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ZepiaEltnamOberon posted:And then there's Ulquiorra who's super special and not your average Hollow? At least according to UNMASKED. I assume Grimmjow would've eventually pulled out a second form too if Kubo wasn't forced to wrap things up. Seems like just a super rare arrancar ability. I really wonder if the Can't Fear Your Own World novels are going to remain entirely canon or if Kubo will retcon them. I don't expect the backstory info to change(or ever be referenced again) but a bunch of new Bankais were shown(Notably Shinji and Hisagi) that Kubo might want to change. RatHat fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Aug 10, 2021 |
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Aug 10, 2021 07:41
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Maybe you only go to hell if you're a Vasto Lorde? Szyael is specifically confirmed in Spirits are Forever With You to be a Vasto Lorde who was originally the strongest Espada, but because of some shenanigans he lost a ton of power and got temporarily kicked out until he rebuilt his power back up. It could also just be that hollows only go to hell if they were evil during their human life as originally portrayed waaaaaay back in early Bleach, and if that's the case the backstory we got on what Szyael was up to as a human in SFWY definitely qualifies him for hell candidacy.
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Aug 10, 2021 08:29
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Kubo has been generally awful when it comes to worldbuilding consistency so things could change at any time but, when it comes to souls this is the information we can figure out: If a normal hollow kills and eats a normal human or human soul (not a quincy, fullbringer, shinigami, or purified and sent to soul society) that soul is absorbed in that hollow, and the hollow gains their spirit power. This does not destroy the soul, as according to Spirits are Forever With You, Szayelaporro (as a normal hollow) ate his brother Yylforte (a human) then later on as an Arrancar separated Yylforte's soul from his own. So there are an accumulation of souls in all hollows, just waiting to get out. People that do bad poo poo while a living being go to hell when they die, but doing bad poo poo as a hollow does not send you to hell as is explained when Ichigo and Chad save that Parakeet. It is made clear that Aaroniero is the weakest espada when discussing spirit power and while he and Szayelaporro were both sent to hell, Zomari who died between those two was not there. This may be because Aaroniero's ability of fusing with souls he consumed meant they could not be 'freed' upon his death thus making his spirit power class too high for absorption, and since Szayelaporro was able to separate a soul from his own may have been able to do some weird poo poo with them meaning they couldn't be freed either. Or they were just bad people in life. Either way, since Zomari was an espada and wasn't sent to hell that means the souls he ate that made up his strength must have been separated from him and he was then purified since he was killed by a zanpakuto. To summarize: Science espada who went to hell was able to pull his brother's eaten soul out of himself way later, so the souls are still there. Problematic Espada that fought Byakuya did not go to hell, and he was canonically stronger than science espada on a spirit power level. It would be safe to speculate that when a hollow dies, the souls held inside them are freed back to the cycle.
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Aug 10, 2021 08:32
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Sydin posted:Maybe you only go to hell if you're a Vasto Lorde? Szyael is specifically confirmed in Spirits are Forever With You to be a Vasto Lorde who was originally the strongest Espada, but because of some shenanigans he lost a ton of power and got temporarily kicked out until he rebuilt his power back up. Aaroniero was a Gillian (Though one with unlimited potential) and he went to Hell with Szayelaporro. Notably Zommari and Nnoitora did not go to hell with them despite dying before Szayelaporro. So it's probably the same as early Bleach were they only go to Hell if the original human soul was evil. Also I recall with Szayelaporro in that novel, that while he became Espada Cero because of his higher Reitsu before losing that power, he was still inferior to Barragan and has served as Barragan's subordinate before Aizen recruited them, because he had no way around Barragan's absurdly broken power.
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Aug 10, 2021 09:12
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RatHat posted:I assume Grimmjow would've eventually pulled out a second form too if Kubo wasn't forced to wrap things up. Seems like just a super rare arrancar ability. I believe all the Espadas got theoretical 2nd forms (and Ulqiorra got a theoretical 3rd form) in the Bleach mobile game as "What if" forms that they'd turn into if they fused with the hoagie? https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Resurrecci%C3%B3n#H.C5.8Dgyoku_Resurrecci.C3.B3ns quote:Bleach: Brave Souls features alternate universe versions of the Espada who have fused themselves with the Hōgyoku, causing them to attain transcended versions of their Resurreccións which resemble their standard released forms while incorporating the Hōgyoku and adding further onto their animal motifs; these forms are described as being Beyond Resurrección (帰刃(レスレクシオン)のその先へ, Resurekushion no Sono Saki e).[63] Barragan's is dope.
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Aug 10, 2021 09:32
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RatHat posted:I assume Grimmjow would've eventually pulled out a second form too if Kubo wasn't forced to wrap things up. Seems like just a super rare arrancar ability. kubo barely remembers his own continuity, much less someone else's.
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Aug 10, 2021 09:54
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:lol i just remembered that ywach killed all his own dudes twice he was privvy to the true nature of the world its no wonder he was a loving psyco
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Aug 10, 2021 17:02
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ZepiaEltnamOberon posted:I believe all the Espadas got theoretical 2nd forms (and Ulqiorra got a theoretical 3rd form) in the Bleach mobile game as "What if" forms that they'd turn into if they fused with the hoagie? Holy poo poo these are cool. Bleach has always had way better designs then Naruto
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Aug 10, 2021 17:07
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Yeah the super espada are all dope except Grimmjow. Poor guy has the second shittiest resurreccion (after Halibel's which is lame except for her sword) and the shittiest non-canon super resurreccion.
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Aug 10, 2021 17:50
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Never been a huge fan of Grimmjow or Harribel's resurrecion's so the souped up versions weren't selling me but I like the second Santa Teresa a lot more than the original one and Ulquiorra, Aaroniero, and Szayel all got some nice looking new ones too.
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Aug 10, 2021 17:54
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Nnoitra, Yammy, and Nel are the real winners, imo. Harribel's is at least an improvement over her normal one and the shark theming is good, but its mostly noteworthy for how horny it is. Starrk having two hoagie spots is also a neat touch. chumbler fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Aug 10, 2021 |
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Aug 10, 2021 18:13
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Harribel's base, non-release, design was incredible and struck a good balance between horny and badass, all her other designs were strictly inferior and way too horny. She should have kept that cool skull/jaw/mask thingy. 
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Aug 10, 2021 18:19
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Y'all threw out a bunch of titles that I should know but absolutely do not in the power levels of this world. I feel like it made sense when I was reading it, but now it seems...kinda like just gibberish. I guess that's just Bleach?
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Aug 10, 2021 19:03
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The Notorious ZSB posted:Y'all threw out a bunch of titles that I should know but absolutely do not in the power levels of this world. I feel like it made sense when I was reading it, but now it seems...kinda like just gibberish. I guess that's just Bleach? You've got hollows which are more or less individuals until they consume enough souls that they become a menos, which is a giant agglomeration of hollows, and needs to start consuming other hollows because human souls aren't enough. The lowest level menos are gillians, which includes menos grande and probably ones like grand fisher after it gets arrancar-ized. Menos with a particularly dominant soul are adjuchas which are stronger and more humanoid, and they need to keep consuming other hollows to avoid regressing to gillian and the dominant soul being consumed by the others. They'd be the sort of lieutenant parallel in the hollow hierarchy, and would be most 11+ numbered arrancar and some espada. Vasto lordes are the strongest hollows and essentially the captain or higher level ones, and it's apparently not the case that they come from just consuming way more hollows, but there is something more fundamental that determines whether one can become one. Resurreccion is more or less shikai/bankai for arrancar where they gain more of their original hollow elements. But really yeah just don't think about it too hard. chumbler fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Aug 10, 2021 |
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Aug 10, 2021 19:42
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The Notorious ZSB posted:Y'all threw out a bunch of titles that I should know but absolutely do not in the power levels of this world. I feel like it made sense when I was reading it, but now it seems...kinda like just gibberish. I guess that's just Bleach? If you haven't read Hueco Mundo in a while or Bleach has not drilled itself into your brain like it has for some of us, you ain't gonna remember any of this poo poo because like most shonen manga Bleach has an obscene amount of terms, abilities, and stylized names that either get dropped as it goes on or lose prominence. Hollows are really the only major constant throughout all of Bleach and even their relationship to what's happening changes a lot depending on the arc.
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Aug 10, 2021 20:36
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What's fun about the hollow lore and rankings and poo poo is that none of it really ended up mattering at all. No hollow wins or loses a fight because they're one type vs the other, and from HM onward there is not a single relevant hollow that isn't an arrancar - a state that kinda bypasses the whole hollow ranking system anyway - so why even bother with it?
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Aug 10, 2021 20:46
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The Menos Grande that are just big tall black blobs never seemed to have any sort of personality or individual will, they're just mindless soul consumers. I always thought the ones that transcend this and developed a sense of self were the ones that became Vasto Lordes and so on.
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Aug 10, 2021 20:49
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Sydin posted:What's fun about the hollow lore and rankings and poo poo is that none of it really ended up mattering at all. No hollow wins or loses a fight because they're one type vs the other, and from HM onward there is not a single relevant hollow that isn't an arrancar - a state that kinda bypasses the whole hollow ranking system anyway - so why even bother with it? I mean shinigami rankings and even Aizen's whole thing about there being fundamental limits on shinigami power don't seem to totally matter. It's something mentioned offhand in CFYOW (which also has a super powerful non-arrancar hollow) that even aside from still being able to further grow and develop, any random shinigami could potentially have a sword that hard counters whatever your thing is.
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Aug 10, 2021 20:55
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I'm just remembering in particular when the rankings first get revealed and Yamamoto is all "just a handful of Vasto Lorde could destroy all of Soul Society!!!" and then it cuts to Aizen at his table of ten Espada and it's clear the implication is oh poo poo, only a couple of these guys is an existential threat to SS and Aizen has ten of them! ...Except a bunch of those guys aren't even VL's, and the ones who are get chumped easily by captain level shinigami. Starkk gets taken out by Shunsui's shikai. Hell, Sayzel being a VL is so irrelevant that it never even comes up in the manga proper, only in one of the LN's. Without Aizen the entire Espada combined weren't even remotely a threat to SS, particularly if Yamamoto felt like getting off his lazy rear end.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:02
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Sydin posted:I'm just remembering in particular when the rankings first get revealed and Yamamoto is all "just a handful of Vasto Lorde could destroy all of Soul Society!!!" and then it cuts to Aizen at his table of ten Espada and it's clear the implication is oh poo poo, only a couple of these guys is an existential threat to SS and Aizen has ten of them! It's a weird thing, honestly, because they hype it up and then reveal that like only 3 or 4 Espada are Vastro Lordes. So like, it's internally consistent in a way but underwhelming.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:03
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chumbler posted:~*thoughtful explanation*~ I promise you I won't  Captain Baal posted:If you haven't read Hueco Mundo in a while or Bleach has not drilled itself into your brain like it has for some of us, you ain't gonna remember any of this poo poo because like most shonen manga Bleach has an obscene amount of terms, abilities, and stylized names that either get dropped as it goes on or lose prominence. Hollows are really the only major constant throughout all of Bleach and even their relationship to what's happening changes a lot depending on the arc. I haven't read Bleach since the original run ended. The finale was so grossly underwhelming it killed my interest in going back to it, but I always really liked the character designs and art so I was pulled back by this new content. Honestly tho the only manga I regularly revisit is Berserk. And Love Hina, once a year with that one.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:04
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Sydin posted:What's fun about the hollow lore and rankings and poo poo is that none of it really ended up mattering at all. No hollow wins or loses a fight because they're one type vs the other, and from HM onward there is not a single relevant hollow that isn't an arrancar - a state that kinda bypasses the whole hollow ranking system anyway - so why even bother with it? A lot of it to me comes off as Kubo wanting to expand on the concepts of the Hollow more so they're not just simplistic monsters and there is an entire ecosystem and hierarchy as if Hueco Mundo/Hollows live an existence all on their own. The actual Menos rankings don't necessarily matter as a number of Vasto Lordes are Espada, but it's like impossible to tell which ones are except Ulquiorra who was silhouetted as a Vasto Lorde back when they introduced the concept, so that's a no brainer. Despite this apparently most of the Espada were VLs including former ones (Nel, it seems) and it's taken a lot of supplementary material to confirm the rest (Szayel WAS one but downgraded to adjuchas at some point in a novel and Harribel's confirmed in anime as being one). It's the same problem with a lot of stuff in Bleach where the only way Kubo feels he can establish meaningful differences in classes of something is largely through power, which is ironic when you consider so much of Bleach's post Aizen stuff is very unique to the individual and matchup based, so you can tell he realized that he didn't like doing that and tried his best to veer away from it, though it is still there somewhat. It's unfortunate because Hollows were much better as a simpler concept in early Bleach where they were just deceased ghosts who couldn't come to terms with their death. This played much more into personal character stories and themes which also made antagonists like Shrieker and Grand Fisher that much more effective because they resembled monstrous people unlike the Espada who ultimately are just humans by another name. Captain Baal fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Aug 10, 2021 |
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Aug 10, 2021 21:26
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chumbler posted:You've got hollows which are more or less individuals until they consume enough souls that they become a menos, which is a giant agglomeration of hollows, and needs to start consuming other hollows because human souls aren't enough. The lowest level menos are gillians, which includes menos grande and probably ones like grand fisher after it gets arrancar-ized. Menos with a particularly dominant soul are adjuchas which are stronger and more humanoid, and they need to keep consuming other hollows to avoid regressing to gillian and the dominant soul being consumed by the others. They'd be the sort of lieutenant parallel in the hollow hierarchy, and would be most 11+ numbered arrancar and some espada. Vasto lordes are the strongest hollows and essentially the captain or higher level ones, and it's apparently not the case that they come from just consuming way more hollows, but there is something more fundamental that determines whether one can become one. To be exact Menos Grande is just the proper name for a Menos Gillians being the lowest rank. Gillians will once in a while obtain their individuality, which grants them a different mask and sometimes appearance from the rest of the horde, and they will go on to consume other Menos unlike the others who tend to ignore them. These will evolve into Adjuchas who have a large variety of appearances and personalities, if they ever regress they can never become an Adjuchas again. Some top percentile of them can Evolve into Vasto Lordes who are supposed to be stronger then the average Captain. Barragan was apparently the first Vasto Lorde. Any Hollow can become an Arrancar, which results in their mask breaking and some of their power being sealed into a weapon. With Aizen's Hogyoku this also came with a moderate power boost, but the primary positive before that was breaking the mask would prevent a Hollow from devolving, though they would no longer be capable of evolving either. Captain Baal posted:Despite this apparently most of the Espada were VLs including former ones (Nel, it seems) and it's taken a lot of supplementary material to confirm the rest (Szayel WAS one but downgraded to adjuchas at some point in a novel and Harribel's confirmed in anime as being one). I believe the Top four were VLs. This includes Nel back when she was part of the top four.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:35
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Captain Baal posted:It's unfortunate because Hollows were much better as a simpler concept in early Bleach where they were just deceased ghosts who couldn't come to terms with their death. This played much more into personal character stories and themes which also made antagonists like Shrieker and Grand Fisher that much more effective because they resembled monstrous people unlike the Espada who ultimately are just humans by another name. To be fair, the espada at least do still nominally have some theme or driving need to them, like destruction for Grimmjow or sacrifice for Harribel or solitude for Starrk, but that kind of never really comes up or is delivered on in the main material.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:42
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They do but those are mostly just more buzzwords used to spice up the characters I feel. The only Espada with some degree of meaningful character building are Nnoitora, Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, and Stark and out of them Stark and Nnoitora are the only ones that feel fully realized with regards to their respective aspects of death and actual characters. Ulquiorra's is just nihilism and yeah that tracks, but it's such an uninteresting development for him and ultimately Ulquiorra is a lot of wasted potential and Grimmjow's is just destruction which like... sure it could play into his character, but Grimmjow only ever displays this through wanton destruction in fights. His actual personality and philosophy doesn't play into it as much because he's largely just a braggart who has self-image issues.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:47
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Captain Baal posted:It's the same problem with a lot of stuff in Bleach where the only way Kubo feels he can establish meaningful differences in classes of something is largely through power, which is ironic when you consider so much of Bleach's post Aizen stuff is very unique to the individual and matchup based, so you can tell he realized that he didn't like doing that and tried his best to veer away from it, though it is still there somewhat. He's kinda doing the same thing again though in the new chapter where suddenly there are ranks of physical spirit power and once you hit a certain rank you can no longer be reincarnated and get booted off to hell. Which in effect limits who we'd be able to see chilling in hell to those who are captain level or higher.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:48
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chumbler posted:To be fair, the espada at least do still nominally have some theme or driving need to them, like destruction for Grimmjow or sacrifice for Harribel or solitude for Starrk, but that kind of never really comes up or is delivered on in the main material. Or A Knife.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:49
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I think we need to wait on that somewhat, because yes while that could end up just playing into power discrepancy again, I'd like to be more optimistic and say he has more interesting ideas than that. Like TYBW ultimately ended up kind of a mess, but for a good period it was pretty interesting in the ways it was individualizing all of the Strenritter and not just making their powers and the new Bankai reveals just so blatantly powerful than previous ones. It's only as it got to the mid point where it was just scramble after scramble of bullshit that it really got back to that point and every new power shrugged off characters or was Yhwach getting more screen time where he got to be the lamest main antagonist. I do think that while Kubo is very fly by the seat of his pants on stuff, he does plan out a significant portion of Bleach and he wouldn't be touching on Hell if he didn't have some plan to revisit old stuff. Like Szayel coming back should set a pretty clear tone that characters who we largely thought irrelevant for a long time can make a return regardless of the silly rules they bring up for how Hell's Gates open. Captain Baal fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Aug 10, 2021 |
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Aug 10, 2021 21:51
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Oh man, the four super Quincy guys Yhwach brought with him to face the royal guard were the absolute worst in that regard. I'm pretty sure each of them "died" like 4-5 times only to go "lol no" and drag their fights back out.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:56
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Captain Baal posted:They do but those are mostly just more buzzwords used to spice up the characters I feel. The only Espada with some degree of meaningful character building are Nnoitora, Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, and Stark and out of them Stark and Nnoitora are the only ones that feel fully realized with regards to their respective aspects of death and actual characters. Ulquiorra's is just nihilism and yeah that tracks, but it's such an uninteresting development for him and ultimately Ulquiorra is a lot of wasted potential and Grimmjow's is just destruction which like... sure it could play into his character, but Grimmjow only ever displays this through wanton destruction in fights. His actual personality and philosophy doesn't play into it as much because he's largely just a braggart who has self-image issues. Barragan was cool. He was a very basic character but he did his thing well.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:59
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Sydin posted:Oh man, the four super Quincy guys Yhwach brought with him to face the royal guard were the absolute worst in that regard. I'm pretty sure each of them "died" like 4-5 times only to go "lol no" and drag their fights back out. Apparently Lilie Barro the Sniper guy who turned into an owl is still alive.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:59
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I kind of wonder if the original intent around the hueco mundo arc was to have more time of Orihime being around (and terrified of) the various more reasonable espada before the action kicks off, but editors pushed for more fights now. Probably not the case, but Kubo at least clearly wanted some of that what with the investment in Ulquiorra and his underlings (who are incidentally still alive). Harribel may be a bland character on her own but popular for obvious reasons, but her underlings were cool.Sydin posted:Oh man, the four super Quincy guys Yhwach brought with him to face the royal guard were the absolute worst in that regard. I'm pretty sure each of them "died" like 4-5 times only to go "lol no" and drag their fights back out. Thankfully only the quincy mean girls still matter, and shockingly, they (and Bazz B) were also the only ones who had any sort of development at all in that arc. chumbler fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Aug 10, 2021 |
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Aug 10, 2021 21:59
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MonsterEnvy posted:Barragan was cool. He was a very basic character but he did his thing well. Yeah, that's fair. There are literally 0 questions as to what Barragan is and that's part of why he was so loving good. He was just an angry skeleton man that wanted to murder people and liked lording his power over other people, that's literally all he ever needed to be. Not like Yammy who kept showing up so much but was just a thuggish brute. Aaroniero who spend an obscene amount of time trying to get the audience to buy into his very obvious shtick. Or Zommari who... idk wtf to say about Zommari, it's funny how he looked like a pumpkin and was the height of the "No I'm behind you now" thing. chumbler posted:I kind of wonder if the original intent around the hueco mundo arc was to have more time of Orihime being around (and terrified of) the various more reasonable espada before the action kicks off, but editors pushed for more fights now. Probably not the case, but Kubo at least clearly wanted some of that what with the investment in Ulquiorra and his underlings (who are incidentally still alive). The greatest crime Kubo committed was trying to structure an entire story arc around saving Orihime, a character who by and large existed to be comic relief after the Acidwire stuff was said and done, because he very early on committed to her and Ichigo being a thing. Captain Baal fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Aug 10, 2021 |
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Aug 10, 2021 22:02
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MonsterEnvy posted:I believe the Top four were VLs. This includes Nel back when she was part of the top four. So originally it was the top 4 Espada that were Vasto Lordes(not including Nel, she’s never been stated to be one) but it was retconned in one of the novels that 1-7 were all Vasto lordes, with Syazel being a former one. Meaning the only ones that weren’t were Aaroniro(the only Gillian espada due to his ability) and Yammy(whose silhouette was actually used when describing Adjuchas). As far as I can tell espada rank was literally just about pure spirit power though, that’s why Yammy was 0 after transforming but was still a chump. By the way it seems like Ulquiorra was the only natural arrancar. Maybes that’s why he was special. RatHat fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Aug 10, 2021 |
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Aug 10, 2021 22:05
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Barragan benefited greatly from Kubo drawing the gently caress out of him Anyway I actually like the Hollow "life" cycle: eventually a hungry ghost becomes so hungry it eats other ghosts, forming a kind of gestalt consciousness that eventually forms into its own distinct entity.
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Aug 10, 2021 22:08
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everyone knows that kubo loves drawing crazy monsters and he's really good at it.
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Aug 10, 2021 22:10
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MonsterEnvy posted:Apparently Lilie Barro the Sniper guy who turned into an owl is still alive. Oh no...
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Aug 10, 2021 22:10
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Captain Baal posted:The greatest crime Kubo committed was trying to structure an entire story arc around saving Orihime, a character who by and large existed to be comic relief after the Acidwire stuff was said and done, because he very early on committed to her and Ichigo being a thing. The one thing everyone can agree on, it should've been Ichigo/Rukia and Ishida/Orihime and Chad/Riruka.
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Aug 10, 2021 22:17
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I don't even care about ships, I just don't want Rukia Kuchiki, one of the few characters who remained good throughout the entirety of Bleach, to end up with loving Renji Abarai, the lamest Soul Reaper to ever get significant focus.
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Aug 10, 2021 22:19
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I like Rukia as a character better than Orihime for sure but the pairings make sense. Ichigo and Rukia were always just friends, there was not really any romance between them. A rare thing in shonen.
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Aug 10, 2021 22:27
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