What was your initial reaction?

What was your initial reaction?

>Oh, nice, we got new jobbers.

>the job team so that other job team could pretend to win, but job instead.

This until I realized Aizen would have dissected them too.

Absolute homosexuality and The Almighty are actually two of the stupidest fucking powers to ever grace a supernatural series.

what even happened to them? bald guy died and glasses was swords but i have no memory of the rest

I was excited at first because they looked like an interesting bunch and it had been years since I've read Bleach. I thought "hey, maybe we'll start getting answers regarding SK" but then Kubo did nothing with them like everyone else.

>bald guy died
And then Kubo revived him then proceed to do nothing with him again.

Tousen?

The same thing that happened to most of the characters in Bleach: they were forgotten because there's just way too many characters and not enough factions to put them in.

One Piece can handle so many of its characters because they all have things to do within the story.

Bleach arcs all revolve around stopping the single Big Bad and his 5 or 6 henchmen, and that's it. There's no overall goal or anything happening in Bleach's story outside of the current arc, so 90% of the cast just gets jobbed or has some convenient excuse for not being able to do anything. Oh, and the main villain has some really overpowered ability that prevents everybody from just ganging up on him and kicking his ass.

Faded into bolovian

My initial reaction was something like "That guy with the rosary is going to be ludicrously overpowered." And I was right! And I loved it. Ichibei is my second favorite Bleach character now, behind Gin.

I think it's clear from very early on that One Piece just has a better world-setting because answers to 'problems' are actually given.
They have a way of communicating etc etc.
Though One Pieces cast hasn't really been relevant in the longest, sadly

>job job job job
Wait, are there seriously people who are still reading bleach, and still wondering about who will defeat the final boss? That Ichigo will win anyway, and therefore no other fight matters?
Ichigo vs Yhwach was a shit fight. Yhwach vs Black Monk was 100 time better. Same for Yamamoto. By now, Ichigo is not even a character, he is a plot device.

>People didn't get the concept of the zero squad and think about powerlevels
Old man genocide was the strongest shinigami.
Every single one from the zero squad had created something extraordinarily unique and that's all.

I would say that Ichibei is stronger than Yamamoto. Maybe not in reiatsu, but the fact that he can literally remove names/powers from existence is kind of a game-changer. That, and his other powers, which were all great. And, unlike Yamamoto, he can revive from the dead.

I think Ichibei just made Bleach fun again, if only for a short while.

KUBO YOU PIECE OF SHIT STOP ADDING MORE CHARACTERS!!!!11

Ichibei would buttfuck literally everyone in SS with ease. Kubo had to literally give Ywach "no you don't xD" to beat him.

>oh man, these guys are probably so strong they could take ywach on their own, but they're gonna have ichigo clean up the mess, sort of like a beerus goku relationship. No jobbing here.

It literally says in the OP that they are stronger than the 13 squads though

I was hyped but kubo turned all of them into jobbers in the end with the exception of ichibei.

Definitely not stronger than Yamamoto
Ichibei's fucking chants take forever
Yamamoto can just go ZANKA NO TACHI and atom smash his shit in

A new waifu ! (left one)

Ichibei is the strongest shinigami ever.
Are you seriously saying the one piece is better than Bleach?

that one piece*

What the fuck happened with shark tits?

>Oh my! If the fodders are powerful than the entire gotei then just how strong is the Soul king??11?

>hahahhahha

Still in the Quincy rape dungeon that Ichigo and Co. never reached. Now that I think about it, why the fuck did Grimmjow and Nel go help out Ichigo instead of rescuing Halibel?

Pretty hyped, but Ichibei was the only one who really delivered in the end.

I lost track of bleach a while ago. Did they ever explain who this guy was before he became soul King?

Kubo didn't explain a damn thing.

"Oh shit, one of them is the former captain of Squad 12, right?"

To be fair, it wasn't logical to expect SK to be a fighter since he needed guards.

Apparently, he was like that from the moment he was created by Soul Society.

So a king should be left all alone if he's strong? Flawless logic.

>"I can't wait to see their bankais!"

If I ever meet kubo in person I am spitting on him

>Great, more overhyped character who will do nothing in the end

That was pretty much Aizen's philosophy in a nutshell. But he was strong, and SK wasn't.

No, it wasn't. His ideal was to not rely on guards, not to have any at all, and he had no issue with building an army of arrancars to guard his shit.

He didn't build an army of Arrancars to guard him, you silly goose.

What would he have done with them after becoming the soul king, you dumb donkey?

>jobb to aizen
>get healed by 4th division
>sullen shark tits and rangiku now double team the shit out hitsugaya and make his life a living hell.

Kubo really is a hack.

>Fuck yeah we're finally gonna touch on the Soul King!
And the soul king aspect turned out to be my biggest disappointment.
I can even accept Mayuri's pointless reiatsu amplification deus ex machina and I don't mind not seeing everyone's bankai.

What the fuck? Most final bosses in any type of series have guards or meat shields.

Did Nel managed to save everyone, Sup Forums?

I don't see why she wouldn't.

No, she's the one who needs saving, and IIRC only her lesbian harem of losers was really trying.

Nel =! Harribel

I was expecting the Royal Guard to be too 'cool' but I'm glad they ended up being a group of old weirdos. The fact that their bones are Royal Keys, and that they each represent a piece of Soul Society's history, was a nice touch that gave a bit of depth to the Shinigami tradition. I was more disappointed that we never saw Nimaiya's Sword Five fight than the fact that most of them jobbed to Shultzstaffel off-screen.

I honestly don't even remember the second from the right. Who was she again?

Shuutara, the lady with no arms of her own, but amazing sewing skills. Had something in the past with Mayuri, but was never explored.

Senjumaru Shuutara, the Weaver Guard, we only saw her fight a little but it was implied she has a high-tier spatial ability and illusions on par with KS. Also she's credited with the Shuutara scale which measures the Balance of Souls, and may be responsible for weaving the Captain's haori.

offscreened while the monk was fighting yhwach

weird, how did i never notice senjumaru never using his own hands?

>his

What a bunch of fucking losers.

Man, when I think about it, a bunch of fights in Bleach got offscreened

literally a boy's name

I like how Kubot almost never bothered to draw Bach's eyes wider so you could see the extra pupils because fuck you.

Kubo is running out of ideas

Almost every fight where a poster character wasn't involved in was offscreened

Isn't Ichigo a girl's name?

>Royal Guard mentioned at least twice before the end of the first half of the manga
>running out of ideas

Why do you people even post here?

>Oh damn this is pretty cool, Thier Shikai and Bankai must all be rediculously broken and I can't wait to see what each one does.


>Welp

To be honest family, they lost the advantage once Yhwach revealed he could revive his Schultzstaffel with even more power by taking it from his other soldiers. At which point the outcome would come down to Yhwach vs Monk.

>character can only be considered strong if they break reality

Man, Yamamoto really set a high standard for Bankai, I'm almost glad we didn't get to see all of them or else we'd just get more complaining about it.

I think that with a team composed of members who are supposed to be many times stronger than any SS Captian it makes sense to believe that each member would at least have a sword of Kyoka Suigetsu level broken.

Technically the quote was that the Royal Guard as a whole was stronger than the Gotei 13 combined; that doesn't necessarily mean that each individual member is that much stronger than the average Captain, especially since Monk blows practically anyone who isn't Yamamoto or Yhwach out of the water.

Also, Aizen himself is considerably overpowered and would have likely given the RG trouble even without the Hougyoku; Kubo making the RG a squad of five Aizens would have easily been his worst decision yet, or else it would have made the entire Aizen conflict completely pointless.

No. It's not exactly strictly masculine like names ending in -suke(助:assistant, used exclusively in male names), -rou(郎:son), or -maru(丸*), but there's nothing feminine about it. I don't get why that's a thing a bunch of retarded weebs seem to keep assuming that. A feminine name with the same pronunciation "ichigo" would be written differently;
苺実:Strawberry truth
苺花:Strawberry flower
苺:strawberry
莓:wild strawberry
一期:one time
一恋:one love

Kurosaki's is written as 一護:one protect, which is strictly speaking not really a name. Either way it's not explicitly a girl's name the way a name ending in something like -ko(子:child but as a diminutive used explicitly for girls), -ka(香:[good] scent), -ka(花:flower), or -mi(美:beauty)

Senjuumaru's given name is written 千手丸:Thosuand Hand "maru" and *the -maru suffix is used as a marker rather than for literal meaning. You either use it to name a boat, name a sword or armour, or a name for people or pets always by taking a fairly literal phrase or word and adding it as a suffix, and always in masculine use. i.e. Sesshomaru, Orochimaru, Konohamaru, Akamaru, Totomaru, Hyourinmaru, Zabimaru, Houzukimaru, etc... The few times it's used for girls is with tomboys, the joke universally being that when reading or hearing the name everyone assumes it's a boy, which their visual appearance may or may not corroborate depending on how long the punchline is being dragged out, then "surprise" it's a girl. When it's used on a character who appears feminine that damn near invariably indicates it's a trap.

I didn't say they had to be Aizen, I said their sword had to be on par with how broken KS was and since the one of the five Zan abilities that got revealed WAS KS level broken, it's a fair assessment.

Also the RG themselves pretty much go over with why they don't handle shit like Aizen, simply put it wasn't their job. The moment he stepped foot into their territory is the moment he would've been gang banged.

Not revealing Shikai or Bankai of various character was multiple violations of chekhov's gun and is already one of, if not the worst thing Kubo has done to his series.

to make things a little clearer, Japanese names basically fall into a few gendered categories:
1) explicitly gendered: literal meaning of name indicates gender and practical use corroborates this
2) implicitly gendered: literal meaning doesn't associate with a gender but all practical uses are exclusively gendered.
3) unisex: there might be a prevailing trend toward one gender but there's nothing explicitly tying it down to one or the other and it gets used by both in practice but generally in varying frequency

Ichigo is type 3. Senjumaru is type 2. Yuushirou was type 1.

It still irks me that we got Kirinji's shikai but no actual ability. The others not even being shown doesn't bother me half as much as that. Also I'm still super mad that Ohetsu never came out swinging his entire harem like some kind of mix of Killerbee from Naruto and Mifune from Soul Eater. He was perfectly set up for it as his gimmick too.

...

...directly into a scene cut, never to be seen or heard from again. Fucking Kubo.

I guess its possible but its not like Giselle or Yuushiro where it was played for a joke, not that I really care but I'd hardly take anons word for it.

I thought he manipulated hot spring water?

>tfw Aizen was right in the end, and just goes back to his chair.
Fuck, Kubo.

>Not revealing Shikai or Bankai of various character was multiple violations of chekhov's gun

That's not how Chekov's Gun works, user. Sure, multiple characters are implied to have Bankai and not all show it, but the ones who specifically say they have Bankai but can't use it for whatever reason (Kisuke, Shunsui, ect.) all end up releasing it later on. It's a ludicrous proposition to think that we were going to see every Bankai, especially since half the cast doesn't even master theirs until after the final timeskip.

he did but that wasn't his shikai, that was just him

Why do you say that? We never see him manipulate the water directly until after he releases his Shikai, no? That's like saying Hitsugaya's ice powers are him and not his sword; although technically true, the sword is what focuses those powers into attacks.

Shunsui not using his with a crowd around doesn't even really make sense. Maybe for the first two "scenes", but they were both over in about 5 panels each. What was the big deal, aside from the super depression aura that everyone felt?

At first, I thought they were going to be villains.

Then I wished they were going to be villains because fuck, I hate the blacksmith guy. I was cheering the Quincies the entire time they were fighting him.

They're so clownish and ridiculous they look like villains from one piece.
No matter how strong they are, or what they do, you can only laugh at them.

no we saw him manipulate the water only before his shikai. after his shikai we cut away to zombie fights, then cut back to see him swinging his spear at yhwach. then senjuumaru stepped in and we never saw kirinji do anything again. Besides his shikai's name is Kinpika(金毘迦
), as in "Golden Assist", which has zero ties whatsoever to his hotspring gimmick. Also it was made clear that his hotsprings were his invention that got him into the royal guard, and the basis of the healing techniques he taught Unohana, so they can't be exclusive to his shikai even if we hadn't already seen him use them without it.

>What was the big deal, aside from the super depression aura that everyone felt?

First and foremost, he considers his Bankai 'shameful' for very Japanese reasons, it represents his shame and his relationship with his brother's wife.

Secondly he might not be able to control the 'wound sharing' from the first act which is inevitably a death sentence; for instance if he used it under the effects of KS he'd end up killing his allies.

well everyone felt it, even at a distance. presumably using it with people around would've just made everyone suicidal. Because he used it in a one-on-one situation, it's not even clear if he could really aim it or if he just shared the damage indiscriminately with anyone in range.

I guess I see you're point but there's no reason to think his healing powers and his Shikai can't be related. Perhaps he can only use the Blood Transfusion when his Shikai is active like he did with Nimaiya.

Also what are the chances that each RG has a Shin-uichi release instead of a Bankai? It would certainly explain the looser feel of their specialties.

>Rape Monk
>clownish and ridiculous

Oh look, a non-reader.

>Definitely not stronger than Yamamoto
>nope its name is ant now

lol

Anything is better than Bleach.

Not who you're replying to but it's hard to tell if Monk's ink would work on Yama when his sun armor was active.

I like to think of it as a balance of power, where the strongest warrior Shinigami leads the Gotei and Monk, who's given everything in Soul Society it's name, leads the Royal Guard.

if anything his shikai is more a play on his name, Kirinji(麒麟寺
:Kirin Temple) What with the Kirin being associated with the color yellow

...

I do believe if Kubo was given more time like 20-30 more chapters we would've seen their bankai like the elite sterns pushing them to their limits and their bankai work together like clockwork but to no avail.

Didn't the Ritters do the same thing? Kubo was a really terrible and predictable writer after Aizen lost.

It's just cherrypicking, user.

>and his relationship with his brother's wife
That relationship was nothing but wholesome. Shunsui wore her hairpins at one point, and pink kimono like hers until today. He's not hiding it. Or rather, he uses that as distraction to hide something else--her heirloom sword.

Come to think of it, the old Central 46 would've sentenced Kyouraku if they knew he was the one who kept it.

Not at all. The Quincy actually curbstomped the Soul Reapers in the first 4 volumes.

That never happened before Aizen. It was more of a back and forth until the Soul Reapers won.

FINALLY! We get to see the characters who have been hinted at and were a mysterious entity since volume 36! Thanks for actually covering these guys.

The soul King was said to be a Lynchpin. The dude is the Bleach equivalent of the Tesseract from the MCU. Both are powerful and alive, but they are only given meaning through others using them.

Most Ritters didn't lose to shinigami, they were killed by Yhwach or their own comrade.

>Come to think of it, the old Central 46 would've sentenced Kyouraku if they knew he was the one who kept it.

Hence the 'shame' he's brought to his position. It's also the reason why his Zanpakuto became two swords.

Not that guy but:

>As Nodt beaten by Rukia
>Mask beaten by Renji
>Gigi beaten by Mayuri
>Bambietta beaten by Komamura
>Cang Du beaten by Toshiro
>Candice Catnip beaten by Byakuya
>Askin beaten by Urahara and Grimmjow
>Pernida beaten by Nemu
>Juha Bach beaten by Ichigo, Aizen and Uryu
>BG9 beaten by Soi Fon
>Lille beaten by Nanao and Shunsui

That is only the tip of the iceberg