[MANGA SPOILERS!] Soul Society has too few strong fighters?

[JackRydden224]

[QUOTE=otacu
There are 10 espada, Aizen and Tousen and Gin. On the other hand we have: Yamamoto, Ukitate, Shunsui, Yoruichi, Urahara(?) that could put a fight. Ichigo and the weaker captains WERE no match for an espada as far as we know. This was made clear since it's the rule of shounen and Bleach is strictyl following those rules "new enemies have to get hyped and be many times stronger than previous top fighters to please the reader". A golden rule of shonen manga that was established from dragonball and even before db.

Now that's the point when Bleach (or shonen) rule kick in: training. They will train and they will be powered up and that's it. But that's just because it's Bleach and power ups are more common than fanservice in an harem anime.....[/QUOTE]

Did you forget how Zaraki kicked Tousen's sorry ass and Grimmjow is ranked 6th out of 10 among the Espadas. According to my math there are only 5 espadas stronger than grimmjow which means the group of Yamamoto, Kyoraku, Ukitake, Isshin, Ryuken, Urahara and Yoruichi are plenty to take them on.

My guts tells me that Ichigo will fight Aizen (duh), Hitsugaya and Matsumoto will take on Gin together.

For some reason people seems to have forgotten about Isshin and the Ishidas. Uryuu will have his powers back and Ryuken is probably insanely strong.

I

[otacu]

Originally Posted by JackRydden224

Did you forget how Zaraki kicked Tousen's sorry ass and Grimmjow is ranked 6th out of 10 among the Espadas. According to my math there are only 5 espadas stronger than grimmjow which means the group of Yamamoto, Kyoraku, Ukitake, Isshin, Ryuken, Urahara and Yoruichi are plenty to take them on.

Grimmjaw was just receiving the penalty for his error in front of Aizen. There is no way he could have reacted to Tousen.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by otacu

Grimmjaw was just receiving the penalty for his error in front of Aizen. There is no way he could have reacted to Tousen.

but even though if tousen took grimjaww head on, tousen can use his bankai, making grimjaww so called "blind" ^^ he'd win anyways....

[Ichimaru]

those espadas are not even hybrid yet, wonder if aizen is goin to turn those menos or the monsters that teleported him from SS into pure hybrids then pwned SS.

[JackRydden224]

Originally Posted by otacu

Grimmjaw was just receiving the penalty for his error in front of Aizen. There is no way he could have reacted to Tousen.

What does that have anything to do with what I wrote?

What I meant was that among the Espadas there are those who are stronger and weaker than Grimmjow. And on the SS side there are those who are stronger and weaker than Ichigo.

The strong will fight the strong and the weak will fight the weak. We have got planty of characters on boths sides to make that happen.

[NaNash|]

The plot will turn in favour of Ichigo and guys. So, no worries for Ichigo fanboys....

[Wolcik]

but there is so many levels of Arrancars... above menos I mean...

the GrandFIsher like can be taken on my VC, and some a little stronger ones too, and Capitans can take on the strong Arrancar and maybe some Espadas (like Ukitake), and than the stronger version and Vastorades can be taken on by the strongest part of our good team, like Vizards and Urahara, Isshin (I belive they have something more than normal capitans)

and there is an important thing that Zanpaktou's have their special abilities, so even Kira might be a strong oponent for Espada if he manage to stay cool and make his enemy "play" for a while, but we still don't know does Arrancars have something more than big armors and super power with their shikai's :P and we don't know how does Espada's or Vastorade's show their Shikai or maybe they'll have bankai :P

and there might be some more strong good characters to come from the King word

[Ichimaru]

hey imagine if boutons can be made hybrid with aizens help??

[Child_of_Sierra]

The reason they have too few strong fighters is because they have too few veterans...

Some of the strongest captains are those who have been around long enough to make full use of their bankai like byakuya (6th) Yama (1st), Shunsui (8th) and Ukitake (13th). these guys have been said to be thousands of years old so naturally they have had the most time to perfect their abilities.

next probably would be Unohana (4th) and Aizen (5th)

but for the rest...

2nd Div Capt [Soi Fong] had been capt for about 100++ yrs after Yoruichi left
3rd Div Capt [Gin] was still Aizen's VC 100+ yrs ago
7th Div Capt [Kowamura] also became Aizen's VC
9th Div Capt [Tousen] also became Aizen's VC
10th Div Capt [Hitsugaya] less than 100 yrs since becoming capt
12 Div Capt [Mayuri] 100 yrs+ since Urohara left SS

you have six captains who were appointed positions within the last 100++ yrs and 4VC's Hisagi (7th) Hinamori (5th) Kira (3rd) and Renji (6th) also members of gotei 13 for less than a hundred years.

These people may be talented but they are far too young compared to
their seniors and cannot fully utilize their skills yet.

Really the biggest question that has plagued me about the SS arc is why there was so many recently vacated spots in the Gotei 13. Maybe there was a war so a lot of talented captains and VC died so SS had to resort to promoting the young (albiet talented) ones just to fill in their ranks?

[Zu Ra]

I dont know if the OVA 2 Sealed sword frenzy is connected with the main storyline if it is (speculating) , we know how three taichos died and the vacancies were created ^ ^

[Wolcik]

well Mayuri is kinda genius so he knows his Bankai pretty well, and not to mention some other tricks

Kommamura and Tousen weren't Aizen's VC but they know him while he was VC and they both have the same chances to be as old as Aizen or maybe even Unohana, and we don't know when that was...

all those crazy event that cause all this capitan position to be empty were at time when Urahara was there and he was making his experiments :P

[Child_of_Sierra]

If they went into retirement then they would probably be called back to service now especially since the aizen threat is a specially dangerous one. However, it seems that SS is simply promoting current members (ie Ikkaku) to fill in the vacated capt positions.
This leads me to believe that any captain of the past cannot have retired (they may have left SS so they are no longer affiliated), died in combat, OR have been promoted to royal guard (hmm)

[Zu Ra]

Originally Posted by Child_of_Sierra

This leads me to believe that any captain of the past cannot have retired (they may have left SS so they are no longer affiliated), died in combat, OR have been promoted to royal guard (hmm)

Promted to Royal Gaurds tha quite a speculation , They outrank even the strongest Tiacho So-tiacho Yamaji in terms of heirrachy and powers . I dont think Taichos have the nesscary skills to be a part of Royal Gaurds

We dont know the true extent of Royal Gaurds till more light is shed on them .


Its indicated that Aizen once was Fuku of Ukitake , we already know Ukitake was Byakuya's Senpai ^_^

[Spawnblade]

Originally Posted by otacu

Pffff. same old lame shonen plot device. Bleach has already done that and is doing the same old c*** yet again.

First you hype the enemies.
Then you defeat them.

It was the same with Renji and Byakuya going to earth.... they first humiliated Ishida and then Ichigo like they were worms.... but voilà! A couple of weeks and Ichigo kicked Kenpachi's and Byakuya's asses.

Now it's the same. Arrancar goes to earth to humiliate the previous "top fighters" renji,hitsugaya, etc... Ichigo who kicked Kuchiki's ass was totally humiliated and defeated barehanded.... by a single Espada (there are 10 espada!!!!).

In-story SS doesn't stand a single chance... considering Aizen god-level power and his illusion shikai SS is already done for....

but hey! That's the most steretyped shonen in ages.... give them a couple of weeks and SS (who is centuries old) will get more powersl out of nowhere and kick some ass.
After all.... Ichigo went in SS to save Rukia and by an in-story logic he should have died like 12104324810 times.

You seem to forget the small fact that Ichigo has already breached the gap between Hollows and Death Gods, and therefore has no limit to his growth or power... Meaning essentially that he is an exception.

So he is following the 'rules' fine, considering all of the others got their arses kicked in Soul Society once they ran into Captain types. (We've already seen that for some reason Captains and vices are the only ones remotely skilled, the others are only useful against normal hollows)

[Spawnblade]

Originally Posted by The Small One

Personally I thought of "going into retirement" more along the lines of "loosing their power at a special age therefore beeing forced to retire".
Humans get weak when they get very old, so maybe it's the same with those souls... I think the "can Shinigami die of old age"-issue still isn't resolved.

Hmm, well what about the Captain Commander?... I got the impression he was about three times as old as the rest of the Captains, and it only made him ridiculously powerful compared to them, since he had built up his energy through the years.

[Spawnblade]

Originally Posted by The Small One

It's just a theory...
It could be possible, that there is a last burst of power, before the old Shinigami loose it foreve, just like a sun is shining more intense, before it dies.

It's possible, I suppose once the Royal Guard is introduced we'll be able to discover their ages, and learn more of the system that has been devised.

Old people don't look good on manga covers though, so we can't expect to really judge off reality i guess :P

[Anko Plushy]

Seeing how they could all probably kick my ass to kingdom come... I'd have to say that I think that they have a fair amount of good fighters

[NoSanninWa]

Originally Posted by Anko Plushy

Seeing how they could all probably kick my ass to kingdom come... I'd have to say that I think that they have a fair amount of good fighters

Because you're nearly as strong as an Arrancar? Sorry, but their ability to fight normal humans doesn't qualify as strong. Ganju could kick your butt and he's hardly strong by their standards.

[Wolcik]

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

Because you're nearly as strong as an Arrancar? Sorry, but their ability to fight normal humans doesn't qualify as strong. Ganju could kick your butt and he's hardly strong by their standards.

but we don't know how much Ganju have improved... I guess Kubo could make anybody as strong as some weak espada :P even Hanatarou

but Chad could beat up over 5 normal people at the time without his power, and he got owned pretty much (twice already)...

but if Hitsugaya has bankai than anybody that ended shinigami's school can get one pretty soon XD

[Blaster]

Originally Posted by i_shinigami

Promted to Royal Gaurds tha quite a speculation , They outrank even the strongest Tiacho So-tiacho Yamaji in terms of heirrachy and powers . I dont think Taichos have the nesscary skills to be a part of Royal Gaurds

Hierrachy yes, but which chapter states that they outrank the Yamaji in terms of power? I believe it was said that the Royal Guards are of taicho levels.