Bleach

Maybe Kubo didn't even plan a killer when Aizen's death was first revealed, but he included Gin to be an obvious Red Herring. Then he just decided he faked it as he went along.

Honestly, Soul Society might have been the peak of Bleach, but it was already pretty wacky. Like, the set-up was Ichigo and the gang going to rescue Rukia, pretty straightforward. But then there's this conspiracy going on behind the scenes that on the surface has nothing to do with any of that. It almost feels like Kubo created too many characters and he only added that subplot so they could have something to do.

Edited by WashTheLaundryHero on Aug 28th 2019 at 3:06:01 AM

The version I heard was that while Gin was always a henchman, Urahara was going to originally be the mastermind.

I can definitely see that being true, especially with his little segment in CFYOW.

Speaking of CFYOW, apparently the last novel confirms Orihime is a Fullbringer like Chad?

That does make sense considering the way her powers work, but on the other hand, the way they were treated in the story makes me feel Kubo had a crazier,bigger reveal planned for her, but never got around to it and now he's just going with the most simple explanation.

I mean, Fullbringers are people that get powers similar to hollows. But some get the power to punch really hard and others can rewrite reality? That's a little unfair. I know a few of Ginjo's crew had pretty BS powers, but I think Orihime is on a whole other level.

It also doesn't feel exactly right either since they way that the individual members of the Shun Shun Rikka had actual personalities made them like her own personal set of zanpaktou spirits rather than simply empowered objects like the other Fullbringers use.

It’s actually the first chapter of the second novel. Pretty we already have the translation for this part.

Thanks for the correction, I wasn't sure.

I also think if she was always going to be a Fullbringer, that would have come up in that arc, but all the 'focus' (lol) was on Chad as far as Ichigo's friends go.

Also, Ichigo is everything and in his squad there's a Fullbringer (Chad), Shinigami (Rukia) and Quincy (Ishida). It'd be fitting if Orihime was something else.

Alright, Rukigo vs. Ichime (Ichgio x Orihime), which one do you support?

Go!

Note: It does not have to be romantic.

Edited by fredhot16 on Aug 29th 2019 at 6:11:06 AM

Ichihime. Goodbye Halcyon Days was easily one the strongest and most memorable emotional moments of the series.

It's been years since I read the manga and even then I never finished it but Ichihime. I like Rukia but Orihime is just plain cuter to me so purely from a self inserting as Ichigo standpoint Ichihime is the better ship in my opinion.

Edited by Chariot on Aug 29th 2019 at 9:52:28 AM

Ichihime. I think Ichigo's relationship with Rukia is better without romantic elements, and I find Orihime more believable as a paramour.

I'll clarify again: it doesn't have to be in a romantic light. If you support it as a "Friendship", that's O.K, too.

Only restating it so as clear away any possible misconceptions about me talking about romantic shipping.

Edited by fredhot16 on Aug 29th 2019 at 7:20:23 AM

Wait why even state which one we’d support then?

"Which one do you support, why, and in what type of ship (for this, romantic or platonic)?"

Is this clear enough for everybody? I just want considerations to be as open as possible.

Sorry, I might be overreacting.

Edited by fredhot16 on Aug 29th 2019 at 7:27:26 AM

No one's actually gone against your convoluted rules, and what did you expect when you opened up with shipped names?

Alright, the wording may be a bit confusing, I admit.

How do I put this? I brought up the further clarification because I knew that when I brought up ship names, the automatic consideration would be in a romantic light as "ships" are popularly romantic ships. If you liked the characters being together in a platonic sense rather then in a romantic sense, I wanted to say that's acceptable too.

I might also be responding from a bias since one of the above ships, I support more from a platonic viewpoint then a romantic one.

I'm not making this clearer, am I?

Edit: If the extra words seem annoying, ignore them. Probably should have been clearer from the start, I just wasn't aware if anybody would be interested.

Edited by fredhot16 on Aug 29th 2019 at 7:52:12 AM

Well, from the point of view of the relationships they actually had, Ichiruki even as a friendship was better developed and more compelling than Ichihime. Which is the main reason why I preferred it as a romantic ship as well - although it'd be darkly hilarious for Inoue to get cucked by Rukia, especially when she angsted over exactly that.

Rangiku: "Silly girl, don't be so hard on yourself. You don't need to feel inferior to Rukia, even if she is making out with Ichigo right over there"

Ichihime having no development from the timeskip also soured me to it. And the novels have Ichigo decide he's in love with Inoue instead of her actually finally making a move, which is pretty lame. If she'd made an actual move to get her interested in him, or we saw him develop an attraction to her during the manga, that's be much better.

I think the biggest thing their development is missing is a moment where Inoue is able to bring Ichigo out of his funk. Inoue angsts over the fact that Rukia is able to do it, and she does it again at the end of the Fullbring arc, so it feels thematically appropriate that we'd reach a point where Rukia is unable to get through to Ichigo and Inoue is the one who can. The moment after Yhwach is the best time to do it, but that's kind of marred by the Ginjou pay-off.

But most of all, I would prefer Ichigo getting into a relationship before the epilogue so we could see some development there.

I admittedly liked it ending that way for that reason. When its the guys who relationship is built as way more important than any relationship with a stinky, smelly cardboard box, instead its a guy and girl who would normally be in a romance in other series that are instead the Platonic Life-Partners and have said developement.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Aug 29th 2019 at 8:30:50 AM

Now that I think about it, it says something that while I logically understand Ichihime should be the way to go, my heart drifts towards Rukigo.

I blame that on Kubo’s incompetent writing towards Orihime. He completely fudged on Ichihime & gave Rukigo all the ammo.

I swear there’s gotta be a doujin or fic where that happens, especially towards Renji too.

Edited by slimcoder on Aug 29th 2019 at 8:31:45 AM

I feel I've heard of this sort of problem before, in Final Fantasy XIV and Kingdom Hearts as a whole. In either of the latter, you know the protagonist is "betrothed" (in a sense of "you know he's going to hook up with her") to a certain girl who serves as the love interest yet if you look at the most popular ships in either, you'll find that the love interest is not really one of them.

For the former (all sketchy hearsay here so I might be wrong), it's the prince with any other girl and with the latter (for which I am aware of), it's the protagonist, Sora, with the male rival/deuteragonist, Riku, mostly because the love interest, in either case, has been kidnapped and is gone for most of the game, thus not giving the love interests the time and space they need to actually interact and build a compelling relationship.

So, the most popular ships with the protagonist are the ones with characters they actually interact with most of the time, the ones they actually build a strong relationship with, the ones that feel more as though they're partner or equals.

I'll admit, I'm partial to Rukigo myself on those grounds (platonic because I will not advocate for a teenager to hook up with a centuries-old ghost). Now, my memory is very fuzzy because I haven't read this series in years so my feelings are based around one particular moment I can recollect right now:

"If it was defeat, you need to train harder! If it was about your companions, then you need to reseal those promises after becoming a more virtuous man! If it's about your hollow... then just become strong enough until you can shatter it in an instant! The "you" that still lives on in my heart, Ichigo... would do exactly that!"

Edited by fredhot16 on Aug 29th 2019 at 10:34:23 AM

I agree with the sentiment that Ichigo and Rukia's relationship is more interesting without romance.

It's true that Ichihime could have used more development (at least Hinata got an Anguished Declaration of Love), but, well, you can say that of so many things in the last arc.

At any rate it's believable. Ichigo was never the typically clueless shonen MC, so I always thought he kinda knew Orihime was into him. And well, why would you ever not hit on that.

Edited by WashTheLaundryHero on Aug 30th 2019 at 1:42:40 AM

The correct name for the ship is IchiRuki and saiga speaks the truth.

Way back when the Fake Karakura Arc was still running (egads, nine years ago now!) and Live Journal was still "a thing", I wrote this and nothing that happened afterwards really changed my opinion.

I agree they have much better chemistry, but thats also why I prefer them as friends. Thus why I like Ichiruki as Friendship4lyfe

Part of the fun was seeing the worst Ichigo/Rukia shippers meltdown like insane children after they failed to get what they wanted. The bad seeds play into many of the negative stereotypes associated with that ship as well, which reinforced why I loved Rukia staying a friend.

As someone who shipped Ichi Ruki back in the day, when last chapter was released, I was... kinda okay with it. A bit disappointed as well, but still kinda okay.