Bleach 496 Discussion

[Tonix]

it would be bad-ass if someone let aizen out of the prison thing and he came to the aide of SS

no one would see that coming

Doesn't everyone see that coming? I hope Aizen stays put for a little while longer at least, Bleach is really terrible when he is the main villain.

[Jorge D. Dragon]

I agree. I really hope that Aizen will stay in the prison for now. We had enough trolling from him for now. Maybe a bit later, when we might see Ichigo facing Soul King we might see Aizen to explain why he really wanted to face him with the help of Hougioku.

[mattiaildivino]

Doesn't everyone see that coming? I hope Aizen stays put for a little while longer at least, Bleach is really terrible when he is the main villain.

that's strange: people started complaining when the fullbringer arc appeared,not before...

[toussaintac]

I believe we can't really say that Kenpachi is in Shikai. I believe until he learns the name of his Zan he is somewhere between sealed form and Shikai, hence the power of his Shikai isn't even a half of what it should be. So when he learns the name of his Zanpaktou he will have a propper Shikai and then he will really kick asses and may become way more difficult opponent for such people as Sternenritter or strong Captains like Ukitake, Shunsui or even to the likes of Aizen and Yama.

Well, the manga did say he never learned to seal his power, which means he's just like Ichigo. Although, I thought learning the name made it stronger. Maybe it's just that the name allows Kenpachi to learn the abilities of the Shikai. right now, he has to full reiatsu, but he doesn't have any special abilities. It's analogous to Goku fighting straight hand to hand and uisng all of his physcial abilities like speed and strength but never using stuff like Kamehameha or Spirit Bomb or instant transmission, etc.

[Jorge D. Dragon]

Actually if Kenpachi invested just a little effort to learn a name of his Zan and made a more or less good relationship with it... well Ken-chan might have become if not on par with base Yama, but at least somewhere around Ukitake and Shunsui for sure. He doesn't even need to learn abilities of his sword, but if he only learns a name of it his swing will also become stronger and sharper and it will contribute to his fighhting style.

[Schabrak]

that's strange: people started complaining when the fullbringer arc appeared,not before...

It's his opinion, he never said it's the majorities one.

Kenpachi's sword doesn't look like a normal unreleased sword as with every other shinigami. Can't say it's evidence for the argument with Yamas cane, but he got to be special somehow, could have been ignored by Kubo though to make him look more cool.

[exacta]

Weak logic, why not let Renji get his Bankai sealed first ? Byakuya is obviously stronger and his Bankai is more dangerous, while he had to sacrifice his Bankai like that ? Now he's pretty much doomed, along with the other captains.

As I said, his logic wasn't solid at all, it was based on a lot of misconceptions about the Quincies new ability regarding Bankai... They've got no infos about the Quincies to begin with, the fact that Mayuri wasn't aware of the old fashioned ultimate form suggest how their infos about them is lacking, and now, with their whole new power up, they're facing an unknown enemy. They didn't know exactly what happened with Sasakibe to begin with, and yet they decided to use their trump card in such a way (They could've done it way more carefully, like sacrificing one captain's bankai or Renji/Ikkaku and Mayuri observing the process, not 4 captains at the same time). Also if the Sternritter's abilities are like the one Kirge displayed on a stronger scale, they're doomed. Really doomed.

One thing I do agree with is that SS is screwed. Definitely. But thats the point: they're screwed. Quincy's are dangerous by themselves, and they also have a way to "seal" Bankais. In other words, the captain Bankais won't work against them. So they have two options:

1)Fight without using Bankai because it will get sealed.
2) Use Bankai purposely letting it get sealed, so you can see the method the Quincies use to take away Bankai and from that point on figure out a strategy to get it back.

Both options involve not using Bankai. Again, right now they're screwed. If they use Bankai, it gets sealed. If they don't use Bankai, it doesn't get sealed, but either way, bottom line is, they can only fight in Shikai. If they do use Bankai, they will get to see for themselves exactly how the Quincies counter it, and then figure out how to get it back.

So option 1 rules out using Bankai completely, whereas option 2 sacrifices it so you can figure out how to get it back. They chose option 2 because they all can tell that they NEED Bankai to win. This was probably the most logical decision they could make. There's no time to have Mayuri analyze anything, SS is in serious danger. Anyone below VC level or perhaps even Captain level can do nothing. From the looks of things, the Vandenreich has more captain-level soldiers than SS does. Mayuri if anything should probably be fighting too himself.

The four captains also aren't in communication with each other, and aren't near each other. They can't afford to be, the Vandenreich is attacking from at least 16 different locations. All 4 captains plan on losing and getting back their Bankai in the same battle. There would be no time to go to Mayuri and tell him what the saw, their opponent would not allow that. This is the best they can do, and is the kind of strategy that is good enough for a desperate heat of the moment situation like this.

The reason why Renji was the best choice, is because Renji's shikai isn't very effective against the enemy. Byakuya's IS, which he demonstrated this chapter. As other people have already said, a VC with a Bankai and a Captain with a Shikai are more effective than a VC with a Shikai and a Captain with a Bankai.

You see, their trump card in this situation is not Bankai, at least not until they can counter the technology. Right now, the advantage they're utilizing is numbers. So far that's all they've really got against their opponents.

[Quantized]

I just see their meathod of finding the meathod of sealing stupid .

I mean was there really a need for 4 captains to go bankai ?? I mean just one captain could have gone bankai and it would have been more than enough to see the method .

Secondly , why a captain when u have ppl like Renji and Ikkaku who aint captains running around with Bankai . I can understand for Ikkaku as no one but few know of his bankai , but why not use Renji instead???

Thirdly , Since Byakuya stated Bankai is necessary for winning , loosing his bainkai = instant loss , so again why experiment with 4 captains !!??

Supposedly they never saw it coming, and if they thought about it, then probably judged it impossible.
That's the most logical explanation to me, they only expected to be sealed, probably either permanently or temporary, my guess the last one, temporary.

Remember the Full bring arc where Rukia said to Ginjou that shinigami's powers can't be taken so easily? I'm not sure whether it was a miss translation, either way, shinigami's seem confident in that their powers are "noble and solid within their souls", so they probably neglected the possibility, hence Rukia's statement.

I do find it odd that the science department didn't come up with the possibility though, but shinigami's are just as much "human" in behavour as regular humans, mistakes are inevitable.
Shinigami aren't Gods/angels or anything, merely dead spirits from humans, or reproduced between spirits, so it makes sense to do human mistakes as well.
Furthermore to add to the logic, a nation specialized in combat like Gotei 13 can grow dull, in particular if they haven't done much for large amounts of time, other than hollow killing, and playing a little bit with Aizen. In all fairness, strategy should have dulled quite a lot in Gotei 13 over all these years of peace time.

Truly fierce full strategies are born in intense wars, my judgement is that Soul Society took the Quincy too lightly, and therefore the disadvantage now.
Though, Soul Society might have more triumph cards, maybe even a weapon like the Soukyoku, but similar weaponry against invasions.
http://www.mangareader.net/94-605-9/...apter-151.html
Albeit I think this is the weaker one if any is around, since it's used for execution, where one cannot "protect" themselves against attack if stripped up

---------- Post added at 11:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:16 PM ----------

Also seeing some of ancient Soul Society wouldn't be too bad, some ancient weapons could actually add quite a lot to the history development of Soul society without much talk, which as we know, Kubo just loves to draw much more than development... It would make sense in that perspective o.o ...
I really hope there is more to Soukyoku and similar spirit weapons in Soul Society.

[ichigoaizenkiller]

Awesome chapter when saw all ther bankai getting stolen i thought of one thing kenny's gona f*$% some s#@$ up when he shows up.

[Zsych]

I rather think that Kenpachi as he is, without his eyepatch - is at a level with almost any other captain using a bankai.

That said... yowzer on on these 4 getting their bankais stolen. Ichigo isn't exactly faring well on his side either. Time for Kurotsochi and Uruhara to pull out a 'Lets get everyone out of here!' spell. It seriously looks like running away is their only option. That or Kurotsochi's research into Quincy yields some interesting anti-Quincy weapons.

[Miyagi]

Referring to Kenpachi or other characters with regard to current chapter is fine but the discussion has started to focus too much on Kenpachi and his abilities which is off-topic. You can discuss Kenpachi in this thread.

I think the strategy of risking bankais has been decided in the captains' meeting, I guess the reason why these four captains were selected is because they're the four youngest captains. I liked the theory about Mayuri observing these captains to try to figure out how the sealing/stealing technique works, we haven't seen him yet since the invasion.

Using stolen bankai against shinigami would be an interesting twist but how would it work? For example, if Mayuri's bankai gets stolen and used against him, will it poison Mayuri or quincies who don't have the antidote? What about Soifon's bankai which depletes Soifon's spiritual energy or Komamura's bankai which transfers damage to Komamura? Isn't using complete holy form a better option for quincies? I don't think the arrow which pierced Sasakibe was Sasakibe's bankai because Yamamoto would have understood quincies were stealing bankai.

[mattiaildivino]

kenpachi will be decisive to defeat this guy,but what a pity he won't use bankai,I hoped he developed it,but now bankai are useless,hence he will be the key to defeat the stern ritter with just his strength. and so goes for yamamoto,aizen already tried to nullify his zampakuto,but he was still gorgeous.

[Zsych]

I just see their meathod of finding the meathod of sealing stupid .

I mean was there really a need for 4 captains to go bankai ?? I mean just one captain could have gone bankai and it would have been more than enough to see the method .

Secondly , why a captain when u have ppl like Renji and Ikkaku who aint captains running around with Bankai . I can understand for Ikkaku as no one but few know of his bankai , but why not use Renji instead???

Thirdly , Since Byakuya stated Bankai is necessary for winning , loosing his bainkai = instant loss , so again why experiment with 4 captains !!??

I was thinking something similar. Along with the fact that Byakuya is good with kidou. He should've been spamming kidou... which is what plenty of other people should be doing also... the confusion of multiple unexpected attacks would make it harder for the Quincy to be effective.

... the funny thing was how quickly Byakuya disabled one of the opponents by taking out the ground under his feet. Ha ha... and then this happens to him.

I'm kinda surprised by them saying that only the bankai was stolen. If a significant expression of someone's shinigami powers is gone - I'd expect the rest to not really be in good shape.

[Miyagi]

Referring to Kenpachi or other characters with regard to current chapter is fine but the discussion has started to focus too much on Kenpachi and his abilities which is off-topic. You can discuss Kenpachi in this thread.

Further off-topic posts about Kenpachi are subject to deletion.

[Tonix]

that's strange: people started complaining when the fullbringer arc appeared,not before...

You must have skipped the Hueco Mundo, Fake Karakura Town, and Deicide discussions then, because I know I wasn't the only one who thought those arcs paled in comparison to the Rescue Rukia arc. IMO the only time Aizen was any fun to watch was during the Turn Back the Pendulum arc, and to a lesser extent, when he was first revealed to be the main antagonist.

Actually if Kenpachi invested just a little effort to learn a name of his Zan and made a more or less good relationship with it... well Ken-chan might have become if not on par with base Yama, but at least somewhere around Ukitake and Shunsui for sure. He doesn't even need to learn abilities of his sword, but if he only learns a name of it his swing will also become stronger and sharper and it will contribute to his fighhting style.

During his fight with Nnoitra, before Kenpachi powered up with by using both hands, I was hoping that Kenpachi would finally reveal his Zan's name, but unfortunately Kubo trolled us with that Kendo nonsense. Hopefully we will get to see it this arc, unless Kubo can think of any additional extremities for Kenpachi to use...

One thing I do agree with is that SS is screwed. Definitely. But thats the point: they're screwed. Quincy's are dangerous by themselves, and they also have a way to "seal" Bankais. In other words, the captain Bankais won't work against them. So they have two options:

1)Fight without using Bankai because it will get sealed.
2) Use Bankai purposely letting it get sealed, so you can see the method the Quincies use to take away Bankai and from that point on figure out a strategy to get it back.

Both options involve not using Bankai. Again, right now they're screwed. If they use Bankai, it gets sealed. If they don't use Bankai, it doesn't get sealed, but either way, bottom line is, they can only fight in Shikai. If they do use Bankai, they will get to see for themselves exactly how the Quincies counter it, and then figure out how to get it back.

So option 1 rules out using Bankai completely, whereas option 2 sacrifices it so you can figure out how to get it back. They chose option 2 because they all can tell that they NEED Bankai to win. This was probably the most logical decision they could make. There's no time to have Mayuri analyze anything, SS is in serious danger. Anyone below VC level or perhaps even Captain level can do nothing. From the looks of things, the Vandenreich has more captain-level soldiers than SS does. Mayuri if anything should probably be fighting too himself.

The four captains also aren't in communication with each other, and aren't near each other. They can't afford to be, the Vandenreich is attacking from at least 16 different locations. All 4 captains plan on losing and getting back their Bankai in the same battle. There would be no time to go to Mayuri and tell him what the saw, their opponent would not allow that. This is the best they can do, and is the kind of strategy that is good enough for a desperate heat of the moment situation like this.

The reason why Renji was the best choice, is because Renji's shikai isn't very effective against the enemy. Byakuya's IS, which he demonstrated this chapter. As other people have already said, a VC with a Bankai and a Captain with a Shikai are more effective than a VC with a Shikai and a Captain with a Bankai.

You see, their trump card in this situation is not Bankai, at least not until they can counter the technology. Right now, the advantage they're utilizing is numbers. So far that's all they've really got against their opponents.

Option 1 still seems better to me since Option 2 essentially amounts to playing right into the enemies hands. Its extremely dangerous to use an attack that you know your opponent has a counter for, especially when you have no idea how it works. This is a trap I would expect Ichigo to fall for, but the captains are supposed to be smart, they are the leaders of a supposedly highly trained military organization. To even become a basic shinigami, you have to go through years at the academy, you think they would throw in a basic strategy class or two.

If the captains know they are going to have to fight with out their Bankai no matter what, couldn't they have made better use of the massive amount of reiatsu they just threw away? Did any of them even think about trying a kidou? I know that's not really Komamura, Soi Fon, or Hitsugaya's style, but I would have thought Byakuya would at least try a binding spell or a Sokatsui.

And about the bold part
IMO Mayuri should have examined Sasakibe's body to discover how the quincy sealed Bankai, then he would have known that they were actually stealing Bankai. Heck, he should have already known about the technique since he apparently did so much research on the quincy.

He should have also got to work on an anti-quincy device like what Szayel had in his lab, since apparently he's known all along that the quincy were going to come back and kick Soul Society's collective asses. Its stupid to me that Mayuri, a genius mad scientist who 'completed' his research on quincy, wouldn't think to create anything that could be used against quincies, when he has a quincy enemy who was able to annihilate his Bankai and force him to use his rather undignified last defense.

Using stolen bankai against shinigami would be an interesting twist but how would it work? For example, if Mayuri's bankai gets stolen and used against him, will it poison Mayuri or quincies who don't have the antidote? What about Soifon's bankai which depletes Soifon's spiritual energy or Komamura's bankai which transfers damage to Komamura? Isn't using complete holy form a better option for quincies? I don't think the arrow which pierced Sasakibe was Sasakibe's bankai because Yamamoto would have understood quincies were stealing bankai.

If Mayuri's Bankai gets stolen, he will just destroy it like he did against Szayel, right?