#bleach rant

Was more important to Ichigo’s character compared to this team up:

Orihime’s team up with Ichigo fulfilled her character arc.

She’d been beating herself up and wishing internally that one day, she would no longer hold Ichigo back and could fight beside him.

It’s not even about Ichigo, it’s about her own sense of inferiority. Her own self-consciousness.

Yhwach admittedly was the worst villian to try to fight against by Ichigo’s side, but she was still brave enough to do it. And for that she did feel proud.

As for Ichigo, this team up did absolutely nothing for his character. Actually, there are two perspectives to this fight.

Orihime, who feels as though she has worked up to this. She feels as through she is fighting on equal ground with Ichigo and Yhwach. She’s fulfulling her job as the support.

Ichigo, who can’t fight to his full potential until Orihime is out of his way. He has to instruct her when to throw up her shield because she doesn’t have the battle experience to know where Yhwach is going to attack from next.

I suppose it could be argued that this team up helped Ichigo to learn to rely on his friends, specifically Orihime, therefore it helped his character arc.

Though, the results of the battle negates that argument entirely + Ichigo has shown willingness to trust his friends in battle (namely, Uryuu and the Gotei, but I digress)

So, it’s pretty fair to say that Ichigo gained nothing from this battle beside Orihime. Orihime gained everything she wanted…. somewhat.

Now, his team up with Uryuu at the end of the Fullbring Arc is completely different.

It was mutually beneficial to both Ichigo’s and Uryuu’s character arcs at the time.

During the Full Bring Arc, Ichigo had none of his human friends to rely on. Uryuu was injured from the very beginning and was unable to aid Ichigo the way he usually does.

Previous arcs (and the rest of the manga) have proven that, out of his human friends, Uryuu is the only one Ichigo fully trusts to handle himself in a battle.

Uryuu was the only one from Ichigo’s human friends that Tsukishima (and honestly, Kubo) chose not to brainwash. Uryuu was excluded from Ichigo’s psychological torture and was lumped in with the fighters that are able to remain by Ichigo’s side no matter the circumstances. (Along with Rukia, Byakuya, Renji, Ikkaku, Kenpachi and Toshirou)

This team up against Ginjo was a sense of clarity for Ichigo. It is very fair to say, when it comes to his human friends, Ichigo’s faith in them was at an all time low towards the end of the Fullbring Arc.

But Uryuu was willing to endanger himself just to take out Ginjo and Tsukishima (even though Ichigo thought Uryuu had turned on him for a brief moment) and then he proceeded to fight side by side with Ichigo against Ginjo.

Uryuu didn’t try to pull Ichigo away from the fight, he didn’t think Ichigo was wrong in the fight, he did what Ichigo needed most. He stayed by his side, tried to help analyze the villian’s motives and fought by his side without holding him back.

What Ichigo has been shown to appreciate is honesty, and without it being prodded out of him, Uryuu revealed the one secret he was keeping from him, that he had sneaking suspicions about the Substitute Soul Reaper Pass, and Ichigo was quick to let loose and got comfortable with Ishida once again.

This comfort lasted the entire series, even through Uryuu’s “betrayal”. Hence why Ichigo, in the end, admitted that he’d known that Uryuu would never turn on them without a valid reason.

Ichigo’s team up with Uryuu helped Ichigo gain trust, knowledge, perspective, and comradery. It ended with a victory that Ichigo was proud of. He didn’t regret putting Ginjo down and he’d made his choice to stand by the Soul Society despite their transgression.

Ichigo’s team up with Orihime ended with Ichigo in absolute despair. His zanpakuto was broken, he didn’t have any will to fight left. Then, he proceeded to get his zanpakuto restored by someone else and he fought alongside Aizen in a more successful tag team and came out victorious against Yhwach.

LMFAOOO😹😹😹😹 I know I said I was taking a break but I burst out laughing when I saw this

I don't know if you know what fat people look like. Or people in general. He's not fat (ngl just because of this art I should draw him fat because he'd be hot), he's an older man with a bit of flab (which is still skinny! Most people have at least a bit of flab, and even if you don't, everyone has tummy rolls and skin folds when you bend. (Also! He's laying back and leaning forwards, so his tummy is also squished)

I assume you're talking about this drawing, because it's the only time I've ever actually tried when drawing Urahara)

He literally does jack all day so I seriously doubt he really has that skin-tight muscular body. Plus! I love to see body diversity! I hate everyone being so skinny! That's just not what people look like (well... no one is a soul reaper irl either, but.. you know what I mean👀😹).

Send me your fav and I'll draw them fat 🎀

idk how to articulate this in the way I want, but man it kills me how much Bleach’s progression means to me, from the very first arc to tybw .. like they really went from just a gaggle of high school friends that managed to stick together, figuring out this unknown world of hollows, finally confronting things like Ichigo and his trauma with his mom, uryu and his father, and Orihime and Chad trying to figure out their own usefulness in this world they all don’t quite understand yet but want to help anyway and be by Ichigos side, because fighting alongside him is important to all of them .. all while meaning a lot to each other, so much so to fight for each other through everything ..

and now, although really not much older, maybe in their senior year, all of them have tapped into their powers, whether it be fullbringer, healer, soul reaper, QUINCY!! and it all means so much to me because I was into bleach from the very beginning, when they were, again, a gaggle of just some high school kids going about their lives all while trying to figure this soul reaping, hollow thing out . and to see the contrast and growth to me makes me so happy like sjdmdndjdn <33

but oddly enough with bleach I don’t particularly feel the need to stay “stuck in the past” and constantly reminisce about the “good times” or when things were easy, stuff like that. But that’s probably because I see how far they’ve all come and it makes me so happy <33 every single one of them, fighting with confidence and new formed strength by ichigos side because they all mean so much to each other , and Ichigos fight means a lot to them. Especially Ichigo who went through so much , from facing his childhood trauma to finding&facing himself, through his sword, and his relationships

and I think bleach (for me at least) is the kind of story that brings you along side by them each arc and fight, so seeing them stick by each other thru everything while becoming stronger themselves makes me gush so bad like oh my gosh .. yes the earlier seasons r a bit nostalgic to me even if I only got into bleach three ish years ago but there’s something about it that keeps it very close to me .. tite kubo the author you are ..

MAN I LOVE BLEACH

So. Tensa Zangetsu. The manifestation of Ichigo's Bankai.

I think it's stupid, since why would the zanpakuto have a different form for Bankai? Like, it just sounds stupid. Every Shinigami achieving Bankai and happening to meditate while in it would have to deal with a different sword spirit?? Stupid.

I really like Tensa's design, though, it does seem way more like a sword spirit than the Old Man ever was (which, fine, he never was anyway...). And after he fuses with Shiro, it gets SO MUCH BETTER. You look at this man up there and thinks: oh ok that's Ichigo's sword.

SO MY QUESTION IS

Why the hell would they ever separate themselves after this? Especially after Ichigo recovering his powers? They already showed and told him that it could all work together!!! They were one power originally, one form! Hollow power mastered by a cool temper. This form could just be Ichigo's true zanpakuto spirit! Do you see the vision???

And, fine. Maybe it was all because Kubo needed to show that he had Quincy powers and shit or he just went making shit without explaining, but still... This was such a cool form and I hate to see it discarded (like so many others). And okay, granted that Tensa Zangetsu + Shiro is kinda like his Horn of Salvation form... So maybe if he, by any weird ass chance, went on jinzen and met his Bankai spirit (which, again, such a stupid concept. WHY??), maybe it'd look like that again?

They used to be a big deal damnit!

And you're telling me that after that

They just stop interacting?!! At all?!!!

All we get is one glance from hinamori when toshiro get his bankai back?

For fuck's sake, I didn't ask for much. Just a little acknowledgement of their bond and how much it suffered at the hands of aizen. For how much I ship them, I wouldn't even care if they ended up with other people just as long as they got a little closure.

… yk what? I think one of the reasons why I like to give Ichigo the feral, half-hollow fantasy ending he deserves is because I wish more people had appreciated me at my weird (neurotypical mostly lmao) and creepy growing up.

Today I can say I have friends and family that see that part of me and share my joy with me,,, but the anxiety of fitting in and the constant fear of looking normal that I’m sure a lot of u can relate to me on is something I still carry with me even now. So yeah it makes me angry that the character with creepy monster-powers gets his “happily ever after” by suddenly becoming dull and normal.

This is not even about ships and canon couples (bc oh that is it’s own fckn can of worms that I could rant forever about), it’s about giving a character (actually, a few characters in the series) a dull ending when this whole time we got to know him as a guy who was definitely not normal (although he moody-teen-like attempted so) and who eventually found himself throughout the story in his “weirdness”.

I’m tiireeeeddd of characters being given the “scary powers making them go feral” trope, only to make them end up dull and boring and “now I’m good so now I’m not monster-like” and give them the just-another-unhappy-male-MC-forced-into-a-straight-marriage-with-zero-chemistry ending.

Give me characters that work in their weirdness, accept it and grow with it, not away from it; that learn to not be scared or disgusted of themselves. Bc I caN relaTE; so many of us have quirks we’re taught are “not normal” and weird or creepy, and we teach ourselves to very uncomfortably hide; so yeah I want a character that doesn’t haVe to learn and “be better” and reel their weirdness in. I’d love to see a character that instead learns how their weirdness works in their favor differently to how others’ normalcy works for them. And Ichigo doES that some times, but it’s so often stripped away righT afTeR so what’s the poinT.

Also give me supporting characters that don’t do the “that’s not my MC 😭” bullshit ass trope. Give me MCs that aren’t forced to be ‘perfect’ for everyone else in the end. I want the ugly and imperfect in the good. Give me Ichigo fckn Kurosaki with weird Hollow attributes and cravings and instincts, that is allowed to actually show how much he loves bloody fights in other situations that are not life-or-death, I’m-putting-my-life-on-the-line-for-everyone shit. The shinigami are a corrupt little bunch but theY get to strut around calling themselves good? And my boy Ichigo gets shit when he doesn’t immediately control powers a lot of the characters hid information about to his facE? give me a breaK

But anyway, my Grimmjow loving ass ofc says Ichigo would be happier spending more time w/ the obviously feral I-take-what-I-want arrancar that made him smile so pretty even when he was so stressed🥰 and ofc they can smooch too, as a treat💕