More Bleach!?

[danzibr]

Somehow I totally missed this, but there was a new Bleach "chapter" a couple months back (No Breaths From Hell), picks up right where chapter 686 left off. It's unclear moving forward how frequently chapters will come out.

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I wonder how far out this was planned. Apparently Kubo said from early on he wanted to do a Hell arc.

He did, I believe, plan out the whole real-Zangetsu thing from early on.

I'm excited for it. I didn't like the *whole* Yhwach arc too much because he introduced a ton of characters... it looks like this time we'll see a return of a bunch of old characters instead.

[Rater202]

Yeah, I only recently found out about this myself...

Is there any word about the anime adaption of the Blood wAr Arc? We were told that was coming and then nothing.

Regarding the chapter

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Yeah, turns out that the afterlife in Bleach sucks even worse. If your power level is too high when you die in soul society you can't break down and reincarnate properly so you get sent straight to Hell to solve the issue.

I wonder, if this leads to more chapters... Or another novel, or something... There are a lot of sympathetic villains who died, and Grans didn't exactly have the gates of hell appear behind him. With the revel that Hell isn't fair I wonder if we'll see the likes of Coyote Stark and Lillinette. Or Ulquiorra?

As an aside, did anyone manage to read or look into the Novels?

[Anteros]

Bleach's quality dropped steadily over the course of the run, and it was pretty bad towards the end. Hopefully taking a break helped Kubo recharge creatively. I'll wait on it and see how it goes though.

[Rater202]

Hopefully he has editors that... Edit, instead of forcing him to ignore his outline and either blitz through things without explaining them or else spend way to damn long on an arc.

Like the editors he had early on were good and helped him with some stuff... But after a while he just had people who wanted him to cater to their tastes and damn the effect on story quality.

[Psyren]

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Per Super Eyepatch Wolf, Kubo's problem was that he found plots boring and wanted to do character designs instead. I can kind of see that in the later works.

An arc that un-wastes some of his more compelling villains that were unceremoniously (or even ceremoniously) tossed aside is right up my alley.

[ben-zayb]

This time, on Bleach: fight an organization related to or have interest in Rukia Orihime Chad Uryuu Renji

I don't mind, really. Mayuri still looks disgustingly interesting and may possibly meet Szayel again. I always wanted to see Ukitake's capabilities as a senior member of SS. Being a denizen of Hell, possibly even an elite one, puts him in a collision course against his buddy Kyoraku, who's now the commander. Hopefully this is more "Bleach, Part X" and less "Kazui: the Next Generation".

There's been a recent resurgence of interest in Kubo's works for the past two years, with Burn the Witch being released last year and this bonus chapter released this year. There was also news last year about a supposed continuation of the anime for the Thousand Year Blood War Arc.

For future chapters, I'm on board with Kubo being the illustrator with someone else taking the reigns of writing. That should also give him enough time to work on backgrounds. I'll give Kubo credit that the basic premise of his arcs can be very interesting, like this last chapter, but the eventual execution leaves much to be desired.

Bleach became very (or even more) repetitive after Soul Society, honestly. That rushed final few chapters rival the last few episodes of The Promised Neverland Season 2 anime in pacing. I've read people being up numerous explanations for that, with Kubo's deteriorating health being the most understandable reason.

[Rater202]

Deteriorating health, bad editors, being given deadlines to get everything finished by a certain point, and in general feelings of depression and anxiety caused by that pressure.

Bleach only got finished becuase Kubo got a letter from a dying kid who said that waiting for the next chapter of Bleach was giving him to motivation to see things through to the end instead of just giving up.

And then he got death threats by people who were pissed off that Ichiruki wasn't canon becuase god forbid that the grown woman and the fifteen-year-old boy not get together. (That, I blame on the anime staff though. They added Ichiruki subext, up to and including altering scenes from the manga to add it. In the manga there was no sexual tensionbetween them whatsoever.)

Kubo had a general outline of where he wanted the series to go by the time of the Soul Society Arc and was ultimately forced to ignore it for reasons—it's common knowledge that the reason the Hueco Mundo arc was so bloated was becuase his editors wanted him to focus more on the Arrancar. I've also heard that he oringally intended to put more focus on Ichigo's human friends and for them to play more into the plot, and a rumor that the Lost AGent Arc was supposed to be before the rescue Orihime Arc.

At the very least, he needs editors that help him tell the story he wants and a schedule that doesn't over-stress him or force him to rush, but looking at Can't Fear Your Own World...

I mean, he told a friend of his what some of his plans were, the friend was inspired and asked if he could write something on that, so they brainstormed an outline together then the friend wrote the novel with Kubo proofreading. And it's good! So maybe something like that for th manga proper could work.

[DeadMech]

the grown woman

This as a description for Rukia made me laugh too much. On the one hand I completely agree that the woman who's god knows how old and the highschool boy getting together is a whole can of worms.

On the other hand this is the woman who draws bunnies with the artistic skill of a four year old and is probably something around four and a half feet tall.

[Rater202]

This as a description for Rukia made me laugh too much. On the one hand I completely agree that the woman who's god knows how old and the highschool boy getting together is a whole can of worms.

On the other hand this is the woman who draws bunnies with the artistic skill of a four year old and is probably something around four and a half feet tall.

She's considered an adult in soul society.

And her official height is 4'10'', which is the exact cut-off point for being considered a little person. And her proportions match up with certain forms of dwarfism.

She's not a kid. She's just small. Note that she is canonically paired with Renji, who is coded as an adult. As is everyone else in the Gotei 13 except for like 4 people. One of whom is later revealed to be a piece of a grown man's soul.

...No, seriously. Zaraki can manifest the form of his Zanpakuto spirit instinctively and without effort despite not being able to hear her and she herself is a complete Shinigami complete with her own unique Zanpakuto... And according to Kubo on Social Media, Yachiru's physical form is specifically the manifested form of Zaraki's Bankai, as Nozaroshi she's a grown woman.(He explicitly compares it to how the Quincy part of Ichigo's power is a middle-aged man as part of Zangetsu but a teenager as part of Tensa Zangetsu.)

That says interesting things about Zaraki.

[Psyren]

There is another kid in the Gotei 13 technically (Hitsugaya). Or at least he's coded as one despite being one of the more mature members, Bleach tends to lean into the Really 700 Years Old trope so it gets wonky.

With that said I'm not an IchiRuki shipper by any means, yeah I picked up on some tension/chemistry between them early on but her backstory with Renji made it pretty clear to me what her OTP was meant to be.

[BloodSquirrel]

Kubo is a good writer when you hand him a blank slate and ask for a relatively constrained, short-run story. He doesn't do well at all with long-term planning, isn't good at character arcs that run over multiple storylines, and can't manage complexity at all. He definitely needs an editor with some discipline.

The TYBW was all over the place, littered with retcons and dropped story threads, full of weird pacing issues, and full of characters that Kubo just couldn't figure out what to do with. For all of the claims of it being rushed, it certainly didn't suffer from a lack of page count. Those pages were just mostly wasted on indecisive plotting and way too many fights between minor characters and repetitive, uninteresting villains. Meanwhile, Ichigo didn't get a single major fight in the entire arc until the end, where he kept getting his thunder stolen over and over again and barely got to do anything.

If we're going to get another story arc, I really, really hope he drops about 90% of the cast, many of whom are one-note characters who have outlived their interestingness. Byakuya and Kenpachi were really cool as antagonists in the Soul Society arc, but there just isn't much to either character, and seeing them fight yet another throw-away villain doesn't add anything to the story. The Vizard... just never went anywhere. Kubo got bored of them, and they got relegated to secondary status among the Shinigami. We need to focus on a smaller group of protagonists and we need some real emotional stakes and development for them.

[Psyren]

Byakuya honestly should have either died or been depowered after SS. But Kubo is only interested in killing off his (great) villains.

The only disappointment bigger than the Vizard for me were the Espada. (Well, that and the Fullbringers not getting tied into Chad and Orihime in any meaningful way.)

[BloodSquirrel]

Byakuya didn't need to be killed off, he just needed to fade into the background as the newer, more powerful villains made him less relevant. If the Espada and the Vizard had actually lived up to their hype, and maybe only the strongest of the SS Captains had been able to keep up and compete, it would have been fine. Instead, they were nerfed so that the SS Captains could keep the center stage, and that continued on into the next two arcs.

Honestly, I think the series would have worked much better, structurally, if Aizen had been the final villain and the TYBW had happened inbetween the SS arc and the Arrancar arc:

• Given the established lore in the series up until that point, it didn't make much sense for the Sternritter to be so powerful. This way, you can make them not as strong as the SS Captains, but with being able to steal their bankai as a way to level the playing field.
• This also you to much more elegantly prevent showing the top captains' bankais while still having them fight seriously.
• It allows you to make Ywach fit much more closely with his primary concept- the Quincy king who has come back to get revenge on SS, rather than confusing a lot of stuff by making him the Soul King's son or something, and his goal is to destroy the world... because... there won't be fear anymore? Kubo never really figured that part out, and the story arc would be stronger without it. He also doesn't need to be made so stupidly overpowered.
• You also don't need to retcon how Ichigo's powers work and try to force a connection between him and Ywach. If it isn't going to be the final storyline, it doesn't need quite so badly to be about Ichigo. Making it a bit more about the captains and having Ichigo be a bit more of a background character works better that way.
• It lets you clear out anything you still want to do with the SS captains so that the final arc can be more focused on Ichigo, his friends, and any new characters you want to introduce vs. Aizen. The top 3 Espada vs. The Royal Guard would have made way more sense than what we wound up getting.

[Psyren]

My other big problem with Ichigo was also highlighted by Super Eyepatch Wolf - he doesn't really have any internal conflict. He wants to protect his friends and... that's kind of it, big whoop, that's Shonen Protag 101. What makes an interesting protagonist is when they have wants/needs that can clash to create drama.

Contrast him with some other big shonen examples:

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Goku - wants to protect friends, also wants to battle strong opponents. Sometimes the latter gets in the way of the former, like giving Cell a Senzu bean, or betting the fate of his entire galaxy on a fighting tournament, or not being thorough so that his enemies come back later and even more dangerous than before.

Luffy - wants to protect friends, also wants to become the Pirate King. These goals often coincide, but they may not always - and there is an interesting narrative question being set up for whether the title he's after (and the bonds/responsibilities he's forging along the way) will really come with the sort of freedom he seems to ultimately want.

Natsu - wants to protect friends, also wants to find his adoptive father (a dragon) who not-coincidentally has given him the perfect training needed to destroy dragons prior to disappearing. Pursuing the latter is likely to endanger the former due to plot reasons.

Naruto - wants to protect friends, also wants to become Hokage. Also, one of the friends he most wants to protect has designs on harming or killing a number of the others for plot reasons.

Some of those are deeper than others, but Ichigo doesn't have any of it, and when Goku of all people is deeper than your anime protagonist you might have a bit of a problem.

When someone doesn't need rescuing, he's completely passive. The first time they actually fought (not counting the SS one-shot) Aizen even lampshaded it directly, saying Ichigo couldn't go all out against him because he was completely lacking in motivation. Good on you for recognizing the problem, Tite Kubo - but having one of your characters explain to the audience how badly your main character is written doesn't stop him from being written badly!

[BloodSquirrel]

It's worse than that. He has no agency at all in the final arc. When his bankai breaks, and his first attempt to fix it fails, what does he do? Does he try talking to his sword like every other shinigami does? Does he seek out some quest that will give him the strength to fix it? Maybe try to see if there's some other way to access his power?

No, he just goes home, and his dad thankfully tells him some backstory that unlocks the next plot point. He spends almost the entire story arc being led from point A to point B without making any meaningful decisions on his own, making any active attempt to solve a problem, or showing any independence of thought from Soul Society.

Even "protect my friends" is something you can work with. In the SS arc, he was butting heads philosophically with Byakuya because of his "obey the rules" attitude, which put them in conflict. In the TYBW, the villains are all just a bunch of evil-for-the-sake-of-evil bad guys who just need to be wiped out and Ichigo isn't aware or interested enough in their methods at this point to disagree with them and make the conflict any less one-dimensional. If Soul Society was going to sacrifice some of the captains in order to win and Ichigo decided that they should try to win without doing that you'd at least have something going on, even with such a basic motivation on Ichigo's part.

Just another example of a missed opportunity: Shunsui tells Ichigo's friends that he may never be able to return to Earth because his spiritual power may become to overwhelming. How about actually using that, and not forgetting completely about it? How about Ichigo having to make a decision between embracing his shinigami powers and leaving behind the life on Earth he's been trying to build for himself, or keep his power sealed away and not be able to fight a battle that only he may be able to win?

[Ramza00]

My other big problem with Ichigo was also highlighted by Super Eyepatch Wolf - he doesn't really have any internal conflict. He wants to protect his friends and... that's kind of it, big whoop, that's Shonen Protag 101. What makes an interesting protagonist is when they have wants/needs that can clash to create drama.

Which video for he made one of his private when newer information made him realize some of his older information was rumors that looked true. One of the reasons I stayed out earlier with thread while we relitigate the last 200 chapters of the comic.

As for your Shounen bit, this is true. Ichigo personality is he wants a “I’ll be home for Christmas” energy. He is a peacemaker not in skill set but that is his deep seated desire. This was not broadcast well enough with outside symbols, metaphors, etc where people got what drove Ichigo.

Ichigo is a deeply passive and reactive character for he has “neutralizing” energy instead of affirming or negating his first instinct is to reconcile. He wanted people to feel at peace when they have life changes such as departing life A and starting life B. Ichigo’s story is about the stages of grief and how he feels things such as community, friends, etc make us “more resilient” when exposed to a world that produces lots of change, but also lots of stagnation, and thus we have grief when it changes too much or too little.

[Ramza00]

October 2022 (for Japan)

[LaZodiac]

I might watch this just because the highs of the Quincy Blood War Arc are legitimately good...

and, truthfully, the sheer bile fascination of Yumichika vs Giselle and everything associated with that, is drawing me in. I want to get a screen cap of Yumichika being a bigot to Giselle so I can make a "Yes I'm gay, yes I'm a homophobe. We exist." joke. Even though this isn't even appropriate because Giselle is a bi trans woman, it's just too good to pass up.

[Rater202]

I might watch this just because the highs of the Quincy Blood War Arc are legitimately good...

and, truthfully, the sheer bile fascination of Yumichika vs Giselle and everything associated with that, is drawing me in. I want to get a screen cap of Yumichika being a bigot to Giselle so I can make a "Yes I'm gay, yes I'm a homophobe. We exist." joke. Even though this isn't even appropriate because Giselle is a bi trans woman, it's just too good to pass up.

Yumichika's logic in that scene is weird.

He can smell male sexual fluids... So he assumes that she must be a man...?

I mean, in the original Japanese she refers to herself with male pronouns(Boku), so if he was going by how she refers to herself that would be one thing, but his logic boils down to "you smell like you had sex with a dude recently, therefore you must be a dude."

I can only assume that it was a clumsy attempt at foreshadowing that Bambina's zombie was hidden on Giselle's person. Bambina had sex with a man maybe an hour top s before becoming a Zombie and there's no indication she cleaned up after.

[Psyren]

I haven't really seen any anime handle this kind of thing well. Even Cowboy Bebop, which is damn close to being the perfect anime, got more than a little clumsy when it came to Gren (not that they were even going for representation with that character, but still.) At best they become a punchline like Ferris in Re:Zero, and at worst... ugh.

[Rater202]

Yeah...

The best example of representation of non-traditional genders in anime I can think of is how Boruto treats Orochimaru's gender. "I've been a man, a woman, and things that can't be called either. Those terms don't really apply to me and honestly, it doesn't matter whether I am your mother or father, what matters is that I'm your parent."

And that's kind of undermined by it being... Orochimaru saying it.

---

Le'ts change topics! You're a Shinigami... Or a Fullbringer... Or a Hallow/Arrancar... anything that has their own unique powers without an outside influence.

What are your powers?

Fullbringer: I have a stuffed rabbit that I have had literally since the day I was born. It was given to me by a relative who is not alive anymore. My heart's desires all amount to "freedom and power." Fullbring powers are highly conceptual with several of them bordering on or just flat out being reality-warping... And power theft/copying of various forms is my favorite trope.

The members of X-Cution mostly name their fullbrings after musical references.

My Fullbring is Schnuffel Bunny. A Clad type that manifests a suit of warm bunny jammies with a hood that enhances my speed, agility, and ability to escape grabs. If I defeat you in battle, I can just run off with a portion of your power and repurpose it to make myself harder to capture or restrain by some metric. How did I take your power? Who the hell knows, it just happens.

[Psyren]

Kido Corps Shinigami, probably; Bleach's magic system was always my favorite aspect of the series.

I had a whole writeup for my zanpakuto, shikai and bankai somewhere when I was younger that I in no way remember

I do know that it definitely wouldn't be a sword when released. A fan, or a book, or some kind of jewelry more likely that would amplify my magic.

[ben-zayb]

Almost a year from now, then? Alright. For someone waiting for Togashi to conclude HxH, one year is nothing.

I'm pretty sure "invoke Chuck Norris" was my custom bankai / kekkai genkai / devil fruit, considering his memes appeared at the same period as the peak of HST.

At this point in my life, my custom fullbring or bankai will probaby take the form of a traffic wand that creates a field of influence where reality itself is forced to comply on what a road sign says. At the bare minimum, this means everyone follows traffic regulation 100%. Good. Except I also get to tag locations with road signs, so tagging a "stop" sign on a location absolutely prevents movement in that area.

[Vahnavoi]

About Ichigo's lack of internal conflict: he does have interesting internal conflicts, first when he struggles with his Hollow self, and then in the Fullbringer arc when he struggles with adjusting back to powerless existence. The Thousand Year Blood War also had potential, with his clashing Quincy and Shinigami heritages, him being angry at his dad etc.. He's still a soccer ball kicked around by people with bigger plans than him, but he does assert agency at several points, his "shut up!" to Ishida and Ginjo being one of the more obvious examples.

About Yumichika versus Giselle: oh my God, a guy deliberately trying to insult his opponent said something genuinely insulting! Stop the presses!

He's not trying to make sense at that scene. He's trying to get under Giselle's skin, with visible success. Maybe not the wisest move, in that situation, but eh.

[Rater202]

About Ichigo's lack of internal conflict: he does have interesting internal conflicts, first when he struggles with his Hollow self, and then in the Fullbringer arc when he struggles with adjusting back to powerless existence. The Thousand Year Blood War also had potential, with his clashing Quincy and Shinigami heritages, him being angry at his dad etc.. He's still a soccer ball kicked around by people with bigger plans than him, but he does assert agency at several points, his "shut up!" to Ishida and Ginjo being one of the more obvious examples.

About Yumichika versus Giselle: oh my God, a guy deliberately trying to insult his opponent said something genuinely insulting! Stop the presses!

He's not trying to make sense at that scene. He's trying to get under Giselle's skin, with visible success. Maybe not the wisest move, in that situation, but eh.

While your point is valid, depicting a protagonist as deliberately misgendering someone who might* be transgender unironically isn't the best way to go about that trope.

It's the kind of thing that rel transphobes will latch onto and take out of context as affirmation that their values.

*It's never actually confirmed if she is or not. We know that she takes offense to be called a man(or a crossdresser) but that she uses male pronouns when referring to herself despite being refered to as female by everyone else and that's it. For what it's worth, the narrative seems to treat her biological sex as irrelevant.

[LaZodiac]

About Ichigo's lack of internal conflict: he does have interesting internal conflicts, first when he struggles with his Hollow self, and then in the Fullbringer arc when he struggles with adjusting back to powerless existence. The Thousand Year Blood War also had potential, with his clashing Quincy and Shinigami heritages, him being angry at his dad etc.. He's still a soccer ball kicked around by people with bigger plans than him, but he does assert agency at several points, his "shut up!" to Ishida and Ginjo being one of the more obvious examples.

About Yumichika versus Giselle: oh my God, a guy deliberately trying to insult his opponent said something genuinely insulting! Stop the presses!

He's not trying to make sense at that scene. He's trying to get under Giselle's skin, with visible success. Maybe not the wisest move, in that situation, but eh.

Something I should make clear is that I'm well aware that that's what Yumichika is doing, and bring it up mostly as a joke. Yumichika, as the only real resident LGBTA character in Bleach, always has to fight people like him (always is a charged term he's had like two fights throughout the series, but both were against genderqueer opponents) and it's never clear if he's saying what he says out of trying to egg them on, or because he's just kinda hateful of that stuff. I do lean towards the former, it's just funny to me that Yumichika so perfectly slots into that meme format I mentioned above.

On the flip side; the thing I most look forward to with Giselle is well meaning folk seeing her, instantly twigging on that she's a trans woman, and talking about how she may be a villain but it's clear no one really dismisses her as not one. She is part of the explicitly all female squad of the baddies, no one is creeped out by her, and so on. They do treat her fairly nice, all things being considered, and it's nice to see that in a trans character.

Then I want these well meaning people to, after saying all that, stumble into the episode wherein we reveal she is a necrophiliac necromancer who doesn't take no for an answer, because it's severely ****ed up and a part of me just enjoys watching people squirm when they've accidentally backed the wrong horse. Something about that amuses me- it's the same energy of someone posting a picture of Kyubey from Madoka and being "aah it's so cute!" and then later posting some sort of retraction afterwards.

EDIT: Also yeah what Rater says, re "this is our hero; he finds queer people gross and will misgender you. He's also gay". That's a factor.

(I hold that Giselle is a trans woman because, while she uses boku instead of other personal pronouns, that's... not a thing that is uncommon for girls TO do. I'm curious if the other girls in this squad may also use it, since they're all pretty rough and brutal people, so it'd make sense for them to do so as well. Much like the Arrancar that Yumichika fought, I feel it is appropriate to just take them on their word about who they are, regardless of things like that or presentation.)

[Rater202]

She's even more ****ed up in the novels.

Can't Fear Your Own World establishes that she's genuinely in love with Bamina and considers Bambina to be her girlfriend... While abusing her both physically and psychologically for her own pleasure. She then gets offended when Lilito calls her a sadist.

She's perfectly nice to random strangers and people she hates though.

Giselle and Lilito survived YhWach smacking them down for trying to attack him. Lilito went into self-imposed exile to just live out the rest of her life and she forced Gisele to come with her becuase she doesn't trust that Gisele won't be a danger to herself or others if left to her own devices.

[LaZodiac]

She's even more ****ed up in the novels.

Can't Fear Your Own World establishes that she's genuinely in love with Bamina and considers Bambina to be her girlfriend... While abusing her both physically and psychologically for her own pleasure. She then gets offended when Lilito calls her a sadist.

She's perfectly nice to random strangers and people she hates though.

Giselle and Lilito survived YhWach smacking them down for trying to attack him. Lilito went into self-imposed exile to just live out the rest of her life and she forced Gisele to come with her becuase she doesn't trust that Gisele won't be a danger to herself or others if left to her own devices.

...............

what?

I mean Liltotto is weirdly one of my favorites of this group unironically, so I'm glad she lived somehow I guess, but also... they were definitely killed. What? And Bambina's zombie is also still alive? What?? And they just... decided that there should be a segment of book explaining how this happened and how Liltotto just kinda has Giselle on a leash because "well she's my friend so I can't kill her but she's too dangerous to let alone so this is my life now; room mates with the corpse ****er and her zombie slave who was also my friend." What????

God a part of me really did miss this, though.

[Rater202]

...............

what?

I mean Liltotto is weirdly one of my favorites of this group unironically, so I'm glad she lived somehow I guess, but also... they were definitely killed. What? And Bambina's zombie is also still alive? What?? And they just... decided that there should be a segment of book explaining how this happened and how Liltotto just kinda has Giselle on a leash because "well she's my friend so I can't kill her but she's too dangerous to let alone so this is my life now; room mates with the corpse ****er and her zombie slave who was also my friend." What????

God a part of me really did miss this, though.

So the whole point of Can't Fear Yoru Own Word is that Kubo was sharing some stuff about Bleach that he wanted to do but couldn't for various reasons, or explanations of things he had to cut for time,a dns o on with Ryōgo Narita, wh o thought it was all cool and asked if it would beokay to do something with that, so Kbo wrote up an outline and proofread the drafts.

Like.. Shuhei, the guy who looks like a blackhaired Ichigo but unlike Kaien it never comes up or gets explained? Kubo originally created him with the intent that he'd eventually be the protagonist of an arc, so his uncanny resemblance to Ichigo was a metajoke on his part about his "protagonist-like qualities." The plot of Can't Fear Your Own world is Shuhei, in his capacity as publisher of Shinigami Communications and an investigative Journalist, tracking people down to find out the truth of all that happened over the last couple of years.

Which is how, for example, we learn Ginjo's backstory: He goes to the Shiba compound in the Rukon and asks him his side of the story.

and as he's doing this, he ends up engrossed in yet another conspiracy.

Other things we learned from this novel 1: Following his Death, Yhwach's body was subjected to a process that turned into a replacement for the soul king. This process is horrifying and everyone who finds out how it worked, and that the original Soul King was also subjected to it, unanimously agrees that Aizen had a valid point.

2: The Royal Guard trained up Ichigo not to fight Yhwach but to do this to Ichigo, having figured that the loss of the orignal Soul King was inevitable, and its only the fact that Yhwach absorbed the remains of the original that spared him this fate.

3: Any entity that combines the traits of Living Human, Shinigami, Hollow, and Quincy can potentially become a Soul King.

4: The Noble that was married to and then murdered Tousen's friend belongs to a family whose job is just to monitor everything in Soul Society. He knows exactly how the orignal Soul King came to be... and decides that since the original Five Noble Famiys who founded Soul Society got away with something utterly inexcusable that he has the right to be as big of a bastard as he wants.

5: Yhwach was one of The Soul King's removed organs—his "Almighty Power" incarnated as a human.

6: Gremmy was the Soul King's Brain.

7: The portion of her soul that was ripped out of Matsumoto in her backstory by Aizen's men in order to make his Hogyoku was the nail that affixed the Soul King's chain of fate to his body. It embedded itself in a random soul and has been passing itself down a lineage ever since.

8: Fullbringer's are essentially reality warpers. One of the bad guy's minions is a fullbringer woman who inherited the Soul King's chain under the same circumstances. Her Spiritual Power is comparable to Aizen's as a shinigami and she can do things like turn intangible, manipulate organic matter at the atomic level to create a bland paste that is perfectly sustaining to human life if eaten, and turn a lake into a water dragon and a chunk of the earth into a fire dragon.

None of these are "her" Fullbring. she doesn't have her own Fullbring,becuase she doesn't have the capacity for sentimentality needed to channel a power through a beloved personal item.

9: The inconsistency with Ise's Zanpakuto is explained: In addition to the Shashi that draw out their wilder's hidden power, Nimaiya aslo forged unique swords that behaved in the same pattern, one ofr each of the Five Noble Clans of Soul society, that can be used by members of those clans.

In addition to Ise's God Killing Sword, the Kuchki Clan's family Zampakuto is Muramasa from the Zanpkuto Rebellion Arc(he doesn't appear but despite that arc being non-canon Muramasa is more or less described as being exactly the same, sans not being someone's personal Zanpakuto) and the big bad's family has a Zampakuto whose Shikai can counter any Zanpakuto ability and whose Bankai can replicate any Zampakuo ability that its current wielder has witnessed—with the caveat that you use your own power to fuel it.

The remaining Heridatry Zanpkuto—and whether the Shiba Clan still has theirs—are unrevealed.

10: Ichibe has the power to revive himself from death as long as someone remembers his name, and he can resurrect the other members of Squad Zero by chanting their names.

11: Squad Zero answers directly to the Noble Houses. The Noble houses, if they vote unanimously, can disband Central 46 and assume absolute control of Soul Society. This is currently impossible however due to the Shiba Clan's effective exile and lack of a head—though the big bad wants them reinstated for exactly this purpose.

12: Isshin is apparently the rightful head of the Shiba Clan, though neither he nor Ichigo are interested in assuming those duties.

13: Preteens are fully capable of being Clan HEads in soul society, as the Big Bad flat out says "Maybe one of his daughters would be interested" when told the above.

14: If you survive Ashwuallen, the powers Yhwach stole from you will eventually come back, the powers he stole from you are returned upon death.

15: The Forest of Menos Arc from the anime is canon.(to be fair, Kubo intended to put it in the manga)

16: This guy exists.

[LaZodiac]

I basically don't remember anything detail wise about Bleach that isn't directly related to the things I find immediately funny about Bleach, so I barely understood any of that.

Cute kid though. Reminds me of the new Shinigami in the Hell Arc teaser; specifically the ganguro esque girl who just rips things to pieces with her bare hands.