Bleach

That and Uluqiorra was all alone because his siblings cast him out for being white.

It didn't. Nothing stated would suggest otherwise.

A person: "Hahah it would be really fucked up if death existed"
Ulquiorra: "WHAT THE FUCK I EXIST NOW??"

Ulq's backstory feels kinda silly.

In the old world Hollows would just naturally come into existence. It's also how Shinigami like Ichibee and the five ancestors came to be. Ulquiorra's flashback implied that he was never a human who had died, that he and his bretheren were always Vasto Lorde. Not to mention that they were a race of nearly indentical Hollows.

Since life and death were one, and the flow of souls was chaotic and livid, life would spontaneously come into existence.

The only exception to this may have been the Soul King, Yhwach and by proxy the True Quincy race in general. Ichibee mentioned the possibility that the Soul King and the Almighty were deliberately created by the world itself in order to deal with one particular Hollow who could have swallowed the entire world. In a way one could say the Soul King is the manifestation of the world's will to survive. Yhwach, if he was indeed born in the old world, would be thus the Soul King's biological son. He would be created the normal way, which in the old world may have been unusual.

This would also give a new meaning to Yhwach's claim that everything in the world is for his to take. If his father is indeed the manifestation of he planet's will (not to mention that the current world was more or less made by sacrificing the Soul King), then from his perspective, Yhwach would really be the heir of the world.

Ah yes Gaia is a vengeful and cruel mistress.

Huh. That's an interesting idea. ...Now its got me stuck thinking on a Bleach fanfic and if the main character being kind of opposite to that was intentional with all the Yhwach parallels set up in it while being his opposite going on in it.

Idle though: What ethnicity is Chad again?

Japanese that lived in Mexico for a while, right?

Significantly dark-skinned, refers to his uncle as Abuelo?

Mexican-Japanese, I'd guess?

I believe so.

He's either half Mexican, half Japanese, or one quarter Mexican, three quarters Japanese.

He's also one of my answers to this question, alongside Sasakibe, Yoruichi, Tessai, Tosen, and Halibel.

Also, I definitely prefer Ichihime to Ichiruki, both in terms of friendship and romantically. Even in-story, much of Ichiruki didn't make sense to Ichigo's best friend (Chad), Rukia's family or friends, or Rukia herself. Ichigo was kinda being obsessive towards the person who gave him power to defend his family. Ichihime actually got built up believably. then post-Soul Society arc, a lot of the development for most of Ichigo's relationships stagnated. Ichihime didn't fare too badly, but it didn't do as well as it could have, since Tatsuki's role in the story was diminished.
...I also didn't read the Fullbring arc, so I can't speak to either of those relationships then.

It's not a bad arc, crappy-ish ending aside.

Relationship-wise, it didn't do much for anyone either, despite the fact it would have been an obvious opportunity to focus on them.

Edited by WashTheLaundryHero on Sep 7th 2019 at 12:07:14 PM

Speaking of Chad and Tousen. We've discussed Bleach's female characters (at length) here but how would you say Bleach handles it's black/racially ambiguous characters compared to other manga?

Edited by windleopard on Sep 7th 2019 at 1:38:04 AM

Like everyone else of their groups?

On the one hand, it has several darker skinned characters treated about the same as most of the rest of the cast, some with realistic hair styles, reasonably well received by black and brown fans, without resorting to "the country of black people, look at the funny rapper".

On the other hand, they're pretty much all in subservient roles, few get the chance to shine or live up to their full potential (for a time this could be said about most of the mukokuseki characters, but some got better), and some of the characters did have some of the more lazy stereotypes when played for comedy moments.

This isn't accurate at all. No-one in story thought that Ichiruki made no sense, and Ichigo wasn't obsessive about Rukia - he was adamant about saving her life. That's a pretty big difference.

Rukia didn't understand why he'd go so far to save her because she thought she wasn't worth it and actually believed she deserved to die, Chad never finds anything weird about it (his conversation with Kyoraku was just that he himself had no connection to Rukia, but it was enough for him that Ichigo did.

Where as Ichihime... has no build-up. Inoue is introduced already having a crush on Ichigo, Ichigo shows no attraction or interest in her whatsoever, over time we only see more of what she likes about Ichigo. About the only thing that could suggest an interest in Inoue is Ichigo getting flustered over her outfit in the final arc. But their relationship has no progression, it's just a one-sided attraction up until the epilogue.

Ichiruki is the only one to have any development between both parties (even if it was ultimately non-romantic) - there's their reunion in the Arrancar arc, where Rukia gives a speech that brings him out of her funk, and the ending of the arc is all about Rukia fading from Ichigo's view and the melancholy of their parting.

I've recently been thinking about the Espada and their individual motivations and reasons for following Aizen:

• Starrk because he was grateful to Aizen for giving him companions who would survive in his presence
• Baraggan because Aizen dethroned him and he was forced to until he could take his revenge
• Harribel because she thought he'd be Hueco Mundo's salvation or whatever
• Nnoitra because he felt indebted to Aizen for making him stronger
• Grimmjow because Aizen was way out of his League and he knew it
• Zommari because he hated Shinigami for "persecuting" Hollows
• Szayel Aporro because of science and because he despised non-Hollows and hoped Aizen would exterminate them

But we never really got anything for Ulquiorra, Aaroniero, or Yammy. They just followed him... because. Which sort of works for Ulquiorra, I guess, but feels a bit like wasted potential for the other two.

It's all because of... THE HEART

Yammy comes across as a pretty simple guy so I'd just assume Aizen promised him more people to fight. Aaroniero I guess was promised more Hollows to eat and abilities to absorb.

I Don't think you ever get Harribel's outside of filler

Nel's was the fact Aizen brought 'stability' to the place

Aaroniero wanted to never feel pain anymore. In general it seems that all Espada expect Barragan and Harribel and maybe Zommari saw a chance to fill the emptiness in their hearts, if they follow Aizen.

Ulquiorra in particular wandered through the sands without purpose and all alone for at least a million years and came to see nihilism as a form of escape and salvation. Also perhaps he could sympathize with Aizen since both were isolated by their peers for being too different from them.

Harribel's volume poem gives a motivation in her view of the world. She has gotten sick of this world, which she calls a sea of blood. The interesting thing is, that this is very similar to Yhwach's world view. Which makes sense, since the novels imply that Harribel would have joined Yhwach, had the manga gone for longer.

Edited by bandersnitch on Sep 17th 2019 at 2:36:34 AM

Would he even have let her? Aren't quincies supposed to hate hollows? They even beat the crap out of her and threw her in a dungeon.

Jail Harribel: "Being hung up by my arms has been an eye opener. I'm going to join your cause, Ywach"

Ywach: "Huh? Oh cool. Who are you again? Haschwalth, why do I have a half naked woman in the dungeon?"

It was weird and emphasized early on that he kept Harribel around FOR REASONS when he barely found excuses to kill his actual Quincy Arrancar henchmen at the beginning of the arc.

Ge even took her to his new Soul King Palace too when he left countless actual Quincies to rot on SS.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Sep 17th 2019 at 3:32:45 AM