Bleach

I wonder if Haineko's own personality has something to do with how much control Rangiku has over it.

Also how dense is ash compared to metal?

edited 1st Aug '15 10:47:09 AM by windleopard

Heineko's personality comes from Rangiku's personality. The sword is the mirror of the self that a shinigami has to look into if they want to master themselves and therefore their power.

Or something.

So basically her own faults limit her power then?

Yep, we've already seen that was a problem for her and Yumichika.

edited 1st Aug '15 12:01:44 PM by LSBK

Man, Bankai Yumichika would be the most OP thing ever.

Speaking of which, on the off chance Rangiku got a Bankai what would it be?

A puppy cannon.

There's no meaningful answer to your question, honestly. Sometimes a bankai is a scaled up version of shikai (Byakuya) but sometimes the relation is only based on a common element (Mayuri) and other times there's no clear relationship at all (Soifon) which makes speculation kind of pointless.

A cannon that shoots puppies or a cannon made out of puppies?

Yes.

Actually, I think it's a canon that retroactivity fuses puppies into the story's history.

That's where Komamura came from, y'see.

Soifon's is the theme of the quick kill

You go from a 2HK to a OHK

-though this being shonen this never works out-

That's what people here stated it'd be, but I don't believe that has been confirmed in story. You could just as easily say it went from a small bee stinger to a huge bee stinger.

edited 1st Aug '15 1:59:15 PM by wanderlustwarrior

That's the case for all shinigami. I suspect, that's the case for all characters in Bleach. It's very Shounen.

From a writing standpoint I don't see why Kubo gave her such an OP ability that got countered every time for narrative convenience.

Because it fits well with "ninja". It's just that the ninja way isn't that good with the kind of series Bleach is.

A lot of the Bankai powers are OP, and come with corresponding 'counters' written into the fights to make sure they don't get used in an OP way. It's not that power levels aren't Kubo's strong point, it's that he seems to view it like a computer game - the level-up kind.

edited 1st Aug '15 2:53:12 PM by Wyldchyld

Yet-to-be-revealed Bankais are Aizen, Shinji, Kyoraku, Ukitake, and presumably Love and Urahara.

Yet-to-be-revealed Shikais are Nanao, Iba (its powers, we've seen what it looks like), and Nemu.

edited 1st Aug '15 3:43:31 PM by HamburgerTime

When Soi Fong was being designed in Kubo's mighty head, the Soul Society were antagonists.

Two-hits you're dead is a good power for an antagonist to have. It forces whoever faces them to play it careful.

And then Soi Fong just kept hanging around.

I've always been pretty sure that Iba's shikai doesn't have powers.

Yeah, he's former squad 11 and very much shares their mentality. I see no reason to believe it has any power.

Soifon's power has only been outright negated once. It's also successfully worked once, and in the other two fights she used Shikai in she was able to use it to keep pressure on her opponent and unable to try it due to a bad matchup.

So it's not really a power that is "always countered" but it would have been nice for her to hit a major enemy with it. Like BG9.

On Kubo's power levels it's clear he prefers to give counters to the opponent rather than make a user's ability have some flaw anyone could theoretically exploit. This does lead to some interesting interactions but has the problem of making powers look broken in any other situation (or not understanding how they'd work in a different match up).

And as such, repeating the same recipe over and over again is making his enemies´ counters boring and entirely expected. Sadly.

I wouldn't really say that. Yes, we can expect that either side will have some sort of answer to their opponents power, because if they didn't then it wouldn't be a fight. But the way he does it does mean that the solution is always a different one.

And it doesn't happen in every fight, seems to be about 50-50.

Yeah, but a lot of people seem to take that as him not being able to right fights at all.

Like the Ichibei vs. Yhwach fight, I kept seeing people bitching about them each having a counter (or trying to counter) what the other did, while I just kept thinking "Yeah, it's a fucking fight what do you expect them to do."

But it's Bleach so complaints don't have to be rational to pick up steam. Not to say all complaints about this series are irrational bu people are a lot less likely to call the ones out that are.

I think what Kubo should do is rely more on the one universal counter in the series: Reiatsu. While it seems most people are opposed to using larger Reiatsu to counter abilities, I think it's the perfect way to prevent Superpower Lottery to get out of hand.

It's extremely common in fiction to see an ability that just wouldn't work in any other situation. Bleach has quite a few abilities like this, and adding a universal counter means there would never be a power that is virtually unbeatable.

It doesn't have to be "I'm a bit stronger, none of your abilities matter" (and it's clearly shown not to be the case) but if it were explored in more detail it could be like a sliding scale where more broken abilities are actually countered easier through reiatsu so someone like Barragan can't instantly defeat someone even of equal status to him.

I mean, this is all very likely the case (Aizen could negate Soifon's Shikai ability, but he was much stronger and she had already overused her Bankai) but it definitely isn't explicit and the series would probably benefit if it was brought up more.

It seems a lot of people believe "hax" abilities are needed so fighters aren't just swept aside from stronger opponents (probably playing into some brains over brawn ideal) but really the hax abilities seem much worse in that regard - reiatsu can at least be developed for all characters while some abilities can't really be improved at all. And most of the abilities in Bleach are both esoteric and in-born, so random chance would be more important than self improvement.

I mean, even in terms of Reiatsu you have characters who are born with an edge in this area (Ichigo, Kenpachi, Aizen) but they're not as common and even huge players like Yamamoto and Unohana got to where they at least partially through training over a long period. So for the most part, I feel Reiatsu is a better measure of someone's merit than esoteric abilities and should be more important in these fights to reflect that.

It would help avoid situations where someone has to forget their powers to avoid breaking the plot, as well. Gremmy vs Zaraki being a perfect example, Gremmy's power could have a low ceiling for being resisted so Zaraki being of a comparable level means he couldn't just imagine him dead. Gremmy can still use his power to fight but not in a way that just lets him cheese it.

Or someone much stronger than Tosen might be able to get some of their senses back instead of outright negating his Bankai. etc.

edited 1st Aug '15 7:49:11 PM by Saiga