Bleach Episode 308 Discussion Thread

[sayde]

This is it---the main part of the arc that got me to hate it just as much as I love it is finally here. Because despite all the varying opinions I've read, I don't think I'll ever get over Ichigo's new power-up (or rather the lack of sense it makes to me). I'm supposed to seriously believe the same guy who couldn't come close to rivaling Aizen's strength a moment ago somehow became stronger than him after one training session? Ok, fine Kubo. And while that would've felt plausible ordinarily, the problem is Aizen just finished undergoing a series of his own transformations, gaining multiple power-ups in the process. So yeah...I'm not getting exactly how zangetsu was able to give Ichigo the power to surpass Aizen's base strength on top of chrysalis boost on top of post-mullet-chrysalis boost on top of winged butterfly mode boost. And what's even more ridiculous is that he doesn't seem to be drawing any strength from his hollow side whatsoever in the process. This all feels too rushed. I could easily continue on, but it's probably best I stop here.</rant>

With that said, if the animation and music in this weeks episode can make me forget about this awkwardness for 20 minutes, I'll be happy.

[AnbuItachi]

his power level multiplied by over 9000 in like 2 hours.

[Lumir]

Originally Posted by sayde

This is it---the main part of the arc that got me to hate it just as much as I love it is finally here. Because despite all the varying opinions I've read, I don't think I'll ever get over Ichigo's new power-up (or rather the lack of sense it makes to me). I'm supposed to seriously believe the same guy who couldn't come close to rivaling Aizen's strength a moment ago somehow became stronger than him after one training session? Ok, fine Kubo. And while that would've felt plausible ordinarily, the problem is Aizen just finished undergoing a series of his own transformations, gaining multiple power-ups in the process. So yeah...I'm not getting exactly how zangetsu was able to give Ichigo the power to surpass Aizen's base strength on top of chrysalis boost on top of post chrysalis boost on top of winged butterfly mode boost. And what's even more ridiculous is that he doesn't seem to be drawing any strength from his hollow side whatsoever in the process. This all feels too rushed. I could easily continue on, but it's probably best I stop here.</rant>

With that said, if the animation and music in this weeks episode can make me forget about this awkwardness for 20 minutes, I'll be happy.

The only hope we have is for it to be explained. I was kinda feeling the same way since there is no explanation. Even in DBZ when goku first went SSJ we all knew what it was as there was serious history and vegita never stopped talking about it. Yet here in bleach its like ichigo was struggling just to control his power (including his hallow form), and then after learning the final getsuga tenshou he somehow has transformed into SSJ mode. Aizen's analysis of ichigo's arm fusing with his zanpaktou was interesting but not nearly enough information to cover up such a massive power up.

Anyways was a good ep for the badass-ness. Especially the way ichigo entered and regardless of what was happening checked in on his home and sisters with some uber hax eye sight. Good to know its still the same Ichigo we meet in ep 1. As for Aizen... Well not much can be said except... "I have evolved beyond the limits of shinigami's and hallow's, and now I will unleash my new powers on you.... OH SH!T! WTF!" Seriously Aizen just looks litterally like a complete troll. At least he explained the hogokyu-mathinagiger. Seems like he made his own and fused it with Uruhara's.

Poor GIN! He played the double agent and payed DEARLY for it! At least he was satisfied with Ichigo. Lets hope he can be revived with a new arm or something as that kinda death just sucks...

[sayde]

Originally Posted by Lumir

Even in DBZ when goku first went SSJ we all knew what it was as there was serious history and vegita never stopped talking about it. Yet here in bleach its like ichigo was struggling just to control his power (including his hallow form), and then after learning the final getsuga tenshou he somehow has transformed into SSJ mode.

*agrees*
Once again, I'd elaborate, but for the sake of keeping it short, I better not. About all I will say is that Goku's rising power level throughout the events that transpired on Namek played out in such a way that made it infinitely better to understand and grasp in comparison to this. I dare say that even without Vegeta being present to constantly talk about the legend as it pertains to Goku, things still would've made sense to a large degree.

As far as the episode is concerned, it definitely lived up to my expectations IMO. The swordplay was relatively well animated, and the massive amounts of destruction caused to the landscape was all well animated too. The new version of #1 couldn't have been introduced during a better episode. So I'm also happy for that. And for better or for worse, the anime appears to have elaborated a little more on Gin's feelings towards Rangiku in comparison to the manga. I see it even went so far as to basically state he did in fact "love" her. So R.I.P Gin. You will be missed--perhaps not by me personally, but by all your fans who you've so rightfully earned over the years. On the whole (having disregarded my own personal grudge against the plot) I'd give this episode a 10/10. The anime team really stepped their game up at an appropriate time.

[kitten320]

Originally Posted by Sabinswe

Jesus Christ was Ichigo Badass or what, Best episode since forever.

Where are all the Ichigo haters, have you changed your mind yet??

I'm still here and my mind didn't change one bit

Yes Ichigo looks cool, can't deny that. He looks like a real bad ass and I wish him to remain like that. However, there is one huge minus...

Spoiler for long, confused and rage full post :p:

Ichigo was licking Gin's feet not so long ago, forget about Aizen's.
And now after convenient training in a convenient room with dumbass Aizen who let him do it, we have another random power up... How long was he suppoused to stay there? 2 years?

Aizen allowed him to stay there for two years and now Ichigo is overhelming Aizen as Aizen overhelmed whole SS? Top rank captains could kick Ichigo back then, maybe with difficulty but could! Yamamoto would smash him to pieces!

And now he is overhelming a power monster Aizen just out of blue? Sorry, but not a single training would make him such a powerhouse in that time.

So yeh, Ichigo still remains a loser who always gets into convenient situations

Why do we even need captains anymore? They have no use now, all of them can retire.


Oh, and as was pointed above he did it without hollow powers while so far without his hollow powers, high tier captains would 100% crush him!

At least it is not Hichigo again who is saving his ass so can go a bit easy on him this time, but he still sucks

Or to be more correct, it is Kubo who sucks for making villians idiots and giving everything that is possible to Ichigo, why not to someone else?

P.S. At least he shuted up annoying Aizen
+ points for that and for catching his sword... Payback time!

Really sad how people get won over and become stupid the moment they see something flashy and cool.

[carcanclaw]

Bleach may not have much in the ways of plot and animation 99% of the time, but in extremely rare cases like 308 we see how cool a big-budget, climactic fight can be.

I still don't really know how Ichigo got so strong (even though I've read the manga), but I don't really care either. The fact that all of the animation money saved over the past season will probably be poured into the next two episodes is exciting.

If, after the Soul Society arc, I only watched Ichigo's fights and skipped all of the other episodes, I think I'd like Bleach more. That's both a compliment and an insult, but I feel it's as nice as one can be about a series like this.

[secretzfan]

Despite so much that ahs happen Ichigo comes back bad ass no longer does he have fear any more which has been Ichigo's issue for a while. AND THIS EP HAD TO MOST BAD ASS ANIMATION!!!

[Jerseykid]

That was some episode. Ichigo finally returns the bare handed sword stop Aizen did to him so long ago.

With Gin saying what he said and since Ichigo touched Aizen's sword before he did any hypnosis stuff does this mean even if Aizen wanted to now he couldn't?

This episode made me wonder how many total episodes do you think you could create if you strung all the recaps of previous episodes together.

[Langus]

You guys seem to forget that Ichigo has been training day in and day out for months. That's why Isshin made a point to state how long he could keep the senkai gate open. That's why his friends made a point to observe that Ichigo looks taller and his hair is a lot longer. Notice the full beard on Isshin? He's been at it a while. This wasn't a power up that happened in a matter of hours. In Ichigo senkai gate time it was months.

[Kallen4life]

Ichigo's power-up does seem kinda out of the blue, but :

1) he was training for months as mentioned above
2) he IS using his hollow side .. Zangetsu FUSED with Hollow Ichigo and Ichigo is now using ALL of that FUSED power .. remember DBZ - fusion ? what kind of a massive power-up that was ? fused Vegetto owning Gohan!Buu even w/o SSJ .. so yeah
3) he is owning Aizen physically and he converted ALL of his massive >9000 reiatsu into strength/speed .. as far as i understand he doesn't even have GT now .. "just" an extremy fast unstoppable godlike-durability Lightning Bruiser with a sword chained to his arm
4) Aizen 'transcended' & evolved by completely erasing the line between shinigami & hollow (supposedly that makes you a god) .. Ichigo did similar - fused zanpakuto (shinigami part) & inner hollow
5) Ichigo's special (human/shinigami hybrid) AND he's the protagonist ^^





P.S. facepalm was epic .. best ever



P.S. Aizen sure loves to think up excuses for getting owned

[sayde]

Originally Posted by Langus

You guys seem to forget that Ichigo has been training day in and day out for months. That's why Isshin made a point to state how long he could keep the senkai gate open. That's why his friends made a point to observe that Ichigo looks taller and his hair is a lot longer. Notice the full beard on Isshin? He's been at it a while. This wasn't a power up that happened in a matter of hours. In Ichigo senkai gate time it was months.

I can't speak for everyone here, but IMHO, the power boost still doesn't make sense even if you account for the time and assume he's trained for the full 2000 hours (3 months). I hate to keep referencing DBZ, but Goku's obtained similar outstanding boosts in strength in far less time than Ichigo. The big difference there is that it was all well explained. In Ichigo's case, all he basically did was meditate the entire time for the sake of finally conquering his powers and harnessing potential he's apparently had within him this entire time.

The problem is, every time we got a glimpse of his true potential, (mostly through the emergence of his hollow side), there wasn't anything to really suggest that this potential could allow him to suddenly far surpass someone as powerful as Aizen, *after* he's undergone an entire chain of power-ups he arguably didn't even need in the first place. I mean at best, the moments he displayed his potential made it clear how he could begin to stand on equal footing with Aizen's base strength. But there was nothing to suggest he'd suddenly become so powerful, that he'd end up being completely alone within his own dimension of strength. On top of that, we still aren't even given a full explanation as to why Ichigo possesses such latent strength and why this strength is as powerful as it is.

Kubo's tried hinting at the possibility that it has to do with the fact that he's a human and a shinigami. But that's all we're really left with. He pratically leaves us saying to ourselves "yes, ok, and...?"

Originally Posted by Kallen4life

2) he IS using his hollow side .. Zangetsu FUSED with Hollow Ichigo and Ichigo is now using ALL of that FUSED power .. remember DBZ - fusion ? what kind of a massive power-up that was ? fused Vegetto owning Gohan!Buu even w/o SSJ .. so yeah

Even that scenario makes more sense than Ichigo's new power-up. I mean Goku was still strong enough to put up a fight against Super Buu (barely). So by performing a fusion with Vegeta, a few things were either established or explained to help make sense of Vegeto's power level.
-Fully powered up, Goku already wasn't all that much weaker than Super Buu
-It was stated that the fusion ended up giving them more power than usual due to Goku and Vegeta's rivalry and the fact that they were among the top most powerful warriors in the universe
-Fusions performed with the potara earrings were said to grant extra power superior to that of the fusion dance

So it wasn't all too surprising to see Vegeto dominate.

Originally Posted by Kallen4life

3) he is owning Aizen physically and he converted ALL of his massive >9000 reiatsu into strength/speed .. as far as i understand he doesn't even have GT now .. "just" an extremy fast unstoppable godlike-durability Lightning Bruiser with a sword chained to his arm

Lets hold off on confirming this for now. Aizen's been wrong a lot lately. So he may have been wrong about this too and Ichigo may not be converting any of his reiatsu at all at the moment. There might be another reason why Aizen can't feel his spiritual pressure.

Originally Posted by Kallen4life

4) Aizen 'transcended' & evolved by completely erasing the line between shinigami & hollow (supposedly that makes you a god) .. Ichigo did similar - fused zanpakuto (shinigami part) & inner hollow

If normal shinigami Ichigo can't lay a finger on normal shinigami Aizen, why should Ichigo + hollow&shinigami power be able to suddenly far surpass Aizen + hollow&shinigami power? I mean if it's just because Ichigo's the main character, it'd be nice if Kubo would admit that it's the only decent reason he can come up with.

Originally Posted by Kallen4life

5) Ichigo's special (human/shinigami hybrid) AND he's the protagonist ^^

Once again, why or how exactly has being half-shinigami/half-human contributed anything to his strength? In hindsight, being born a human made it possible to obtain his own source of hollow power without the Hougyoku. But I can't recall being given anything more than that.

[kitten320]

Actually being half human should make him physically weaker since sadly humans have no powers, they are weak.

[shtanimerocks]

this is a bit off topic but is it just me or is the hilt of Ichigo's hilt look like the nazi symbol?

Spoiler for comparison:

[coco65]

Originally Posted by shtanimerocks

this is a bit off topic but is it just me or is the hilt of Ichigo's hilt look like the nazi symbol?

Itchico's sword hilt has the shape of a reverse swastika. The word swastika comes from the Sanskrit svastika - su=good, asti=to be, ka=a suffix. Until the nazis misused this symbol, the swastika was used by many cultures for 3000 years to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck.

The shape in Aizen's chest has a occult mening too. It's a combination of a circle with a dot in the middle and a quartered circle.

[Jerseykid]

Indiana Jones vs Ichigo

[FlareKnight]

Certainly the crazy power up is hard to believe. But at the same time Aizen has been so ridiculous all this time that it really requires a power-up of equal ridiculousness to match him. Besides in the end the fact that Aizen is getting owned and completely dumbfounded by what is happening is worth it. This guy has been going around with "I know everything and the end of the universe couldn't kill me" all this time. Frankly this has been a long time coming for Aizen.

[Langus]

Originally Posted by sayde

The big difference there is that it was all well explained. In Ichigo's case, all he basically did was meditate the entire time for the sake of finally conquering his powers and harnessing potential he's apparently had within him this entire time.

I'm just gonna stop you there... cause based on the preview for next week that was at the end of this week's ep it looks like we're going to get an explanation of what went down in Ichigo's inner world while he was training for those 2000 hours. I wouldn't slag off on Kubo yet for not giving us the details all up front. It's all about pacing (granted, his sucks) but there is a dramatic impact to it. Think of the fight scene we saw this week. It would have had far less dramatic impact had Ichigo stopped half-way through blasting the motherf*cking shit out of everything in sight to say "Okay Aizen, so this is how I got my power up..."

As for the rest, if you wanna re-live the glory days of DBZ maybe take it to a DBZ thread? I understand that people like to compare the two, but they are different series yeah?


@ shtanimerocks - His hilt's a Buddhist symbol that's still widely used in Japan. You see it at a lot of temples. It's called 'manji' and expresses the idea of "eternity".

[monir]

Watched it. Rolled my eyes a few time, but then the shounen fan in me took over and I was enjoying the episode for what it was.

I wasn't worried about the power boost or how it came to be. I'm still not. It's the whole set up preceding this latest power boost that undermines the awesome effect displayed in this episode. I don't think there is anyone who has watched or followed Bleach one way or the other had ever a doubt that Ichigo will be getting tremendous power boost to equate those of Aizen's.

I really don't need an explanation to how things worked. That's how shounen series works. Heroes evolve. Now what leads to such evolution makes the difference. The authors of series like Naruto, DBZ, One Piece appear to have a clear cut plan to lay out the ground work so the transition process is smoothed out as much as possible for our heroes evolution process. It builds credibility. So when the time comes a power boost doesn't seem too out of place.

Bleach, on the other hand, does it so poorly. No wonder all of Ichigo's power boost appears to be convenient exercises. They are there just because they needed to be. Viewers are hardly ever prepared for it. So I kind of understand the fans frustration in regards to this latest power boost.

Originally Posted by Wiggy Fuzz

Queens of the Stone Age - Go With The Flow

Yeap, going with the flow!

[sayde]

Originally Posted by Langus

I'm just gonna stop you there... cause based on the preview for next week that was at the end of this week's ep it looks like we're going to get an explanation of what went down in Ichigo's inner world while he was training for those 2000 hours. I wouldn't slag off on Kubo yet for not giving us the details all up front. It's all about pacing (granted, his sucks) but there is a dramatic impact to it. Think of the fight scene we saw this week. It would have had far less dramatic impact had Ichigo stopped half-way through blasting the motherf*cking shit out of everything in sight to say "Okay Aizen, so this is how I got my power up..."

Fair enough. But it's not too hard to find out on these forums that I do keep up with the manga. With that said, it might be worthwhile to keep in mind that a lot of my resentment towards the issue stems from the fact that I already know how this all ends. And so I'll just leave things at that till next week. Hopefully the upcoming events adapted into the anime will allow us all to make better sense of things and any attempts at an explanation Kubo originally provided us with.

Originally Posted by Langus

As for the rest, if you wanna re-live the glory days of DBZ maybe take it to a DBZ thread? I understand that people like to compare the two, but they are different series yeah?

I flat out stated in my previous post that I don't really like having to constantly reference DBZ. But I can't escape the fact that it's a highly popular work of fiction of the same genre as Bleach making it a very easy piece of work to reference when it comes to making comparisons and providing examples of things we feel could've been handled better (or worse). It's really got nothing to do with wanting to "re-live the glory days of DBZ". I'd making references to plenty of other shounen I've felt have handled similar situations/issues better if I thought they were nearly as popular as DBZ is. (Though I suppose this wouldn't quite explain why I haven't brought up as many Naruto references.)

*edit*

Originally Posted by monir

I really don't need an explanation to how things worked. That's how shounen series works. Heroes evolve. Now what leads to such evolution makes the difference. The authors of series like Naruto, DBZ, One Piece appear to have a clear cut plan to lay out the ground work so the transition process is smoothed out as much as possible for our heroes evolution process. It builds credibility. So when the time comes a power boost doesn't seem too out of place.

Bleach, on the other hand, does it so poorly. No wonder all of Ichigo's power boost appears to be convenient exercises. They are there just because they needed to be. Viewers are hardly ever prepared for it. So I kind of understand the fans frustration in regards to this latest power boost.

Quoted for truth.

[secretzfan]

Originally Posted by Langus

You guys seem to forget that Ichigo has been training day in and day out for months. That's why Isshin made a point to state how long he could keep the senkai gate open. That's why his friends made a point to observe that Ichigo looks taller and his hair is a lot longer. Notice the full beard on Isshin? He's been at it a while. This wasn't a power up that happened in a matter of hours. In Ichigo senkai gate time it was months.

YUp eaxactly Isshin expalined taht first thing before they got in

Originally Posted by Jerseykid

That was some episode. Ichigo finally returns the bare handed sword stop Aizen did to him so long ago.

With Gin saying what he said and since Ichigo touched Aizen's sword before he did any hypnosis stuff does this mean even if Aizen wanted to now he couldn't?

This episode made me wonder how many total episodes do you think you could create if you strung all the recaps of previous episodes together.

He still can but Gin was trying to make sure he couldn't for the moment plus he lied and second he didn't need it to kill Gin