[Intranetusa]

Originally Posted by WONDERMIKE

Spoiler for manga spoiler:

Everything makes sense! You just missed some minor circumstances like

- Ichi's mask under the kimono, it's more of a draw than a victory
- Kenpachi didn't use all he got against Ichigo
- Kenpachi's fight against Tousen was a strategical thing, not about mere strength
- Ichigo couldn't use his bankai against Grimm the way he wanted to, he was afraid of using it because of his inner hollow
- you are wrong about Kenpachi wearing his eyepatch against Noi
- Tousen never defeated Grim, he just burned his arm.. that's perfectly fine as Tousen specializes in Kidou and they are somewhere on the same level, so it's plausible.. judging from Grim's reaction it's not like Tousen is a god compared to him

... this isn't DBZ, it's not all about stupid ki, most "victories" are rather tight and don't mean the winner automatically outclassed the loser

Spoiler for ICHIGO, KENPACHI, GRIM, NOI:

Ichigo's mask under his robes didn't give him any additional powers - it just prevented him from getting skewered.

kenpachi took off his eyepatch against Ichigo - that pretty much means he's going all out 100%. If he couldn't even defeat Ichigo with his eyepatch off, how did he tie Norita with his eyepatch on? Norita is stronger than Grim, who defeated Ichigo with bankai.

(you can't exactly say he didn't use bankai the way he wanted cuz Grim stopped Ichigo's gastuga tensho with his bare hands) And even when he did use bankai effectively, he still was outmatched by Grim. He needed bankai + hollow mask + hollow mask training to defeat Grim's released form.

Kenpachi does eventually take off his patch against Noi, but that's Noi's released form. So how come he can't defeat Ichigo with the patch off, but he can defeat Noi with the patch off - when Noi is clearly superior to Ichigo?