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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    This is also true!

    On another topic: the advanced animation techniques of today are going to do
    Spoiler
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    the dance between Unohana and Kenpachi
    incredible, right?
    It really depends on if we get it as depicted in the manga or if they wimp out and censor it.

    If we get it as Kubo intended it will bring about glorious nightmares.

    My biggest hope is that if this does well it'll lead to a CFYOW adaption.
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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Bleach's representation has always been one of its strong points. It was one of the first mainstream anime to really lean into positive POC representation via characters like Yoruichi, Tousen and Zommari. (Using Spanish for a lot of the hollow stuff definitely helped its popularity in LATAM countries as well.)

    Speaking of Zommari - a lot of people forget that queer and POC villains can still be positive representation if they're (a) not exclusively villains and (b) simply allowed to be cool and menacing, both in terms of abilities and just interesting character design. And if there's one thing Kubo can do in his sleep, it's great character design.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    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.
    I guess that explains why I've always been so conflicted about that reveal.

    On the one hand, everything you said about a great villain reveal. Tousen swapping sides unexpectedly was also great, albeit in retrospect. I hated that bit at the time, but when we finally got the full story I found that it paid off well.

    On the other hand, I hate hate hate Whodunnits that don't play fair. Everything leading up to the reveal points towards Aizen being dead, and there aren't really any clues that he isn't. And the only way for him to have pulled it off is to have utterly broken reality-warping illusion powers that also weren't hinted at. As a result, I've always felt pretty cheated that Aizen was the villain.

    I'm willing to give it a pass because the result was so good, but there's always that little nagging voice at the back of my head...

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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Hat & Clogs totally is the main villain and Aizen did nothing wrong.
    We really do not know enough to be certain, what is the true metaphysics, and is truly a bearable / unbearable system. etc, etc.

    But yeah I think if we were to go Meta, with projecting the author’s opinions I think he agrees with you. It was a question where both sides are unsatisfactory for the present, and thus what means do we take to reach that better future?

    But yeah who knows if the anime will go more in deep past the manga and the light novels in regards to the lore. Those two have not gone in depth to my satisfaction (I do love a mystery box) and I do not want to spoil anything with the most recent upcoming arc for the anime only people
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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    Bleach's representation has always been one of its strong points. It was one of the first mainstream anime to really lean into positive POC representation via characters like Yoruichi, Tousen and Zommari. (Using Spanish for a lot of the hollow stuff definitely helped its popularity in LATAM countries as well.)

    Speaking of Zommari - a lot of people forget that queer and POC villains can still be positive representation if they're (a) not exclusively villains and (b) simply allowed to be cool and menacing, both in terms of abilities and just interesting character design. And if there's one thing Kubo can do in his sleep, it's great character design.
    It's weird that you mention Yorouichi, Tousen, and Zammari but leave off the chad himself...Chad. Who is, actually, Mexican (or at least half).

    Kubo's fascination with the Spanish language and some trappings of the culture is really interesting, and definitely makes a lot of the Hueco Mundo stuff stand out. Man, as much as I gripe about Bleach itself, I'd love to hang out and have a beer with Kubo. Man has style, and really good taste in music too.

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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    It's weird that you mention Yorouichi, Tousen, and Zammari but leave off the chad himself...Chad. Who is, actually, Mexican (or at least half).

    Kubo's fascination with the Spanish language and some trappings of the culture is really interesting, and definitely makes a lot of the Hueco Mundo stuff stand out. Man, as much as I gripe about Bleach itself, I'd love to hang out and have a beer with Kubo. Man has style, and really good taste in music too.
    Ugh, don't remind me, I get so frustrated when I think of him. And Orihime. Really, the Fullbring Arc should have been their time to shine - Ichigo was depowered, Soul Society was recovering, the Quincy arc is up next, and the whole Fullbring thing was (or should have been) a deep dive into their own unique source of power as the Third Way To Fight Hollows outside of the two main factions. What we got instead was a wasted mess.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    Ugh, don't remind me, I get so frustrated when I think of him. And Orihime. Really, the Fullbring Arc should have been their time to shine - Ichigo was depowered, Soul Society was recovering, the Quincy arc is up next, and the whole Fullbring thing was (or should have been) a deep dive into their own unique source of power as the Third Way To Fight Hollows outside of the two main factions. What we got instead was a wasted mess.
    At least we had Tsukishima.

    Oh that reminds me I can't wait to see the five second cameo he has.

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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    Ugh, don't remind me, I get so frustrated when I think of him. And Orihime. Really, the Fullbring Arc should have been their time to shine - Ichigo was depowered, Soul Society was recovering, the Quincy arc is up next, and the whole Fullbring thing was (or should have been) a deep dive into their own unique source of power as the Third Way To Fight Hollows outside of the two main factions. What we got instead was a wasted mess.
    Yep, totally agreed. And I'm actually part of the extreme minority that liked the Fullbring arc up until the ending. I actually completely dropped the series the instant Rukia just, quite literally, hands Ichigo's his powers back in an again completely literal giftwrapped box.

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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    I mean, the whole point of the arc was Ichigo getting his powers back and we saw a Shinigami pouring power into something several chapters before hand.
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    Spoiler: Ode To Meteors, By zimmerwald
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    Quote Originally Posted by zimmerwald1915 View Post
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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    I mean, the whole point of the arc was Ichigo getting his powers back and we saw a Shinigami pouring power into something several chapters before hand.
    The whole point was Ichigo maybe reawakening his Shinigami powers but probably not. Ultimately that's not what happened though, and more to the point I lost what respect Kubo had earned back by actually having the chutzpah to make Ichigo's power loss a thing that stuck.

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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    The whole point was Ichigo maybe reawakening his Shinigami powers but probably not. Ultimately that's not what happened though, and more to the point I lost what respect Kubo had earned back by actually having the chutzpah to make Ichigo's power loss a thing that stuck.
    This.

    There was a potential for a really cool “soft reboot” of Bleach in the Fullbring arc. Ichigo is depowered and Uryu is knocked out at the start to take him out of it. Get Chad and Orihime to come into their own and then bring Uryu back for the big fight at the end. Ichigo gets some powers back but doesn’t restore his previous broken powers. They win the day with friendship and teamwork.

    Ta-da! You’ve just given relevance back to the human cast which was lost when power scales went off the charts in the Hueco Mundo arc. Go into a new story focusing on the group.

    Instead Orihime and Chad don’t get to contribute. The Shinigami come in and solve everything, give Ichigo back his powers, and the whole thing ends on an anti-climax. It was more than a little irritating.

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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Chad and Orihime not "getting to contribute" is a weird complaint.

    Their whole thing is that they're only involved in this at all and only contribute to the degree they do out of loyalty and love, respectively, for Ichigo. They are defined by their relationship to Ichigo and this was an arc whose antagonist was twisting and weaponizing Ichigo's relationships.

    And even then, the arc does show off their character development before Tuskishima co-opts them. Chad is more proactive and Orihime is more willing to fight, even willing to threaten violence, and has cultivated her powers so that she has an option other than "turtle" and "instant death attack"

    As for the rest... Again, Ichigo getting his powers back wasn't in question. Even when he was training with Fullbring the selling point wasn't "these are replacement powers," it was "you aren't the first Shinigami representative nor the first to lose their powers. This will help you draw out and reawaken your lost powers."

    The entire selling point that was Ichigo's powers were not gone forever, just inaccessible without outside help. Fullbring was just a stepping stone.

    And we knew that Urahara and Isshin were up to something in the background, and we flat out saw a Shinigami channeling power into something several chapters beforehand.

    Soul Society's intervention also showcases the character development of several Shinigami.

    Like, I hope I don't come across as dismissive, but to me it seems like you were expecting a story that should have been clear from pretty early on wasn't going to be what we got.
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    Quote Originally Posted by zimmerwald1915 View Post
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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    They are defined by their relationship to Ichigo
    To quote Chidi Anagonye from The Good Place: "Okay, but that's worse. You do get how that's worse, right?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    The entire selling point that was Ichigo's powers were not gone forever, just inaccessible without outside help. Fullbring was just a stepping stone.
    No one expected the main character's powers to be gone forever. Did you also think Superman would stay dead in Death of Superman?

    But they could have had Ichigo win with his brains for once instead of just getting repowered suddenly and the typical shonen battle at the end, which was such a boring fight and foregone conclusion that even the in-universe spectators didn't stick around to watch it. When even the characters fighting for their lives don't care, why should I?

    Like here's a crazy idea, the Fullbring version of his powers could have been something completely different than a sword, and the arc is about our Swordy McSwordguy hero learning to use that. After all, Fullbring powers can quite literally be anything (e.g. Dollhouse Girl or Video Game Kid). Or if we must indulge Kubo's obsession with all things sword, let his fullbring be TWO swords, whoa this rollercoaster of creativity might actually be a little too wild, never mind let's slow things down a bit.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    To quote Chidi Anagonye from The Good Place: "Okay, but that's worse. You do get how that's worse, right?"
    I disagree and I am going to argue like you this is all Moral Philosophy, and what is our duties to one another, what is our obligations.

    Soul Society thinks it’s duty is to make the world go round. Even though everyone does not really understand how the world goes round, and Aizen lost his mind and became a rebel when he learned the truth, while Hat and Clogs in this Bleach tale said we must not remove the Keystone that makes the world turn when he learned the same truth.

    Ichigo really does not care what makes the world go round, he just can not stand strangers hurting the little guy and that is why he fights.

    But Chad and Orihime are different, they fight out of friendship and communal bonds on a local level. Something so similar to Hollows but Different for it is not excessive in a possessive way like hollows. Chand and Orihime are humans, and humans walk a different path than Soul Society (according to Soul Society.)

    =====

    I feel these are thematic importance for the story Kubo is telling even if I specifically would tell the story differently. The world of bleach is bigger than anyone even the main characters and villains. In fact the Ichigo and Orihime story invokes a myth about the Milky Way, the sky of stars and yet it is milky…and how two figures have their myth of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl (In the Mediterranean telling it is Zeus as an Eagle, Leda the Swan who Zeus Seduces, and Orpheus with his Lyre playing music after his wife died, forming the Summer Triangle)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co...he_Weaver_Girl

    Well Bleach has been hitting those Cowherd and Weaver Girl themes again and again in ways I did not notice at first during the first decade of reading Bleach. Themes that were even in the Bleach pilot but were rewritten for the Manga did not go in the direction of the Original Concept of Orihime’s backstory.

    Note the role of rain is different in the various myths (China retelling, Japan retelling, other East Asia versions, etc, etc) and the bleach version. Orihime (the Japanese name for the Weaver Girl) can meet her beloved once a day per year if magpie birds form a bridge to ford the heavenly river (another word for the Milky Way), yet this does not happen if it rains. Well in Bleach the rain is the power to unite Heaven and Earth who should never meet. [Note Ichigo and Orihimes’s are on the other side of Karakura town and are separated by a river]

    =====

    Thus to return to the Fullbring arc and themes. Fullbrings can manipulate the souls of objects, but they are especially important to things that were meaningful to them, to affirms their lack, or affirms their denial of lack.

    The Object that Ichigo binds to his his soul reaver powers, but really that is a step removed and the binding event was losing his mother on that fateful day of the Grand Fisher. Ichigo blames himself for his mother’s death so he craves power not for power’s sake, but to protect his friends and family for Ichigo is a walking wounded with unrealised PTSD that has shaped his entire personality. This trauma became an object affinity that latched onto the Soul Society badge when Ichigo became a Soul Reaper several years later as a teenager.

    Ichigo thinks he needs to sacrifice, again and again, and it is always his fault. He tried it the fullbring way and that was just re-enacting his trauma in something we call in psychology Repetition compulsion. “A pattern of behaviour whereby people endlessly repeat patterns of behaviour which were difficult or distressing in earlier life”, why do we do this when it hurts us once again? Well we are playing a game of gone / there (Fort / Da), where we as children and especially infants and toddlers had no agency, but now as adults we repetitively repeat the compulsion for we feel more empowered, more in control, more agency. And the fullbringers gain superpowers via being alone with their objects and repeating their traumas.

    But a theme of that arc is that fullbringers are more powerful when they share their traumas together, as group therapy, and actually lear a simulacra copy of the object affinity of other fullbringers. Likewise there is a parallel concept in Soul Society where a soul reaper can empower another soul reaper, or a baseline human…yet this is not done for it is the ultimate taboo, even though it saved Soul Society.

    And that is the thematic rub, Soul Society has this taboo for this act of giving and help is so alike how the powers of Hollows operate. One can take the power away from another and never give it back and the giver may be powerless. Yet we also know this same act of giving Shinigami powers can activate the power of another such as their own Soul Reaper / Fullbringer power. Thus creating a taboo around this act is in a way the opposite extreme of Hollow taking, where one never gives even if it makes sense to do so.

    Thus the gift of the Soul Society Captains and Lieutenants is recognising a bond of friendship, but also the lack inside of themselves, how they need friends, but also how their society has irrational taboos that needs to be reforged anew for a stranger, a Ryoka, “a travelling evil” laid bare all the faults, lacks, and problems in soul society while walking the path of righteous and justice. Ichigo is the mirror that allowed Soul Society to change (hopefully)
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    You can wax poetic about Bleach's supposed themes 'til the cows and weaver girls come home but that doesn't stop the series overall from being dumb and boring.

    I know that sounds dismissive, but my point is execution matters, and "good theming" isn't enough. If it was, The Room would be a masterpiece.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202
    As for the rest... Again, Ichigo getting his powers back wasn't in question. Even when he was training with Fullbring the selling point wasn't "these are replacement powers," it was "you aren't the first Shinigami representative nor the first to lose their powers. This will help you draw out and reawaken your lost powers."

    The entire selling point that was Ichigo's powers were not gone forever, just inaccessible without outside help. Fullbring was just a stepping stone.
    No, the selling point was that they were inaccessible without INSIDE help. It was the singular good, thematic thing about making him a Fullbringer in the first place. It was a power he had to ****ing earn instead of being handed to him again and again, like his original Shinigami powers, his Hollow powers, and even his Bankai were.

    Having him use Fullbring as a stepping stone to reawaken his true powers? Great! Awesome.

    But that's not what happened. He was, again, quite literally gifted his powers back in a (and I cannot stress enough how absurd this is) quite literal giftwrapped box, thus making the entire arc in the end, pointless. The Fullbring Arc is a shaggy dog story. The moral lesson seems to be that hard work is punished; Ichigo wouldn't have had to go through so much **** if he had just laid down and gone back to his normal life until some folks from the Soul Society came and re-powered him.

    It also feels like a complete Deus Ex Machina ending to an arc I'd already started to sour on when Ginjo was revealed to totally be the final villain of the arc. I don't really care if it was foreshadowed, it was still people coming out of the woodwork to, again, quite literally hand Ichigo the W at the end. It was not an earned victory, and it was not a satisfying fight.

    Not that I ever saw the fight until I rewatched the anime last year, because I again dropped the series like a hot potato the instant he was just given his powers back. And I'll tell you, I was a helluva lot less critically aware of media when I was 19, so it took A LOT to make me drop a series. I watched every season of Heroes, even the ****ty reboot! Bleach was, to me, at the time worse than the later seasons of Heroes. It was very obviously doing something wrong.
    Last edited by Rynjin; 2022-09-14 at 01:43 PM.

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    @Ramza00: I can appreciate you put way more thought (and certainly more words) into this than Kubo himself did, but I'm with Rynjin on this one.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    No, the selling point was that they were inaccessible without INSIDE help. It was the singular good, thematic thing about making him a Fullbringer in the first place. It was a power he had to ****ing earn instead of being handed to him again and again, like his original Shinigami powers, his Hollow powers, and even his Bankai were.

    Having him use Fullbring as a stepping stone to reawaken his true powers? Great! Awesome.

    But that's not what happened. He was, again, quite literally gifted his powers back in a (and I cannot stress enough how absurd this is) quite literal giftwrapped box, thus making the entire arc in the end, pointless. The Fullbring Arc is a shaggy dog story. The moral lesson seems to be that hard work is punished; Ichigo wouldn't have had to go through so much **** if he had just laid down and gone back to his normal life until some folks from the Soul Society came and re-powered him.

    It also feels like a complete Deus Ex Machina ending to an arc I'd already started to sour on when Ginjo was revealed to totally be the final villain of the arc. I don't really care if it was foreshadowed, it was still people coming out of the woodwork to, again, quite literally hand Ichigo the W at the end. It was not an earned victory, and it was not a satisfying fight.

    Not that I ever saw the fight until I rewatched the anime last year, because I again dropped the series like a hot potato the instant he was just given his powers back. And I'll tell you, I was a helluva lot less critically aware of media when I was 19, so it took A LOT to make me drop a series. I watched every season of Heroes, even the ****ty reboot! Bleach was, to me, at the time worse than the later seasons of Heroes. It was very obviously doing something wrong.
    Definitely, and we're not the only ones who realized it. Hence its rather precipitous plummet from SJ. But I won't rehash that when folks like Super Eyepatch Wolf, Mother's Basement and Gigguk did a much better job than I would have.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    Definitely, and we're not the only ones who realized it. Hence its rather precipitous plummet from SJ. But I won't rehash that when folks like Super Eyepatch Wolf, Mother's Basement and Gigguk did a much better job than I would have.
    I recently (well, within the last couple years) saw a Youtube video that analyzed the plummeting popularity of Bleach. It first discussed the Soul Society arc and the themes it incorporated that made it popular. Then the Hueco Mundo arc comes along...and it's the exact same story with the exact same themes. The only thing that changed was the Damsel getting swapped and the Arrancar replacing the Shinigami. Except the Arrancar were nowhere near as interesting - the Soul Society arc had at least half a dozen different factions struggling against one another, while the Arrancar arc...didn't. So the popularity dropped, and as the plot became less relevant it dropped further and further until the time of the Fullbring arc where only the die-hard fans were left.

    All of this is why Bleach is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. If someone tells me its terrible, I can't really argue against it. But damn if it didn't keep coming out with really cool moments whenever the story paused for an action sequence.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rodin View Post
    I recently (well, within the last couple years) saw a Youtube video that analyzed the plummeting popularity of Bleach. It first discussed the Soul Society arc and the themes it incorporated that made it popular. Then the Hueco Mundo arc comes along...and it's the exact same story with the exact same themes. The only thing that changed was the Damsel getting swapped and the Arrancar replacing the Shinigami. Except the Arrancar were nowhere near as interesting - the Soul Society arc had at least half a dozen different factions struggling against one another, while the Arrancar arc...didn't. So the popularity dropped, and as the plot became less relevant it dropped further and further until the time of the Fullbring arc where only the die-hard fans were left.

    All of this is why Bleach is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. If someone tells me its terrible, I can't really argue against it. But damn if it didn't keep coming out with really cool moments whenever the story paused for an action sequence.
    Definitely - to be clear, I'm criticizing Bleach out of love, both for what it was and what it could be again. And with an eye towards the moment in time in the overall anime zeitgeist it occupied, when the iconic NBOP trio (Naruto - Bleach - One Piece) of the early-mid 'oughts were still in their growing pains of incorporating more complex plotting, characterization, and technical prowess into the Shonen genre as a whole.

    This was something the other two managed to pull off, but Bleach fell behind on, which led into its sales slipping.

    Perhaps the key difference is that both Naruto and One Piece took a much-needed break (both for their creators, as well as the characters in the story via timeskips.) Bleach didn't do either of these, so not only did Kubo start to burn out, there wasn't nearly as much narrative room to let the characters do some needed off-screen growth. The end of the Aizen arc would have been a perfect time for it.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    Definitely - to be clear, I'm criticizing Bleach out of love, both for what it was and what it could be again. And with an eye towards the moment in time in the overall anime zeitgeist it occupied, when the iconic NBOP trio (Naruto - Bleach - One Piece) of the early-mid 'oughts were still in their growing pains of incorporating more complex plotting, characterization, and technical prowess into the Shonen genre as a whole.

    This was something the other two managed to pull off, but Bleach fell behind on, which led into its sales slipping.

    Perhaps the key difference is that both Naruto and One Piece took a much-needed break (both for their creators, as well as the characters in the story via timeskips.) Bleach didn't do either of these, so not only did Kubo start to burn out, there wasn't nearly as much narrative room to let the characters do some needed off-screen growth. The end of the Aizen arc would have been a perfect time for it.
    I wonder how things woulda shook out if Kubo decided to take the end of the Aizen arc to do a Bleach: Shippuden moment.

    I feel like at bare minimum it'd put Naruto into the bottom slot of these three juggernauts, historically speaking. But even then I'm not like, 100% sure if I'd put Naruto above or below it NOW. Decisions...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    @Ramza00: I can appreciate you put way more thought (and certainly more words) into this than Kubo himself did, but I'm with Rynjin on this one.

    Definitely, and we're not the only ones who realized it. Hence its rather precipitous plummet from SJ. But I won't rehash that when folks like Super Eyepatch Wolf, Mother's Basement and Gigguk did a much better job than I would have.
    Just giving you a heads up, Super Eyepatch Wolf has retracted one of his famous videos with millions of views (it is no longer on his youtube public account) and has done a new one for he felt he misread some signals and did some projection.

    He feels after learning new information in interviews that some of the previous information he shared was untrue. I still liked the video he retracted and the new one that replaced it, but I am underlining that people can change their mind and symbolic imagery is always "multivarent"aka multiple values. Something that did not work earlier can suddenly work now with new meaning either due to the passage of time, or 1 additional drop of new information can change dozens of meanings of previous meaning, like a tear drop, or one of those water meditative devices a soku (one of those bamboo water fountains that rises and falls)
    • And words can not capture true meaning sometimes, case in point, lets talk something akin to zen and the limit of words.

    Kubo often uses names to play on words and how ones name can be spelled in different ways. Take the example of Aizen vs Ichigo, it is using a form of art called Yojijukugo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yojijukugo where you create an idiom out of 4 characters / letters that represent 4 words and the words describe something profound (the non profound ones do not become idioms)

    Aizens: Mirror-Flower, Water-Moon (these 4 characters are spelled Kyoka Suigetsu), which is the name of Aizen's Zanpakutō. Yet in Japan this idiom means multiple layers. One meaning means things that can be perceives yet not be touched, like a reflection of a flower, caught in the line of the moon in the presence of water where the water acts as a mirror. But the same idiom also means "something that is beautiful or desirable, yet unattainable." The phrase can also be used to refer to something subtle and profound; something that can be experienced or appreciated but not necessarily expressed through words.

    Likewise

    Ichigo: in that fight represents Ichigo Ichie, but with kanji characters that normally do not represent the boy whose name you can also spell sound wise as strawberry. With Ichigo Ichie it too means something one can not capture with words, but the idiom is literally one, time, one, encounter. It is a more famous idiom used to reminder not to rush and to enjoy an experience for each experience is unique and one can not recreate it. Thus if you are doing Japanese Tea Ceremony one is supposed to remember Ichigo Ichie as a concept (Zen) and not what those letters literally mean. When having a cup of tea with someone be careful for you can only do it once, just like the "Final" Getsuga Tenshō.

    Thus the theme between Aizen and Ichigo was the theme is one of illusions and finality, both things that word can not truly capture, it was supposed to be a battle of hearts and understanding beyond concepts.

    (Did it succeed, well it depends on your perspective and whether you allow it to spellbind / seduce your heart. Thus it will not always succeed, for non success is also valid.)

    =====

    Now is themes enough to carry a story forward and even with themes ... can you trip and mess up the execution of the themes when telling a story. Of course!

    In fact I hope the Anime fixes some of these faults with the final arc that was told over 4 years (chapter 480 to 686.)
    Last edited by Ramza00; 2022-09-14 at 05:02 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    I wonder how things woulda shook out if Kubo decided to take the end of the Aizen arc to do a Bleach: Shippuden moment.
    The weird thing is the Fullbring arc does take place like 3 months after Aizen is defeated, so there's ALREADY a timeskip. Going a little further wouldn't have been a stretch at all lol. Show me Ichigo who buckles down, finishes school with top marks (he was always shown to be smart, like #5 in his class of 300 or some ****?), and starts his life as a normal person...and then gets dragged back in.

    It would also have given Kubo a chance to really justify the godawful decision of having him end up with Orihime instead of Rukia.

    (Aside, I think it is genuinely a disservice to Rukia's character to just like...hand her off as a "prize" to Renji at the end of the series.)

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    I feel like at bare minimum it'd put Naruto into the bottom slot of these three juggernauts, historically speaking. But even then I'm not like, 100% sure if I'd put Naruto above or below it NOW. Decisions...
    I dunno if it would have saved the series to that extent, especially since it's not like Naruto was a weak series at all. It had its flaws in the latter half, mostly with the war arc being a bit too long and literally everything involving Kaguya, but it still actually managed to stick the landing and end on a high note.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00
    Thus the theme between Aizen and Ichigo was the theme is one of illusions and finality, both things that word can not truly capture, it was supposed to be a battle of hearts and understanding beyond concepts.

    (Did it succeed, well it depends on your perspective and whether you allow it to spellbind / seduce your heart. Thus it will not always succeed, for non success is also valid.)
    I dunno if anyone disputes that Aizen vs Ichigo was a pretty great battle overall, though I don't know about going into that much thematic depth for it. The wordplay on their names is interesting, but ultimately what it's expressed as up until that final conflict is Ichigo tries and fails to do anything to Aizen while the latter maintains plot armor so thick it requires some serious Deus Ex Machina to justify him being defeated.

    Honestly the opening that went along with After Dark tells the story better than any discussion of the themes behind their names do. Ichigo keeps trying to catch Aizen but he's always two moves ahead.

    I guess what I'm saying is that you're not wrong, that thematic depth is THERE, and very cool, but again the execution lets it down.

    Final Getsuga Tensho form is still rad as **** though.
    Last edited by Rynjin; 2022-09-14 at 04:44 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    The weird thing is the Fullbring arc does take place like 3 months after Aizen is defeated, so there's ALREADY a timeskip. Going a little further wouldn't have been a stretch at all lol. Show me Ichigo who buckles down, finishes school with top marks (he was always shown to be smart, like #5 in his class of 300 or some ****?), and starts his life as a normal person...and then gets dragged back in.

    It would also have given Kubo a chance to really justify the godawful decision of having him end up with Orihime instead of Rukia.

    (Aside, I think it is genuinely a disservice to Rukia's character to just like...hand her off as a "prize" to Renji at the end of the series.)

    I dunno if it would have saved the series to that extent, especially since it's not like Naruto was a weak series at all. It had its flaws in the latter half, mostly with the war arc being a bit too long and literally everything involving Kaguya, but it still actually managed to stick the landing and end on a high note.



    I dunno if anyone disputes that Aizen vs Ichigo was a pretty great battle overall, though I don't know about going into that much thematic depth for it. The wordplay on their names is interesting, but ultimately what it's expressed as up until that final conflict is Ichigo tries and fails to do anything to Aizen while the latter maintains plot armor so thick it requires some serious Deus Ex Machina to justify him being defeated.

    Honestly the opening that went along with After Dark tells the story better than any discussion of the themes behind their names do. Ichigo keeps trying to catch Aizen but he's always two moves ahead.

    I guess what I'm saying is that you're not wrong, that thematic depth is THERE, and very cool, but again the execution lets it down.

    Final Getsuga Tensho form is still rad as **** though.
    I've always preferred the Orihime/Ichigo ship myself but also, yeah you're 100% correct they shoulda done that.

    At the very very least we wouldn't have gotten "prize fighter boxer Chad" in the finale. Still probably my personal grouch about the Bleach ending above and beyond everything else. Fighting for charity or not he's still a PRIZEFIGHTER. In a BLOOD SPORT. Chad "I promised my abeulo my fists would only ever protect" Yasutora. Despicable. The closest the Naruto ending gets to that is "... why is Orochimaru given a lab and free reign?" and Kiba marrying the random girl who owned a cat who showed up for one page during Hidan and Kakuza's intro (which is ****ing hilarious if not, like good).

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    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    I've always preferred the Orihime/Ichigo ship myself but also, yeah you're 100% correct they shoulda done that.
    The problem with Ichihime is that they spend practically no time together onscreen. A timeskip could have rectified some of that problem, even if I always thought Rukia and Ichigo had extremely good chemistry anyway, ever since arc 1.

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    At the very very least we wouldn't have gotten "prize fighter boxer Chad" in the finale. Still probably my personal grouch about the Bleach ending above and beyond everything else. Fighting for charity or not he's still a PRIZEFIGHTER. In a BLOOD SPORT. Chad "I promised my abeulo my fists would only ever protect" Yasutora. Despicable. The closest the Naruto ending gets to that is "... why is Orochimaru given a lab and free reign?" and Kiba marrying the random girl who owned a cat who showed up for one page during Hidan and Kakuza's intro (which is ****ing hilarious if not, like good).
    Ugggghhhhh I forgot about this. Yeah that's so dumb. At least with Orochimaru getting to Karma Houdini his way into no consequences it fits with both the themes of the series (forgiveness, ending the cycle of hatred) and real politik of the setting (you're powerful, it's a real pain in the ass to kill you, and you helped fight the final big bad so just like...don't be evil anymore and we're Gucci). Plus it's the exact same deal Warcrimes McGee I mean err Sasuke got.

    But Prizefight Chad is so weird. professional boxer I could understand to an extent, I can believe Chad could justify that. But honestly if they want him to do charity work...just make him like a social worker or something lol. And have him beat the **** out of child abusers every now and then.
    Last edited by Rynjin; 2022-09-14 at 04:57 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    I wonder how things woulda shook out if Kubo decided to take the end of the Aizen arc to do a Bleach: Shippuden moment.

    I feel like at bare minimum it'd put Naruto into the bottom slot of these three juggernauts, historically speaking. But even then I'm not like, 100% sure if I'd put Naruto above or below it NOW. Decisions...
    Naruto vs. Bleach has always been a tough one for me. Naruto kept a coherent and interesting plot for a lot longer than Bleach did, but I'd also argue that the nadir of its plot is far lower than Bleach's. Naruto's plot became incomprehensible and weird while Bleach's plot just got kinda boring. Naruto also went through a succession of increasingly more annoying primary villains after Pain and Orochimaru left the picture, while Aizen had a certain flair that kept him from being totally forgettable. Bleach consistently had better fights, but it also had some really annoying secondary characters that Naruto was never plagued by. Naruto's final drag to the finish was much longer than Bleach's, but Naruto actually finished the story properly and had an actual epilogue arc that went through and gave us closure for all the characters. Not to mention The Last.

    Thinking about it even now I can't decide between them. There's good elements in both, and absolutely terrible elements, and what is good and what is terrible varies depending on both the show and what point in the show you're at.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    I guess what I'm saying is that you're not wrong, that thematic depth is THERE, and very cool, but again the execution lets it down.

    Final Getsuga Tensho form is still rad as **** though.
    There is so much wasted cloth, lost potential, bad execution, whatever you want to call it with "words" in Bleach that it will be kind of mean to just nit-pick and create a very large google docs.

    One has to remember though it was mostly a 1 man job doinglist time the plotting, the story, the dialogue, the art, with almost no time breaks beside a few 1 week holidays, etc, etc due to "how the manga market is structured" and this is how the manga market works for better or worse (I am on the side of worse.)

    It is a system designed to create burn out, to be cheap like Marvel's CGI in movies for there is so many people who want that opportunity and people do not make much money selling the actual comics. It is on the backend with merchandise, anime (do not make much money there too), etc, etc that money is made. And who makes the money may not be the original brain with an idea and a pen.

    =====

    I love My Hero Academia, and it too has some faults, but in many ways having the final arc in the rough 400 range made sense (currently at chapter 365) much like having the Aizen arc in the 400 range also make sense. (Ichigo drops his sword in chapter 422)

    Anything past that amount you really need a larger team, and you need to take a break between arcs. Drawing 3 pages a day is a lot of work (for 8 years), but you are not just drawing, you are also designing, writting that story, plotting, etc, etc.

    And in my ideal world Bleach should got that larger team as soon as the Soul Society arc was finished for it had enough evidence it could carry a franchise. The problem is who owns the franchise and its various parts means they under supply the actual money to pay for creativity and production to sustain a franchise.

    [ I love the product, but I can't defend *morally* how the sausage is made. Thus I am not going to nit-pick even if the amount of wasted potential in Bleach is *legendary* ]
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post

    [ I love the product, but I can't defend *morally* how the sausage is made. Thus I am not going to nit-pick even if the amount of wasted potential in Bleach is *legendary* ]
    I think it's perfectly fine to discuss the flaws of the series, as long as you acknowledge that the blame doesn't lie 100% on the author. Very few people survive (much less thrive) in Jump's ultra-competitive, extremely crunchy "culture" but we do only hav e the series that exists, not teh theoretical one we COULD have gotten, to criticize.

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    On Ichigo and power.

    I uh... I mean, if Ginjo hadn't been a traitor, if X-Cution had been telling the truth about not wanting their powers, then that training arc would have literally ended with Ichigo being given a whole bunch of power.

    Like, that was supposedly what was in it for X-cution, giving their powers away to someone who actually wanted power.

    Compared to every other power which was...

    The only time Ichigo was given power was when Rukia transferred her powers to him in the first chapter and those powers were literally destroyed and replaced with his own powers. In a process that required him to effectively die and also almost suffer a fate worse than death while he underwent an internal struggle, followed by an immediate life or death battle to get the hang of using them properly

    The end of the Fullbring arc? Nobody's giving him powers, they're pumping him full of energy to brute-force him past a barrier that was keeping the powers he already had from being accessible.

    Every other power was likewise either the direct result of a training arc or internal struggle or required him to undergo the same in order to master.

    Which, honestly, should have foreshadowed the twist in the Fullbringer arc. The one time Ichigo was just flat out given power he lost it and had to replace it with a power that was legitimately his so of course he's not actually gonna be gifted power that belongs to someone else.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    On Ichigo and power.

    I uh... I mean, if Ginjo hadn't been a traitor, if X-Cution had been telling the truth about not wanting their powers, then that training arc would have literally ended with Ichigo being given a whole bunch of power.

    Like, that was supposedly what was in it for X-cution, giving their powers away to someone who actually wanted power.
    Which is inherently much more interesting. "Gain the trust and respect of these people so you can take away their burdens" is much more heroic than a lot of what happens in the series, and emotional work is still work.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    The only time Ichigo was given power was when Rukia transferred her powers to him in the first chapter and those powers were literally destroyed and replaced with his own powers. In a process that required him to effectively die and also almost suffer a fate worse than death while he underwent an internal struggle, followed by an immediate life or death battle to get the hang of using them properly

    The end of the Fullbring arc? Nobody's giving him powers, they're pumping him full of energy to brute-force him past a barrier that was keeping the powers he already had from being accessible.

    Every other power was likewise either the direct result of a training arc or internal struggle or required him to undergo the same in order to master.

    Which, honestly, should have foreshadowed the twist in the Fullbringer arc. The one time Ichigo was just flat out given power he lost it and had to replace it with a power that was legitimately his so of course he's not actually gonna be gifted power that belongs to someone else.
    "Training arc" is extremely generous for what Ichigo typically goes through. You could say he earned back his Shinigami powers the first time, sure. But he was given his Fullbring (and Quincy powers) by consequences of his birth out of his control. He was given his Vizard powers by Kisuke. He was, essentially, gifted his bankai by Kisuke as well. Literal centuries of hard training and introspection distilled down to 3 days for no extra effort (and quite a bit less) than doing it manually. He was given his Resureccion by Ulquiorra. And I've already talked about the ending of the Fullbringer arc.

    Ichigo earned very little of what he was given over the course of the series, in a way completely unlike the others of the Big Three.

    Luffy has earned every single one of his powerups, save maybe the most recent one, through hard work and training; mostly offscreen, but still.

    Naruto likewise was gifted a single powerup...but it was, early on, power AT A PRICE which balanced things out. He had to work a lot harder than the average ninja to master even the basics of the basics of Ninjutsu BECAUSE of that "gift" and its effects on his chakra control. Everything else he gets is the result of hard work either physically (almost everything) or emotionally (befriending Kurama).

    John Bleach is...just naturally a half-demon, half-angel, robot-vampire-zombie-wizard OC because that's the extent of Kubo's creativity in that regard.
    Last edited by Rynjin; 2022-09-14 at 06:34 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    Every other power was likewise either the direct result of a training arc or internal struggle or required him to undergo the same in order to master.

    Which, honestly, should have foreshadowed the twist in the Fullbringer arc. The one time Ichigo was just flat out given power he lost it and had to replace it with a power that was legitimately his so of course he's not actually gonna be gifted power that belongs to someone else.
    TBH this one is actually my biggest complaint about Bleach's plotting - almost every climactic combat is resolved by Ichigo .. looking inside himself and finding the resolve to Sword Harder. His moves are Sword Beam, Bigger Sword Beam, 'Evil' (but actually just a different color of energy) Sword Beam, and Biggest Sword Beam. At least up until Thousand Year Blood War, which I admittedly completely checked out of because I couldn't bring myself to care any more, but I have not seen anything indicating it changed.

    So for me the most disappointing part of the Fullbringer interlude and how it resolved is it would have been a perfect opportunity for Ichigo to be restored with a more personalized power set. Instead the sum of Ichigo's being expresses itself as.. 'I like having a sword'? Really? That's it?

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    Quote Originally Posted by tyckspoon View Post
    TBH this one is actually my biggest complaint about Bleach's plotting - almost every climactic combat is resolved by Ichigo .. looking inside himself and finding the resolve to Sword Harder. His moves are Sword Beam, Bigger Sword Beam, 'Evil' (but actually just a different color of energy) Sword Beam, and Biggest Sword Beam. At least up until Thousand Year Blood War, which I admittedly completely checked out of because I couldn't bring myself to care any more, but I have not seen anything indicating it changed.

    So for me the most disappointing part of the Fullbringer interlude and how it resolved is it would have been a perfect opportunity for Ichigo to be restored with a more personalized power set. Instead the sum of Ichigo's being expresses itself as.. 'I like having a sword'? Really? That's it?
    Eeeeyup. These were my thoughts back in late 2011 as well. I now have a more nuanced hatred of the ending of that arc, but this was my initial reaction. "He could have gotten something cooler than his other powers".

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