Bleach

Orihime becomes distinctly a pure waifu princess in Hueco Mundo. There's absolutely nothing of the fun-loving ditz there, just a passive maiden to help Ulquiorra figure out what love is and also to have Ichigo rescue her.

I think everybody associated her with helplessly screaming Kurosaki-kun because of that arc.

Edited by Nikkolas on Aug 4th 2019 at 8:13:30 AM

In a completely unrelated search, I found this discussion from 2013 https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=7yvo7nrdud0x31lc0balw6t1&page=1815

I first criticized the outcome of Ichigo vs. Byakuya before Saiga slapped me down. Then we start talking about if Bleach is sexist or not a few pages later. It's crazy. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or, I suppose since I initiated all these topics, it says more about me. I don't think I've read Bleach since 2013, actually....

Kinda funny to have somebody say Boa Hancock is the strongest HST girl. It reminds me of how I once made a thread elsewhere where we concluded one-armed Grimmjow could solo the Narutoverse. Man did things change a lot.

Anybody else ever like to go back and reread older topics, predictions, etc.? I used to like reading new chapter discussions on the Naruto Forums even long after the chapters had been out because hindsight makes all the talk even more fascinating to me.

I occasionally read through old conversations.

In terms of combat pragmatism and use of interesting powers, how would you say Bleach heroes and villains stack up in comparison to other shonen?

WHAT IS LOVE!

The sad, REAL American dichotomy

it's kinda plot dependent, they can be completely Explaining Your Power to the Enemy or subvert it entirely.

Secret Signature

I think a really popular example was how Gin intentionally made a big display about his Bankai just to distract from its real strength, and then latter it turned out that he was lying even about that.

Edited by LSBK on Aug 7th 2019 at 1:04:01 PM

It was still super fast and long anyway so it wasn't that big of a lie.

Secret Signature

As seen in Bleach's entry on the Explaining Your Powers to the Enemy page, the series had a lot of fun with this trope.

Disgusted, but not surprised

Pepe don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. No more.

A fanfic that did an alternate direction of Rangiku's fight with Harribel's Fraccion had her making an interesting use of this trope: by engaging them in conversation Rangiku distracted them from the fact that they were breathing in Haineko's ash which she then used to lacerate their lungs. Rangiku only revealed this after they'd inhaled enough ash for her to be able to do this.

Edited by windleopard on Aug 7th 2019 at 4:02:24 AM

And then you have moments when Nanao explains in detail her power to the enemy leader, including that only she is capable of using this specific barrier. Or Rose explaining how his Bankai works to the dumbest Sternritter, allowing him to form a counter.

Bleach has a few clever subversive moments, but on the whole it is really, really, really bad with the exposition.

I think the Hirako case was just as good as Gin's as he sets induces his enemies to believe a set of inversions different from the one he's currently using.

and then he gets blown up anyway

Secret Signature

Are we talking about vs Aizen? Or did we ever see Shinji's Bankai?

A part of me still loves the Visoreds. Such snazzy folks with great music.

Although...how did he pass for a high schooler?

I was talking about a later fight where he does the usual explanation think but inverted his speech too so he overcame that "weakness" too, only for his enemy to shoot attacks at random and hit him anyway.

Secret Signature

I think quite a few of the characters that don't have stellar win records usually have bad match ups in the first place. Talk about bad luck.

And since Aizen was mentioned, what do you all think of him and villains in the same vein? I actually like incredibly powerful villains, but I'm pretty mixed about pre timeskip Aizen since he comes off as generically strong aside from his Shikai, making me personally not always engaged when he fights.

Don't catch you slippin' now.

Aizen's powerful but not really in ways that make fights against him look interesting.

Disgusted, but not surprised

Yeah, he lead Aizen do believe he's only inverting up and down when he's also inverting left and right. Then we Aizen gets used to that he starts inverting diagonals without warning. Then he implies he's out of tricks and surprises Aizen inverting front and back.

Yes, used his Bankai in the last volume of Can't Fear Your Own World. When released, the Zanpakuto's tip forms a ring on itself (making it look sort of life a khakkara) and a giant pedestal shaped like a Dianthus flower appears. While the Shikai's ability is to invert the enemy's perception of left and right, up and down, hot and cold, etc., the Bankai's ability inverts their perception of enemy and ally. In the novel he faced a seemingly endless Mook army alone and just made kill their own until his problems were over. He explains that he can only use Bankai in situations where he is facing a large amount of enemies alone, since it would be terrible to use it with allies around and it kinda does nothing in an 1-v-1 duel. It's really only useful in this 1-v-many situations. He didn't use it in the Karakura final battle because there were Shinigami and Visored allies all over the place. Same goes for the Quincy arc, but for this one he says that he would have been able to get rid of most of the entire Quincy army had they decided to camp outside instead of appearing inside the Seireitei.

Shinji is very aware that his Bankai sucks, and even comments on how annoying it is that his Shikai is made to fight the big guys while his Bankai is made to fight Mooks.

We're getting Aizen's Bankai in a video game soon, right?

Hey thanks for the info. That's neat.

Aizen is boring. That's his greatest flaw to me. He could be uber strong but still be interesting. As it is he lacked any real charisma or personality IMO. He should have kept the nerd look.

Remembering my Bleach fandom days is such a trip.

Aizen had a really strong villain introduction and exit during the Soul Society arc. Flipping everyone the double birds while being raptured into Hueco Mundo and saying that he was going to become god.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

If I may ask, how do you write a powerful villain in a way that allows for interesting fights? what differentiates Aizen from, say, Freiza? I was more annoyed by Aizen’s pointless puppy kicking than his power level. The former just didn’t seem to have a point and came across as unintentionally funny at times.

I think it is less power level and more about how it is conveyed. Of course other people's mileage may vary, but I think it helps to give villains interesting abilities and/or make the fights visually interesting. I'd say characters like Frieza, Madara, and Yhwach stand out since they are not one trick ponies, though I am aware that characters such as that don't appeal to everyone.

Don't catch you slippin' now.

Because Aizen can't be challenged, the author keeps giving him boring curbstomp after boring curbstomp and he rarely demonstrates any level of genuine vulnerability while remaining insufferably smug.

I mean, for comparison...in Naruto, when Pain is introduced he's rightfully seen as the strongest man alive, but even his first fight where he utterly dominates his opponent, shows him as not invincible

Eh, I'm not sure Aizen and Pain are comparable. Aizen is more like Freeza; somebody so impossibly stronger than the hero and everyone else that it will take a long, long time to truly challenge him.

Aizen is Madara.

I found Aizen's demeanour incredibly entertaining, so I was looking forward to how he would troll someone during a fight. That kinda fell off when he want all Butterflaizen, but the Momo switcheroo was one of the highlights of Fake Karakura for me.

Compare to, say, Naraku. An invincible villain that just so happens to gain an immunity to Inuyasha's latest power up for no particular reason and flee for another fifty episodes while being incredibly boring and uninteresting.