Also, this happened in the chapter http://mangastream.com/read/bleach/10805472/6

 

The trend of wasting space continues! At least the art was smooth.

All the explaining shit is finally done. Good. Ichigo got all resolved. Again. He's like a child you have to reassure every few months.

Quincy explanations were all right. Despite the angst part, I'm not hating Ichigo being born part Quincy anymore. The hollow thing wasn't explained, though - ah well, more inner conflict for the future.

So, Uryuu. I'm seeing a rematch here. Guy looks pretty strapping in that belt.

 

All of a sudden Quincies are awesome and are relevant to the plot. Almost all of the sidelining Uryu got is forgiven.

I would have liked for there to have been some setup for Juhan Bach before he stomped over Soul Society though.

 

Spoiler

Fisher shanked Masaki after she lost her powers to Bach. Apparently she was tainted enough for him to target her, or at least that is what I got out of Isshin's explanation around there.

 

I meant the reason why Ichigo's inner hollow looks like the one Masaki got wounded by.

 

Masaki got infected by the Hollow. The Hollow soul created inside Masaki was then passed on to Ichigo when he was born (or another Hollow soul was created from the one inside Masaki). When Ichigo fought in SS, the Hollow took form and awoke and when that happened, the seal using Isshin's Shinigami power was broken.

It looks similar because Ichigo's Hollow was 'born' from White.

 

That is what I was thinking about, and it seems fairly logical too.


...Did they explain this shit in the manga, or is this just extrapolation? Did I just read shitty scanlations?

 

I'm pretty sure it was covered between the previous two chapters, so you had a shitty scanlation.

 

The new chapter. I admit I don't follow Bleach much, only as a side thing... but wut?

http://www.mangahere.com/manga/bleach/v58/c540/

 

Kinda the same here.

But well, we learned recently that Ichigo is a quincy, so either

a)Zangetsu is some bizarre representation of some inner quincy powers or somesuch, and takes that form because the quincys got their powers from the villain with that form.

or

b)Zangetsu was evil all along and is actually some clone(?) of the bad guy living inside Ichigo. I haven't followed Bleach the way I have Naruto, but would that not be a huge retcon?

 

Coming from someone who does follow Bleach: what is this i don't even

 

really wonky transalations made this chapter a little hard to understand but as I see it there are two main revalations from this chapter.

1: That the asuchi are hollows, and therefore there really is no difference between shinigami and vasiards really. A zanpakto is just an inner hollow. Ichigos happens to be White.

2. That Bach has been manipulating Ichigo by pretending to be his inner hollow/zanpakto, when in reality his Zanpakto was always just Hichigo. Reading back on the few interactions between the Old man and Ichigo it becomes clear. He keeps talking about how Ichigos power "will be his some day" and in his fight against Kenpachi he gives him some of his power.

And now to give into the realms of speculation. What is up with whats we've seen of ichigos "bankai" so far? With all the Swastikas and such like was it just Ichigo turning a little more into Bach? Or was there something else going on? Was the younger version, we see in Ichigos bankai, of the Old Man just what Bach looked like as a teenager, or something different? He looks a lot like Rukia, although this Manga suffers heavily from sameface.

 

Mangastream

Asauchi are made from shinigami souls.

Ichigo's hollow, which was also a being made from shinigami souls, merged with his shinigami powers and became his zanpakuto.

Zangetsu is actually the representative of his quincy powers and takes the form of a younger Juha Bach.

 

It makes so much sense

 

I still don't get what Zangetsu is. Is he a bad, bad person?

 

So normally, Asauchi is made from Shinigami soul, but since Ichigo got Shinigami and Hollow both, his 'real' Zanpakutou is made from both too?

I admit, this Quincy Zangetsu thing almost blew my mind. Also must be fun for Ichigo, the new Big Bad who curbstomped him and cut his precious sword he's been trying to rely on and be partners with is actually his sword. Goddamn this is confusing.

 

So Zangetsu IS some form of the Quincy king? Or does he just happen to take on that appearance because of Ichigo's Quincy heritage?

 

Well, from what we've heard so far, it seems that Juha Bach is something like Father from FMA, the old one that looks like Hohenheim that was the source(?) and substance of Amestrian alchemy. If I'm butchering this, it's because I finished FMA a while ago.

But what I'm getting at is, all Quincy power seems to have derived from this one original being, "Juha Bach." So that Zangetsu resembles him as he was 1000 years ago, at the peak of his powers, may only suggest that quincy powers, in and of themselves, take the form of Bach because quincy powers are all derived from Bach and Bach's power is what all Quincy have now?

This is getting convoluted. I wish he would stop backwards developing.

 

You know as much as this whole Zangetsu is Bach idea came from left field, I can't help but think its one of the better revelations in awhile. Going back, its also kind of surprising how much odd sense it makes, especially with the battle against Ichigo's hollow, what with him constantly saying he is Zangetsu.

 

Honestly, I like this revelation. For one, unlike many other revelations in Bleach (the fullbringers, for exaxmple), this one isn't totally random. It make sense, given certain foundations: that Ichigo has quincy powers, and he never had formal shinigami training - naturally, Ichigo could never have distinguished Bach from his real zanpakuto.

I also think it makes sense thematically - in this arc, Ichigo is exploring his origins, and it is apposite that the one thing he always counted on (from rescuing Rukia in Soul Society, to fighting his inner hollow, to combating Aizen) is the one thing inside him that is alien - that is the enemy he needs to face. There's a sort of quiet satisfaction in appreciating this irony.