@KzTxL7:
Thats nice, you can quote a textbook definition of strategy. Want to see the problem of that?
Tomorrow morning, I'm going to wake up, take a shower and eat some cereal.
Boom. A plan of action for tomorrow so therefore I have a strategy. Straightfoward, but by your standards its strategy.
If people are going to pick up a shonen manga they want amazingly done fights or some well thought out strategic fights. Bleach tends to fail on both parts most of the time.
Nothing wrong with power up. Random power up which Bleach so loves to do, like with Ichigo and Shrimp, is a problem. And don't pull that "But Hitsugaya said" crap, because it was never mention before that moment. It wasn't even alluded too. When you just manage to get some attack that just in the end allows you to overpower your opponent from certain defeat easily, there is a problem.
My standards aren't high, yours are just abnormally low. Which is saying a lot from me considering I thought the game Shadow the Hedgehog was ok.
That plan of action isn't in response to any potential counters an opponent might have. If Ishida plans on Yammy doing this and that, plants a mine, and it works out that way he has successfully planned a strategy. Furthermore what you said is a strategy. Just not a battle based one.
It's merely your opinion that it has not only lackluster fights but ones without strategy. I've already laid my evidence on the table- still waiting for a valid refute. On the contrary I would say Bleach has the best fights of the big three and quite frankly the best fights aside from DBZ itself.
You are completely and utterly wrong about Hitsugaya. He said that he never wanted to try using that ability in Shikai and that he wouldn't usually use it with so many people around. Not only that but that doesn't even address the fact that he's a Prodigy and Prodigies tend to develop new abilities as do most characters but to a greater extent.
My standards are just in line with what I've seen in Anime. Out of eighty Bleach ranks at the high end.
If your standards are that of a 5/5 star strategy based fight then your standards are too high.
@The:
Kudos Shoracehawk, after defending Ichigo vs ulqorriora, now you're trying to argue that Bleach has strategy in its fights. You pick some uphill battles to fight.
Not really. I've found it a pretty easy debate so far. A bit disappointing given that it's just me versus fifty people.
So Chads feat is pointless unless we see just how far the debris flew on the other side of the wall? You're missing my point completely. Look at my Kizaru example again. To repeat: we don't need to see the same explosion from different angles and observere the entirety of it's effects to get the idea. Kubo is extremely bad at wasting space on new angles, and it serves no purpose.
If we hadn't seen the outward effects of the attack it wouldn't have seemed as great. Big deal Chad can put a dent in the wall. I can do that. No big deal whatsoever. I can't punch a wall so hard that it goes all the way through and causes a huge explosion even from the outside.
Robin was supossed to be transferred to marineford. Hence, you know, Spandam dragging her along the bridge of hesitation.
Suppose to and where she was are two different things.
Any extension of the arc would be completely out of nowhere, and would have required Luffy to somehow pull an obscene powerup out of his ass to win against much stronger opponents and save the day.
The out of no where aspect was a good thing in this case. If it required battling through five more Espadas I would understand. However, while it did force them to start over, they didn't have to redo everything. At the same time though it gives you that feel of oh so close and yet so far. It adds to the up coming fight that it has set up.
As for the random power up, it actually wasn't all that random, Ichigo's Inner Hollow stated well before that if Ichigo was just a second away from kicking the bucket he was going to take over. So Kubo had actually set up for it long before it happened which in turn set up Aizen's most recent transformation. It added mystery to Ichigo's Hollow powers as well as Aizen's current form. Once again it adds more mystery to the plot.
Ulqorriora is faster than Ichigo. MUCH faster. And Ichigo was trapped like a fish in a barrel in HM. How on earth was he supposed to run away, let alone stop Ulqorriora from swooping in and taking Orihime…who was supposed to outrun him how exactly?
The "rescue Orihime in tower" setup was an immensely contrieved way of providing a private setting for Ichigo and Ulqs sudden showdown.
If Ulquiorra is trapped in another dimension and Orihime is already rescued, all he has to do is go through the Garganta, Stark kidnapped Orihime before Hueco Mundo was sealed by Aizen.
Not to mention it makes the fight more one on one instead of Ulquiorra having to be grouped around by a few Captains and Ichigo.
The "rivalry", or connection if you will between the two characters was nonexistent
Wrong, I already refuted this.
It wasn't a climactic battle, by definition. The Arc and the fighting continued to escalate afterwards with stronger participants in the battles. It was lumped into the middle of the Fake Karakura battle for chrissakes.
That's not what a climactic fight is. A climactic fight is talking within the fight itself and not in comparison to others. In fact by definition it was a climactic fight because it ended the series of events between Ichigo and Ulquiorra.
Regarding the OP fights youve mentioned, you can't compare them to I vs. U for two reasons
The fights were actually climaxes- after it was done the strongest opponent was finished, the arc was over.
Luffy wasn't set up as "rivals", or even having a relationship with most of the villains. However, THEY were directly responsible for every single shitty thing that happened in their respective arcs. The reason Luffy/ Luffys friends suffered and had conflict and hardships thrown in their face al comes back to that person, whether Luffy has met him or not.
Just think of Crocodile. Sure, Luffy meets him at Raindinners and then fights him 3times, but before that we'd have nearly 100 chapters buildup to him. He was the guy who was the boss of all the heroes opponents (save in drumm) since entering the GL, and the guy responsible for all the death and destruction in alabasta.
Luffy vs. Crocodile wasn't set up as any more of a rivalry than Ichigo vs. Ulquiorra was.
Arlong had no direct influence on Luffy. If being given a hard time means that person hurting your friends or whatever then Ichigo vs. Ulquiorra fits that bill.
We had more than a hundred chapters to build up for Ichigo vs. Ulquiorra.
Ulq was the main villains 7th (or 8th, depending on Tousen ) strongest UNDERLING. And yet his fight with Ichigo got Obi wan vs. Anakin treatment.
The fact that Kubo can make a big deal out of Ichigo fighting such a lowly minion just goes to show his skill at building anticipation for a fight.
Also I would hardly call it Obiwan vs. Anakin treatment.
Let me be perfectly clear: I did not expect more out of the fight, I expected considerably less. Protagonist vs. 7th strongest underling does not deserve to get 16 chapters spent on it, with all the hype of a superbowl.
Ichigo is a developing Vizard. He's not going to start out strong enough to own all the minions and fight on equal ground with Aizen at the start of the series. The main villain doesn't lose until the end. Not in the middle of the series. Not every Anime has to have thirty main villains like One Piece does.
Aka Ichigo getting owned until resolve boost OHKO
Yeah because that's totally different than Luffy suddenly just punching through Crocodile's sand and connecting an attack followed by Jet Pistol lol.
There was a lot of personal rivalry between the two at that point and it was a complicated situation for Renji which made it interesting.
Aka Ichigo can keep up his mask for who knows how long and GJ is defeated because he stands perfectly still while Ichigo cuts through his attack while monologuing for several pages.
The story with this fight was that Ichigo first gets owned by him, but then the second time he had trained quite a bit and did a nice bit of damage but still not enough, then he got more experience with his Mask and eventually was able to give Grimmjow an even fight. Ichigo's character was tested in this fight as it was starting to become a matter of whether or not Ichigo was truly fighting for Orihime or just himself. Ichigo runs into a huge bump in the road when he took a free attack just to save Orihime- makes it more dramatic- will Ichigo win or will he lose partially because he let the attack hit him?
The ending to the fight was actually really dramatic to me. Grimmjow's expression was that of "Well I've already lost, nothing more I can do." and potentially one of compassion as he seemed to start to understand Ichigo's resolve.
Aka Ichigo so outclasses his opponent so bad that he actually didn't even need to go full power to beat him.
The story of the fight was that Ichigo didn't want to go beyond Shikai for a non Espada, being forced to do so, and then being forced to go all out due to the opponent being dirty and threatening the life of his friend. Pretty dramatic touched up nicely with Dordonni's following attitude. It was a nice test of Ichigo's character and made Dordonni more complex than most one shot Anime villains.
You've got a poor definition of climactic. Not only did none of them end on a good note, none of the fights was the actual climax to an arc.
Ichigo vs. Renji ended very dramatically with Renji begging Ichigo to save Rukia. That was actually quite emotional and raised the value of the fight.
Ichigo vs. Byakuya you admitted was climactic. I agree that if it wasn't for Rukia it wouldn't have been anticlimactic. However it was Kubo's clever way of making the fight climactic while keeping Byakuya relevant for later on- had to let Ichigo win so Byakuya can beat opponents later on.
Ichigo vs. Grimmjow ended dramatically for reasons I stated above.
Among whom? All I saw was a waste of time between fodder and a D list main character with no defining personality and the design of Kaien + tatoo. And despite Findor having an interesting power with the whole less mask–>more strenght deal all it took for Hisagi to win was to twirl his shikai around and go "you scared? Chickeeeeen!"
Among people who have seen the fight.
A waste of time? I think Bleach would be pretty shallow to only show main fights and that's kind of strange for a One Piece fan of all people to say that lol. One Piece has a bunch of those fights- doesn't make One Piece bad. I would be bored from any Anime that only showed the main character fight unless it was maybe a few episode long Anime at most.
Hisagi wasn't calling him a coward. On the contrary Hisagi admitted to being scared too. That was quite the defining moment for Hisagi's character- a nice build up to his flash backs between himself and Tousen as well as his up coming confrontation with the latter.
Hisagi's Shikai was one of the best Shikai releases in Bleach. He was already such a popular character- yet we hadn't seen much from him at that point. It was a long awaited battle with a long awaited release. Didn't disappoint at all. The dialogue was very good as well.
Everyone and their mother have ways of increasing their speed in Bleach, most obviously Ichigo himself with both bankai AND mask
It increased his speed in a unique way. Every pirate and their mother fights with a sword, but, it doesn't mean Zoro's style sucks.
Instead of shooting generic energy blasts he throws them. Brilliant!
Lanza is far from a generic energy blast rofl.
Which gave him the throwable energy blast and more speed. Nothing else.
The energy blast he didn't have previously.
Like Tousen. And Aizen. And Wonderweiss. And Random Unnamed Arrancar in chapter 185. How unique it is. And how effective it was, having him "use it up" and turn into a cloud of ash.
http://www.entertonement.com/clippr/lfwhtjtpkw
Wonderweiss and the unnamed Arrancar didn't have extra high speed regeneration. Aizen was being healed by the Hogyoku.
I believe some people claim it to be a knockoff of a character named Devilman.
Is that so? Then give them this: http://www.entertonement.com/clippr/lfwhtjtpkw
And just try and compare it to some of the other releases like Yammy, Zommari, Szayel and Aaroniero who underwent massive changes in appearance. Ulq just got wings and later fur added to his already extremely basic design.
Hardly a basic design. I've never seen someone that looks like Ulquiorra in Anime before.
You forgot that Ulquiorra also had a tail and his horns were different.
I've already said my stance on this.
I've already said my stance on 99% of the things I'm responding to in your post.
It is the power itself people want to see, the setting for its unveil is irrelevant. Or are you telling me that the Bleach fanbase wouldn't fangasm at the thought of say, a shinigami training session where established characters showed off their shikais/bankais, even though it would be under completely nondramatic circumstances?
Well no that's not quite true. It's much more dramatic when they have to resort to it than when they do so casually. After all that's what Bankais are suppose to be. Last resorts.
Again. How does this a deep rivalry that needs to be resolved in a 16 chapter extravaganza make. They've barely talked. Ulq abducted Orhime on Aizens orders and did not mistreat her. None of the bad stuff ocuring was because of him; 7th subordinate, remember? And Grimmjow had already set himself up as an Ichigo hater whose only goal was to fight Ichigo again and again right from the start, aka a rival.
Well first off, including interference from Ishida, Yammy, Loly, and Menoly as well as Kubo showing some Rukia vs. Rudobone, it was only 14 chapters, not 16. Take away the Rukia vs. Rudobone stuff and it was only 13 chapters. Take away all the interference and it was probably about 10 to 12 chapters which is equivalent to three to four episodes.
A rivalry is simply when someone seeks to surpass another in power. Ichigo's goal was to surpass Ulquiorra at that point in time. He even liked Ulquiorra admitting that he was at least strong enough for Ulquiorra to want to take out. In other words Ulquiorra finally saw him as a rising threat. So by definition it was a rivalry and quite a popular one at that.
And How about you reread the damn fight you're defendig so much. Bankai Ichigo did nothing to Ulq, au contraire he needed Orihime to save his skin. Vaizard Ichigo only got around to cutting a bit into Ulqs sword. Then Ulq released, and whopped Ichigos ass. Then he released again, and whooped it even harder. Ichigo was never anywhere near Ulqs level.
http://www.entertonement.com/clippr/lfwhtjtpkw
Reread the part of my post that you quoted. I never once said Ichigo was on his level.
Ever since Ulq began beating Ichigo down after releasing every single reader could see the asspull powerup come from a mile away, and Ulq actually putting a hollow hole in Ichigo just sealed the deal.
And once again, Ichigo gets his ass saved by Deus Ex Machina powers granted at the last second to boost his strenght, through no effort of his own.
It wasn't at all "out of no where". If you paid attention to Ichigo's training you would know that Ichigo's Inner Hollow warned Ichigo that he would take over if he was ever surely going to die.
It sure has worked out well so far. And it was so good to see him working hard to obtain and master this power.
Yeah, especially since Bleach is over, it doesn't actually have 3-4+ more years left despite Kubo saying so.
What. The man has stated that he doesn't have any idea what he's doing.
You aren't very good at twisting words.
WHAT
I said Bleach's art is better than Naruto's and One Piece's…especially One Piece's.
WHAT
Bleach's second best fight was better than any fight I've seen in Naruto and One Piece although Naruto vs. Pain is pretty close to it for me.
Weren't you the one talking about "not everyone watching the anime?"
In response to what Kubo would add in the Manga. Last I checked he can't add music in Manga. Furthermore almost all of what I have said has been talking about the Anime (the art/animation, the music, and the fights although I don't find a whole lot of difference between the Anime and Manga in that regard).
WHAT. I just don't….Has no one else commented on this? It's just... damn. If you think fights, characters and art is BETTER compared to One Piece...where do we even start?
Are you seriously trying to imply One Piece's art is better? That would be the first time I've ever encountered someone who didn't simply agree with me there much less implied that One Piece has better art lol. I must say you have an awfully strange taste in art if you consider One Piece's art to be good or better than Bleach's.
Fights is at least opinionated although I would definitely put Bleach's fight at least a level or two above One Piece's.