A good episode. It was a good decision to focus solely on one fight instead of fragmenting it. This way it got much more momentum from the beginning to the end. Like I said in previous threads, I never believed Maki could have a chance against Zaraki, but they executed this episode in a fine manner, making Maki believe he could have a chance. That's the only way the fight could be as intensive and all-out as it was.

I haven't read the manga, so I don't know what's going to happen, but considering even just this episode I think more and more Ichigo should get some formal teaching from a real shinigami. Of course he has got some training from Urahara, but to be frank, that guy is a lazy bum... Naturally I would prefer it would be Rukia who would train Ichigo... But honestly Ichigo has huge amounts of reiatsu like Kenpachi, so he should be able to pull off stunts like we saw in this episode. And since he has shown he can master techniques quite easily (shikai, bankai), he should also be able to learn nice spells like the ones Byakuya (and also Rukia) uses all the time.