Bleach Chapter 412 – Diecide 14

J is off on a mission with silent Bob, so I’ll be filling in for him here and on Mellorine. I’m not in the greatest state of mind so excuse the lack of pictures, I decided links worked just as well for 10% of the effort. I’m going to keep it short and sweet with four major points.

http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/412/06/

1. Tatsuki: Waaaay back Tatsuki was exposed to hollows (pre-soul society arc) but she has been acting like Karin and ignoring the spirits. We later see her get re-introduced to them when Yami came to town, but she still hasn’t really come to terms with them, however in this chapter she notes Rangiku as one of “Ichigo’s friends” and in her typical R.B.D. fashion is angry at Ichigo for not mentioning her. Will her powers finally awaken and if they did would they be any use? or will she just be cannon folder for Aizen’s rampage? I’m guessing she’ll awaken her power only to have Aizen own her like everyone else.

http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/412/13/

2. This leads to my next point. Rangiku: Last chapter she arived to save the day, after which she promtly puts Don Konoji in his place. When she was yelling at him I couldn’t help but wonder if she was talking about what she would do or Aizen… Anyway, Aizen tells Gin that they’ve got time to kill, so Gin grabs Rangiku and takes her to a roof top, where she confronts him about her actions on the premise of Izuru’s honor, but Gin promtly sees through this and tells her she is in the way.

http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/412/16/

3. Then it skips over to Asano: We see him holding a sword, to which my first reaction was to think that he finally awakened his powers meaning Tatsuki would soon folow. But, it turns out he just took “afro-man’s” sword. Again this had me fooled thinking that Kensei was afro-man until I remembered that almost folder character who took over protecting Kakura town in Rukia’s place. This is also a reference to the rapper Afro-Man. I think his sword will shatter when Asano uses it since he isn’t pumping Reiatsu into it, OR Aizen will stab Asano with it to raise the spiritual awareness levels of Kakura town.

http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/412/18/

4. Finnaly we switch back to Rangiku: It seems like Gin has killed her, but this whole situation has made me think of the movie “Hero” about a man who learns how to fake assasinations by stabbing a person in the correct spot on their chest. He does this in order to get close to the Chinease Emporer to take revenge for his dead brother but in the end decides that killing the Emporer would only bring more instability and death, something his brother wouldn’t want, so he uses his same fake assasination technique on the emporer. The topper for this whole connection is that the name of his technique was also the “God Killing Spear” (lance) as it was meant for the Emporer or was treated like a god. Therefor following the metaphor, I think he is simply faking Rangiku’s death to get close to Aizen.

Enjoy and discuss.

Bleach Chapter 403 – Deicide 5 is out!

Follow the link below for the release by Mangstream released on their own site.

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I disagree with Aizen…

Aizen claimed that the ability of the Hogyoku was not as Uruhara suggested, the ability to shatter the walls between Shinigami and Hollow, but the ability to make real the hearts true desire if that desire was strong enough. I disagree… somewhat. I agree with him that it does have the ability to realize the heart’s true desire, but think it does this by giving it’s user access to either Shinigami or Hollow powers. Remember that Shinigami have the ability to materialize their true soul in the form of their Zanpaktou, and Hollows have the ability to change their physical structure. The only difference between them essentially being whether their heart’s desire was selfish or philanthropic in nature. For instance Tousen’s desire was to see, so hollow powers were best suited to healing his eyes since hollows have the abilities of generation (creation of body parts) and regeneration. Ichigo on the other hand desired the ability to protect his friends, so he gained Shinigami powers at an incredible rate (This didn’t negate the hollow powers that his encroachment awakened naturally, but augmented them by making him a Vizard to balance them out).

Aizen’s counter-arguments to these claims are Chad and Orihime who don’t seem to resemble either Hollow or Shinigami powers. However the do resemble something else… Arrancar and Visored respectively. Chad is fairly obvious in this respect… Besides that both he and Uruhara compared his abilities to that of hollows, He clearly resembles an Arrancar who has used Resurecion and his spritual energy blasts greatly resemble Arrancar’s bala blasts. Not only has his relationship to Arrancar been mentioned, it just makes sense given that he attributes his right hand abilities to his dead grandpa and his left hand abilities to his own desires. Orihime is a bit more complicated… the best proof is her similarity to Hachigen, though there is more. Hachigen stated that he created his signature barrier abilities after becoming a Visored, that no shinigami could have a similar ability, and that since Orihime can create a similar barrier and infiltrate his own, she must have a similar ability. But this brings up an interesting question…

Where does that ability come from? I think it comes from the hollow abilities (since Hachigen said that it wasn’t in the shinigami arsenal and hollows are left by process of elimination). Hollows have abilities that, although they don’t realize it, closely resemble Orihime’s three abilities. Ability 1. Santen Kesshun: This is her shield ability, the closest ability besides Hachigen’s is a hollow ability… Negacion, which Menos Grande use to protect their allies from harm. Ability 2. Soten Kisshun: This is her healing ability. Unohana explained to Ichigo that Orihime’s healing and Shinigami healing are almost opposite. Shinigami healing is done by restoring spiritual pressure allowing the body to heal itself, while Orihime’s healing restores the body to it’s previous condition allowing them to regain their spirit pressure on their own. What it does resemble though, (again besides Hachigen’s ability) is another Hollow ability, (re)generation. The only difference between her ability and the hollows is that hollows are selfish, they wouldn’t think about using it on someone besides themselves because they want to eat everyone else, and most of the hollow who become Arrancar give up their ability to regenerate anyway. Ability 3. Koten Zanshun: Orihime’s least used ability due to it’s fragility and Orihime’s lack of battle lust, it’s a bit harder to analyze than her other two, though I would compare it to another hollow exclusive ability, Heirro, just used in a different capacity. It’s name says that although it acts as a weapon it is actually a double sided sheild (think Captain America). It’s similar to when Grimjaw attacked Rukia with her fists, it’s not his strongest attack, but still an attack.

Renji is a Hollow?

I have an INSANE theory I want to share with you guys… I think Renji is a natural visored who hasn’t awakened his hollow powers but might be on the verge or doing so. Let’s look at some proof…

His fighting style: Renji has an interesting fighting style when compared to a hollow. His signature Kido spell Hado 31: Shot of Red Fire is remarkably similar to a Cero attack. He also has a high level of durability, strength, speed, and spiritual pressure. These aren’t entirely remakrable to me except for the Red Fire, so next…

His Zanpaktou: Zabimaru is one of the few split personality Zanpaktou (The others are the dual-weilding Zanpaktou users and Ichigo). Joshiro Ukitake’s Zanpaktou doesn’t really resemble a hollow or point to him being a visored but Ichigo and Shunsui Kyoraku’s Zanpaktou denfinitely scream hollow… We see that Hollow Ichigo is a part of Zangetsu, and as Ichigo starts to get dominated by his hollow side, Hollow Ichigo eliminates Zangetsu. Similarily, I think the Baboon and the Snake that make up Zabimaru are competing for domination of Renji, but somehow they have come to a balance. Given that the snake is the more violent of the two, I would equate him to hollow Ichigo, and say that the Baboon is the original Zanpaktou personality. As I said I don’t think that Renji is a full visored or knows what is occuring, and just thinks his Zanpaktou is normal.

His Bankai: I find his bankai fairly interesting. It has several hollow themes built into it. 1. Bones: bones/exoskeletons are common themes among hollows, Renji’s Bankai seems to closely resemble hollows in this respect, and is almost identical to a hollow Kenpachi Zaraki fought in a flashback. 2. Cero: Similar to Hado 31, Baboon Bone Cannon closely resembles a Cero, and is even shot from Zabimaru’s mouth. 3. Instant regeneration like most hollows, Zabimaru has the ability to regenerate quickly if it’s damaged 4. Hollow mask: a common theme among Arrancar/Visoreds/Hollows, Renji has a similar mask on his Bankai uniform, said to be the skull of a Baboon.

Uruhara: Renji has a strange connection to Uruhara, and it was a conversation they had that sparked the idea for this post after I noticed that about two hundred chapters before Shinji used his Shikai, he showed the ability to write backwards. Renji stayed with Uruhara during the Arrancar introduction arc, and made a deal with Uruhara that if Renji trained Chad, Uruhara would “answer the questions he had.” One of the things Uruhara seems to specialize in is hollowification, so if Renji were to seek Uruhara out specifically, this seems like the subject he would ask about.

Well that’s all the proof I have right now, pictures will come later, but right now I have to go do chores for my mother.