[Manga] Chapter 242 Discussion

[hi no ken Jebus]

"Two men are burning"

Spoiler:

Chad and Uryuu on the cover. Ichigo and co continue to run in that corridor while being chased by the aranakru. Uryuu deduces they are in some kind of basement/cellar and fighting could collapse it on themselves. They run into a huge room and see stairs but another chicken looking arankaru appears before them. The one chasing them finally catches up with them. Ichigo says that they seem more hollow like than the ones who came to human world. He then tells them to step back that he'll take them both on and chad elbows him. He tells ichigo the one stepping back will be him that they will handle it. Uryuu tells ichigo what urahara told him about the arankaru classes and the closer they resemble a human form the more higher the class and that chad and him can handle these two.

The chicken looking one's name is Iceringer and the huge one with dreadlocks is called Demoura. Uryuu takes on demoura and chad iceringer. They fight but the fight is mismatched, halfway through they switch opponents and chapter ends with Uryuu summoning a bow that resembles the quincy cross and saying time for their counterattack.

[Guido]

Spoiler:

Finally, we'll get some Chad and Ishida action, and let's see for ourselves how well the training pay off in the next chapter.

It is possible that the less human-looking arrancar are imperfect arrancar.

[hdx514]

Originally Posted by Guido

Spoiler:

Finally, we'll get some Chad and Ishida action, and let's see for ourselves how well the training pay off in the next chapter.

It is possible that the less human-looking arrancar are imperfect arrancar.

the japanese source actually has some more detailed and also rather confusing information regarding this:

石田が裏腹に聞いた情報だとＧＪが連れてきた破面はギリアンとアジューカスの混成部隊だったらしく、メノス は破面化する際に人型に変貌するが100％なのはヴァストローデ(説明時にウルキ、ヤミー、エドラドの絵) のみらしい。
他の階級は人型にならない者が多く知能の低い奴ほど虚に近い姿らしい。

basically the info ishida got from urahara was:
1. the 5 arrancars grimmjow first brought to the real world were a mixture of gillian and ajukaru (which is kinda wrong since aizen said they were all gillians after they were wiped out.)
2. after a meno's mask is removed, if its outer appearance resembles that of a human 100%, then it's a vastorode. (and as this explanation is taking place we see images of ulquiorra, yammi and edorad.)
3. The classes of arrancars looking more hollow than human are simply low intelligence minions

i think it's somewhat confusing because shawlong, edorad etc. etc. all seem to have 100% human apperance, but there's no way that edorad could be even close to a vastorode, and i'm pretty damn sure that the images of uloquiorra/yammi/edorad were used because they represent the three different classes of menos. so maybe, urahara's "human appearance" is only valid after an arrancar has revealed his true power, that is, after release. if you look at shawlong or the rest, they became part human part animal/insect/monster after release. but then again, what about ruppi? he's got tentacles and an xbox over his body, but still, it's not like the shinigamis don't get any "inhuman" additions once they go bankai.

anyway, i think all the VCs should stop practising obviously since ikkaku was just able to beat a crap ass gillian and there're like a billion gillian around

[Sabaku Kyu]

Originally Posted by hdx514

the japanese source actually has some more detailed and also rather confusing information regarding this:

basically the info ishida got from urahara was:
1. the 5 arrancars grimmjow first brought to the real world were a mixture of gillian and ajukaru (which is kinda wrong since aizen said they were all gillians after they were wiped out.)
2. after a meno's mask is removed, if its outer appearance resembles that of a human 100%, then it's a vastorode. (and as this explanation is taking place we see images of ulquiorra, yammi and edorad.)
3. The classes of arrancars looking more hollow than human are simply low intelligence minions

i think it's somewhat confusing because shawlong, edorad etc. etc. all seem to have 100% human apperance, but there's no way that edorad could be even close to a vastorode, and i'm pretty damn sure that the images of uloquiorra/yammi/edorad were used because they represent the three different classes of menos. so maybe, urahara's "human appearance" is only valid after an arrancar has revealed his true power, that is, after release. if you look at shawlong or the rest, they became part human part animal/insect/monster after release. but then again, what about ruppi? he's got tentacles and an xbox over his body, but still, it's not like the shinigamis don't get any "inhuman" additions once they go bankai.

anyway, i think all the VCs should stop practising obviously since ikkaku was just able to beat a crap ass gillian and there're like a billion gillian around

When you say 'vastrode' I think you mean espada. Vastrodes have yet to be seen, but are supposedly more powerful than any class of hollow(or shinigami for that matter) we've seen yet. Uloquiorra, Yami, Grimmjow, Luppi and Wanderweiss are all espada, which are more powerful than gillian but weaker than vastrodes. The only espada we've seen release is Luppi so it's hard to guess the nature of their attacks at this point, but yeah, I'm also kind of confused about the whole 'more human appearance=more powerful' thing.

Ikkaku actually is around captain level but retains his position as 3rd seat of the 11th squad to stay under Kenpachi's command. Still, I'd have to agree with your opinion about the gillians' strength. The fact that Matsumoto was able to easily defeat her opponent once the SS limit was lifted shows that most gillians are no match for a VC.

This new arc is starting to too closely resemble the SS arc. I was hoping at least one vaizard would accompany Ichigo, we've hardly seen any of them while we saw enough Chad and Ishida in the last arc

[hdx514]

Originally Posted by Sabaku Kyu

When you say 'vastrode' I think you mean espada. Vastrodes have yet to be seen, but are supposedly more powerful than any class of hollow(or shinigami for that matter) we've seen yet. Uloquiorra, Yami, Grimmjow, Luppi and Wanderweiss are all espada, which are more powerful than gillian but weaker than vastrodes. The only espada we've seen release is Luppi so it's hard to guess the nature of their attacks at this point, but yeah, I'm also kind of confused about the whole 'more human appearance=more powerful' thing.

Ikkaku actually is around captain level but retains his position as 3rd seat of the 11th squad to stay under Kenpachi's command. Still, I'd have to agree with your opinion about the gillians' strength. The fact that Matsumoto was able to easily defeat her opponent once the SS limit was lifted shows that most gillians are no match for a VC.

This new arc is starting to too closely resemble the SS arc. I was hoping at least one vaizard would accompany Ichigo, we've hardly seen any of them while we saw enough Chad and Ishida in the last arc

i meant vastorode. the manga is aleady out and it's ヴァストローデ/vastorode. i think you've misunderstood something.
-menos are the most powerful class of hollows, created by the mergence of ordinary hollows.
-within the meno class, there're three subclasses, and they are, order of increasing power: gillian - adjunchas - vastorode. basically, an adjunchas is nothing to a vastorode, and a gillian is nothing to a adjunchas.
-arrancar = any hollow (ordinary, gillian or vastorode) with almost complete mask removal and gaining of shinigami powers. aizen's troops are all arrancars. it's safe to assume that, since we are this late into the manga, any arrancar converted from a regular hollow is just as useless as your regular unseated shinigami - which is why i'm surprised to see that ishida and chad actually had to make an effort to defeat those two low level arrancars in this chapter.

top 10 of aizen's arrancars = espada.
so espada is a different rank all together. what we're pretty sure so far:
-there are most definitely vastorodes among the 10 espada and uloquiorra is most definitely one - when histugaya was explaining the ranking, we see a shadow VERY similar to him, and the images of him/yammi/edorad in this chapter reinforces that
-there are definitely no gillians among the espadas. as for VC > gillian arrancar, well this is how i see it:
1st, gillians have different levels of power, just like captains and VCs have different levels of power. but it's safe to assume that the most powerful gillian < the least powerful adjunchas. edoras was probably the most powerful gillian turned arrancar, but he's still a gillian.
2nd, as matsumoto&co. themselves admitted, they owe their swift victory largely to the surprise factor. think about this, if there's really no surprise factor:
histsugaya shikai = hitsugaya bankai x 20% limit << shawlong (couldn't hurt him at all) also note that bankai can often be way more than 5 times as powerful as shikai.
matsumoto shikai x 100% >> nakim (1 hit ko)
grantz release > grantz no release > renji bankai x 20% = renji shikai
so if nakim/shawlong/grantz are around the same level, we have:
hitsugaya shikai << shawlong << matsumoto shikai
renji shikai << grantz << matsumoto shikai
which clearly makes no sense whatsoever.

so i think the average VC is about gillian-arrancar level, maybe slightly higher -- seeing that ikkaku, probably more powerful than most other VC, was only able win a gillian arrancar by a narrow margin, but obviously adjunchas are several times more powerful than gillians, and vastorodes could in turn probably crush adjunchas like ants - so MOST VCs should just give up. whether they beat 10 or 100 gillians won't matter the slightest in the battle against aizen. that's how bleach works anyway: Power of Captain + VC > power of rest of the division, and power of all captains + a selected few VCs > power of rest of S.S...

[Sabaku Kyu]

Ah. Apologies, hdx514. Just when I thought I had gotten the hollow caste system down too. I guess I'm not too surprised about Uloquirra, he seems to be one of the higher ranking espada. So if vastrodes make up the ranks of the espada what does that make Grimmjow, Luppi and Wanderweiss? Luppi and Grimmjow both held the same rank but Luppi seemed too weak to be a vastrode while Grimmjow on the other hand seems to be pretty powerful, capable of taking on Ichigo in vaizard mode (one-handed). And Wanderweiss...well, I don't know about him yet, but something tells me he must be exceedingly powerful given his weird personality. It seems like quiet guys are always badass.

[hdx514]

i guess the current espada's a mixture of adjunchas and vastorodes, but that's where it gets confusing. i can appreciate that yammi doesn't look entirely human, but as far as i can see, ruppi, grimmjow or wanderweiss doesn't look any "LESS HUMAN" than ulquiorra, and some of the gillian arrancars that got defeated even looked more human than yammi, but there's no way a vastorode could be as weak and stupid as ruppi, and yammi sure as hell isn't a gillian. so i haven't got a clue. maybe top 6 espadas are all vastorodes, maybe only top 5, maybe only top 3...and maybe urahara will clarify this for us soon

[Oberon]

Nice, looks like we meet an old aquaintance this chap. I like how Kubo throws those references in.

Spoiler for chicken hollow:

Bleach chp25:


Bleach chp245:

[Scrappdogg]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Nice, looks like we meet an old aquaintance this chap. I like how Kubo throws those references in.

Spoiler for chicken hollow:

Bleach chp25:


Bleach chp245:

wow man thats pretty nice =D

[kagato3]

man some one got to it before i did. but yep chicken guy is form way back durring the grandfisher arc

[yuchan]

I had a really hard time seeing what was going on in this chapter, not because of quality but because of how kubo drew the fight. So exactly what happened to that big dreadlocked arrankar? Did Chad throw the chiken one into it?

[Ishun]

Originally Posted by yuchan

I had a really hard time seeing what was going on in this chapter, not because of quality but because of how kubo drew the fight. So exactly what happened to that big dreadlocked arrankar? Did Chad throw the chiken one into it?

Chad and Ishida switched targets. Chad hit Demoura in the face, nothing happened to the Iceringer.

[hdx514]

it's pretty lame that they actually had to switch targets. chad's fatal weakness was his speed - still now even after training he can barely keep up with the sonido of a low level arrancar. if he meets an espada it's gonna be shunsui all over again.
ishida couldn't form his bow near demoura since the big guy was absorbing spiritual energy in the surroundings into his palm. any powerful espada would probably able to disrupt the flow of spriritual energy within a very large area, what is ishida going to do about that?

[Full_Metal_Man]

Heh, looks like Ishida is draining some of the spiritual energy from Chad. They'd make a good team.

Looks like a very enjoyable chapter.

[kagato3]

Originally Posted by hdx514

it's pretty lame that they actually had to switch targets. chad's fatal weakness was his speed - still now even after training he can barely keep up with the sonido of a low level arrancar. if he meets an espada it's gonna be shunsui all over again.
ishida couldn't form his bow near demoura since the big guy was absorbing spiritual energy in the surroundings into his palm. any powerful espada would probably able to disrupt the flow of spriritual energy within a very large area, what is ishida going to do about that?

Yes, Chad's weakness is his speed but I'm not sure how much others will be able to take advantage of it, Iceringer's is mainly a ranged attacker so of course a melee fighter, like Chad, will be at a disatvantage faceing him but, Iceringer didn't seem to be able to able to do anything to Chad either. He did seem to take Demoura out of the fight with that 1 hit though. Also we have yet to see him take on a melee fighter in anything other then training. If Renji was going all out during trianing his speed in melee should be of a good level.

[hdx514]

iceringer comments that chad's attacks are slow. that's something to hear from a low level cannon fodder. i bet any espada even yammi is going to be quite a bit faster than this chicken dude. and we know how impossibly fast bankai ichigo is, yet look at him going against grimmjow. i'm thinking that IF chad ever goes against grimmjow it is going to be even worse than chad vs. shunsui, since besides speed grimmjow also has power and endurance and most importantly he's willing to use these assets.
and of course iceringer can't do anything. if he were able to do some real damage then we're in serious trouble! that'd be like, 3 guys going against soul society and one of them gets wounded by a regular seat officer (bar ikkaku). not like it's not bad enough now: chad's way more powerful than, but just as slow as a regular seat! (what i think: vastorode espada --> adjunchas espada --> other human looking arrancars --> hollow looking arrancars = captain --> lieutenant --> seat --> regular shinigami)

[Lendial]

It will be very interesting to see how the gang does against the arrancars. Ichy will of course eventualy overcome them but chad and ishida dont have the luxory of being main protagonist. But yah i dunno how chad can compete vs anything above rank 11 arra ;/, ishida probly has some new tricks up his sleeve though seeing as his pops trained him.

[ThoHell]

Just because their masked was somewhat removed and appear to be human does not put them ino the hollow class Vasto Lorde. Adjuchas are also part of Espada, and as you can see they clearly appear to be human. These hasn't been any talk about a Vasto Lorde/(vastorōde) being found or revealed yet. Espada #1 could be one but it hasn't been revealed. There are around 21 or so total Vasto Lorde that exist, and I'm pretty sure 2 of those are more than likely Ichigo's hollow(Shirosaki) half along with Isshin's hollow half. No other character so far or hollow in Bleach have such insane power, skill, and rapid regeneration like Ichigo's hollow half.

Just because ichigo can transform now at will doesn't mean he's as strong as Shirosaki, he can just merely use soem of his hollow powers now and not have to worry about losing control. I think when he becomes at peace or whatever with Shirosaki, instead of supressing him, he won't be able to realize his full potiental and use his power to the fullest.

[Guido]

I think everyone is confusing the terms and going astray with the Hollow classification, though I'm Not implying or saying that everyone is wrong or confused with the power levels.

Gillian, Adjuchas, and Vasto Lorde are the main three sub-classes of Menos.

Menos are made of regular hollows piling on top of each other. Then, we have the single and regular hollows.

Arrancar are Hollows(Menos) removing their masks and acquiring Shinigami powers.

The Espada are the Elite 10 fighters of Aizen's Arrancar army.

Arrancar can be made out of regular hollows or Gillian Menos/ Adjuchas Menos / Vasto Lorde Menos.

What I understand is that currently Aizen's not bothering to continue making Arrancar from the regular Hollows.
He's investing time, resources, and calculations to find and gather the Vasto Lorde to turn them into Arrancar. Since they are the strongest of all the Menos, then they'll be ranked as Espada once Aizen turns them into Arrancar.

Aizen's also improving whatever aspect maybe or doing slight enhancements to the Gillian Menos turned into Arrancar and to the Adjuchas Menos turned Arrancar.

For me is safe to say that Adjuchas turned to Arrancar can achieve (a few of them) a spot among the Espada, however, Arrancar from Gillian cannot make it into the top 10 positions simply because are the weakest among the Menos classes.

[kagato3]

well the translations I've seen, have cleared up the whole Menos/human looking Arrancar thing. it seems the more intelegent the hollow the more likely they will look human when thier mask is removed. Vastolorde will always look human but then they have always been the "smartest" of the menos. This also explaines why Gandfisher looked basicly human as well even though he was a non-menos or at most a Gillian