Bleach

I mean, it requires a value judgement, sure. but even a flawed attempt at a useful measure is better than a precise attempt at an arbitrary one.

Did they even did anything before Aizen revealed himself? I'm getting the impression they only sat around doing their own things and fighting each other whole waiting for their boss.

They were just ranked on pure power/reiatsu which they could objectively measure. That's different from not acknowledging other skills; Nnoitra was apparently recognized as the most skilled fighter, if I'm recalling what one of the data books said.

Yammy's whole shtick seemed to be that in exchange for power he gave up being good at everything else.

Either way, it doesn't seem like their numbers carried any actual authority over one another.

edited 17th Apr '18 4:27:14 PM by LSBK

Then the ranking is useless since it doesn't take them wholly into account.

Quite frankly I think the "it's only on pure spirit energy" was only a thing so that the 10-0 twist could occur.

And if you're going to have a numeric ranking system, you need it to matter in some real way.

edited 17th Apr '18 4:29:09 PM by Sigilbreaker26

Especially because Yammy is a worthless loser.

Just a living big rock, nothing more.

Eh, well it gave the competitive sort/ambitious ones things to shoot for. Being an Espada did seem to carry authority to order around others in the army, just not other Espada.

I wonder how strong Wonderweiss is relative to the Espada, too. His only full fight was getting destroyed by bare-handed Yamamoto, but as discussed earlier Yamamoto is implied to be ludicrously above virtually everyone else so that's not a good barometer.

The Espada's numbers are largely arbitrary cause Kubo plays fast and lose with power levels and the fact that Grim an Ulq being Ichigo's opponents they took up half the budget

He was doing it Dragonball super style before it was cool!

edited 17th Apr '18 4:52:12 PM by FrozenWolf2

Oooooh...that's a low blow.

Well its true

Super has everybody catch up at a ridiculous rate

I imagine Yammy's issue is that his power expanded him like a balloon. Gerard aside, BIG is usually bad. And Gerard was only good because his ability lacked any limits as far as we saw.

Kubo is as bad as Nasu when it comes to making up rules and techniques... He's gonna ignore or subvert them to the point you wonder why he even bothers

I mean Grand Rey Cero gets introduced as The Espada's unique Cero before iits basically used once by Grim before he releases

Then it gets Ulq to act like Grand Rey is too dangerous to use inside HM... Ulq himself then never uses it even though he purposely left HM so he could Release

HELL Ulq then introduces yet another brand of unique Cero... The Cero Oscuras, Which is the Unique Cero to the release forms of the top 4 or higher Espada! He's the only one that uses it

Kubo pointlessly hypes things and then forgets about them.

He's as bad as someone that's pretty good at it?

Anyone know anything about the oneshot Kubo's going to be doing?

Base Ulquiorra uses it against Visored Ichigo, who deflects it. It's not named but the charging is identical and Bankai Ichigo already showed he could deflect regular cero.

Cero Oscuras isn't some '4 and above' Cero, Ulquiorra calls it the cero of a released Espada but that doesn't necessarily imply all Espada can do it either (it seems unique to him, given how much it fits with his theme). Regardless the higher Espada don't even use Cero that much - Starrk notes that he needs something stronger against the Visored - because they have esoteric abilities that they rely on.

I think the Cero variations could have come up more, but Kubo very much favours the esoteric abilities.

As for the Espada ranking thing, the title is mostly meaningless so I don't see the problem in ranking it on reiatsu. Especially when reiatsu is considered the single biggest factor in spiritual fights, as Aizen says. Like Yammy and Tia are the only ones who feel questionable and I feel like a big part of that is Starrk being very well liked and Yammy being particularly unpopular, along with what was already discussed with Byakuya and Kenpachi not having as easy a time as they made out.

I do think it'd be cool if Unohana stayed behind and fought Yammy. That'd be an appropriate way to make him still seem more powerful than Starrk and it'd give her a fight earlier (even if it would mostly be off-screen).

Oh, welcome back Saiga.

Yo welcome back homes.

thank

So, you've once again risen from the darkness, my eternal nemesis...

<Sees everyone looking at him>

What?

But yeah, good to see you again.

Though I now wish I'd taken over the DBZ thread while you were gone like I'd planned. That's what I get for being lazy.

I like to think the two of them wrecked Yammy immediately and then fought each other until they were on their last legs.

Hey Saiga, welcome back.

Back on topic:

Honestly, I'd prefer the 10-0 trick wasn't a thing since it doesn't seem to accomplish anything and all it does is muddy the waters as to how important sheer spiritual power is, which becomes really important in the next arc.

Like, I've gone on record not approving of Bleach's attitude to that, but if it's gonna do it it should stay consistent.

thank

I liked it (partly for memery), but I thought Yammy was overhated to begin with. I do think it's kind of wasted on just giving Byakuya and Kenpachi an off-screen fight, even if their banter was funny. It still showed some things, like Ichigo's power up (and unreliability of it) but Ichigo's own power wasn't handled so great throughout that arc.

I think it would have really worked well as a Unohana fight though.

Considering Aizen's tendency to play mind games its possible that another purpose of the number ranking was to keep the other in line i.e: You're not the strongest here not counting me so watch your step.

For all we know Stark and Barragan might have actually been equal in power, though Barragan had the more dangerous power and gave Stark the ranking of 1 because he lacked ambition and wouldn't let the position get to his head, while placing Barragan as 2 as admittance of his power but also a way to keep him in line.

Well, that's exceptionally convoluted and doesn't really sound like it would generate much advantage at all.

So yeah, in character for Aizen.

Yammy was shown from the very beginning to have absolutely no skill at anything and very little intelligence. He had more raw power than any Espada but he had no ability to use it in any meaningful way. He was very nearly a deconstruction of the Hulk Smash concept (undisciplined raw power versus a Shinigami who had raw power he knew how to use (Kenpachi) and a Shinigami who was very highly versatile and skilled): there's no point having excessive power if you have no ability to use it effectively. Of course, since it happened off-screen, the deconstruction didn't happen.

As far as ranking by reiatsu, goes: beyond the fact the story indicates it can be objectively measured, the manga also indicates (even outright tells us) that the point of a battle is reiatsu versus reiatsu, so measuring relative reiatsu is fundamental. The problem is that reiatsu needs to be effectively used in battle. The vast majority of characters in the story develop by learning how to use their reiatsu better whether that be in terms of effective use of raw power (Kenpachi and Hitsugaya), versatility of skill (Byakuya), or a mixture of both (Ichigo and technically Rukia, Orihime, Uryu, Sado and Renji, too).

From the outset, however, Yammy appears to be incapable of learning even the most basic Arrancar techniques. All he does is hit things and consume souls in order to hit things harder. He doesn't even seem to know how to use raw power effectively (which even Kenpachi can learn). In the end, Yammy's nothing more than a big bomb. He detonates, causes collatoral damage, and nothing else.

Nnoitra was self-styled as the strongest fighter, but he did have the strongest Hierro. Yammy had the second strongest Hierro. By the time Kenpachi got around to fighting Yammy, he had already adapted to Nnoitra's Hierro.

It did, but it only seemed to be enforced if the Espada was capable or willing. Starrk, for example, had no interest in contesting Barragan's authority, but Lilynette indicated that wasn't a good thing. By the same token, Harribel and Ulquiorra didn't seem to have much interest in squabbling over ranks either, but Grimmjow and Nnoitra were obsessed with it.

Starrk implied Wonderweiss was a 'back-up' to the Espada — by that, it was implied (and Kyoraku certainly seemed to interpret it this way), that Wonderweiss was the one who came in when things were too much for even the top Espada to handle.

It's strongly implied that Wonderweiss surpassed all the Espada, but he had to give up absolutely everything to achieve a level that was capable of standing against Yamamoto: and, as Aizen himself ended up acknowledging, Aizen badly underestimated that level, hence Wonderweiss not succeeding.

edited 18th Apr '18 10:28:06 AM by Wyldchyld