(Don’t worry, Rodimus. Your secret is safe with me.)
I might as well do this before I leave even though it seems like it’s going to make me late. Hurray!
…Except that the post you quoted yesterday had the very first thing being me giving him credit for explicitly stating the convection and light problem.
No, that’s not what I said. I said I prefer to be wary. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even entertain giving Kubo credit for the above despite it being explicit.
Whatever floats your boat despite much of that stuff being things that “should” be explained and a lot of what’s been explained either not being consistent or not really fleshed out, like Kido. Speaking of which…
I’m aware. I meant in general. I’ve said before how Kido and Hadou are completely underused to the point of basically being either deus ex machina or melodramatically flashy but ineffectual.
Y’know, I haven’t thought about that for awhile… what the true rankings of the espada should be. If it weren’t for the fact that Zommari’s “spirit pressure” whatever is probably lower than those that were officially in the upper ranks… he should’ve been way up there. Theoretically, there’s no way you should lose a battle with that kind of “line of sight = dominion” power, unless your opponent is fast enough to stop you from using it in the first place. This is a guy that can win against and end up killing most characters from anything just by looking at them… looking with any one of his fifty or so eyes. I love how game-breaking that is.
Barragan-- I still say he should be #1 if the ranks were completely logical. Kubo probably didn’t think too much about this for it to have been on purpose, but it seems like Aizen would’ve made him #2 purely as an insult. Imagine what that says… these guys barge in and take over the world you once ruled over, and force you into being one of their subordinates… but they don’t even give you top rank… they knock you down to a 2nd place rank amongst the 10. Yeah, that would seem like one extra little bit of “fuck you”.
…then again, perhaps he did intend that? Remember that Barragan still harbored some deep resentment, right up to the end…probably only followed orders because he really had no other choice. It was basically a choice of rolling with Aizen’s crew or…get killed…haha, as funny as that sounds… a former King of the Dead/underworld… getting “killed”.
*edit—and perhaps it’s even more clearly stated in the fact that Barragan did NOT wear “#2” anywhere on his body or clothing, from what I remember. Interesting.
Barragan’s ability was by far the most overpowered of the espada, he was def #1 in my book.
Aizen still trolls him though since he saw his zanpakuto. He would just do the 'oh you thought you released your death fart? lulz no i was sticking a sword up your ass the entire time
Aizen’s ability is fucking retarded, I am legitimately upset we didn’t get to see his bankai and he lost his zanpakuto when he “evolved”. Kubo clearly wrote himself in a corner and couldn’t even top Aizen’s shikai because it was so retarded.
(Yeah, Aizen definitely made Barragan #2 at least partly as an insult considering how much he loved to troll people. Remember Aizen is the same guy who asked Tousen for visuals before making him explode later and also had everyone stab the fuck out of Hinamori for the hell of it before he OHKO’d them. Aizen loves to troll people because pretty much everyone else is beneath him. This is why he didn’t really bother killing anyone but the Central 46 even though he should theoretically be able to instantly kill or at least horribly blind, deafen & tactilely torture anyone who has ever seen his shikai due to sensory overload.)
That said, I do think that Starrk was legitimately #1 given that despite his “specialty” being rather boring and a hell of a lot less overall broken than Barragan he was able to output a tremendous amount of energy will still holding back. So he “should” “naturally” counter Barragan given that energy can’t really be “decayed”…though Barragan decaying Hachi’s barrier constructs and him somehow surviving Soi Fon’s worthless tampon nuke kinda counter that. The former could be explain as Barragan decaying the solidity of the energy rather than energy itself, but I think he explained outright that he killed the fire of Soi Fon’s attack or some bullshit. So who knows, especially since Bleach hazily follows a “power is a power!” ala DBZ, meaning that you just can’t touch people who are outright above you after a certain yet vague level of difference in power; it’s part of the only remotely plausible explanation as to why Zommari’s broken ass was somehow only #8.
It doesn’t really help that Starrk never wanted to fight in the place and that Barragan was shown to be able to apparently slow time as well within a localized area on top of having a withering touch even before he released.
Ugh. Just talking about the Espada reminds me of all wasted potential of that arc on top of all its stupid bullshit as well how depressing Starrk’s situation was. Dude just wanted to not be lonely anymore; hell, he didn’t even want to fight in the first place, but, nope, he got Calvinball’d to death by the one captain who is deceptively cutthroat.
P. S. I’d readily believe that Second Release Ulquiorra was the true #1 or “#0”–fuck Yammy’s still weak-ass, who was probably only #5 at best after becoming “#0”–given the circumstances of his three “fights”. He was obviously toying with Uryu, especially since he utterly outclassed Uryu and it was repeatedly hinted at that Ulquiorra was becoming increasingly interested about “the heart”. Given how much he talked and asked why Uryu and pre-plot-armor-Hollow Ichigo would be fighting such an unwinnable battle against him and he specifically killed Ichigo to “show off” to Orihime & prove how pointless it was, he was at best being half-hearted about things. If Ulquiorra was remotely as serious as Yammi, then Uryu would have died too rather than just getting his arm ripped off.
It also doesn’t help that Ulquiorra didn’t seem to have much experience in that mode in the first place, especially since he was hiding it. Considering his repeatable lance abilities basically made Soi Fon’s Bankai look like a sneeze and that he still had high-speed regeneration (even if only really in his limbs), it seems readily believable that he was #0 or that he at least moved up past the ranking of #4 to at least #3.
That’ one of the things that pisses me off about bleach (and some manga in general) is the size=/=strength shit. In a fight of strength, dudes like Komamura show wreck Aizen, he really should get by on his shikai being so broken and trickery…OHKOing niggas is just too much IMO.
#FuckAizen >:(
RE: Barragan: I hated him when it was weekly but I rather like him reading it over all at once. He was like pre-nerf vanilla MvC3 Sentinel healthwise with MvC2 Sentinel Super Armor (death fart) and fly mode.
RE: Espadas: Certain things weren’t explored to the fullness that I would’ve liked but overall that arc still feels epic and awesome, and Yammy being a joke was great
