One of the most common complaints on Strawberry's role as a protagonist has always been his lack of proper goals or motivations so let's see what could've been done to fix this.
The only condition here is that the goal must make sense within the context of the series.
Well, he was always kind to spirits right? His goal could have been to protect the spirits of his town from disrespectful people and hollows
His goal was to protect. What's the problem?
Using his noble lineage and intelligence to climb the ladder of the soul society hierarchy and attain godhood to either bring his mom back from the dead or to break down the corrupt system.
There could even be a twist in the end where Ichigo thinks his ambitions will finally be realized but he just ends up getting backstabbed because the only real worth he ever had was as a powersource.
Why should he have to fix the corrupt system? The Shinigami that 100+ years old should be doing that.
After seeing what a shitty place Rukongai is, his goal is to make the Afterlife a better place. A place where loved ones can be reunited after death and can have new lives in a functioning society instead of living in misery and poverty in a fucking Japanese feudal system. Not a Paradise, but at least a place to rest in peace.
We saw in his very first scene how he didn't like the dead being disrespected.
It's been established the shinigami have no real intention of ever fixing the system.
Ichigo himself is in no obligation to fix it either but he can take it upon himself to do so given his hero complex.
These things make sense but they're never expressed much. Ichigo isn't a mysterious guy for us. We know his past, his lineage, his attitude and the reasons for it, but aside from defending spirits and wanting to protect "a mountain-load of people", he's never shown much motivation to what he's fighting for. He wanted to save Rukia and Orihime during their arcs but after the timeskip it didn't even seem like he went after Yhwach for revenge for his mother. Maybe it's because he got that out of his system because of Grand Fisher or maybe he just didn't let it show but you'd think confronting the man who masterminded his mother's death would have been a more emotionally intense confrontation.
Part of the crew, part of the ship - part of the crew part of the ship - Part of the crew, part of the ship - part of the crew part of the ship - Part of the crew, part of the ship - part of the crew part of the ship - Part of the crew, part of the ship - part of the crew part of the ship - Part of the crew, part of the ship - part of the crew part of the ship -
>he got that out of his system because of Grand Fisher
Come to think of it, did Isshin ever actually tell Ichigo that he killed Grand Fisher?
As long as the nobles of soul society do not threaten anyone close to Ichigo, or in his vicinity, then they can do whatever they want.
There are talks of bringing back the Kurosaki siblings into the fold, but going by the last chapter of the manga that never happened.
I think "mastermiding" Masaki's death is giving Yhwach too much credit. The guy never had any intent to kill Masaki to begin with. It's just that she was unlucky enough to get herself into a situation where she was going to die.
He doesn't care to, that's the thing. Ichigo only ever went against SS and it's rules twice; first with Rukia then with Orihime.
>it's a brainlet doesn't understand bleach episode
Every time.
What if the Grand Fisher arc never ended? Waot, ni I'm thingking of that fan comic with the somewhat better ending.
Sure he disregards it in the actual story to continue being a tool for the shinigami but it's not like such a goal would be out of character for him.
After all, he likes playing hero right? what better way to do it then by getting the ultimate power up?
I couldn't think of a better word. Her death comes back to Yhwach stealing her powers at a very inopportune moment. If not for Grand Fisher she might have died later like Ishida's mom did anyway.
I imagine the Kurosakis will become a powerful force in Seireitei once they're all dead 100 years down...
Speaking of which, can Isshin even die naturally as he is now? He appears to have aged but he's still a spirit in a fake body at heart.
Why is that Yoruichi, Oetsu, Tosen and possibly Soi Fon were the only non-ethnic Japanese we ever saw in Soul Society? Do they just not allow gaijin to go to Shinigami school so they're forced to stay in Rukongai?
He'll just go back to soul society, Ichigo said so at one point. Ichigo and Kazui would be great additions, Karin and Yuzu would only be good for their genes. Ichigo is the one Tokinada wants to control.
Shitskin's entire clan is full of shitskin shinigami so they have some leeway for gaijin.
His dead cousin should have been his hollow.
>Karin and Yuzu would only be good for their genes
They never really got an opportunity. Karin definitely has the capacity since she can see ghosts, hollows, and soul reapers as well being something of a tough girl. Yuzu has less abilities but her lineage almost guarantees she'll be more than just a common street rat in Rukongai.
IIRC Kubo once said something like if Rangiku were alive she'd be french so maybe there are more whites in seireitei than we think.
There's also Mayuri who doesn't look japanese at all without his make up. I'm thinking he's egyptian given his pharoah costume.
I feel like things could have gone a lot better if Ichigo's unique lineage and traits were more important than they were. I also feel like Inoue was a poor character to give so much focus to. I don't care much about the romantic angle, but as a character she doesn't offer much. Her ability is ridiculous, but her reactions to her surroundings are poor. She doesn't really make things interesting.
There were way too many side characters. Having a lot of characters is fine and all, but Kubo was way too insistent on giving every single one of them a time to shine.
Basically, if you can't be bothered to make the protagonist more proactive about pursuing a goal, then make his existence more important. Don't just say that he's just a component of Yhwach or something. Give him a closer tie to the Soul King, or make it so that the Shiba clan was involved in some great conspiracy. If he's a Quincy, then make him a little more important than just being a battery for Yhwach to drain.
The key point is to place the protagonist in the center of things, whether by his own will or against it.
Are you retarded? His "lack of goal" is what makes him an interesting unique character. Ichigo started out as someone driven by his guilt to hide behind the punk facade and avoid opening up to anyone around him. He hid his guilt behind his angry face and he grew obsessed with idea of protecting others at the expense of his own wellbeing to the unhealthy lengths(as explored in Fullbring arc). Ichigo the delinquent that he was at the start, was very good at masking his emotions. Fullbring arc was all about how much of despair and anger and guilt Ichigo hides behind his behavior and how what happened to his mother haunts him. Which also included this moment which pretty much has a double meaning too.
In the last arc though once he actually let go of his anger and restraints, accepting himself and it became was very much obvious.
Orihime started out as someone lingering onto her brother's death and who lived alone and without a family. She lived alone talking to a freaking portrait and having no idea what she wants of life or even whether her existence is worth anything.
Through the story we have seen both her and Ichigo moving forward because of each other and learning to move past their past tragedies. Hell, we literally spelled that out with the Orihime saying that she will heal Ichigo no matter how broken he geats to Riruka, which is double-meaning in that it both means physically and it both means moving past what haunts them. And by the time of Masaki flashback and the obvious similarities between Isshin/Masaki and Ichigo/Orihime there was pretty much no doubt left that IF romance ever happens for Ichigo it will be this one.
The novels suggest everyone who's qualified to be the soul king has to be some kind of part everything like Ichigo himself so there's definitely a greater connection there.
Like I said, I don't care about the romance. The most important aspects of a character are three things: charisma, how they react to their surroundings and the circumstances that drive them to act. Inoue's motivations are tied almost exclusively to Ichigo, so as a result, she has no real personal stake in anything beyond "I think this is the right thing to do". Her reactions to her circumstances are predictable at best and boring at worst. She doesn't really offer much to any of the affairs; even when she's at the center of things, she doesn't really say or do anything to enhance the story.
As far as I'm concerned, she's not really an interesting character to follow. She's fundamentally lacking in charisma.
>talking to a freaking portrait
It's kinda funny how easy it is to forget how fucked Orihime's life initially was. Shame that part of her was never taken advantage of in an interesting way like developing her into a whore like her mom.
I disagree. I really love her character.
How edgy.
Aizen kind of wanted to do this and he was the villain.
Wormslut Orihime would've been great.
She had all the groundwork for it all she needed was some Aizen hollow shenanigans and we got best girl in the making.
God dammit Kubo how could you miss out on such a great opportunity?
Aizen wanted to become God and didn't care who he had to step on to get there.
The worst thing Kubo did to both Sado and Inoue was ditching everything about them aside of their love to Ichigo. Heck, even Orihime'sbond with Ulquiorra is never referenced after he eaves his heart with her and dies.
Why in the world would he be brought up again? He taunted her about Chad being dead, threatened to force feed her, and waited till she got to the dome to deliver the final blow to Ichigo. All she felt for the emo clown at the end was pity.
Maybe some battered wife syndrome thing where all the abuse convinced Orihime only people who make her suffer actually care for her at all. It's not only great dark humor but completely in character for her.
Chad never had much going for him to begin with. People liked him because he was a good friend, but he was basically a rank-and-file character. Someone to act as an equalizer. But he never really contributed much beyond adding to Ichigo's character profile. Once that was accomplished, he basically fell into a repetition of losing his battles because that's the natural result for him. He's not the main character, so it's impossible for him to stand until the very end. He has no greater stake in anything beyond helping Ichigo, but since Ichigo's stronger than him by leaps and bounds, he's unable to even do that much. Because he lacks information concerning any of the situations at hand, he's unable to even give Ichigo advice.
Chad was given too large a presence for a character of his type. He's inherently an outsider who got sucked into affairs that he probably should never have gotten involved in. As a result, he has no real plot ticket. Inoue's the same. The only real link she has to the story is Ichigo, so all she can do is follow Ichigo around or become one of his motivations. But since she doesn't really have anything to do with anything, her value as a motivation decreases the further into the story you go. On top of that, her link to Ichigo was weak to begin with. Ichigo barely acknowledged her at the start of the story. I mean, originally, Inoue was kind of just the silly character who produced a bunch of non-sequiturs. Wonder where that aspect of her personality went.
It all boils down to Kubo being really bad at the preparation stage.
It's not in character at all you dumbfuck. Her older brother, Tatsuki, and the rest of the nakama have never abused Orihime so the whole battered wife syndrome doesn't work for her character. She was only abused by her parents as a baby, and during her time in HM by different enemies.
>Ichigo barely acknowledged her at the start of the story
Huh? He pointed out that she always had a new bruise or something in one of the earliest chapters despite being only a classmate during this time. Plus he was willing to die for her when fighting her Hollow! Ichigo. I don't understand people that say he never paid attention to her when the first few chapters prove this statement wrong.
>rescues Rukia
>realizes the Soul Society's governing system is kind of really shitty
>to avoid capture, Rukia takes him back to the slums she grew up in
>they spend a few nights with Rukia reminiscing about her shitty childhood
>Ichigo hangs out with poor slum children and gets emotionally attached to them
>Ichigo resolves to challenge the corrupt government
>Aizen reveals he's after the same thing, except he wants to establish himself as a totalitarian dictator who controls everyone's every whim to ensure peace and fairness for all
>Ichigo rejects Aizen's ideas and decides that the people should have the power, not a single person like Aizen and not an oligarchy like the current Soul Society
>a three way war breaks out between Aizen and his loyalists, Ichigo and the shinigami who agree that the Soul Society should be reformed and the more traditional shinigami that want to protect their traditions
parental abuse is more than enough to instill such values into a person.
When you get right down to it, the quality of Bleach's story would be greatly improved if Kubo didn't insist on focusing so much of side characters. His story lacked focus ever since the Soul Society arc; it was just one detour after another. I understand that many of Bleach's characters were popular, but giving ALL of them time in the spotlight is excessive. You have to compromise sometimes if you want to tell a good story. If you focus on literally everything, you're just left with a bloated mess.
how about this! ichigo just wants to wear his fishnet shirts in peace.
Except she doesn't remember the abuse she received as a baby and literally states this to Riruka.
funny since the side characters were much more interesting after ichigo became boring as shit.
It turns out Shinigami need to constantly feed on Hollows or they will literally drop fucking dead. Ichigo must now spend the rest of his life hunting Hollows or he will literally drop fucking dead. Sometimes the best motivation is the simplest.
>shinigami who agree that the soul society should be reformed
So best case scenario Ichigo gets stuck with Rukia, Renji and maybe Shitsugaya? sounds like Ichigo's army is in for the jobbing of a lifetime.
to get laid
That's the whole issue though, he focused too much on side characters and didn't develop ichigo at all.
>his lack of proper goals or motivations
What in the world are you talking about? The only arc you this might, MIGHT, apply to is the beginning ghostbuster arc, but after that his goals and motivations are all pretty clear cut.
you dont like eternal angst eh?
You mean he focused too much on the Shinigami.
what kind of zanpakto would you give karin if she didn't get dropped by editor san?
They could probably get Ukitake since he seemed sympathetic to his underling. Maybe Kenpachi since he grew up a poorfag and he seems to not really give a shit about anything but fighting. So he'd probably join Ichigo for shits and giggles.
Have sex with the big titted redhead
>Ichigo can't get any because all the girls he tries to ask out think he looks scary
>He still looks like this
>when you realize Bleach actually takes place from Orihime's POV
Actually I think his role as a protector just needed to be played at more. He looks and sometimes acts like a punk, but at his core he doesn't like bullies or people who pick on the weak. So make him begrudging of his role as a Soul Reaper at first and then have it dawn on him that with his power he can protect his town, friends, etc. Make it a point that whenever anyone is slighted, no matter how small or petty, he's ready to jump in and lose gallons of blood if needed to in order to protect them. Rather than have him become a doctor of a small clinic, have him become a police officer and whenever he fails at his role as a protector, really give him an emotional crisis.
Essentially take what you already have and turn the dial up.
Daddy
why the fuck did yuzu get the short end of the stick of everything?
Aizen wanted to become a god and change the system. Sort of like shadow nazi jesus. Apparently that aspect of his character is going to be expanded upon in one of the upcoming novels.
She was forsaken by Yhwach for her forbidden desires toward her brother and future nephew.
Lies and slander
Hoping his system isn't going to be any better than the current. One of his defining traits is being an ass and having righteous motivations takes away from that. Besides, Yhwach's already got good intentions villain covered.
Inoue and Chad should not have followed Ichigo into Soul Society. In terms of story progression, they didn't really add anything. If you absolutely must have a romance angle with Ichigo, fine, establish that. But that doesn't mean Orihime needs to follow Ichigo; it's not like they got to spend much time together regardless. That being said, just bringing in Ichigo, Ishida and Yoruichi might have been too far in the other direction. On the other hand, this might benefit the characters more. With less characters to share the spotlight with, it would have been more interesting to see Ishida and Ichigo's friendship progress. Functionally, Ishida has more to offer to the story than either Chad or Inoue as well. Once they get to Soul Society, they'd get joined by Ganju and Hanatarou as well, so it more or less works out. Just by lessening the number of main characters, you can greatly enhance focus.
Lessen the number of Shinigami that get the spotlight. I know they're interesting, but too many detours is never a good thing. At the time of the SS arc, it wasn't that bad, since the only Shinigami that really got a lot of showtime were the ones that directly fought Ichigo. It's after that where things get problematic. We never really needed to know Ikkaku, or Komamura's, or Soifon's history. Considering how utterly unimportant these characters ended up being in the long run, it would have been better to just hint at things a bit without delving all the way into their pasts. As an addendum to that, stop trying to give every single character a fight. It's entirely unnecessary and drags the already slow pace down to a crawl. Have most of the fights offscreen and show the results later. Side characters should not have the camera constantly trained on them.
>All three go to Kenpatchi to try and recruit him
>He sits in silence then asks how many are on each side
>He simply joins Ichigo because his opponents are greater in number and strength
It's not like you couldn't make Chad stronger. His no Shinigami, so him getting strong faster wouldn't be weird. Not weirder than sudden power ups for Rukia and Renji. And aside of that, there are many things you can do with wild kid turned pacifist, you just have to give him more characters to interact with.
And with Inoue, you had her wanting to erase Hogyoku which goes nowhere but could result in something interesting. Aside of that, her problem in SS was lack of killing intent and all of this stuff. Then she trains to learn to fight in Arrancar arc and actually gets somewhat rougher in FB arc. You can put her in situation when she has to kill an opponent and the story writes itself. You just have to try. Kubo just didn't try with Inoue and Sado.
What girls did he ask out?
t. capt hindsight
fuck you soi fon was great.
>ignoring doggo bro
no fuck off, Bromamura was easily one of the best side characters. If anything he needed way more focus than dumb shitters like Hitsugaya, Kenpachi and Byakuya.
This is part of the reason I like Memories of Nobody. Its story is incredibly straightforward and generic, and the villains are lame as fuck. But it doesn't dilly-dally on pointless shit. It focuses on two characters, Ichigo and Senna. That's it. That's all it needed. Anyone who wasn't necessary was thrown onto the sidelines and kept there. Yes, some Captains and Vice Captains were brought in at the end for the fight scenes, but that's the extent of it. The crux of the story is entirely based around the relationship between these two characters, so as a Bleach story, it has unparalleled focus.
He's a realistic teen protaganist in my opinion because he doesn't really know what the fuck his goals and motives are.
His goal is to get laid, and later, become the Harem King of Soul Society. It only makes sense with the sheer number of semen demons in this show.
movie was terrible.
focusing on a nobody and a boring mc is a great movie? laughable.
He didn't. I was just making a joke based on the post I was replying to.
The problem is no one major had any real conflict with him. Ichigo never fights him, Aizen doesn't care that much about him. His conflicts were always with other side characters which were never that important.
It's not an issue of strength. That's not the real problem. The issue is that Chad is entirely irrelevant. He has nothing to do with anything beyond being Ichigo's friend. Every single time he's given focus, it ends up being a tangent, a detour that never goes anywhere. It's not just Chad, the majority of the characters are like this.
Furthermore, Inoue's hands were tied because she's not the protagonist. You can't have her foil the main villain's plot because it's the protagonist's role to do that. She was never anything more than a red herring; even if she weren't, she simply would have been defeated or tossed aside because her success cannot be allowed.
You have a hard time grasping the concept of "hero" don't you?
The solution doesn't lie with Ichigo, but with Urahara. Make Urahara a secret villain, like most of Sup Forums suspected for quite some time. Make Ichigo just an unwitting pawn in a much greater game. His naive and trusting nature letting others easily take advantage of him.
That's going to be his son's goal after years of being corrupted by Grandpa Isshin and Uncle Mizuiro.
>It's not an issue of strength. That's not the real problem. The issue is that Chad is entirely irrelevant. He has nothing to do with anything beyond being Ichigo's friend. Every single time he's given focus, it ends up being a tangent, a detour that never goes anywhere. It's not just Chad, the majority of the characters are like this.
It turned out like this, it doesn't mean it had to.
>Furthermore, Inoue's hands were tied because she's not the protagonist. You can't have her foil the main villain's plot because it's the protagonist's role to do that. She was never anything more than a red herring; even if she weren't, she simply would have been defeated or tossed aside because her success cannot be allowed.
Urahara had big part in Aizen's defeat, Ishida and Aizen were arguably more crucial to Yhwach's defeat than Ichigo.
They're called friends and they actually bring humanity marketability and the "cool factor" to the cast.
If it was only about relevant people then the entire cast would be middle aged shinigami and the occasional hollow.
Kubo fucked up in only one way. Not going ahead with making the hell arc about Chads powers and Inoue some kind of fairy or something.
World building that tied the his cast of friends to the story at large.
Something embarassingly cute that becomes way too hot as she matures.
To be honest, I think she would have done better as a quincy.
This sounds way better than what we got. And it would actually make Ichigo heroic.
I had been hoping it would turn out that Zangetsu was eating the hollows he kills with it (since it is a hollow after all) rather than purifying them, and that was part of why he got stronger. Cue moral dilemma.
shame tatsuki, karin was dropped for 50 quincy fags.
Would have been cool if Ichigo figured out White was actually Zangetsu much earlier and ran into this issue.
>"What's the matter partner, you said you wanted to get stronger right? Besides, they're just hollows anyway. No one is going to miss them."
That was after Ichigo already defeated him.
Also, at this point, we're merely delving into "what could have beens". Basically, too many ingredients will spoil the broth. My argument this whole time has been that the story has always been critically lacking in focus. It's not a stretch to say that from start to finish, it's pretty much just been an endless series of detours. Giving extra focus to a character who was initially an irrelevant outsider does not really help with that.
Most of those middle-aged Shinigami weren't that relevant either. The bulk of them were just firepower and none of them were capable of dealing with the situation at hand.
Again, I'm aware that these characters are popular, but seriously, think about it. Among Ichigo's posse, there around half a dozen members, give or take a few. Then you have the Gotei 13, which is comprised of thirteen (or less) Captains, thirteen (or less) Lieutenants and countless other rank-and-file soldiers. Putting aside the lower-ranks, Soul Society alone has twenty-six (or less) characters to focus on. On top of that, there's also the Vizards, the Arrancar and the Quincy. It's a mess. Giving every single one of them a fight and a flashback is way, way too much. It's completely ridiculous.
I mean, as things stand, if you get rid of Chad, what, exactly, would that take away from the story? If you give the absolute bare-minimal focus to Soifon, Hitsugaya, Hinamori, Kira, etc., etc., how would that negatively impact the flow of the plot? You can't just introduce a hundred characters and focus on all of them. That's not what a reasonable storyteller does.
Focus. You show what needs to be done, add some fanservice within reasonable amounts, and that's it. I'm not saying that you should only put what's absolutely necessary, but if you're gonna add extra things, they should be used as a bit of extra spice or garnish, not dumped in wholesale.
The thing that helped sell bleach was the feeling that Ichigo was always in way over his head and that nothing that's happening has anything directly to do with him.
He's the hero who sticks his head in to help his friends.
That's it.
That feeling is also why his little friendship circle is so important. They're a bunch of likeable easily marketable teenage kids and adults who're just trying to save their friend in SS.
They'd end up becoming something greater as they travel and have adventures but ultimately at that point they're nothing.
As for Inoue. That's fucking dumb. A side character can indeed do whatever the author wants. If she did destroy the crumbling jewel or was instrumental in stopping aizen even being a major reason that urahara's plan worked. I would have NO problem with that.
But he was slapped with the PROTAG HAS TO BE THE SPESHULEST thing and he's lost a part of his personality in the process
ITT: shitty writers.
you all deserve older editors fucking you up and correcting your dumb ideas like kubo.
Name one good writer who introduces a hundred characters and gives all of them focus in the course of a single story.
I liked the idea that Urahara and Aizen were these brilliant grand masters who were playing this massive game against each other.
And Aizen's gambit during the HM arc was to become a god so he could overthrow the king, but Urahara wanted to protect the king and the throne because he knows something that Aizen doesn't or simply thought it was best if things were left well enough alone.
If the quincy arc revealed that the king was really REALLY horrifying and Urahara was probably a high ranking member of the Zero squad, maybe even the captain, and he'd been playing them all as saps for decades?
Then shit.
Aizen's awesome rant as he was sealed would have been prophetic and even cooler
Just have Yoruichi fuck Ichigo in the training hot spring or at least heavily imply it
WRONG HOLE AHHHH
This technically happened with old man Zangetsu instead of White. Every person a quincy kills is fed to Yhwach.
Though I doubt Ichigo would actually care since he had no issue with killing Yhwach even if it meant every soul in Yhwach's posession being wiped from existence.
fuck you Senna was one of the best girls.
>heroic Ichigo
Gay.
I'd much prefer a Light Yagami esque self righteous egotist Ichigo.
>If the quincy arc revealed that the king was really REALLY horrifying
All Kubo had to do was copy the elder god from the Kain games, and boom, he's done.
What is Yusuke's goal?
What is Goku's goal?
What is Kuroko's goal?
What are the Jojo's in the Joestar family goals?
What is Rin's goal?
What is even the faggot that is Natsu's goal?
Just shut the fuck up and respect the man. Barely anyone has goals worth a damn.
>I'd much prefer a Light Yagami esque self righteous egotist Ichigo.
And instead you got a little bitch who cries every time something doesn't go his way.
That honestly would have been pretty great. I know a lot of people were speculating some eldrich abomination from Aizens rant and we just got a featureless guy in a crystal who gets one shot instead.
Having Urahara as a secret zero squad member on the ground level who was forced into hiding after Aizen found out about it and started his own campaign sure as shit would have been interesting and I could even see Ichigo doing an about face at that point and going against Urahara.
> implying the king who's severed arm went and became an eldritch horror isn't horrifying
Hm? Wasn't his goal to be an Ally of Justice?
>goes through ss arc blah blah
>shitty filler arc never happens
>karin and yuzu visit urahara shop a lot to
>ichigo and his dad look out for growing quincy sisters.