Originally Posted by
Rynjin
The issue with pointing to "foreshadowing" in Bleach is that it's reeeeally hard to tell when something has actually been foreshadowed or not. Kubo's greatest narrative strength is taking small, insignificant details and making future plot points around them, when he had no intention of doing that before.
The single best example of this is Aizen. Remember that Aizen was supposed to ACTUALLY be dead when he is "killed" in the Soul Society arc. He was written and killed with the intention that everything about him could be taken at face value. He actually was a kindhearted man who wanted to solve a mystery and right an injustice, and he was killed for it.
Except at the last minute Kubo looked at what he had written down and decided that revealing Aizen was still alive, and was the main villain, not only MADE SENSE but was a superior twist to his original intention (having Kisuke Urahara be the primary overarching villain of the series). The only thing he needed to do was whip the right overpowered effect for Aizen's Shikai out of his ass and any minor inconsistencies like him being dead are smoothed over.
It is a genuine master stroke of narrative and one of the best villain reveals of all time. And was completely done on the fly in a week or two before the end of the arc.