[Sabaku Kyu]

Originally Posted by Haak

Exactly. This entire arc was just one massive contrived plot device.

But what ronin myael was asking for was not a Doylist answer you know. It's actually bad to have to resort to Doylist logic to answer things.

I didn't "resort" to any answer. In my book, ronin's criticisms are mostly valid. I mean, if you want to go into details, it seems like the main message of this arc was to show Ichigo's impact on Soul Society and his ability to change things with unwavering determination. Ginjou's role was more to just to be an example of how SS previously viewed substitute shinigami before Ichigo changed things (threats to be exterminated given the chance). How Ginjou actually caused Soul Society to take that view is something Kubo's decided not to approach or is saving for later.

But really, all that's just beating around the bush. As far as progressing the plot, everything in this arc was secondary to Ichigo getting his powers back. I felt pointing that out was necessary to get beyond arguing the deeper implications of this arc because frankly, I think it's too easy to go in circles discussing it. Either this outcome is all we get, or the full impact from the events of this arc haven't been revealed yet.

Originally Posted by Lord of Pandemonium

Ginjou is a Shinigami, when they die the don't leave body behind

Well, the jury's still out on that. Tousen was shown standing over his shinigami friend's body at her funeral and Rukia took Kaien's body back to the Shiba clan. It was said that shinigami bodies break down into pure reishi when they die, but it's not likely that's an immediate process.

Originally Posted by Lord of Pandemonium

As for GJ he's in this color page (gotta find link to color page) along with all the other dead guys.

Kubo stated in UnMasked that he actually intended to kill him much earlier on but his popularity forced him to keep him a while longer an he speaks as if he's dead.

He's probably dead then. But the point here is that we have one example of characters that seemed definitely dead--Halibel and her group-- but later shown alive. There's already a precedent. A color spread isn't a commitment. Ginjou was shown in a spread where he was among Ichigo's friends serving the shinigami as waiting staff. That misled a few people into thinking it was a hint he was going to be a permanent addition to Ichigo's group.

Kubo just hasn't provided closure for some characters. Some of them are pretty much dead for certain (Stark) and some of them are more than likely alive (Kensei, Nel)