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Chapter could have been worse, I suppose. :P

SpoilerI like Hitsugaya's part--expressive of his mercy if possible, violence if necessary philosophy. Ikkaku's parts were just like every other fight he's been in, except that there was literally no threat here.

I do find that guy's Fullbring to be crap though. Houzukimaru can block an attack from a released arrancar, but some newbie Fullbring guy can break it in half because he's lucky? Meeeeeh. Though, to be fair, his power just really irks me in general.

What's pathetic is that most of these guys are getting so thrashed by shinigami who have seals on them. :P Though it's also possible that they all came to the living world because there's some tangible, immense threat at hand that just hasn't been fully introduced yet. I mean, even if they wanted to restore Ichigo's powers, Rukia alone would have sufficed... If that's the case, then they might not be sealed at all.

Either way, it's hard to see where this arc is going right now. Realistically, they need to introduce an enemy vastly more powerful than Aizen (or else demonstrate that Ichigo's power is a shadow of what it had been). In any case, the threat of that enemy will need to be greater even if their personal power isn't. I'm guessing that Xcution is just the puppet of some much bigger baddie, much the same way as the early hollow attacks were the pawns of Aizen.

Well, we have a fair bit of information now that suggests Spoilerwe'll be dealing with the Spirit King at some point. We know that the most powerful Shinigami end up as the SK's guards. We also know that Aizen referred to the King as a "thing," suggesting that it wasn't human.

I doubt Ichigo will end up fighting the King's forces (at least with them as the actual enemy), but it does suggest another tier of power that can still be explored. If the King needs all the best Shinigami to protect it, then one would assume that there's actually a threat that they protect it from.

Whether or not this arc will include that remains to be seen.

The anime has just finished an ok arc concerning mod souls. This last episode was Ichigo loosing the rest of his powers and saying goodbye to Rukia. The way the episode went on it was implied that the two had feelings for each other or at least Rukia towards Ichigo. Judging from what you guys have been saying about the manga it's back to boring episodes of near pointless dialogue.

It's a shounen manga. No romance can be allowed until the final chapter where we see them grown up with kids.

SpoilerByakuya being the only one to even break a sweat would be entertaining, or as entertaining as possible all things considering, but Tsukishima's power went from ridiculous to whatever the next word is on the scale. I guess it makes sense that he can alter inanimate object's memories however he feels when the entire purpose of the Full Bring theory is that even inanimate objects aren't as inanimate as we're lead to believe.

Ikkaku is the most awesome manly man ever.

SpoilerYeah. On the one hand, Tsukishima is proving to be powerful enough in his own right to not let this whole section be completely boring. But at the same time, it's not a power that's interesting in any meaningful way--certainly not the extent that I want to see him fight more than one battle.

Kinda like if Aizen had just used his hypnosis to win every fight. Yeah, it's powerful, but not interesting. I think Kubo used it well, only occasionally having Aizen dodge an attack by confusing his opponent, and finally getting them to attack Hinamori.

And I liked this chapter, with Ikkaku. It wasn't his normal rhetoric--I liked learning more deeply why he respects Kenpachi.

SpoilerCabinets may not be cute, but Rukia sure is now! Also, we already knew Tsukishima's power did that from the last chapter when he said "I've seen your moves so many times they're boring" or something like that.

SpoilerBah, arrogant Byakuya...so full of himself that he actually did get hit. ><

I am going to laugh my *** off if he has to fight like Kenpachi.

SpoilerNo...I'm getting the suspicion that the bookmark actually lets him read his target's memories. So ANYTHING Byakuya has done in the past, Tsukishima knows.

Whoops, wrong tags!

Edited, Oct 22nd 2011 11:09pm by Ravashack

Hey! Ginjou has Ichigo's abilities! He can use Getsuga Tenshou, and, uhm...

SpoilerRight? What other ability did Ichigo have? Shunpou?

It shouldn't matter--it's been pretty well established that reiatsu strength is the single most decisive factor. Ginjou shouldn't have enough reiatsu to seriously hurt Ichigo with a getsuga (we just saw Ichigo take a direct hit from it and he looks pretty much fine. I vote we get some hollowification action.

Edited, Oct 27th 2011 1:39pm by idiggory