again since everyone can just keep up with him for some reason. His bankai feels like his shikai.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt
His bankai suffers the same fate as super saiyan.
They get used as base combat forms and a new form needs to be used as the "Power up" hollowfication & ssj2/3.
The bount arc actually had ichigo unable to use his bankai until his body recovered. I really loved that idea.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt
The speed buff was only shown again against Ginjo.
Nnoitora did say ichigo's speed was impressive. (A low stamina ichigo)
@@FrancisL4D Funnily enough I watched the Bount arc without realising it was filler, since I was a lot younger and Bleach was one of my first anime. I enjoyed it at the time, although my memory is quite hazy now.
To this day I weep for the loss of Ulqiorra, he should have survived or returned as a purified soul reaper or something, heck I’d accept him coming back as ichigo and orihime’s kid
It's such a shame that Harribel of all the espada was kept alive for some reason, and we lost a great character like Ulquiorra.
Ah this takes me back, but I wonder why youtube suggested a video to me from... wait this is from *2 days ago*!? This gave me flashbacks.
Haha, for some reason I was thinking about bleach again recently. Some lingering nostalgia!
Good video but I will say that Kenpachi's whole gimmick is that he's constantly holding himself back, subconsciously as well, which is the only reason he lost to Ichigo. Also it's decently clear he tends to grow in strength FAR faster than any other character in the series, even more than Ichigo. So those two reasons explain why he lost to Ichigo but yet was crazy strong later on. I believe it's mentioned later in a novel as well that Aizen was concerned about fighting Kenpachi and that's why Aizen made sure he was sealed up in hueco mundo, most likely waiting to fight him until Aizen gets his god form.
His growth is just crazy, I wonder if Kubo planned him out fully from the start or added it in later. That's interesting about the novel though, funnily enough I'm trying to think if Aizen and Kenpachi ever interact in the anime and I don't think they do.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt zaraki was foreshadowed since his entrance, after losing/drawing against shikai ichigo he fought 2 captains while wearing his eyepatch.
The question you should ask is just how much more powerful was Ichigo while working with old man zangetsu.
Every time OMZ has helped Ichigo he has always made crazy leaps in power.
Getting no diffed by a kenpachi isn't an anti feat
Kenny adjusts his power to his enemies
Only reason i hate yammy is because he transformed twice and didn't
1. Shake the las noches
2. Destroy it
Whereas top 4 need to transform outside
Good point about the top 3 having a restriction on their release, I forgot about that. Definitely an inconsistency.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt not top 3
Top 4
The only possible reason I can think of for the Yammy thing is that he didn't use any ability of gran ray cero or greater, I've not read those chapters in a while but I believe he mainly used regular cero, punches, and stomps (he wasn't effectively utilising his massive reiatsu pool, considering the lack of powerful abilities he showed his transformation seems more of an endurance type simply giving enormous amounts of reiatsu)
@@exodus9669 he Did use a black cero Least in the original material in the anime for some reason they changed it to red
Honestly that's less of a character trait and more of A cop out by the author because he always wants that character to seem badass so that character is just going to be however strong the author needs him to be
Honestly it's just poor writing Because the author clearly realized that he wanted to keep using the character but had made the character weaker than the protagonist shikai so the author just slapped a band aid on that characters story saying ah he just changes power to whatever is convenient to the story
And even then it just doesn't make sense
my problem with the quinces was that there were WAY too many of them to even care about , it was literally a-z in #. I know that you could say the same thing for the Espada but there is a bare minimum of ones of importance(10) while I couldn't tell you for the quinces cause all of them just got like 1-2 fights. I also think the power escalation gets ludicus by TYBW cause now these people a using their imagination as powers and future sight, but they still lose even though the only thing the gotei 13 do is just release there bankai. I hate how repetative these fight after fights can be when the only factors to consider is "who has unleashed their FINAL FINAL form last in the fight?"
100% agreed. 10 characters in a villain group feels like the upper limit to me, having more than 30 characters to keep track of in TYBW is just absurd. And yeah the powers made absolutely no sense in TYBW, it's like Kubo had been held back then went completely off the rails. Every power had some ridiculous god mode or hack that couldn't be dealt with without some other form of hack. It's funny to compare something like Renji's original bankai to the stuff we get by the end of the series.
Yeah, a Bankai is extremely powerful, why do you think they preemptively tried to seal them away?
You saying "the only thing the gotei 13 do is just release there bankai" as if it's some weak ability is absurd.
That's how Bleach works, their powers have different Forms (Shikai / Bankai / Resurrección / Letsz Stil / Vollständig)
@@OmenLamb Bankai are only as powerful as the arc demands them need be, Soul society Bankai's are kinda a joke in End game Bankai's. N just releasing your "final" form gets boring after lots of 1 sided fight and I notice it especially when there are characters fighting that I just don't care about or the design of the bankai is boring, uninteresting, or ugly. I think the fights should have implemented stuff like Kido or something to spice up the W's. I also think Bankai isn't the strongest possible form for a soul reaper cause of Dangai Ichigo.
@@davidkuykendall3778 "Bankai are only as powerful as the arc demands them need be, Soul society Bankai's are kinda a joke in End game Bankai"
- That's because when the characters get stronger, their Bankai evolves with them.
- Naruto Part 1 Jutsu are a joke in comparison to the End Game Jutsu, that's in every Shonen.
- The one thing that cas been consitent is that Bankai's are extremely powerfull in every ARC we have seen.
"N just releasing your "final" form gets boring after lots of 1 sided fight"
- I don't think Bleach is a show for you, I think you'd enjoy other shows in which Transformations are a non-factor.
"I think the fights should have implemented stuff like Kido or something to spice up the W's"
- I understand what you're saying but I personally don't wanna see Sternritters, the Schutzstaffel or Yhwach losing to a Kido Spell, that's just me.
"I notice it especially when there are characters fighting that I just don't care about or the design of the bankai is boring, uninteresting, or ugly"
- Understandable, I justdon't think the concept and system of Zanpakutou reaching different level like (Shikai & Bankai) is for you, and since you love Kido I think you would enjoy Spell-based shows like Black Clover, Magi and Fairy Tail more than something like Bleach.
"I also think Bankai isn't the strongest possible form for a soul reaper cause of Dangai Ichigo"
- Yes & No.
- This has always been extremely had because Ichigo and Aizen reached Trancendence by Fusing with their Zanpakutos.
- Ichigo so far is the only character to ever get there 'Naturally' the issue is Ichigo is a Hybrid not a regular Soul Reaper.
- Aizen is aslo a Hybrid who archieved this state but in an "Abnormal' way with the Hyogoku's power.
- So we don't know if it's possible for a non-hybrid pure blooded (Soul Reaper / Hollow / Quincy) to archieve that state, normally without the Hyogoku.
@@OmenLamb I think the Qunicies lack cohesion unlike Espada which why I favor them
1)I'm half and half with you about the Bankai getting stronger.
2) In Naruto pt 1 you get introduced to
Summoning Jutsu,
8 Gates,
reanimation jutsu,
Reaper Death Seal,
and shadow clones.
all these jutsus carry over seamlessly into part up until like mid-end of the war arc cause they were previously established.
3)I really do like transformations in anime, I'm a Ben 10 fan and thats it's whole gimmick.The difference is that it has just about as many characters in bleach but a 3rd of them are the same charcter, which allows for that show to have its cake and eat it too.
4) I apprecite your recommendations, I just like to know a character's arsenal n kit so I can think in my head how the fight would go and be more engaged in the fight.like each jutsu someone like part 1 naruto and sasuake have are things that are suited to a specific role.
5)I reread the manga about the dagai training,and now that I thought about It.why didn't Ichigo tell the soul society about the dagai training or how come his dad only know the inner workings inside the danagi.I'm pretty sure somebody like mayuri or Kisuke would know about the dangai. So why don't they take all the leiutanants and background soul reapers into the Dangai to train until they get Dangai or at least Bankai. They have all the time in the world to prepare in their and that would have made the TYBW arc more believable with the soul reapers beating the quincies if everyone in their army had a bankai or Dangai rather than Ywawch getting beat by some bum ass arrow(I'm still disapointed by how underwelhming it was).
6) Even after trying to critisize bleach I still had a fun time both anime and collecting the manga.Ulquiorra is my favorite character/villian and ichigo is easily my favorite mc out of the big 3.(luffy just too dumb for me to care n naruto was great underdog until when we find out more about him.)
I'll probably not watch the anime cause I remember reading it and thought it was inticimactic as hell but I probably play the bleach game coming out because Arrancar arc is my favorite arc.
The author of this story was awful about backing himself into a corner with the villains he constantly would have the heroes find a very good way to win the fight only for it to be revealed that that effort failed but also that was the best move that the heroes could do so suddenly the author has no effective way to get rid of the villain and has to think up some much Lamer way to off them in the next chapter and that's the thing they would only last one or two more chapters after the good solution and good ending to the fight gets squandered just for a cheap twist at the end of a chapter
The more I think about it honestly I think that might have been the author's biggest weakness as a writer was his constant blundered endings to fights due to his constant insistence on keeping the fight going for one or two more chapters more than it needed
valkyrie for example got a perfect ending to the fight where all three of the captains team up to deliver their absolute best and managed to disintegrate his body down to nothing only for the author for no good reason brings Valkyrie back in a even stronger form just for that form to not even launch a single attack before it's lamely killed by the main villain who for no reason decides to kill his own men because the author is ending the story soon
I know you praised the way rank two Is defeated by his own power but I think the better ending to the fight would have been if the nuke missile being blown up in his face inside the magic cage would have been a much better ending to the fight as after that rank two never does anything of significance he just yells for a bit takes his opponent's arm then dies in a chapter of two anyways
Rank 6 has the same problem As the main protagonist falls to despair only to get some motivation from orahime and grab rank sixes arm before slicing him down the Middle vertically That would have been the perfect ending but no story had to keep going for another chapter two where rank 6 just yells a bit does some lame blue energy clause that looks really dumb because the claws go in the opposite direction
And there's quite a few other fights that follow the same trend
Yeah I do agree with you. Bleach, to me, has a serious problem with ridiculous hack and god abilities clashing against each other, so many of the battles have no rhyme or reason for what happens and we can't really accurately predict how the abilities will interact. Like Gremmy should be totally unstoppable but he somehow loses to Kenpachi who can only use brute physical force. And Gerald should have died, like you said, but was made so ridiculous and op that he ends up just getting absorbed by Yhwach.
The fights were much better at the start of the series, but afterwards they just devolved into a mess.
To not mention the Homunculi from FMA as an iconic villain group is blasphemy
Haha that's my bad, they are for sure a fantastic group I love FMA. I guess the only difference I'd point out is they're more "henchmen" for Father whereas the Espada, at least in theory, more have their own motivations and goals.
Baragans abilities working on him isn't weird as he didn't say it couldn't and we know even ulquiorra didn't want his lanza on him
I think you've misunderstood, I said it was clever to use his own abilities against him.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt then how is that a problem?
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptthere wasn’t anything else that could’ve stopped Barragan so it was a smart move, if they didn’t Barragan would’ve killed everyone
@ashanime5655 the problem is that hachi has this op kido to transport anything, anywhere he likes, which u would assume be very useful in plenty of situations, but is never used again. It was just a plot device to k1ll off barragon in a cheap way
@@XAsh_black Because the ability to transport anything inside of an opponents body at will instantly is more overpowered than any other soul Reapers
think about it he could just transport a hand grenade inside any character's head There's nothing they could do to stop it
Main antagonist dead Head of the Soul Reapers dead All five members of the Soul Reaper Royal Guard Dead ability to rewrite someone's name with ink is very powerful but not as powerful as instant hand grenade in your brain
so basically this character now as I just explained is stronger than almost doing another character in the story literally the only power better is the almighty and the guy with that power didn't even have it for most of the final arcs So even he could have had a grenade to the brain
You know when you think about it the ability to transport anything into an opponent's body is so overpowered that suddenly this side character with little to no Hype Is suddenly one of if not the strongest character in the story he can just warp a hand grenade into an opponent's brain
aizen Yamamoto That weird form the main protagonist takes at the end of this arc the Quincy king Before he gets almighty Any member of the Royal Guard Any member of the Quincy Royal Guard Are all instantly dead to that ability he can kill any of them with hand grenade to brain and I see no reason why his power wouldn't let him do that if he can transport his arm into an opponent why not hand grenade
That's Hachi right? Yeah that's true I didn't think about that...tbh Bleach is so inconsistent with it's abilities and powers that it's hard to keep track of anyway.
The no.1 espada losing to a shikai isn't wrong when that same shikai made lille barro go volstandi like the hell?
The point being that the espada were shown to be much weaker than the Quincy, who felt like an actual threat. And the TYBW arc has awful power scaling anyway.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt you did not counter my point you just made another wrong point
Bleach doesn't have awful scaling the fans like yourself are just mad a certain character isn't above another
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt the espada aren't at all weaker or at most aren't that weak compared to the sternritters
Base grimjow chased askin and Res grimjow killed him
Nel could also endure gift ball deluxe to save them
Top 4( mostly ulquiorra and stark ) should be comparable to base Lille as he was forced to use volstandi by shunsui
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptYou can't scale power in bleach just by shikai < bankai and their equivalent. The series shown that each form can be trained.
@@XAsh_black What the hell are you talking about? Bringing up a villain in a later arc to justify why a previous one who was hyped up to high heaven being stronger than captains simply by a Shikai is absolute shit writing.
Bleach absolutely has the worst scaling out of the history of the big 3 shounen during its time. Absolutely undeniable.
I feel so bad for the Uploader having to deal with so many delusional Bleach Fans
Exactly, this is what I always tell to my friends who says bleach is there favourite
Naruto had it's own flaws but I ended up preferring it to Bleach. One Piece was awesome but post timeskip hasn't been the same.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptMy major problem with One Piece, post-timeskip, is that the art style, while objectively better, feels so glossy now. I really appreciated the lines and shading of the previous style. That and Sanji. I get that he was on an island of only guys for like 2-3 years, but come on. He's intolerable, nowadays.
@@xavierthomas5835 Yeah unfortunately lots of the crew are now suffering from extreme flanderisation. They felt much more real and genuine pre-timeskip, now they feel like hollowed out versions of their previous selves.
@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt Which, honestly, might simply be due to the length of the story. Keeping track of exactly how to characterize each character in your story, as well as creating proper jokes to fit them can be overwhelming after so much time. Some things get scaled down, and others get scaled up.
There are so many Shinigami that we could have had the top 3 Espada kill some of them…the Vizards would have been enough to replace them. But again it was rushed….yeah the top 3 got jumped which yeah is a good measure they were tough but it just wasn’t portrayed well enough
Yeah very true, funnily enough I feel like the Vizards ended up kind of wasted as well since there are a lot of them too and not really enough room in the already bloated cast.
Not having Barragan (THE KING OF HUECO MUNDO) Fight Yamamoto (Head captain of gotei 13) is such a waste.
Could've been a great way to showcase yama's power.
Yeah Yama not taking part in any fights was kind of silly. He even tells off the vice captains lol for making him fight against Ayon. Weird sense of ego holding him back there?
9:20 Mayuri is known for creating several types of unpredictable drugs like the one he used up against Toshiro, it’s what his characters known for and why he’s one of the most dangerous Captains without needing a Bankai
I like Mayuri, but every fight he ends up pulling out a new drug or bit of equipment, some of which are incredibly useful but aren't ever used again. The superhuman drug might have been helpful dealing with the other espada, or even Aizen, for example.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt The Super human Drug he use against Szayelaporro is a Defense weapon in case Nemu were to be devoured by a Hollow, Mayuri explained this and it was literally used again against Pernida in Tybw arc, also Mayuri’s drugs can’t work on Aizen because of the Hogyoku.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptJust want you to know man that your grievances are perfectly founded and well understood. No matter what anyone else says, you have tried your best to objectively critique a story that DOES have notable problems. Above all else though, I really appreciate your humility, patience, and sincerity when dealing with these responses. May Jesus bless your works.
@@xavierthomas5835 Thank you friend much appreciated!
The problem with the espadas was that their accomplishments in the series were not satisfactory
Yeah agreed.
Honestly though i wished the espada ended some captains early. Like seriously imagine the pain momo would have if Toshiro wss killed by harribel or Aizen. This would promote her and rangiku to be better as people and promote two female characters. Another thing bleach really lacks in the grand scheme of things
I'm with you. Bleach definitely has a problem of a lack of many meaningful deaths for the main cast. Even Byakuya got a fake out death in the TYBW arc.
No one stood further above the opps than Bill Russell
This video seems to be a very Tier 0/Tier 1 reading of Kubo's writing. The Espada were not wasted, they did exactly what they were supposed to do, story wise. It's not just about the fights themselves, like most Shonen anime, it's also about a clash of ideals, emotions and honour.
For example, you noted that Grimmjow was cool, you noticed what his fight was about, but you forgot that Ichigo won because he "decided it was time", and just one-shot Grimmjow, to his surprise. Like, as if he could have done that any time. But throughout the fight it's portrayed that Ichigo enjoys fighting, and wants to fight, but he wears a mask because he's afraid of letting completely loose. And so Orihime is also afraid of him. Don't forget that the mask is both literal and figurative. It's a "fake it until you make" it kind of mentality.
Meanwhile, during the Ulquiorra fight, he tries the same shtick of putting on a lil mask, only to be throughly folded. The clash of ideals is no longer "destruction vs protection". It's now "I don't give a shit about your values vs protection". And clearly, Ulquiorra "I don't give a shit" Cifer does NOT give a shit. So Ichigo lets loose what he's most afraid of - his instinct and raw lust for battle that he was afraid of for literally the entire arc.
It's very likely that Ichigo was stronger in his fight against Byakuya (pre hollow transformation) than for most of of Hueco Mundo, simply because he started being afraid of himself and his own power once it came out in the Byakuya fight.
Regarding the inconsistent power levels you mentioned, like Ichigo being stronger against Byakuya vs in Hueco Mundo, I think this is a way to cover for lazy/inconsistent writing, because it's left to us as the readers to fill in the gaps rather than properly communicated through the series. My impression from the series is that once Ichigo masters his hollow mask, it provides a straight boost to his abilities over his bankai.
I agree that the fights were clashes of ideals and emotions, but that doesn't take away from the point (in my opinion) that the Espada failed as a villain group because they were never threatening enough to the main cast. And maybe that's not an issue in itself - but it becomes more of a problem when they were hyped up to the extent they were, only to fail to deliver on the expectations setup by the narrative itself.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt the inconsistent power levels argument comes from the "typical shonen" side, like the expectation of the genre is that every character gets predictable and simple boosts in power at regular intervals. This isn't necessarily the case in Bleach, so where you see inconsistency, I believe it's actually the point.
Consider the fact that Ichigo never again has to use his hollow mask for anything post dangai training and fullbring training. Wouldn't that mean he's weaker and intentionally handicapping himself? Obviously not, because he finally understands what the inner hollow wants. He's also no longer afraid to take a life, because he takes Ginjo's without hesitation, after trying to understand him. Until the dangai training, he was afraid to take a life, so he spared all of his opponents, but against Aizen he went all out, with the intent to kill. Kubo confirmed that Ichigo was able to access the full hollow transformation post Ulquiorra fight, but was too afraid of going out of control, so he didn't.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt also could you elaborate what "hyped up" means for the espada in this context? Because the soul reaper captains were just as hyped up in SS arc, and all of them were either no-shows or lost their fights, except Aizen and Kyoraku (which is quite a statement considering one went on to become the head captain at his level, and the other became an antagonist for the next arc). I'd argue the espada did quite a lot more than the captains all things considered.
@@tailez606 But the captains all beat the espada? So I'm not sure how you can say they performed better than the captains did. Can you name a single notable victory the espada had, that had long lasting impact?
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt the point I'm trying to make is that in the SS arc, the captains were hyped up and they lost, but that doesn't detract from the story. Yet when the Espada show up in Hueco Mundo arc and lose, that does detract from the story? Why? They're the "primary group of antagonists for this arc" and they lose. What's the problem with that?
Pretty much all of the espada serve some purpose of advancing a given character's mental journey. For Rukia it's coping with the death of Kaien, for Ichigo it's a struggle with his powers, for Byakuya it's reafirming his new stance on his values, post-SS. We learn that Kenpachi, for all his desire for a good fight, doesn't actually want to die and will unlock some of his potential to prevent that. We also learn something about Mayuri, but off the top of my head, idk what it is.
For the captains in Karakura Town it's a bit different, since we didn't get to see as much of them during the SS arc, but even there, the fights weren't even 1 on 1. They were multiple high level shinigami vs 1 of the top 3's. That's hardly a faceroll if you ask me. I think all of them could easily beat most captains in straight 1v1s
In my opinion 9 was fine but rukia should have a full fight in his resurrection form
8 this should be renji victory. since he’s a scientist grants maybe he do tricks to make him have more fights.
7 should be uryu victory
6 fine
5 chad victory, I know chad is weak but kubo can pull a dragon ball and let chad absorb the PE he defeated and barley win against nnoritora
4 fine but the final fight should be more even
3 make her face torshiro, soifon, kenpachi , and byakuya
2 he’s a king of huco mundo and have a lot of history. It could be a good battle against Yamamoto. They can even mention the Quincy king to foreshadow him.
1 make him face all the vizards with all the captains use their bankai
This would have been a lot better. Also yeah it would have nice for more of the characters to get their own wins.
I think the only change I'd make to your list is swapping around the number 1 and 2 fights.
I agree with most of your points, the Arrancar arc is by far my least favorite. That said I would like to give my take on a few points.
1. The Espada aren't ranked by strength, but by reitsu. Yammy 0 form has more reitsu then other Espada, but he doesn't have any fighting skills or hax, so he gets easilly overpowered.
2. Vasto Lorde Ichigo was foreshadowed, actually Kubo straight up told us like 100 chapters before "If Ichigo is about to die white will come out." I'm not sure if you're anime only, but I can assure you anime didn't do this arc justice. Not only does pacing suck but it completely missed full plot points, Kubo had beef with the directors for how they handled Vasto Lorde, anime made it seem as if Ichigo is getting up to protect Orihime, it was actually White saying "I will protect" to Ichigo.
Also, you said you don't like TYBW which is certainly an unpopular opinion. While I do think there was way too many of the Sternritter and Kubo just didn't manage to write them all well enough most of them I do think are handled pretty well.
1. Yeah very good point actually I overlooked this. I guess it kind of leans into Yammy just being a dumb brute who can't use his own techniques effectively.
2. I was anime only for most of Bleach, I only read the Fullbringer and TYBW arcs in the manga. That's such a shame to hear, but not surprising I guess for a shonen show - that line of dialogue for example actually does shift a lot about the scene and makes it much more palatable. Because one of my biggest problems was White manifests, saves Ichigo and his friends, then vanishes without consequence. But it makes more sense if he was acting to save Ichigo rather than Orihime.
I've been interested to learn that I'm in the minority of people who don't like TYBW. I might do a video on it in the future, because it'd be good to have a more open discussion with people about what they like and didn't like, and it's hard to summarise all my thoughts in comments.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt I find it funny that the only manga arcs you read are the 2 arcs that anime did well xD. Fullbring arc was handled pretty well and TYBW is done WAY BATTER in the anime. Again, not sure if you're caught up with it but Kubo was sick writing most of TYBW and rushed so many scenes, even made a couple of mistakes and pointless plot points(like NaNaNa spying on Renji). He's the main director working on the anime, fixing all of his mistakes and adding extra scenes he couldn't add to the manga, thus tybw anime is even more canon then the manga. On top of that the animation is top notch, Studio Perriot literally made a whole new studio specifically for Bleach.
To answer a questions I forgot in the original comment.
Second release isn't an Ulqiorra exclusive, any Arrancar can achieve it with enough training(as confirmed by Kubo in Klub Outside).
And to top it off with a fun fact just bc I want to say it somewhere : ). It was confirmed in the LN Szyealporro's hollow hole is on his...little friend...and hollow holes represent unfulfilled desires so, yeah, he had no game.
@@Torifunee Haha I should have known for Szaeyel, that's funny.
Yeah I watched the anime for TYBW, the animation was absolutely gorgeous. It's nice to see Bleach return in such a flashy way. I did notice there were already some changes and improvements from the manga, I hope the ending especially gets a drastic rewrite (I know he was forced to end it early before).
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt "I've been interested to learn that I'm in the minority of people who don't like TYBW."
You might be encountering a vocal minority of people who do like it. I can't stand TYBW.
@@johnfernandez2751 I've really got to prioritise a video on it, I'm very interested to open up the discussion on it.
Good evening 🌃. I'm fan harribel and Mila rose and sunsun and apacci and coyote stark and grimjaw and ulquorra and bleach series. Everyone have great day and next day and week and weekend and next week and full happiness.
Kenpachi lost to Ichigo on purpose in Soul Society arc and it’s been stated by Unhona that he’s known for making himself weaker in order to enjoy his fights longer
I wouldn't say he lost on purpose, he just acknowledged he was beaten at the end.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pthe was basically testing Ichigo to see if he had potential to be a worthy opponent for him and he did, which was why he chose to help him out later in the story due to respect so he could fight him at his best
@@ChillDeathgodSounds like the relationship between Goku and Vegeta before Vegeta was a family man. Main difference being that Vegeta actually fought Goku again, whereas Kenpachi never actually fights ichigo, or even expresses interest in fighting Ichigo again. In fact, he affirms that his greatest fight, to this day, was with Unohana. In the end, this relationship with Ichigo is nigh-meaningless to the story, except for the fact that it allows them to work on the same team without conflict.
To be fair one the "Espada 0" twist, how could there have been a tenth when the ninth was Gilian class?
Even if there had to be a twist reveal, did it really have to be Yammy? He's such a rubbish character and he accomplished nothing. I would have preferred to just stick with 1 to 10.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt
... yeah, for "the ninth was Gilian class," remember?
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptWonderweiss would have been the better 0 Espada…we knew he was always Espada level. Yammy should have just stayed at level 10 and lost to Chad and Renji jumping him…they needed the win.
@@Teddy3230-u4dBarragan shoulda been the 0 Espada
@@Teddy3230-u4dYammy should have been Ulquiorra's fraccioni
Whatever happened to that pit full of vasto lordes which were basically Ulquiorra clones? That would have been an interesting twist to see one or more of them show up and have everyone confused on how Ulquiorra is still alive.
You are wrong
Kenpachis power increases as he flights as we know so how is that inconsistent?
And zangetsu increased ichigos power in that fight like dam
Saying kenpachi stayed stagnant with all we know about him is crazy as after his fight with ichigo he literally fought tosen and komamura
The sternritter are even more wasted
I really didn't like them as villains in the final arc.
Someone who thinks the espada were wasted snd the quincy need to be tossed out? Yes! Finally!
I was a little surprised that a lot of people seem to like the final arc with the Quincy, I remember reading the manga when it was first coming out and I thought it was really disappointing.
@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt yeah. I'm hyped to see bleach back and with such nice animation but there are A LOT of people thar talk about TYBW like it's peak and...its just more lost potential.
Aside from everything you said in this video, I also think Kubo dropped the ball by not having the Visoreds be the ones to save Ichigo and his friends in Hueco Mundo. 1. They know Ichigo and Orihime and have a connection to them. 2. Soul Society said they wouldn't intervene. 3. It would've given more screentime for the Visoreds to show off and do stuff. 4. We'd get to see shinigami eith hollow powers and hollows with shinigami powers go at it instead of the captains that we'd already seen in action.
Shame
@@mahoutsuguy863 The Vizard coming to Hueco Mundo would have been really cool, I never thought about that. Yeah I'm excited to see Bleach back purely because of nostalgia, and it'll be cool to see some of the bankais animated in the modern, flashy style, but it really did remind me of how little sense the final arc made.
Hot take: neither the Arrancar Arc/TYBW Arc should have existed. There should have been an all-out war between the 3 worlds which would lead to guerilla warfare, situational alliances and even possible backstabbing/treason. It would have been a great way to show power scaling and give a real sense of danger.
Interesting idea! To be honest I think they could have left out the Quincy, or maybe have Ishida train a new generation of them. And then the major war could have been between Aizen and the Hollow and the Soul King.
Hot Take(Part 2): I'd rather they have strung out the quincy arc into 2, than have the whole meaningless song and dance with Aizen and the fullbring arc. In the grand scheme of everything going on, they didn't do anything to change the story except introduce even more characters into the story.
It'd also have allowed the quincy to have:
1)more characterization
2) a deeper antagonism of the soul society than they had
3) more believable scaling
4) even more characterization
They are sorely lacking definable and diverse qualities.
"Don't feel threatening"?? Terror above the dome scared Orihime and Uryu.
Harribel was pretty conflict avoidant too, the top 4 Espada were all Vasto Lorde class hollows and they all resemble humans more than their adjuchas and Gillian counterparts not just in appearance but in personality and attitude. Starrk is lonely and values friendship/companionship and is averse to fighting. Barragan craves power but doesn’t have a senseless bloodlust like normal hollows, his identity is simply wrapped up in the notion of being king of the hollows. Harribel is averse to conflict as well, stating she doesn’t want to grow stronger through the sacrifice of others. She has a philosophy and only fights for the sake of her friends, something very showing of her humanity. Ulquiorra is a character defined by stoicism and a lack of understanding of the human heart. He also lacks the insatiable bloodlust of normal hollows and is generally very dispassionate. He can’t understand the human heart but it is this very lack of understanding that drives him to find the answer. He questions what the heart is and what it means, finally gaining understanding of it towards the end of his life. His character arc concludes having gained what his character lacked his entire life. But anyway my point is, the top 4 Espada all have a semblance of humanity, they are all well written save for the fact they essentially don’t do much.
Yeah very good point to be fair, it's interesting how the hollow exhibit more "human" traits the more powerful/evolved they are. It's a bit of a shame it wasn't explored more to be honest, the closest we got was the whole thing with Ulquiorra and the heart, as you mentioned, but sadly it never really led anywhere.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt I totally agree, would have liked to see Starrk and Ulquiorra survive, there’s a real tragedy to Starrk’s death that is really never explored or even thought of after it happens. I feel like the character didn’t really go anywhere and his death could have been more meaningful if he were to for instance, have survived the Fake Karakura Town arc and sacrificed himself to protect the remaining surviving Espada from the Wandenreich during their invasion of Hueco Mundo, dying in order to protect his friends would be a cool resolution to his character arc which was about breaking free of solitude. Ulquiorra was a character whose character arc was wrapped up beautifully, there was such a sense of tragedy knowing he finally understood the meaning of the heart as he fades to dust. If he were to live I think he would have had an arc similar to the one I envision for Starrk, where he attempts to protect the other Arrancars/Espada while also learning how to form attachments. As for Harribel, I feel like her character could have been executed a lot better. Her fight vs Hitsugaya is very underwhelming and I really feel like she should have won considering what Hitsugaya himself said about the Vasto Lorde class hollows, that they were stronger than soul reaper captains. This would have also done more to really establish the Espada as a threat. The impermanence of death for the Soul Reapers drained a lot of tension from the story because there doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of actual stake for the protagonists, meanwhile the antagonists simply die under the exact same circumstances. A good example of this is Hinamori being stabbed through the chest several times but being saved but a significantly stronger character like Starrk is stabbed in the chest and dies. It’s very bizarre. And this is the case for many of the Soul Reapers/protagonists.
Only 3 minutes in and I fully agree.
Thank you!
Finally something I can agree with, I fully agree, out of the Big Three, episodes 1-65 for me too, Bleach was on top. Then I did watch for Hueco Mundo but when it came to what should be the highlight of the show, I didn't even make it past the fight of the first Espada...Barragan was also such a big disappointment, all talk, no threat. Soi Fon being a Captain still makes me believe nepotism is running rampant in Soul Society. And there I was basically so tuned out already that the best of each episodes was the opening song. I mean, the OSTs were the best part of the Hueco Mundo anyways. And now I had so many youtube shorts popping up and this weird hype about the new anime release...and every time I now hear people hyping the show like its a masterpiece just because there is random info to be found that is never explained in either show or manga, I kinda resent it, because this show for me was all the hype, is now considered the weakest part by those that claim all the hidden brilliance of the show...meanwhile when I watch it, it just often feels...boring. Even losses and tragic events kinda feel like they are calculated, there is just nothing that evokes emotions anymore other than maybe confusion. I appreciate that Blood War wanted to get chaos and fear back into the show but it feels like a hollow shell of its former self. To me at least. Looks pretty, but for its time Bleach always did. That doesn't get me hyped. Kenpachi is an unbeatable god. Ok. Ichigo was always set up to be everything of everyone...cool, but I honestly enjoyed the show more when people were surprised that he got the third highest test scores in his class because he actually learns like a good kid despite everything his outward nature suggests. That got me more excited what else he defies expectations with.
I'm completely with you. To be honest I think people have forgotten the criticisms towards bleach back in the day, there's a reason it was cancelled early. The manga was a mess, and the TYBW arc was the worst arc for me by far, with the only redeeming thing being seeing some more bankais. But the power level was all over the place, the fights just devolved into clashes of ridiculous hacks and god powers, the plot didn't make sense, and the quincies weren't interesting villains.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt I hate the Bankai's in TYBW cause that is how most fight in that arc are won, meanwhile, the quinces have such diverse(although I wish there were some more similarities in kits) like future seeing, fear manifestation, and Imagination yet still lose cause we just haven't seen somebody's bankai yet.
He is the fastest in his base and besides he said he's sonido is the best not pure speed your misunderstanding
What does having the best sonido mean? He can't go the furthest? Use it the most often? Create clones with it? It becomes meaningless.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt the fastest sonido just means he's the best at it and he basically shows us as he was able to create clones with sonido
Just travelling/ covering distance is basic
And all this is just in Their base forms
@@XAsh_black he's not the best at it. He just has the fastest activation of sonido. It's like how fast a person's initial sprint would be. Starrk has shown he has a better overall usage of sonido by using more consistently and traveling longer distances.
@@Blackmustache870 travelling/ covering distance is basic
@ashanime5655 traveling long distances? No it isn't. Shunsui got specific praise from yammammoto for being able to do that. In most instances in the series, the quick movement techniques r very short ranged. Even many captains were shown to use many flashsteps to even to get to a fraction of the distance that shunsui did with one.
This is me just spit balling but the sternritter should’ve been based on planets with them having like 2 subordinates based on moons or stars that cut it down more so they have more screen time
Wow... That's actually such a good idea. And I can see it fitting into Bleach perfectly.
Great idea! I would honestly read a whole fanfic of this (hint hint to any authors reading this).
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt yea Man U have 8 technically 9 cuz of Pluto so u have good amount of screen time
@@WeebGuru6 I really dig the celestial theme as well, makes more sense since the Quincy kind of have an angelic theme going. Being alphabet letters is just random.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptehh, while I personally, as a Christian didn't appreciate it, the sternritter were based around angels of Jewish Mythology. This goes into the fact that Ywach is another way of saying Yahweh, which is the name of God. Though, I don't think them using EVERY LETTER OF THE ALPHABET, haha, was the right decision. Probably could have just gone into different angels and the like.
there s also a problem when you give them numbers people tend to do comparaisons and assesments and end up disappointed because of them
Yeah it's a similar problem to when you give characters "power levels" I guess. Seven Deadly Sins comes to mind.
i dont like grimjaw. Stark and Barragan are only ones i liked and stark’s release was underwhelming. i guess Szayel was cool when i rewatched. Ulquirro ending was beautiful other than that boring generic emo trope.
It's interesting to see people don't like Grimmjow, I'm actually very surprised. Yeah both Starrk and Barragan were both disappointing, Starrk most of all.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt i generally dont like shouty shouty angry characters tbf. my personal bias
@@jonathanpeterson3603 That's more than fair.
@@jonathanpeterson3603 I am indifferent towards him for the same reason . i don't really understand the difference between him , kenpachi and yammy other than just powerless they are all just battle hungry but his backstory was extremely good though and he has some cool scenes
Most espada are kinda there more as a reflection of the shinigami, aaroniero is more of an emotional battle for rukia, szayleaporro is a more extreme version of mayuri, zommari is kinda a reflection of byakyua at the start of the ss arc (his unquestioning believe in the people above him), grimmjow is a reflection of the parts that ichigo wants to deny about himself, nnoitora is a less honorable and more jealous kenpachi, ulquiorra is basically an obstacle for ichigo to overcome (there‘s more to him obviously), harribel is kinda underused and basically just kinder then the other espada, barragan is a more prideful yamamoto, ans starrk is a very lonely shunsui (also shunsui is extremely strong loosing to him even in shikai is not an antifeat) and yami is just a bad character. Also their not really supposed to be a big threat, aizen just made the group because he had time to kill and thought it would be interesting, he doesn‘t care for them and really doesn‘t need them. There is a lot more to the espada than a lot of people think but it‘s mostly symbolic stuff so it‘s a bit harder to pick up on.
I can defend vasto lorde because it’s white taking over because ichigo wasn’t fit to be king in that moment so he threw him off his back but it not being explained and not being used is my problem
I think it makes sense for the hollow to appear, but the massive, massive jump in power is what I have an issue with. It just conveniently comes out of nowhere to save Ichigo without any consequences since he gets his body back after winning the fight. Shouldn't the hollow have stayed in charge?
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt there was consequences he couldn’t dawn his allow mask as much along with the fact his attack potency dropped cause he was doing what he did pre vizor training holding hollow side at bay
@@WeebGuru6 As soon as he leaves Hueco Mundo he can use the mask again though. And then it's quickly made irrelevant because he learns the FGT, after which the hollow mask is a thing of the past.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt The jump in power is a result of the hollow fully utilizing his power. Ichigo only recently acquired control over hollowfication and wasn't able to use it to his full potential. If you ever watched Naruto it's like the difference between Naruto using 3 Tails Chakra cloak vs 9 tails
Not every Espada was a compelling character, but there were more good Espada than bad. They either had a strong character arc or were instrumental in the development of other characters, like Rukia. Starrk wasn't fighting seriously, yammy being espade zero was bad that's why kubo made his fight off screen, Ichigo beat kenpach because as old man zangetsu said its two against one.
From what I am seeing your major complaint is the espada didn't do as much dmagage to the soul society as the quincy, also from this you only thought 3 espade weren't interesting in both character and what they achieve. Starrk dying was disappointing but it also makes his character arc more emotional just like ulqiorra IMO.
ichigo wasn't the one that pulled out full hallow it was white and Ichigo determination to protect orohime that caused it
Definitely agree that overall there were most good Espada than bad. But, as you said, my main disappointment is I feel they failed somewhat as a villain group. Or at the very least, failed to live up to their full potential.
To say full hollow isnt reference again is wrong. I also think full hollow ichigo works since there us setup for the hollow taking over and that rampaging berserker form is cool
The top three were definitely the worst handled it was established that the 4th was more than a match for the main hero and I'm not talking about that 2nd transformation of his I'm talking about just his base form And first transformation more than enough to handle the main character
Only for the three that are at least stronger than his first transformation to be completely ineffective with two of them basically being toyed with the third and the first
3rd strongest For some reason dinks around with only using her water powers against her opponent's superior ice power but the thing is is that her physical abilities are just so much higher than he is so there's no reason for her not to just rush in and cut him in half she's faster and stronger than him
and really toshiro should not even be close do her in terms of speed or strength he has been consistently shown to be a average strength captain at this point in the storyline
The second strongest performs the best but he's the only one who gets a favorable mismatch with his opponent being someone who relies almost entirely on close range combat And his Fight is really boring considering he mostly just stands in place and monologs occasionally throwing out some aging power that goes through something maybe takes an arm and then he stops using it to monolog a bit more
and in terms of lore this should be an individual who Captain Yamamoto should be freaking out about fighting vasto Lorde are stronger than captains And he is supposedly the best of them At least he is the one who has been able to keep control over an entire plane of existence for at least thousands of years bleach is kind of vague in how far history stretches so he might even be millions of years old at the bare minimum tens of thousands and in all that time in all those 10s of thousands of years nothing has been able to dethrone him You could argue say the 4th of the first are stronger than him
but in the 10s of thousands of years no beings like the 4th of the first have emerged that had been able to just kill him and I highly doubt he has simply gotten lucky by having every hollow that becomes stronger than him just like your chance is a loner that goes and hides in a pile of tree needles
but for a being that has maintained control over creatures that are stronger than captains for 10s of thousands of years never been defeated by any of these He's honestly doesn't seem that impressive he seems to be way weaker than Yamamoto or aizen
and that just does not line up with the lore A being that's able to control beings that are stronger than Captains for tens of thousands of years uncontested Should at least be on par with the head of the Shinigami and more likely he should be superior But note he's number two with two beans being stronger than him lot of people think the 4th second transformation put him above as well and then you even have the light novel that reveals that his own head scientist was apparently at least three times stronger than him as its power was three times stronger than the zero espada which is two ranks higher than him
And the first just really ruins any hype for the Vasto Lorde here is a being who was ranked number one And yet he is completely outclassed by his opponent who while yes being one of the strongest shinigami he still shouldn't be as strong as the strongest hollow as it was previously established the strongest hollows are supposed to be stronger than the strongest Shinigami
But no he's so outclassed he can't even force his opponent to use their strongest thorn they don't even need to go bankai and his opponent seems to be able to dodge ceros so easily that even when the gun is put literally to his opponents eye point blank the blast is still dodged So he's so outclassed he doesn't seem to even be capable of hitting his opponent even at point blank and even when he finally gets a direct point blank shot to his opponent's back it doesn't do anything his opponent just gets right back up and stabs him in the back
as for rank zero honestly that one just confuses the heck at me and I feel like the author changed his mind about his strength midway through because when he first reveals that he's number zero the strongest at first it seems like he's owning up to that he is dominating his opponents even the main protagonist with a new mask Can barely nick his neck
And rank zero even directly calls rank six 5 and 4 Trash and he knows about rank 4 second transformation He felt it he knows exactly how strong that form was he felt both that energy and the main protagonist energy in that super hollow form that killed the 4th And he still considered both the 4th and the main protagonist trash basically stating that he's stronger
and there's no reason to think that he would be incorrect about that he should even though he's a moron be able to feel someone else's energy and know whether it's more or less than his own
And yet when reinforcements arrive and he fights the beings who struggled against rank 5 and 7 Suddenly he's completely outclassed Suddenly he's easier to beat than rank 5 and 7 way easier than rank 5
Only for him to reveal that he has a second transformation just like number 4 only for this form to go completely unused due to the author completely forgetting about it so it cut backs to him dying and his opponents barely damaged it all
there's many different fan theories for how rank zero worked with the most common one being that he's only the strongest in terms of raw strength which OK I tend to agree with that but that should be more than enough to beat his opponent I cannot see any logic that justifies him losing to someone who could barely beat the 5th like the 5th almost had his opponent dead
and I also just don't understand why the author did it What was the point of hyping up a character to be even stronger than what was supposed to be the strongest only for that being to Get curb stumped by people who've already had a fight that ark And their strengths have already been established to being well neither captain should be capable of beating any of the top 4 and that'd be willing to put money on that both captains combined wouldn't be able to be rank one in base form
Nothing is gained by that battle narratively not even on just a dumb popcorn enjoy the fight kind of point so there was no reason narratively to do the rank zero twist there's no height for the fight it doesn't make anybody look good it just Makes things confusing And reflects bad on the author Due to his inability to state consistent
And the thing is is that before the zero twist it was obvious to the fandom that he was supposed to fight Chad who at that point was still considered part of the main cast but who had yet to be able to defeat a major opponent and this would have been the perfect time to keep him relevant let him be ranked 10
speaking of Chad do end off my long ass rant that nobody probably is even gonna read kubo definitely had an incredibly major flaw with this story writing that he introduced so many characters that end up going nowhere And oftentimes would have characters for no reason refused to use full power their final sword release in order to create height for seeing it in the future just to never use them again so he might as well have just used the power in their fight earlier And similarly he also has the flaw of characters that just kind of disappear from the story when and that was definitely supposed to be something with them After all one of the key rules of story telling is is if you're going to introduce a character there needs to be a point of them and Kubo kept making the mistake of introducing a huge group of characters and then just picking out maybe one or two of them that are popular in throwing the rest in the garbage
I disagree, it doesn't decline after Aizen reveal at all. Fullbring is easily the best arc, every other arc i had moments where i was bored and just felt like the fights were so much more interesting then characters. The fullbring arc actually makes me teary eyed.
I don't mind the fullbring arc as a standalone, but I didn't like it in the wider context of the whole series.
Kenpachi was subconsciously adjusting his powers to his opponents later revealed in TYBW is he is justified in that context
Yeah I did mention that in this video but it still feels kind of inconsistent to me, and kind of retroactive as well. Most of the characters got significant power boosts in the final arc.
U know what could’ve been done to make the Quincy survive aizen or ywahcc were able to find a way to mix the vasto lorde with Quincy
That would have been an interesting idea! One thing I didn't like is the hollows are kind of dropped as an enemy in the final arc.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt yea I think he should’ve made the sternritter based off planets instead of letter less is more
People in the comments actually trying to defend Bleachs asspulls is astounding to me. No Ichigo beating Ulq using that asspulled form isnt in anyway foreshadowed, and even if it was, its shit writing to begin with to have some megaform save your ass which you coincidentally never use again.
The Vasto Lorde being hyped as stronger than Captain Level opponents was such a bullshit lie in retrospect and really killed the hype. Fucking number 1 Espada taken down by a Shikai.
Nice to see someone else who thinks the same! I was a little surprised to see how many people disagreed with me on these points.
Wrong again ichigo has a hollow in him like jesus christ and it always protects him in times of crisis so what are you on about?
Even aizen expected it to evolve and it did
Evolved into a vastolorde
My point was the jump in power and change in appearance is not explained or properly foreshadowed. It makes Ichigo like 50x stronger without him doing anything.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt I just checked your channel, thank God your not a bleach channel
Spouting things like white was never foreshadowed
In SS arc when hanataro found him he had a hollow mask in his chest basically save him from dying
Against kenpachi he would have died, a hollow mask blocked the attack
Against yammy and ulquiorra white was trying to take control
Even against grimjow
He even has his inner fight with white lets not pretend like w haven't seen white before
Then again we have an arc " the arrancar arc" dedicated to hollows that explains that hollow evolve and your out here saying it came from nowhere
Ichigo at that point was dead literally no resistance against white he died so white just healed him and took over as if ichigo dies he also dies like bro even in filler arcs you have white protecting ichigo
Against muramasa he fought zangetsu outside ichigos body while also fighting muramasa with ichigo
@@XAsh_black Not the hollow itself - the severe leap in power. We see hollows evolve by consuming other hollows, but Ichigo's hollow becomes orders of magnitude stronger in the background between his appearances. Ichigo didn't do anything to actively develop the power, other than spamming the mask. Why don't the Vizard hollows evolve in this way as well?
The hollow explicitly warns Ichigo not to die again when he suppresses it the first time, implying there'd be some severe consequence. But narratively there are no drawbacks to the hollow after that moment, in the Ulquiorra fight the hollow wins the fight, saves all Ichigo's friends, then Ichigo gets to carry on as if nothing happened. It was a free pass.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt the vizords are different as they are souls/ shinigami that were infected by hollowfication so their inner worlds will have a zanpaktou spirit and a hollow
Ichigo was born with white so basically he's zanpaktou spirit is his hollow not and it is the hollow and it grows everyday as that's the basics of a shinigamis zanpaktou with even zangetsu saying he held it back everytime
Even aizen expected it to evolve since it's original form wasn't even that way
what do you mean the vasto lorde form is never mentioned again?
that's what he fights in his internal world, that's what white truly looks like and it's what ichigos final bankai somewhat resembles.
if anything, it's the tailed hollow form we see during the vizard training that is never explained or mentioned again.
It's never really explained properly to be honest. You have the strange lizard form the Vizard fight, which as you said is never explained. Then the next time we see the hollow it's the horned form, and it's not really explained why there was such a monumental leap in its abilities. That form is orders of magnitude stronger than anything we've seen Ichigo or his hollow capable of before, and then Ichigo never uses it again or even really spends much time thinking about it. I know it kind of resembles his true form later but I don't understand why the change and I think it was a bit of a retcon.
Also it's quite convenient how it suddenly appears, wins the fight for Ichigo, then vanishes again.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt well, best explanation i can come up with, is that it's related to ichigo dying.
as we saw after his first death, his ability to maintain the hollow form increased significantly, so perhaps the more he dies, the more "in-tune" he becomes with the hollow, hence why the second death awakened his true form.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt "You have the strange lizard form the Vizard fight, which as you said is never explained"
- It was explained, that (Lizard Form) is how Ichigo would look if he was tranformed fully into a Hollow.
- Same as how Grimmjow has a (Panther Form) when he is full Hollow, or Ulquorra) has a (Bat Form) when he was fully Hollow.
"Then the next time we see the hollow it's the horned form, and it's not really explained why there was such a monumental leap in its abilities"
- Probably for the same reason Hollows have a monumental leap in Abilities when they become Arrancers or Vasto Lordes.
- The (Lizard Form = Full Hollow) and the (Horned Form = Vasto Lorde) I hope this makes you understand.
"That form is orders of magnitude stronger than anything we've seen Ichigo or his hollow capable of before"
- His (Dangai Form) (Final Getsuga Tensho Form) (Fullbring Form) and (Horn of Sulvation Form) are stronger, than that form.
"and then Ichigo never uses it again or even really spends much time thinking about it"
- He never uses it again because he's stronger than that form, the same way Naruto is not gonna use the 6 Tails form he had against pain.
"I know it kind of resembles his true form later but I don't understand why the change and I think it was a bit of a retcon"
- It changed because Ichigo changed, that's how Zanpakutou spirits work in Bleach they grow with the Wielder because they are the Wielder.
- It's way stronger than that form, it's a combination of his Shinigami/Hollow & Quincy abilities.
"Also it's quite convenient how it suddenly appears, wins the fight for Ichigo, then vanishes again"
- It vanished because Ulquorra broke it's Horn.
- Breaking a Hollows Mask has shown to do severe damage, Neliel struggled to regain her True form because her Mask was damage.
@@OmenLamb Thanks for clarifying some of those. I think my big issue, which I probably didn't explain enough, is the idea of consequences.
If you look at older anime with "inner demons", although they're technically meant to be detriments to the main characters, they often just end up helping them without drawbacks.
So Ichigo's hollow emerges in the Ulquiorra fight, wins the fight for him, then returns control to Ichigo. Even if it's due to the horn being chipped off, is that really all it takes to suppress the hollow again? He specifically warned Ichigo not to die again, implying it'd have more severe consequences. But narratively he had no long term negative effects.
I get what you're saying that hollows become stronger as they evolve, but hollows become stronger hollows by consuming other hollows don't they? Ichigo himself did nothing to evolve his hollow, it just become orders of magnitude stronger in the background between appearances. Why don't the Vizard inner hollows grow stronger like Ichigo's did?
I know Ichigo becomes stronger after the FGT, etc. But I also really hate this lol. The FGT really does come out of nowhere, and it's crazy that all Ichigo needed was 3 months training (or however long it was) to become a transcendent being, when Aizen has been planning his own transformation for centuries.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt "If you look at older anime with "inner demons", although they're technically meant to be detriments to the main characters, they often just end up helping them without drawbacks."
- The difference between Ichigo and other characters is that those "Inner Demons" are an outside external existence sealed within the Host like (Kurama, Sukuna, Liebe)
- Ichigo and his "Inner Demon" are the same existence, they cannot be separated nor transferred to another host.
"I get what you're saying that hollows become stronger as they evolve, but hollows become stronger hollows by consuming other hollows don't they?"
- That's because a Vasto Lorde class Hollow (Starrk, Barragan, Ulqiorra, Harribel) does not need to consume other Hollows anymore they cannot devolve.
- This why so many (Adjucha) class Hollows worked under Aizen because he could turned them into (Arrancers) with the Hyogoku which was a shortcut to removing the effect for them to cosume Hollows, becoming an (Arrancer or a Vatso Lorde) is the ultimate price for Hollows.
"Ichigo himself did nothing to evolve his hollow, it just become orders of magnitude stronger in the background between appearances"
- That's because his Hollow is Ichigo, it merged with his Soul when he was born when Ichigo gets stronger so does the Hollow.
- Ichigo becoming stronger directly effects his Hollow as you see the Marks on the Mask change as he grows.
"Why don't the Vizard inner hollows grow stronger like Ichigo's did?"
- Because the Vizards Hollowfication is an External Factor, they are not the Hollow.
- Ichigo is the Hollow. White is Ichigo. Ichigo is the Zanpakuto. He is the Blade. That's the difference.
"The FGT really does come out of nowhere, and it's crazy that all Ichigo needed was 3 months training (or however long it was) to become a transcendent being, when Aizen has been planning his own transformation for centuries."
- That's because Aizen was normal Soul Reaper, and he didn't have the complete Hyogoku for centuries.
- That's why he was reborn into a (Hollow/Shinigami) Hybrid as soon as he fused himself with the Hyogoku.
- Ichigo needed was 3 months of training to (TEMPORARILY) become a transcendent being.
- Aizen (PERMANENTLY) became a Transcendent being as his Body is completely fused with his Zanpakutou unlike Ichigo.
"Hollowfication means... inserting a Hollow's soul into a normal soul, then breaking the boundary between them to try and turn the original soul into something more powerful. Originally, this was meant to be used to strengthen a Shinigami's soul." - Kisuke Urahara
"Do you know about the Shinigami's four basic forms of combat? They are Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hohō, and Kidō. All of them are similar in that they each have a limit. No matter how much innate capability you have, you can never overcome the limitation of a Shinigami's spiritual body. That is where the growth stops. In other words, that is the Shinigami's limit. Is there no way to break that boundary? Is there no way to grow and surpass your innate limitation?" - Sōsuke Aizen
Ichigo is the only character that can reach Transcendence (Naturally) because he is a Hybrid, he can cross that Border, the other (Abnormal) way is using the Hyogoku.
Ukitake should've used his bankai in the big show down, I can understand Shunsui not using his but Ukitake's would've hit the jackpot for me but... Whatever...
Yeah I completely agree. And Ukitake ends up wasted in the final arc anyway so it would have been nice to give him his own spotlight against Stark.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2ptUkitake is to weak physically it’s been stated that one of the reasons why he doesn’t get involved with fights that much anymore and he pretty much humiliated Lilynette without even trying
would have liked it better in the series if Ichigo fought Zommari(7th Espada) cause Byakuya winning makes no sense to me when he got beat by a Soul Society Ichigo not long ago. I also wish Ichigo learned some kido around that time to make his fights more interesting.
Kido was really underused considering how useful it is, I wish more characters in general used it regularly.
And yeah you're right, in general Bleach power levels vary too much and seem arbitrary and made up.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt The perfect 2 points in my mind to explain Kido and stuff is during Ichigo's Bankai training or hollowfictation training. Like Ichigo wanting to learn a couple of quick level one spells after finishing Bankai against Byakuya for diversion or trickery with the time to kill before Rukia's execution. Ichigo could have also sought out a Kido master after getting ass whooped by Grimmjow if he really wanted to get stronger. It kinda sucked when Rukia appeared in Ichigo's class once again after soul society to only just fight low-level hollows just to boost his ego. Like just have her teach and explain Kido.
@@davidkuykendall3778 Yeah missed opportunities there for sure. We even get the introduction of the whole kido corps in one of the flashbacks, but then the idea is dropped and never mentioned again.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pthappens a lot in bleach. dropped Ideas.
Waco mundo is when it got immensely popular. The editorial staff made bad calls and made characters staybot comeback for sales. It didnt fall off..you stopped liking it. I think the beatles suck after sgt pepper's..but it was because i didnt like it. But did they fall off after that. No they didnt they were bigger.
Ooft, not the first time I've heard of manga being derailed because the editors force the authors to keep writing.
I disagree
How so?
U immediately lost me when u said delete the Quincy that’s an Absolutely atrocious idea
I really don't like the TYBW arc lol. What did you think of it? I might do a separate video on it in the future.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt Tybw is the best written and most fulfilling arc in the series it answers Every single lingering question throughout the series has multiple amazing conclusions to beloved characters while also adding More interesting villains to an already iconic cast
The fights in the this arc are also stellar
Yhwach vs Yama
Kenpachi vs Kenpachi
Sajin vs bambi
Gremmy vs Zaraki
Ichibe vs yhwach
a lot of the lore is expanded greatly & again reveals answers fans were waiting for Rukia & renji get to shine
Orihime & uryu provides excellent PoVs
The dynamics of SS were just precursors for Tybw conclusions
Arrancar saga was to extend the connections we made in SS
Fullbring was for character growth
Tybw brings that all together beautifully while STILL being a War ARC and having stupendous impact on all the differing aspects of the series (Lore,reveals,characters,themes)
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt you could aleast state the reason's??!?!?!?!?!?!
@@_.Jenstu It's too much for a comment to be honest, I'll probably make a separate video to explain my points properly.
Vaste lorde ichigo was white taking over
Did you actually read manga at all
Harribel aint dead thank kubo 😂 id have been very upset if she died that arc
Haha, I wish he'd kept Starrk or Ulquiorra alive instead.
@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt a lot of love for the espada comes from aesthetic. So naturally the most dripped out ones we would want to survive.
@@SoulGizmo Very true! Kubo is a great artist too, have to give him massive props there.
Ulquiorra shoulda been #1 Espada and Barragan shoulda been #0 Espada and shoulda just been a fraccioni
Barragan as the 0 espada makes a lot more sense, as king of the hollow. We could have even still had a twist reveal, like Aizen was limiting his power or something to keep him in check and he finds a way around it.
@@MediaRetrospective-sb2pt Yeah I like that
cook
Thanks!
I think that Ulquiorra was the only espada that actually had personality and was utilised well somewhat. Grimmjow was boring and bland, overhyped to no end.
Oh really that's interesting. I like Ulqiorra a lot, but I do like Grimmjow as well. I guess he's not especially deep or anything, but sometimes I like just a straight up, cocky villain character.
Grimjow doesn't have a personality?
He wants to be king tf you mean. Not everyone needs to be edgy
Barragan is arrogant
Stark is lazy
Arroniero is a glutton probably because he's a Gillian needs to evolve to an adhucha
All the Espada’s have personality did you ever even pay attention to the series?!
Grimmjow is "boring and bland". Words I never thought I would hear. Maybe he's boring to you because you can't relate. But if you've ever wanted to be the king (the best in something) or enjoyed the thrill of the challenge, you'd probably find him very interesting.
Yammy should have just been a fraccioni
Lol yeah he feels like Ulquiorra's fraccion.
Yeah exactly