Bleach 202

[Nadouku]

[Dattebayo] Bleach - Episode 202: Download (http://www.dattebayo.com/t/b202.torrent)

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Freaking nice episode. If using that could boost Zaraki's power that much, then I wonder how much power Ichigo would get if he used it.

I loved the part where Nnoita gets bitch slapped by Nel. That was pretty funny. Oh, and the new ED isn't as lively as the last one, but it contains a lot of spoilers, so don't watch it for a couple of episodes.

[Killa-Eyez]

Zaraki OWNS!!! No Shikai, no Bankai...
Just plain KENDO!!!

[DarthEnderX]

I don't think I mentioned it last week, but Noitra's release is just plain awesome.

That said, dissappointed in the end of the fight. Just using two hands? Anticlimactic.


And yeah, I was watching the ending and about halfway though I'm like "Is that...huh...oh...what the...I see...so she's really...wow."

[Vorlath]

Nice episode. I like how Zaraki just wants more.

Sorry to change the subject, but on the topic of Bankai, I still say that Ichigo isn't using his Bankai. He's activating it. But he's not using it. Sorry, but an enhancement of his Shikai powers isn't a special ability. A side-effect, sure. Since it transforms him. But there is nothing NEW. I'll wait and see if I'm wrong.

The reason I say all this is because his masked form is more powerful than his non-masked form. This breaks a universal rule of storytelling that good always prevail over evil. Even if Ichigo can control it, it's still breaking the rule because it says you can use evil to win.

[November 11]

Good episode though the two handed powerup is abit lacklustre.

I cannot recall whether this was clearly indicated in previous episodes but Neliel words to Nnoitra show that rank 3 espada (her) and weaker are not Vasto Lordes. (though common sense tells me that if any of them turned out to be VLs, 10 of them would hardly pose a threat Soul Society).

[Archangel]

And now, i present you the most fucking retarded shonen powerup in history:

The Dual Wield !!!

[Penner]

When everything turned black and they showed Zaraki lookin' like some kind of demon, man that was so fucking sweet its just crazy, awesome episode!

[Patriot]

Yeah I noticed that too and was like wow!

[Archangel]

Btw guys don't watch the new ending since it's full of spoilers

Man i can't wait for the next arc :)

[Nadouku]

Sorry to change the subject, but on the topic of Bankai, I still say that Ichigo isn't using his Bankai. He's activating it. But he's not using it. Sorry, but an enhancement of his Shikai powers isn't a special ability. A side-effect, sure. Since it transforms him. But there is nothing NEW. I'll wait and see if I'm wrong.

Well, Ichigo did prematurely achieve Bankai, so he still hasn't had the time to even master it because of all the battles that he's being drawn to (and losing himself to the side-effects). Yea, so only his strength, speed and Getsuga Tensho gets enhanced, but it's enough to take on Captains.

[Archangel]

Btw guys don't watch the new ending since it's full of spoilers

Did you mean the new Ending Archangel? :p

Wut? :confused:

[Kraco]

It was a good conclusion to the battle. Showed why Zaraki is a legend and why Nnoitra despite all his fancy powers and boasting was still a n00b.

[Archangel]

It was a good conclusion to the battle. Showed why Zaraki is a legend and why Nnoitra despite all his fancy powers and boasting was still a n00b.

Seriously? U bought that stupid power up? :confused:

[Kraco]

Why not? Or are you denying swinging with two hands brings out more power than one hand? It makes quite a big difference. Sword itself isn't that heavy an object, after all.

Plus I'm actually very glad for once the direction was opposite to Ichigo's, who has had plenty of very fancy powerups, and each rendered the previous state obsolete yet none of them really require any skill. Kenpachi simply changed the barbaric sword swinging to a rudimentary kendo move and showed why kendo was developed in the first place.

I have always felt Ichigo should have been able to beat people like Yammy in shikai, people like Grimmjow in bankai and the likes of Ulquiorra in the masked mode. But he has little skills and often less willpower (will to cut). All he has are the fancy modes.

[animus]

And now, i present you the most fucking retarded shonen powerup in history:

The Dual Wield !!!

Dual wield implies a weapon in each hand.

[Archangel]

Dual wield implies a weapon in each hand.

The Barbaric Wield !!!?

At least that way it sounds cool

[darkmetal505]

Seriously? U bought that stupid power up? :confused:

Have you ever tried kendo? Have you ever tried fighting with a katana in one hand?

[animus]

I buy it. Not only is 2 hands obviously more power, but there's discipline and form. Usually he's just randomly slicing although accurately.

[DarthEnderX]

Oh I see. Martial arts fanboys.


You guys are those people who think if someone spends 5 minutes showing you a karate strike that you aren't gonna get your ass kicked in school anymore.

[darkmetal505]

You're non-sequitur remark doesn't change the fact his power up is viable, especially for someone like Kenpachi.

It's Kendo, not Karate. Try swinging a katana around randomly.

[animus]

Oh I see. Martial arts fanboys.


You guys are those people who think if someone spends 5 minutes showing you a karate strike that you aren't gonna get your ass kicked in school anymore.

That's got to be the dumbest analogy I've ever heard.

Anyways, Kenpachi having a bankai is totally against his character. I'm not sure if we'll ever even see him have some type of communication with his weapon, or achieve bankai. Though whose to say, if that's even his shikai (but that's another whole stupid argument).

[DeathscytheVII]

Yeah, at this point I'm pretty much given up on any speculation of Ken's bankai. I must say that they've explained Nnoitra's motivations and character pretty well near the end, and I can't help but say that it was one of the best deaths this arc, heck I felt pity for him (ironically being pitied on is what made him so pissed off to begin with lol). Very well executed and the music fit wwll.

As for Kenpachi's 'powerup'. I would call it a change of technique rather than any actual powerup, I don't doubt holding a sword with two hands makes the blow stronger, but i'm pretty sure it did nothing to change his Reitsu level, if it did, why isn't every soul society captain doing it? (I think Hitsugaya and captain general holds two hands? other than that, who else?). It brought the fight to an end, if rather anti-climatic.

I also wonder why Kenpachi never used Kendo on ichigo in their first fight. Oh well. If he did, bleach wouldve been the shortest anime ever :cool:

Also, any idea on Nnoitra' relationship with Nel? Absolute hate? Some kind of liking? Obsession? The ending with the eye contact kinda threw me off.

[DarthEnderX]

That's got to be the dumbest analogy I've ever heard.Of course you'd think that. You're a martial arts fanboy.

[Nadouku]

if it did, why isn't every soul society captain doing it? (I think Hitsugaya and captain general holds two hands? other than that, who else?). It brought the fight to an end, if rather anti-climatic.

Zaraki is probably the only Captain without any unique abilities, so the old man made him go through Kendo training to further boost his physical attacks, which has proven to be quite effective, and devastating.

[Sam98034]

Power-up? I thought it was just a "ok, I guess no more screwing around now" kind of thing. He didn't 'charge,' go through a transformation, or anything like that, so I wouldn't say that it was a power-up in the same way taking off the eye-patch isn't a power-up. He wears an eye-patch and bells on his hair to make himself weaker, not so he can power-up. He's probably left handed too.

[Dark Dragon]

I suppose in a way, it's nice that expectations for this show has fallen so low that this kinda crap get pass off as being a good episode.

I suppose Kenpachi and the other captain are like godsend compare to listening to Orihime cry "Kurosaki-kun" for 10 min while we watch him get kicked around.

In my opinion, the reason Kubo gave Kenpachi this kinda of "powerup" instead of shikai is simply because he ran out of ideas. Pretty similar to how the first half of this arc was pretty much a copy and paste of the Soul Society arc.

How does the character strength level work anyhow?

Ichigo Shikai win vs "full" strength Kenpachi
Regular Kenpachi beat Nnoitra
Nnoitra half killed Chad in like one hit
Grimjow regular form effortlessly beat the crap out of Bankai Ichigo
Nnoitra is at least as strong as Grimjow

So even after all of his training and screen time, chad is still a pretty much useless character.

[Kraco]

How does the character strength level work anyhow?

It works exactly like the plot needs it to work. Even if this was realistic, you couldn't judge things solely based on how someone fared against someone else in the past, or if you mixed in more people, how they fared against others and then try to draw conclusions from that for totally new fights. For Ichigo it works the least of all, because he's a total plot device. I bet now he wouldn't beat even Rukia with his shikai, though in the past he indeed beat Kenpachi and a bunch of lieutenants.

Kenpachi and the other captains are indeed like godsend compared to bloody Ichigo who first needs to lose two fights to gain a new powerup to win one fight.

[animus]

Of course you'd think that. You're a martial arts fanboy.

Clearly you're just a butt hurt nerd because you didn't like didn't how something went down in your anime. Quit being a douche.


How does the character strength level work anyhow?

Ichigo Shikai win vs "full" strength Kenpachi
Regular Kenpachi beat Nnoitra
Nnoitra half killed Chad in like one hit
Grimjow regular form effortlessly beat the crap out of Bankai Ichigo
Nnoitra is at least as strong as Grimjow

So even after all of his training and screen time, chad is still a pretty much useless character.

There's been discussions about how the power levels in Bleach don't make sense. They don't follow the DBZ, my power level is higher than yours. They don't even follow rock, paper, scissors. Like Kraco said they win based on who Kubo wants to win even though it makes absolutely no sense.

[Archangel]

How does the character strength level work anyhow?

Ichigo Shikai win vs "full" strength Kenpachi
Regular Kenpachi beat Nnoitra
Nnoitra half killed Chad in like one hit
Grimjow regular form effortlessly beat the crap out of Bankai Ichigo
Nnoitra is at least as strong as Grimjow

Lol this takes me back to some nostalgic discussions on the manga forum

FYI, power levels don't make even a little bit of sense on Bleach

[chambers]

hmm im not so sure they dotn apply so much, i certainly agree that its having a percieved higher power level doesnt mean that such a person will win.

But look at ichigo vs ken i would like to think the reason ichigo won this fight was more to do with surprise, like ken went there expecting somone to be crushed by his aura alone, the fight was relativley quick (if you look at in a real time kinda way) there wasnt much actual combat, each hit elevated the power level in that fight because of ichigos desire to rescue rukia. I would like to think that ichigo only stood a chance because ken handicaps himself so much that he waits for the other guy to hurt him first before responding with a higher force, the main problem with that is ofc ichigo is the main character and has higher power reserves than even ichigo expected.

... against an espada, although he couldnt have been sure, he must have had a rough idea due to the fact that he defeated tousen who then defected (and surly must have taken a high up role in HM) so the power lvls must be close to a captain level.

and as for ichigo vs nnoitra well its clear ichigo was not expecting another fight and was pretty beat up by that point so he had no chance to win, also vs chad nnoitra is almost the oppostie of ken almost throwing out his hardest hits 1st in order to take out the opposition. The difference is ken is looking for a fight, nnoitra is looking for a kill.

[RyougaZell]

I liked the episode a lot, yet I don't remember this Dual Wield thing on the manga. Maybe I forgot for what comes next...

The new ending is awesome... and full of spoilers like usual... lol...

[Yukimura]

I hope they really flesh out the next arc well (they kind of have to since they're so close to where the manga is) I felt it was one of the best parts of Bleach and it would suck for it to get crapped all over.

In other news Kenpachi's method of victory made sense to me. I don't think people who lived and died by their sword fighting skills would have bothered inventing and using all the different techniques and styles that comprise Kendo if they could have gotten equal results from just training their arm strength alone and gone into battles randomly swinging their swords around one handed. There's generally a better way to do anything than just throwing power at the problem until the desired outcome has been achieved.

[Jeff_from_MD]

Oh I see. Martial arts fanboys.


You guys are those people who think if someone spends 5 minutes showing you a karate strike that you aren't gonna get your ass kicked in school anymore.

eh stfu?...they're just having fun thinking about karate and super powers, leave them be already wtf.

And I don't know jack sh** about karate, but if anyone was too much of a petrified wooden boy to at least give it a shot regardless of what others think, then THAT's the kind of silly sh** that needs a beatin'...

No I'm not an ass. I'm just trying to reflect on the anime like this is a forum for anime? By the way, Kendo is gay and that powerup was bs lol..

[Nadouku]

I just can't agree that kendo is a bullshit power-up because a person like Zaraki can obviously empower his swings when using two hands. The difference is very noticable since I practice kendo as well (in another topic).

[DarthEnderX]

Yes, two hands makes swing stronger.

That doesn't mean its not the lamest powerup in the series so far, in a series well known for its "wtf was that?" powerups.\

In fact this is Chad's "Super hand, now grow OTHER super hand!" power up all over again, only more mundane.

[Uberbaka]

I quite liked the powerup.. It fits 100% with his personality of limiting himself.

He knows a better way of swinging his sword, but he chooses not to. And I wouldn't just say it's the fact that he grips it with two hands, but the methods within the kendo that get brought into play.

I buy it.

[Dark Dragon]

I don't think the issue is about buying the power up or not.

Sure, it's definitely much more plausible than numerous other alternative that Kubo could have came up with.

The issue is that it doesn't fit the rest of the series, most of the characters moves we have seen so far are hardly subtle, hell even the "Assassin" shikai leave the giant butterfly mark. My whole problem with this whole "power up" is that i really truly believe Kubo just got lazy and decide just to go with this approach instead of actually thinking up of something for Kenpachi.

I mean, Kenpachi has been introduced for a long time now and what has Kubo REALLY done with him so far? A lot of time has been wasted on development every god damn minor shinigami we've come across.

It's finally time for Kenpachi to return and Kubo did a cock-tease by delaying his fight to be the last of the 3 captains. The actual fight finally came and instead of doing something interesting, he fucking make Kenpachi switch from 1 hand to 2 hand for the sake of "Kendo" that manage to power Kenpachi up so much that he beat the fully release 5th rank Espada to the ground.

edit: on second thought, maybe it's also because I'm just annoyed that an entire arc is dedicated to saving Orihime and it somehow seems like that she is becoming the main female lead in the show.

[Kraco]

This kind of a "power-up" was just the right amount for Kenpachi to beat someone like Nnoitra. Nnoitra was only the number five Espada, nothing more. And Kenpachi is supposed to be once in a century legend. If he had had any more trouble or had needed anything more than switch to two hands, he would have become just another Ichigo for whom no manner of fancy power-up is ever enough (because Ichigo sucks at fighting).

[Uberbaka]

The entire Hueco Mundo arc is basically a mirrored version of the soul society arc and you wait until one of the _many_ powerups in the series to call him a lazy writer?

I don't think anything major would have suited Kenpachi and it would have screwed his entire character over if he suddenly had some exotic technique. Ken is simple.

[Nadouku]

Well, Zaraki having some kind of sword skill wouldn't be a big surprise, since all he relies on is his sword and physical assets. Along with Kendo, that could prove to be quite a deadly combination.

[DarthEnderX]

This kind of a "power-up" was just the right amount for Kenpachi to beat someone like Nnoitra. Nnoitra was only the number five Espada, nothing more.Nothing more? He's about 1000 times stronger than Ichigo was when Ichigo beat Kenpachi.

Which brings us to the huge plothole in all this...why they fuck didn't Kenpachi use two hands against Ichigo?

That probably bothers me more than anything else. That his powerup isn't even new. He's using a powerup he learned centuries ago. At least everyone else is using shit they learned recently. His character growth since his loss to Ichigo has been exactly zero.

[Kraco]

Kenpachi wasn't aiming to defeat an opponent (Ichigo) by any means necessary during the SS arc. He was just looking for a good fight. If he had used two hands back then, based on this fight, Ichigo would be long dead now and we would probably have a much better main character. A real pity he didn't use two hands, but it can't be helped. In this fight we saw that change just a little bit, and Zaraki really aimed to defeat Nnoitra.

Nnoitra surely was more powerful than Ichigo. You don't actually need to be much to be stronger than a blockhead who has an aversion to fighting and cutting. It's just the story that sometimes forces characters to lose to Ichigo despite logic and expectations.

But yeah, I would also like more character development for Kenpachi.

[DarthEnderX]

In this fight we saw that change just a little bit, and Zaraki really aimed to defeat Nnoitra.Actually, even now that doesn't seem to be the case. He says it himself, "If this keeps up, I'm gonna die. And I don't wanna die."

Even now I don't think he actually cares if he wins or if he beats Noitra. He still just wants a good fight, but he doesn't want to die in the process, so now he's using his "full" power(which I bet even now isn't his full power and the next arc he has to fight he'll pull out something else stupid he was doing to hamstring himself "This time, I'm gonna put on my more comfortable shoes! *HUGE POWERUP*!").

[Kraco]

That could be, but I think that sentence is a small change. While it seems Kenpachi isn't too concerned about finishing his enemies, as he hopes they can fight again some other day, he still realises every fight is basically a fight to death. For him to separately mention that should be a sign of something.

And if he's going to fight another Espada, two hands might not be enough anymore. Number 5 already required that so something like number two or one should be exceedingly hard in comparison. Assuming the particular power and style of the next opponent (if there is one) isn't perfectly suited for Kenpachi and thus actually easier.