Segunda Etapa is no big deal

[Kaiten]

The purpose of sealing a portion of their power in a sword is to restore rationality to an arrancar, presumably to enable shinigamification for a massive increase in power of their menos abilities and development of powers unique to the individual arrancar. Hollows are souls that have lost their heart and must devour an endless amount of souls to fill the void. As Nel stated, shinigamification seals that void, arrancar are no longer irrational. Kubo symbolized it by having their hollow hole migrate from the heart to another place on their body. Ressureccion (arrancar don't have releases) does not restore them to their hollow form, it releases the seal power to give them a massive power boost, beyond their level as menos. It was not stated anywhere that developing new powers was impossible, arrancar becoming stronger and rising through the ranks of the Espada is very much canon. Nnoitra was the eighth espada during he and Nel's flashback, Szayel was not an espada at all. Ulqiorra developing a technique where he could release even more power than his ressureccion gives him is completely feasible. Nor would it be a two part ressureccion. Stage one is simply his ressureccion, through training and experience he developed the ability to draw out more reiatsu, more power, altering his appearance and gaining more abilities. Since those abilities are not accessible to him from simply unsealing his sword they have require him to consciously invoke them giving his released form a second stage. It can be taken as drawing more power from his sword, it can be taken like menos evolution, it can be taken how it is as long as it is not taken as more akin to his base form. His base form was as a menos, presumably far weaker than as an espada.

[xi0]

What do you mean by that?

I meant that the Zanpakutou isn't a part of themselves like a Shinigami's Zanpakutou. It essentially serves as a lock on their true released selves. I guess that explains while there is no initial augmentation of their swords (ie Shikai for Shinigami). This doesn't mean that the sword isn't a powerful weapon of course. I guess I should have clarified that

[Kaiten]

What do you mean by that?

Shinigmi zanpakutou are an extension of their power, arrancar zanpakutou are a reduction. Their core is sealed in the sword whereas a shinigami's zanpakutou is the externalization of their will to fight. The idea for arrancar is to seal their hollow powers in order to restore rationality to a hollow and give human form. The power boost in sealed form is due to breaking down the barrier between shinigami and hollow (no different from the vaizards or Ichigo).

[kkck]

The purpose of sealing a portion of their power in a sword is to restore rationality to an arrancar, presumably to enable shinigamification for a massive increase in power of their menos abilities and development of powers unique to the individual arrancar. Hollows are souls that have lost their heart and must devour an endless amount of souls to fill the void. As Nel stated, shinigamification seals that void, arrancar are no longer irrational. Kubo symbolized it by having their hollow hole migrate from the heart to another place on their body. Ressureccion (arrancar don't have releases) does not restore them to their hollow form, it releases the seal power to give them a massive power boost, beyond their level as menos. It was not stated anywhere that developing new powers was impossible, arrancar becoming stronger and rising through the ranks of the Espada is very much canon. Nnoitra was the eighth espada during he and Nel's flashback, Szayel was not an espada at all. Ulqiorra developing a technique where he could release even more power than his ressureccion gives him is completely feasible. Nor would it be a two part ressureccion. Stage one is simply his ressureccion, through training and experience he developed the ability to draw out more reiatsu, more power, altering his appearance and gaining more abilities. Since those abilities are not accessible to him from simply unsealing his sword they have require him to consciously invoke them giving his released form a second stage. It can be taken as drawing more power from his sword, it can be taken like menos evolution, it can be taken how it is as long as it is not taken as more akin to his base form. His base form was as a menos, presumably far weaker than as an espada.

I don't think shinigamification restores rationality at all for hollows.... We have seen plenty of hollows and quite a few of them have actually shown reasonable levels of intelligence. I think arrancar who had their rationality while they were hollows will keep their rationality if they turn into arrancar while hollows who lost their rationality will still not have it if they evolve into arrancar.

Also noting, nnoitora's zampakuto changed quite a bit given the flashback. I think that could imply the actual shape of his resurreccion also changed as he got stronger.... He must have grown in strength quite a bit if he used to be 8th of the old espada and is currently 5th of the most advanced generation so far.

---

Shinigmi zanpakutou are an extension of their power, arrancar zanpakutou are a reduction. Their core is sealed in the sword whereas a shinigami's zanpakutou is the externalization of their will to fight. The idea for arrancar is to seal their hollow powers in order to restore rationality to a hollow and give human form. The power boost in sealed form is due to breaking down the barrier between shinigami and hollow (no different from the vaizards or Ichigo).

I don't think arrancar zampakuto work as a reduction of power... It's not like we have seen arrancar getting weaker after sealing their power. Quite the contrary, just turning into an arrancar makes the individual more powerful than what he ever was as a hollow without even releasing. I don't think shinigami and arrancar sword releases are in principle that different, both of them ultimately release the special abilities they have. Arrancar were said to seal their power to conserve their energy in times of peace, but can't roughly the same thing be said about shinigami?

[maniougn]

The second part is that arrancars cannot advance in power and form.

when did i say they can't evolve to a stronger being? i said 1 thing you assumed it was something else. i'm arguing against your claim of rse being a level beyond resurreccion, because that's based on absolutely nothing but your assumption and intuition. this topic is about resurreccion, segunda etapa not if he can advance in power or not and whatever i said about rse is based on the concept of resurreccion, so as you can see it's not baseless or unsupported.

Your only response to Ulquiorra's words is that somehow his division of his resurreccion (I.E. Primera Etapa as you like to call it) is the new form he is referring to, when he says that he achieved a form no other Espada did.

again, based on the definition of resurreccion that's what rse means, a division of resurreccion. he call the second stage, well, second stage wouldn't that make the first stage, first stage? hence that's where primera etapa comes from. base on how resurreccion works arrancar doesn't achieve anything new with it, so if you are refering to rse as "he achieved a form no other Espada did" then it's just plain wrong. he never introduced rse as anything other than a resurreccion, so the concept of resurreccion applies. he never introduced it as something like how yoruichi and byakuya introduced bankai (5-10x power boost, a level beyond shikai..) so i don't know where people get the idea it's a level beyond when complete resurreccion itself is final.

Reciting the definition of resurreccion does not prove your point and neither does attacking the strawman here, by arguing that, since Ulquiorra didn't disclose HOW he achieved Segunda Etapa, it's "an imaginary power up out of nowhere", or whatever.

at least i have something solid to go on, the concept of resurreccion. attacking? i took in criticism from you guys so i just returned it. it is imaginary because it's your unsupported assumption. you have nothing but assumption, interpretation and intuition to back it up. if we all debate base on those 3 then what's the point of debating, we can sit here all day and come up with theory that comes from the ass.

[Xsoteria]

What Kaiten.Sama said about rationality, could be more about their hollow needs for consumption of souls or other hollow. Although, I don't think that it really serves exclusively that purpose, nor the purpose of preserving their rationality, seeing as how once they release, they don't go dumb nor do they show their hunger for souls.

Also, arrancars are a combination of hollow and shinigami, so it's only normal to find some parallels between shinigami and arrancars.
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...

I'm officially out of fresh ways of repeating myself.

If you are honestly, entirely incapable of seeing how what I'm saying can be true and has some support from the manga, then I don't think I can help you.

I know I said I wont repeat myself to you before, but it seriously pains me to see such one dimensional, definitive posts you come up with and then try and pass then off as fact, when almost everyone in this thread agrees that there is no established fact here. You are in fact so keen on this idea, that you are actually trying to sell some theory about how everything regarding Segunda Etapa is perfectly clear, when the best theory you came up with is made out of just the stuff you accused me of producing - intuition and assumptions.

[Nicholas.Sama]

when did i say they can't evolve to a stronger being? i said 1 thing you assumed it was something else. i'm arguing against your claim of rse being a level beyond resurreccion, because that's based on absolutely nothing but your assumption and intuition. this topic is about resurreccion, segunda etapa not if he can advance in power or not and whatever i said about rse is based on the concept of resurreccion, so as you can see it's not baseless or unsupported.



again, based on the definition of resurreccion that's what rse means, a division of resurreccion. he call the second stage, well, second stage wouldn't that make the first stage, first stage? hence that's where primera etapa comes from. base on how resurreccion works arrancar doesn't achieve anything new with it, so if you are refering to rse as "he achieved a form no other Espada did" then it's just plain wrong. he never introduced rse as anything other than a resurreccion, so the concept of resurreccion applies. he never introduced it as something like how yoruichi and byakuya introduced bankai (5-10x power boost, a level beyond shikai..) so i don't know where people get the idea it's a level beyond when complete resurreccion itself is final.



at least i have something solid to go on, the concept of resurreccion. attacking? i took in criticism from you guys so i just returned it. it is imaginary because it's your unsupported assumption. you have nothing but assumption, interpretation and intuition to back it up. if we all debate base on those 3 then what's the point of debating, we can sit here all day and come up with theory that comes from the ass.

Even your own argument about what SE is goes both ways. If nobody knew about it then nobody knows just how much power was in his initial release. We could say that in R1 he had 10% and in R2 he had 100%. It would still keep it in the bounds of your oh-so-amazing explanation and it would still be a big deal.

[mezu]

Well, new poster, old time reader here. It looks like this thread is dead, however I think it is the most relevant to the current situation in Bleach, so I'll revive it

I believe that the fight between Ichigo and Ulquiorra is the most important and relevant fight to the upcoming battle between Aizen and Ichigo. The mistake that is being made here is that, it seems, that people are arguing over whether Ulquiorra was worthy of a higher rank or not.

We have several pieces of information that state that he was beyond anything we have seen with the exception of the being that defeated him and more-probably Aizen.

We'll start with the Aizen's perception of the Ichigo vs. Ulquiorra fight, although no details are really presented except the outcome of Ichigo's growth.
http://www.mangareader.net/94-48494-...apter-396.html

Aizen states that Ichigo mastered his hollow side defeating Grimmjow and somehow manages to gain power greater than that within the battle with Ulquiorra. The way it's phrased indicates that Aizen is unaware as to what Ichigo gained during the battle, he knows that he went beyond hollowification.

Next is Ishida's perception of Ulquiorra.
http://www.mangareader.net/94-802-7/...apter-348.html

Here we have Ishida stating that Ulquiorra's reiatsu can't even be explained as reiatsu anymore, it is something else in it's own right. I think this is the key to Ichigo's understanding of Aizen's reiatsu, where no-one else is presented to be able to understand it. I believe Ulquiorra could be put in the same category of Aizen during/after his chrysalis here. It was absolutely critical for Ichigo to fight and defeat Ulquiorra in his second stage because it means that Ichigo has the potential to defeat Aizen.

Also, arguing over Ichigo being perceived as weaker than the captains that collectively beat/fended off the first, second, and third espada's is pointless. The fact of the matter is Ichigo did not beat Ulquiorra at a state which could be compared to a captain. He completely transformed into a Hollow, or so it seems, and went far beyond what he was capable of otherwise, which is obvious since he gets destroyed by Ulquiorra once he releases (the first time) and then defeats Ulquiorra after the second resurrection.

Why is this important?

If Ichigo had not shown us that he was capable of defeating Ulquiorra, and more precisely that he had something within him that transcended Ulquiorra's second resurrection, then he would not be able to defeat Aizen as he is now. The reason for Aizen's power-ups seems to be a direct response from Kubo to somehow balance the power between Ichigo and Aizen. Aizen would not have been able to defeat Ichigo as he was in the Ulquiorra fight, he needed power-ups and he needed many of them. Essentially, Aizen was given all these power-ups because it was necessary for him to be an adequate opponent against Ichigo after he conquered his inner world, the entity that defeated Ulquiorra and successfully merged both aspects of his inner-self. You could say that they chose different paths, but reached similar ends.

This is precisely why Aizen can be defeated and why Ulquiorra vs. Ichigo was the most important fight of this arc. I also expect Kubo will enlighten us before/during/after the fight.

[Xsoteria]

^The only thing I would argue is questionable in your post is whether or not Kubo had to "balance" Aizen out in order to fight Ichigo's inner power.

We rightly assume that Ichigo's transformation is something that puts him above any of the captains (save for maybe Yama I suppose), as Ulquiorra obviously was ridiculously powerful and power needed to defeat him had to be ridiculously powerful as well... But on the other side, we have Aizen, who was quite ridiculously powerful himself.

The guy broke through the captains with virtually no effort, and was quite obviously something above a power of a captain. Ichigo and Aizen would then be both placed above the power of a captain but where on the scale would they fit?

IMO, after all the transformations Aizen underwent, the level Ulquiorra and Ichigonator are on, has been overcomed. Though I guess we'll have to wait the upcoming chapters to see about that.

Otherwise, yes this battle was certainly very high on the importance scale.

[kkck]

I think the recent databook chapter gives some insight as to this topic. Ulquiorra's hollow form is actually revealed as we all saw and he was in fact a VL. I think the chapter is relevant because ulquiorra's VL form in clearly what his resurreccion is based off. It looks nothing at all like segunda etapa basically. If ulquiorra's segunda etapa was actually a normal but complete resurreccion then it would have to be similar to ulquiorra's actual hollow form. I would think that ulquiorra's segunda etapa being so dramatically different from his resurreccion and original hollow form suggests the transformation itself is something entirely new and above a regular resurreccion (basically arrancar bankai) as I have been arguing for a while now. Any thoughts?

[HaouLelouch]

Yammy's shitty release got himself boosted 9 places yet so many people are still adamantly insisting R2 ulquiorra is no higher than fourth.

Haters gotta hate.

[xi0]

I think the recent databook chapter gives some insight as to this topic. Ulquiorra's hollow form is actually revealed as we all saw and he was in fact a VL. I think the chapter is relevant because ulquiorra's VL form in clearly what his resurreccion is based off. It looks nothing at all like segunda etapa basically. If ulquiorra's segunda etapa was actually a normal but complete resurreccion then it would have to be similar to ulquiorra's actual hollow form. I would think that ulquiorra's segunda etapa being so dramatically different from his resurreccion and original hollow form suggests the transformation itself is something entirely new and above a regular resurreccion (basically arrancar bankai) as I have been arguing for a while now. Any thoughts?

Was it stated that Ulq was indeed a VL? I know his hollow form sort of resembles the shadow of one, but I don't think the databook really explains anything regarding what class of menos he was. The only known Vasto Lorde was Harribel if I remember correctly...and it's debatable whether that's canon or not.