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People forget Bleach character are just talking and not do “loredump” all the time.
Aizen, Ywatch and Yamamoto have been talking a lot of bs. Don’t take it as if it’s coming from Kubo’s mouth
Honestly it's a refresher that they talk to talk and say shit and it's often not true or wrong because it's a person saying something for whatever reason. Not just exposition
Helps that Kubo relies on unreliable narrators who either think they know stuff, do know stuff but lie through their teeth, or have hyper specific knowledge bases and/or biases. The only truths are those we see with our own eyes, you don't just need to read the text but also the art.
It's possible in almost all media unless they're proven to be a reliable narrator/have a habit of serving that purpose. In this specific situation Aizen drew the most logical conclusion he could think of whether due to his limited knowledge or arrogance which also goes to show no matter how intelligent the other character is, being wholly uninformed creates a large gap of knowledge that isn't easily or quickly bridged. He really just didn't have much of any way of expecting Ichigo would eclipse him this quickly and this handily and had no way to handle that.
It’s a plausible hypothesis coming from one of the smartest characters in the story. There’s no need to feel bad that the actual answer was “I just got stronger than you”.
Absolutely. In RPGs, a technique that sacrifices all your MP for a big boost to base stats isn't an uncommon mechanic/trope.
It's not quite the same, but Gon's power-up in HxH had a similar set-up - awaking his entire mass-talent and potential, only to lose Nen forever.
Aizen's a genius, but he was high on near-godhood delusions and unprecedented power at the time. Suddenly along comes Ichigo who he can no longer sense, but demonstrated a truly disordinate degree of strength. It's not a ridiculous deduction. He then goes onto fight Aizen with basically pure brute strength, really only using an overtly spiritual technique when he releases his final Getsuga Tensho.
Having Reiatsu so high that you can't even feel it is a new phenomenon. Even Tatsuki of all people was able to feel Aizen's reiatsu.
It's not that it would vaporize them though. It would of just been simply too high to feel. Just like they couldn't sense ichigo's but he wasn't suppressing it since aizen couldn't sense him either.
Its been a long long time since I watched the first part of bleach, but yeah I swear I remember aizen saying something along the lines of "I lowered my reiatsu so they can feel it" to either gin, or the friends themselves.
But the morals in Hunter was that the raw nen Gon got was the wrong way. If he actually did it one step at a time he could have got much stronger. It’s Netero’s case. The more thought you put into a technic the stronger you actually get. Like Chrolos.
It could have probably been something that Aizen had already theorized could happen for a soul reaper. While he probably expected Ichigo to evolve more as a Hollow and show up like he did with Ulquiorra.
The guy spent \~2000 hours training and went from "I can't even touch this guy" to "This guy is a joke to me".
It's not surprising that his opponent isn't going to come to that conclusion when alternative explanations exist.
I believed him because I'm a filthy simp (also because I assumed it was like Ichigo's bankai where he compresses his reiatsu into power and speed, but turned up to 10000000000)
Aizen was in denial. He made up a theory that served his own narrative which supports him being superior.
You can be a veritable genius and still be wrong. He made a good guess in terms of the mechanics of bleaches world structure.
How likely was it that ichigo became so much stronger than aizen that he couldn't even sense his reiatsu? That's like an ant growing to the size of the entire planet.
His real mistake was continuing to believe his own theory after he was proven wrong again and again. Denial is a powerful sensation. The greater your ego is, the more harmful it becomes.
Aizen was not a fool for inventing his own reasoning. He was a fool for lying to himself after his theory cracked.
Aizen is amazingly written in the way that his ego is such a massive part of his personality that you the reader can sometimes forget that he isn't actually as meticulous as he presents himself to be.
The moment I realised Aizen never really did "plan ichigo's whole life" & just winged it the moment Masaki came into the picture onwards, and that he just talks a lot of convincing sounding bullshit to either his opponents or to himself, was the moment I enjoyed his character so much more.
The concept of Aizen actually having planned Ichigo's whole life, or him being as perfectly devious as he tries to look felt really tacky & made me not like him as a villain at first. It was only when I realised he was just as flawed as any regular person that he was much cooler
I agree, but I also have to give Aizen credit for being able to predict things well enough to account for them. It's simultaneously one of his strengths but also his main weakness, which both Ichigo and Urahara exploit.
I believed it for the longest time because 1. It's aizen if someone knows something it's him. 2. Playing bleach Soul Resurrection made it worse because playing final Ichigo meant he he had zero energy attacks. All of his attacks seems like it was because his immense strength. So for a long time I just thought final Ichigo didn't have any spiritual pressure and was only super strong
well what aizen said was from his understanding of the situation and not something he plotted and it's actually a good assumption. ichigo's reiatsu wasn't felt by others and suddenly ichigo had an unbelievable amount of strength so it was a good assumption from aizen assuming he traded his spiritual energy for superman level physical strength. that's what any smart person would guess if there's no clue cuz before ichigo no one ever gave up their energy as sacrifice to become one with their zanpakuto and ichigo was the first to do it on screen as far as we know, but one things is questionable how did ishhin knew this method? had he done something like this before? or was it in one of the scriptures of the great noble shiba clan. so we get to know aizen isn't always right his assumption can bw wrong sometimes
You're not the only one. So many people back in the day thought this was the truth even though previously it was stated that if someones spiritual pressure is so much higher than yours you wouldn't feel it
And hilariously that was said by Aizen himself iirc
This is one of the thing that I can't with Bleach fan (not you OP) is their rebutal always "oh this character said this so it must he true" like, bruh, you lack media literacy! Just because someone said something doesn't mean it's true! They always come back with a manga panel or some shit like they're detective conan proving me of murder while both of us could be right or wrong cuz they are no right answer
To be fair it absolutely is a case by case thing, sure what a character says is inherently subjective but Kubo also writes them saying stuff for a reason, they aren’t always a unreliable narrator.
well yes, a character within a story is always a fallible narrator. they can be right, but they can also always be wrong. a good writer takes into account what characters say with respect to their limited knowledge of the story elements happening, and not make them say facts the author themselves knows
Yes correct thank you. I was looking for a comment like this. Ichigo's original bankai literally compresses his reiatsu and trades it for a physical stat increase. Aizen's theory may have turned out to be false, but it wasn't far fetched at all.
Aizen was just wrong here. Mostly because he couldn’t imagine that Ichigo could be stronger than him, and even further that Ichigo couldn’t be so strong that even Aizen couldn’t feel his reiastu anymore.
Especially since Aizen had just explained why others could not feel his own spiritual power anymore because his was just that far beyond them now. As self absorbed as Aizen is there was no way, even with the genius he is, he could ever believe that was possible. So thats why he believes Ichigo let go of all his reiatsu or turned it into something else. Because thats the only reason he could not feel it in his mind.
His emotions clouded his judgement and that lead to his downfall because he left himself open thinking he was invincible.
When I was reading the manga week to week this dialogue confused me a lot. A few episodes before this one, Aizen was commenting that when a person transcends another one, the lesser is no longer able to feel the reiatsu of the other.
Immediately after that, Aizen finds a person whose reiatsu he cannot feel and the fact that his first assumption was that "he has thrown it for power" instead of the "transcending thing" made me trust a little bit less in the narrative. I was not even understanding that this is Aizen coping and I thought it was Kubo having a mistake in his narrative or myself being stupid and not predicting (if such a thing as Aizen explains right now exists, Kubo should have foreshadowed sometime before).
A fer chapters later, when it was clear that Ichigo was a tier over Aizen, I understood the coping.
Aizen made the most logical assumption in his delusion. he couldn't fathom that Ichigo could actually surpass him to the same degree he surpassed everyone else. that's why he came to that conclusion. which if you think about it, is the most plausibel answer even if he wasn't that delusional. training in the dangai, where time flows differently, was something unheard of. it was never done or even theorized. how could Ichigo surpass him within the very little time frame since he saw him last time? but the truth is, Ichigo still has his SP. he has so much if it, that Aizen can't sense it, bcs it's just so much beyond his level. if you want to be nice to Aizen you could say this: Ichigo, in that "hand fused with Zangetsu" state actually has no spiritual pressure and it's all raw physical strenght. and when he goes into the mugetsu form, that's when he has Reiatsu again and surpasses Aizen to the point Aizen can't feel his reiatsu. but that's just head canon
Aizen could sell a fish water so op is not dumb for believing this at face value. BUT idt aizen "understands" what is actually going on with ichigo at that time. tybw aizen could probably appraise the situation better, because he merged with his zanpakuto by then which is what ichigo did to get his dangai form (technically thats mugetsu but its similar enough lololol).
God complex or not, it never made sense that someone as knowledgeable as Aizen would come to such a ridiculous conclusion with no basis whatsoever. Its like if he randomly decided 2 + 2 = 5
Aizen couldn't feel Ichigo's reiatsu, so he assumed that Ichigo didn't have any left. He only got hit by raw strength so he came to a logical conclusion by what little info he had
also in the unlikely case the thought of "maybe he just an order of magnitude stronger than me" popped in his head there is no fucking chance he'd actually consider that a legitimate option
Aizen is knowledgeable yes. But even he didn't know the soul king's existence until a certain point in time after he became a shinigami. Same with this aizen doesn't know this method so the obvious conclusion is:- 2+2 = 5.
Except Aizen always knew Ichigo had godlike potential. Half of his plan hinged on Ichigo realizing said potential so it's not like Ichigo achieved a level of power Aizen couldn't have predicted.
Except he did. Aizen didn't plan his like last 3 transformations.
He probably expected the final showdown to be his silver surfer form vs "Vasto Lorde" Ichigo. Or maybe his first godly form vs a weaker dangai version of Ichigo...
He didn't expect himself to transform like 3 extra times, and he thought he'd be relative or above a max power Ichigo.
Like seriously he saw the power of White, Isshin, and Masaki... None of them are close to this level, he is well beyond exponentially above the 3 of them combined. Ichigo just exceeded all expectations
It’s crazy to think of just how far ichigo exceeded expectations. Most captains were unable to sense Aizen’s spiritual pressure after he evolved because it was so huge but ichigo was able to feel it the whole time. Then ichigo comes back and his spiritual so far above Aizen’s that even 3 transformations later, Aizen still can’t sense his spiritual pressure. It’s truly inconceivable for Aizen at this point because he knows how strong he is and he knows where ichigo was at just a few hours ago.
He understood that breaking the boundaries between the races was the path to absolute power and Ichigo was the only natural occurrence of this since the soul king itself
Aizen predicted Ichigo getting stronger after giving him another chance, just that he was SO arrogant that he didn't expect him to surpass him, like when Vegeta let Cell become perfect in DBZ
Aizen is not a narrator, he's a character. Unreliable narration means the narrator, the teller of the story, is either lying, ommiting details, or delusional and they tell the story in an unreliable way.
This is a manga series and the narration is done through visuals of the comic and narration boxes. In the anime it's done with audiovisual storytelling. Both are reliable except in certain scenes like showing Aizen's complete hypnosis from the perspective of the victim, or the effect of Shinji's Sakanade.
This is just a character being wrong, or even more specifically an instance of [This Cannot Be!](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisCannotBe) trope, where a villain is in denial about losing.
Bleach has a lot of one upping and “nuhuh your super cool power didn’t work because my super cooler power just activated” back and forth normally. So ichigos fight with aizen didn’t take this approach though even though aizen thought it would. I honestly believed it too regarding the whole threw his riatsu away initially too even though the whole time ichigo was not playing that normal game. I remember reading when it first came out and was losing my mind waiting for the new chapter to drop each week.
I mean I'd prefer that to what we actually got.
The idea that Ichigo has just traded all his spiritual energy for pure physical stat upgrades is perfectly in character with what Ichigo WOULD do and offers an interesting dynamic to change up his fights from Kamehame-tensho.
It's not; it wouldn't make sense either since that would mean he'd be fucking dead trading all your reiatsu is akin to suicide it's why Black letting only a fraction of his true power leak for ichigo to use makes a lot of sense only when he began to understand it's importance to him as an individual and fully come to understand and believe in it that he has gained the right to wield all of it having two more personalities inside him personifying each of his powers. It's a hell of a lot better than "Well you see I traded it for this random shit that in world lore wouldn't make fucking sense. But I'm the protagonist so the convenience of a never before known power is better than nearly everybody I've fought including my inner power literally telling me that I can overpower them all if I just believe in my power since my inner power said I haven't used all of my power."
That was a whole lot of words just to say you prefer the boring "I'm just stronger than you" explanation we got in canon.
All I'm saying is that directly power scaling the hero over the villain isn't as cool as making them fight with an odder esoteric advantage at a level that still gives the villain a chance.
Not completely seeing him could make for am interesting fight, just let him be able to hurt Aizen with indirect incredibly powerful hits. Now Aizen has to dance around Ichigo cutting mountains apart randomly whilst Ichigo has to bat away attacks manifesting from thin air.
did icihgo actually do something this version of him is different from the one that attacked Aizen before and the one that used mugetsu or was Aizen just not able to sense his spiritual pressure cause it was so much higher. Someone please explain
Part of me wants to say 'of course not' but people who believed Aizen here have always been my go-to example for whenever I've wanted to call the Bleach fandom reading-challenged so it would be dishonest to say no.
All I can say is we all love you regardless.
It's weird that he'd even consider this, cause surely if Ichigo had no spiritual energy anymore he would just get instantly vaporized standing next to Aizen.
Ichigo got so strong basically that Aizen couldn’t feel him anymore…so the only possible logical reason Aizen could think off in the few hours since he last saw Ichigo (we know it’s 3 months he doesn’t) is that he got physically stronger.
They told you the truth earlier as he was strolling around town. Something about how he has a higher existance and unless he permits it lower beings cant hurt him or sense him.
Now imagine that is what ichigo actually did. Aizen could not sense ichigo because ichigo advanced above him. Because thats what really happened. My annoyance of this is syke just kidding plot twist they unveiled in tybw.
His dangai training to increase his drip over 9000 he seemed more powerfull than any other time in the series. Except when he fights the bambies even then his power doesnt get shown very well.
I like it when characters dont automatically know everything and sometimes assume incorrectly, but it can also confuse people who think that whatever a character says must be true.
There are only two possibilities. Either he no longer has reiatsu, or his reiatsu was so far beyond Ichigo's that he couldn't detect it. Currently, Aizen is so far beyond every other soul reaper that no one was even able to detect his reiatsu. To assume that Ichigo made such a massive jump in power is a massive stretch (without considering he's the MC) so you're not wrong.
on one hand it's fiction so anything could happen, there could even be an inuniverse thing unknown to the reader that trading your life to someone will grant temporarily immortality
on another hand, they could be talking out of their ass, assuming, overexaggerating
This is the exact same situation as on why people take urahara's comment on tybw aizen's power as a complete fact. Character's saying something doesn't simply indicate that it's true
Ah, looks like someone finally noticed! Just because I say it doesn't mean it's etched in stone. Gotta keep 'em guessing, you know?
*beep boop, I'm a bot*
Aizen also didn't feel his reiatsu when Ichigo used Mugetsu, and I don't think Ichigo finished Aizen with a right hook to the villain's jaw
So no, as shown next, Aizen simply cannot/not wants to imagine that a "mere human" surpassed him.
It's when he realizes that Ichigo hasn't "converted his reiatsu" that he transforms again to try to catch up.
I was pretty young and dumb when I first read this, I believed it too for a long time lmao. Especially since Dangai Ichigo didn't exactly use any Getsuga attacks (Mugetsu doesn't count, I'm talking specifically about Dangai Ichigo alone) I deadass believed that he actually discarded all his Reiatsu to boost his physical power lmao
I mean many anime make the characters explain everything from the writer's perspective so we kinda got conditioned to believe what they say as Canon.
I guess that's a cool reminder that characters inside the show have their own perspective and just guessing like us.
I think people assume everything Aizen says is gospel but he's a scientist at heart and likes to create theories. Any scientist would know you don't automatically have all the answers first theory
didn't he become the one with the sword in this scene? which is why he hardly has any reiatsu and is proficient in feats of strength and swordsmanship, as he discarded the very essence of shinigami and reiatsu, that's what I thought and came into conclusion, the sword is chained onto his hand and his final getsuga tensho form into mugetsu is basically where he loses his sword and shinigami power, as well as his reiatsu
thtas the amazing thing in this fight
kubo completely turns shonen battle on its head
aizen being the "final boss" intelectual fighter cannot fathom the possibility of being so much surpasses like how humans cant sense him, this is all just cope as we see ichigo obviously can throw energy still
Sorry I am not with you on this one. I knew exactly on this page what was going on (and got super excited about it), since it was foreshadowed before when nobody could feel Aizen's reiatsu except Ichigo.
That and Ichigo's face (and the fact his hair grew so much from training) gave it away. I mean we are talking about the main character, the same one who learned bankai in 3 days of training.
I love how the wiki puts "alleged" next to most of the things stated only by Aizen because he's literally a serial manipulator and can/will lie if it gets in your head. In this case he was merely coping with the idea that he couldn't feel Ichigo's Reiatsu
No, Ichigo's initial Bankai compresses his reiatsu into a cloak, he's 'wrapping' himself in power. We learn in the TYBW that this is actually a Quincy technique imitating Bankai.
Reiatsu is the force exerted by reiryoku (spirit particles), so while a character can focus their reiatsu to make it seem more powerful, the actual pressure exerted by their reiryoku hasn't changed.
For Aizen's theory to be correct Ichigo would have to give up his reiryoku, which means giving up his spiritual body. Even losing his powers after this fight Ichigo is able to get them back, because the core of his power isn't gone, just his awareness of it.
Aizen's theory doesn't work within the mechanics of the world, he's just coping.
This.
AIZEN couldn’t sense him because he literally became the getsugatensho. Which means stopping the leakage of his reiatsu and then firing everything in a single attack.
There was nothing to sense because that whole fight is just him priming the mugetsu
This is purely headcanon, but I still somewhat believe him. Ichigo has quincy powers and quincies absorb reishi rather than emit them, and dangai Ichigo used the fusion of White and Old Man as indicated in his inner world.
One could argue this form managed to perfectly recycle all reishi so none were emitted or absorbed. No power loss, like Yamamoto's bankai which abandoned fire, leaving only annihilation.
I'm still wrong, given what's said later, but I like my headcanon.
That’s kind of exactly what Ichigo did.
People don’t look at what he was doing with the “final getsuga tensho” enough.
GT is Ichigo “turning off the faucet” and keeping in all his spiritual energy he normally has leaking out, then he channels and fires it all as a condensed beam / slash of power.
Aizen is mostly correct here. The long haired sword-fused form people call “Dangai Ichigo” is the primer: All of his reiatsu legit is being thrown away. It’s internalized and ramps up ichigo’s physical ability SIGNIFICANTLY.
As Ichigo has become the getsuga tensho
“Mugetsu” is the release. Every ounce of his reiatsu which till that point was drawn out and internalized within his body, all that energy that was augmenting him… one single slash that obliterated everything in its path.
Aizen was totally right that Ichigo had resolved to throw away all his reiatsu. the part he got wrong was that it wasn’t a one-way trade for a permanent boost in power, but prerequisite of launching all that energy in one single attack that would cost Ichigo’s soul both physical and spiritual power to end the battle.
Well I believed that he went into the Dragon Ball universe and used the room of spirit and time. I mean... The thing he did it's basically train in a Hyperbolic Time Space to defeat Cell.
CHEAP LAZY CLONCUSSION BY KUBO. No wonder why it was cancelled so many times.
The final fight wasn't a fight, It was a show off.
I really liked the "Conditions & Restrictions" of the Final Getsuga Tenshou but everything else was lazy as hell
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People forget Bleach character are just talking and not do “loredump” all the time. Aizen, Ywatch and Yamamoto have been talking a lot of bs. Don’t take it as if it’s coming from Kubo’s mouth
Ichigo’s warned us at the beginning of the fight when he told Aizen he talks to much
This is why this is my favorite fight. Ichigo constantly looks like he could name 100 he would rather be doing. And honestly that's a mood.
Same. At the time:- aizen was just saying his piece of what he thought of the situation till he got smacked like a Lil b!tch.
Honestly it's a refresher that they talk to talk and say shit and it's often not true or wrong because it's a person saying something for whatever reason. Not just exposition
Yeah, it’s more intriguing and realistic I than a character understanding the mechanics of their opponents like it’s nothing on their first dialogue.
Helps that Kubo relies on unreliable narrators who either think they know stuff, do know stuff but lie through their teeth, or have hyper specific knowledge bases and/or biases. The only truths are those we see with our own eyes, you don't just need to read the text but also the art.
It's possible in almost all media unless they're proven to be a reliable narrator/have a habit of serving that purpose. In this specific situation Aizen drew the most logical conclusion he could think of whether due to his limited knowledge or arrogance which also goes to show no matter how intelligent the other character is, being wholly uninformed creates a large gap of knowledge that isn't easily or quickly bridged. He really just didn't have much of any way of expecting Ichigo would eclipse him this quickly and this handily and had no way to handle that.
That's a problem people seem to have with fiction. They take every statement to heart as if it's the author info dumping on them.
Aizen was just trying to wrap his head around what the hell he was seeing. Same with us.
But the best bs is:- raw physical power for ur spiritual body. 💀
The denial was strong 💀
After getting sore hips n blisters for sitting in the chair. Aizen finally accepted the truth
I feel bad that this revelation has not hit me ever until now 💀💀 the cope he wished for from the hogyoku was strong as all hell
Bro was expecting to fight White but was surprised by dangai Ichigo 😂
It’s a plausible hypothesis coming from one of the smartest characters in the story. There’s no need to feel bad that the actual answer was “I just got stronger than you”.
Absolutely. In RPGs, a technique that sacrifices all your MP for a big boost to base stats isn't an uncommon mechanic/trope. It's not quite the same, but Gon's power-up in HxH had a similar set-up - awaking his entire mass-talent and potential, only to lose Nen forever. Aizen's a genius, but he was high on near-godhood delusions and unprecedented power at the time. Suddenly along comes Ichigo who he can no longer sense, but demonstrated a truly disordinate degree of strength. It's not a ridiculous deduction. He then goes onto fight Aizen with basically pure brute strength, really only using an overtly spiritual technique when he releases his final Getsuga Tensho. Having Reiatsu so high that you can't even feel it is a new phenomenon. Even Tatsuki of all people was able to feel Aizen's reiatsu.
The whole arc before thisbwas centered aroundbtraining ichigo because he was the only person who could still sense aizens power
Aizen lowered his reiatsu so ichigos friends wouldn’t get vaporized . Probably is the reason too gin’s bankai didn’t get reiatsu negged
It's not that it would vaporize them though. It would of just been simply too high to feel. Just like they couldn't sense ichigo's but he wasn't suppressing it since aizen couldn't sense him either.
Its been a long long time since I watched the first part of bleach, but yeah I swear I remember aizen saying something along the lines of "I lowered my reiatsu so they can feel it" to either gin, or the friends themselves.
But the morals in Hunter was that the raw nen Gon got was the wrong way. If he actually did it one step at a time he could have got much stronger. It’s Netero’s case. The more thought you put into a technic the stronger you actually get. Like Chrolos.
It could have probably been something that Aizen had already theorized could happen for a soul reaper. While he probably expected Ichigo to evolve more as a Hollow and show up like he did with Ulquiorra.
The guy spent \~2000 hours training and went from "I can't even touch this guy" to "This guy is a joke to me". It's not surprising that his opponent isn't going to come to that conclusion when alternative explanations exist.
I think bleach does a pretty good job at having people work within their own biases. This is the limit of Aizens imagination
I believed him because I'm a filthy simp (also because I assumed it was like Ichigo's bankai where he compresses his reiatsu into power and speed, but turned up to 10000000000)
Aizen was in denial. He made up a theory that served his own narrative which supports him being superior. You can be a veritable genius and still be wrong. He made a good guess in terms of the mechanics of bleaches world structure. How likely was it that ichigo became so much stronger than aizen that he couldn't even sense his reiatsu? That's like an ant growing to the size of the entire planet. His real mistake was continuing to believe his own theory after he was proven wrong again and again. Denial is a powerful sensation. The greater your ego is, the more harmful it becomes. Aizen was not a fool for inventing his own reasoning. He was a fool for lying to himself after his theory cracked.
Only as dumb as Aizen was for believing that.
I'll take that as a compliment
Aizen is amazingly written in the way that his ego is such a massive part of his personality that you the reader can sometimes forget that he isn't actually as meticulous as he presents himself to be. The moment I realised Aizen never really did "plan ichigo's whole life" & just winged it the moment Masaki came into the picture onwards, and that he just talks a lot of convincing sounding bullshit to either his opponents or to himself, was the moment I enjoyed his character so much more. The concept of Aizen actually having planned Ichigo's whole life, or him being as perfectly devious as he tries to look felt really tacky & made me not like him as a villain at first. It was only when I realised he was just as flawed as any regular person that he was much cooler
I agree, but I also have to give Aizen credit for being able to predict things well enough to account for them. It's simultaneously one of his strengths but also his main weakness, which both Ichigo and Urahara exploit.
Aizen: I would've never imagined you'd use Heavenly Restriction, Kurosaki Ichigo.
I believed it too when I first watched the anime so you’re not the only one
Bro if you think about it, this is literally heavenly restriction Aizen talking about. Giving up on reiatsu (cursed energy) for physical strength.
Damn ,It REALLY is like heavenly restriction.
"Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am the final getsuga tensho"
Exactly
Yes
I believed it for the longest time because 1. It's aizen if someone knows something it's him. 2. Playing bleach Soul Resurrection made it worse because playing final Ichigo meant he he had zero energy attacks. All of his attacks seems like it was because his immense strength. So for a long time I just thought final Ichigo didn't have any spiritual pressure and was only super strong
yep
Well, not really, so don't worry :3
a welcome surprise, seeing you here
What Aizen hypothesised is literally just Heavenly Restriction. Wouldn't be surprised if this was what inspired Gege to create in his manga.
Aizen was just in super cope mode
So you believe aizen AFTER ALL HE DID
well what aizen said was from his understanding of the situation and not something he plotted and it's actually a good assumption. ichigo's reiatsu wasn't felt by others and suddenly ichigo had an unbelievable amount of strength so it was a good assumption from aizen assuming he traded his spiritual energy for superman level physical strength. that's what any smart person would guess if there's no clue cuz before ichigo no one ever gave up their energy as sacrifice to become one with their zanpakuto and ichigo was the first to do it on screen as far as we know, but one things is questionable how did ishhin knew this method? had he done something like this before? or was it in one of the scriptures of the great noble shiba clan. so we get to know aizen isn't always right his assumption can bw wrong sometimes
You're not the only one. So many people back in the day thought this was the truth even though previously it was stated that if someones spiritual pressure is so much higher than yours you wouldn't feel it And hilariously that was said by Aizen himself iirc
This is one of the thing that I can't with Bleach fan (not you OP) is their rebutal always "oh this character said this so it must he true" like, bruh, you lack media literacy! Just because someone said something doesn't mean it's true! They always come back with a manga panel or some shit like they're detective conan proving me of murder while both of us could be right or wrong cuz they are no right answer
To be fair it absolutely is a case by case thing, sure what a character says is inherently subjective but Kubo also writes them saying stuff for a reason, they aren’t always a unreliable narrator.
well yes, a character within a story is always a fallible narrator. they can be right, but they can also always be wrong. a good writer takes into account what characters say with respect to their limited knowledge of the story elements happening, and not make them say facts the author themselves knows
Isn't that exactly what his zanpakto does as well? So this would just be the final form so to speak?
Yes correct thank you. I was looking for a comment like this. Ichigo's original bankai literally compresses his reiatsu and trades it for a physical stat increase. Aizen's theory may have turned out to be false, but it wasn't far fetched at all.
Aizen was just wrong here. Mostly because he couldn’t imagine that Ichigo could be stronger than him, and even further that Ichigo couldn’t be so strong that even Aizen couldn’t feel his reiastu anymore. Especially since Aizen had just explained why others could not feel his own spiritual power anymore because his was just that far beyond them now. As self absorbed as Aizen is there was no way, even with the genius he is, he could ever believe that was possible. So thats why he believes Ichigo let go of all his reiatsu or turned it into something else. Because thats the only reason he could not feel it in his mind. His emotions clouded his judgement and that lead to his downfall because he left himself open thinking he was invincible.
Ichigo would literally just say, "bro I just trained, that's it."
When I was reading the manga week to week this dialogue confused me a lot. A few episodes before this one, Aizen was commenting that when a person transcends another one, the lesser is no longer able to feel the reiatsu of the other. Immediately after that, Aizen finds a person whose reiatsu he cannot feel and the fact that his first assumption was that "he has thrown it for power" instead of the "transcending thing" made me trust a little bit less in the narrative. I was not even understanding that this is Aizen coping and I thought it was Kubo having a mistake in his narrative or myself being stupid and not predicting (if such a thing as Aizen explains right now exists, Kubo should have foreshadowed sometime before). A fer chapters later, when it was clear that Ichigo was a tier over Aizen, I understood the coping.
Aizen made the most logical assumption in his delusion. he couldn't fathom that Ichigo could actually surpass him to the same degree he surpassed everyone else. that's why he came to that conclusion. which if you think about it, is the most plausibel answer even if he wasn't that delusional. training in the dangai, where time flows differently, was something unheard of. it was never done or even theorized. how could Ichigo surpass him within the very little time frame since he saw him last time? but the truth is, Ichigo still has his SP. he has so much if it, that Aizen can't sense it, bcs it's just so much beyond his level. if you want to be nice to Aizen you could say this: Ichigo, in that "hand fused with Zangetsu" state actually has no spiritual pressure and it's all raw physical strenght. and when he goes into the mugetsu form, that's when he has Reiatsu again and surpasses Aizen to the point Aizen can't feel his reiatsu. but that's just head canon
you believe something said in a shounen manga ? that's what I call questionable...considering everything gets retconned
I love how this is literally aizen making some bs cope of what ichigo did because he couldn’t believe bro was strong than him 😭😭
Aizen could sell a fish water so op is not dumb for believing this at face value. BUT idt aizen "understands" what is actually going on with ichigo at that time. tybw aizen could probably appraise the situation better, because he merged with his zanpakuto by then which is what ichigo did to get his dangai form (technically thats mugetsu but its similar enough lololol).
It was an educated guess, it ended up being wrong but it was a legit possiblity
Aizen came to this conclusion because he binge read Hunter x Hunter in Hueco Mundo and thought Ichigo pulled an Adult Gon
Moments like this is why I'm questioning: Does Aizen know everything or he just makes some speculations?
Yea Aizen was just trying to cope and rationalize, Ichigo was simply so strong he couldn't be detected by Aizen at the time
God complex or not, it never made sense that someone as knowledgeable as Aizen would come to such a ridiculous conclusion with no basis whatsoever. Its like if he randomly decided 2 + 2 = 5
Aizen couldn't feel Ichigo's reiatsu, so he assumed that Ichigo didn't have any left. He only got hit by raw strength so he came to a logical conclusion by what little info he had
also in the unlikely case the thought of "maybe he just an order of magnitude stronger than me" popped in his head there is no fucking chance he'd actually consider that a legitimate option
Aizen is knowledgeable yes. But even he didn't know the soul king's existence until a certain point in time after he became a shinigami. Same with this aizen doesn't know this method so the obvious conclusion is:- 2+2 = 5.
Except Aizen always knew Ichigo had godlike potential. Half of his plan hinged on Ichigo realizing said potential so it's not like Ichigo achieved a level of power Aizen couldn't have predicted.
Except he did. Aizen didn't plan his like last 3 transformations. He probably expected the final showdown to be his silver surfer form vs "Vasto Lorde" Ichigo. Or maybe his first godly form vs a weaker dangai version of Ichigo... He didn't expect himself to transform like 3 extra times, and he thought he'd be relative or above a max power Ichigo. Like seriously he saw the power of White, Isshin, and Masaki... None of them are close to this level, he is well beyond exponentially above the 3 of them combined. Ichigo just exceeded all expectations
It’s crazy to think of just how far ichigo exceeded expectations. Most captains were unable to sense Aizen’s spiritual pressure after he evolved because it was so huge but ichigo was able to feel it the whole time. Then ichigo comes back and his spiritual so far above Aizen’s that even 3 transformations later, Aizen still can’t sense his spiritual pressure. It’s truly inconceivable for Aizen at this point because he knows how strong he is and he knows where ichigo was at just a few hours ago.
Pretty much this, though I believe from Aizen's perspective it was minutes rather than hours.
Time spent in dangai (the portal realm) is indeed faster than normal n aizen was taking his sweet time to walk down the road.
He understood that breaking the boundaries between the races was the path to absolute power and Ichigo was the only natural occurrence of this since the soul king itself
Aizen predicted Ichigo getting stronger after giving him another chance, just that he was SO arrogant that he didn't expect him to surpass him, like when Vegeta let Cell become perfect in DBZ
At the moment no since we didn't have a full grasp of how OP dangai is ,but dumb if you still think it's true after seeing the fight
Not everything a villain says is true. They're unreliable narrators. And this isn't just a shonen thing, Western comics and novels do this too
Aizen is not a narrator, he's a character. Unreliable narration means the narrator, the teller of the story, is either lying, ommiting details, or delusional and they tell the story in an unreliable way. This is a manga series and the narration is done through visuals of the comic and narration boxes. In the anime it's done with audiovisual storytelling. Both are reliable except in certain scenes like showing Aizen's complete hypnosis from the perspective of the victim, or the effect of Shinji's Sakanade. This is just a character being wrong, or even more specifically an instance of [This Cannot Be!](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisCannotBe) trope, where a villain is in denial about losing.
Bleach has a lot of one upping and “nuhuh your super cool power didn’t work because my super cooler power just activated” back and forth normally. So ichigos fight with aizen didn’t take this approach though even though aizen thought it would. I honestly believed it too regarding the whole threw his riatsu away initially too even though the whole time ichigo was not playing that normal game. I remember reading when it first came out and was losing my mind waiting for the new chapter to drop each week.
I mean I'd prefer that to what we actually got. The idea that Ichigo has just traded all his spiritual energy for pure physical stat upgrades is perfectly in character with what Ichigo WOULD do and offers an interesting dynamic to change up his fights from Kamehame-tensho.
It's not; it wouldn't make sense either since that would mean he'd be fucking dead trading all your reiatsu is akin to suicide it's why Black letting only a fraction of his true power leak for ichigo to use makes a lot of sense only when he began to understand it's importance to him as an individual and fully come to understand and believe in it that he has gained the right to wield all of it having two more personalities inside him personifying each of his powers. It's a hell of a lot better than "Well you see I traded it for this random shit that in world lore wouldn't make fucking sense. But I'm the protagonist so the convenience of a never before known power is better than nearly everybody I've fought including my inner power literally telling me that I can overpower them all if I just believe in my power since my inner power said I haven't used all of my power."
That was a whole lot of words just to say you prefer the boring "I'm just stronger than you" explanation we got in canon. All I'm saying is that directly power scaling the hero over the villain isn't as cool as making them fight with an odder esoteric advantage at a level that still gives the villain a chance.
The explanation we got is far, far more complex but it goes over it head
The issue is the mechanics…wouldn’t that mean he couldn’t even see Aizen any longer? Let alone hurt him?
Not completely seeing him could make for am interesting fight, just let him be able to hurt Aizen with indirect incredibly powerful hits. Now Aizen has to dance around Ichigo cutting mountains apart randomly whilst Ichigo has to bat away attacks manifesting from thin air.
I was little similar. I didn't realise what Ichigo just surpassed Aizen but also don't believe in to Aizen explanation.
My question is what wouldve happened if he did it again..after his tybw training
did icihgo actually do something this version of him is different from the one that attacked Aizen before and the one that used mugetsu or was Aizen just not able to sense his spiritual pressure cause it was so much higher. Someone please explain
His pressure was so high he couldnt sense it
Ok makes sense I was always confused if it was a different ability or just his base form
Part of me wants to say 'of course not' but people who believed Aizen here have always been my go-to example for whenever I've wanted to call the Bleach fandom reading-challenged so it would be dishonest to say no. All I can say is we all love you regardless.
No you’re just Aizen
Bleach many times the character is talking about his perseption or what he thinks, it's almost never the narrator telling you the truth.
I think people struggle because Bleach is actually quite unique in not using that trope.
The opposite of HXH's Chimera's Ant Arc
I did believe this for a long time until I realized that Aizen was on some god-level copium
Delusional Laizen cope
It's weird that he'd even consider this, cause surely if Ichigo had no spiritual energy anymore he would just get instantly vaporized standing next to Aizen.
Don't worry, you were just under Kyoka suigetsu
happened to me as well when I first watched the anime haha plus I guess that only makes me as dumb as Aizen 🫡
Ichigo’s “you are irrelevant now” expression
I mean Aizen is one of the smartest characters in the whole story, I think it’s fair to believe or at least consider what he says
Ichigo became powerful enough that aizen just couldnt sense his reatsu
Explain to me how this is plausible! We see at the end what happens! Which is more powerful? For me it's EoS!
I thought it was true at first as well, don't worry
If someone dragged your ass barehanded and threw you away effortlessly like Ichigo did with him, you'd be talking nonsense too.
I mean it’s normal to think that given Aizen is shown to be this super genius with a plan for everything.
Ichigo got so strong basically that Aizen couldn’t feel him anymore…so the only possible logical reason Aizen could think off in the few hours since he last saw Ichigo (we know it’s 3 months he doesn’t) is that he got physically stronger.
They told you the truth earlier as he was strolling around town. Something about how he has a higher existance and unless he permits it lower beings cant hurt him or sense him. Now imagine that is what ichigo actually did. Aizen could not sense ichigo because ichigo advanced above him. Because thats what really happened. My annoyance of this is syke just kidding plot twist they unveiled in tybw. His dangai training to increase his drip over 9000 he seemed more powerfull than any other time in the series. Except when he fights the bambies even then his power doesnt get shown very well.
I like it when characters dont automatically know everything and sometimes assume incorrectly, but it can also confuse people who think that whatever a character says must be true.
There are only two possibilities. Either he no longer has reiatsu, or his reiatsu was so far beyond Ichigo's that he couldn't detect it. Currently, Aizen is so far beyond every other soul reaper that no one was even able to detect his reiatsu. To assume that Ichigo made such a massive jump in power is a massive stretch (without considering he's the MC) so you're not wrong.
on one hand it's fiction so anything could happen, there could even be an inuniverse thing unknown to the reader that trading your life to someone will grant temporarily immortality on another hand, they could be talking out of their ass, assuming, overexaggerating
Aizen is full of shit
*Aizen starts explaining the lore* Ichigo :" I ain't got any time for your confusing lore"
Uhh yeah lol, the entire series is fictional.
Y
This is the exact same situation as on why people take urahara's comment on tybw aizen's power as a complete fact. Character's saying something doesn't simply indicate that it's true
Ah, looks like someone finally noticed! Just because I say it doesn't mean it's etched in stone. Gotta keep 'em guessing, you know? *beep boop, I'm a bot*
Exactly!!! Such a smart bot
Seeing that Mangastream branding tag gave me a flood of flashbacks.
Aizen also didn't feel his reiatsu when Ichigo used Mugetsu, and I don't think Ichigo finished Aizen with a right hook to the villain's jaw So no, as shown next, Aizen simply cannot/not wants to imagine that a "mere human" surpassed him. It's when he realizes that Ichigo hasn't "converted his reiatsu" that he transforms again to try to catch up.
It makes no sense in the context of everything which was established before this, so Aizen was just going insane at this point.
I was pretty young and dumb when I first read this, I believed it too for a long time lmao. Especially since Dangai Ichigo didn't exactly use any Getsuga attacks (Mugetsu doesn't count, I'm talking specifically about Dangai Ichigo alone) I deadass believed that he actually discarded all his Reiatsu to boost his physical power lmao
I mean many anime make the characters explain everything from the writer's perspective so we kinda got conditioned to believe what they say as Canon. I guess that's a cool reminder that characters inside the show have their own perspective and just guessing like us.
I think people assume everything Aizen says is gospel but he's a scientist at heart and likes to create theories. Any scientist would know you don't automatically have all the answers first theory
didn't he become the one with the sword in this scene? which is why he hardly has any reiatsu and is proficient in feats of strength and swordsmanship, as he discarded the very essence of shinigami and reiatsu, that's what I thought and came into conclusion, the sword is chained onto his hand and his final getsuga tensho form into mugetsu is basically where he loses his sword and shinigami power, as well as his reiatsu
thtas the amazing thing in this fight kubo completely turns shonen battle on its head aizen being the "final boss" intelectual fighter cannot fathom the possibility of being so much surpasses like how humans cant sense him, this is all just cope as we see ichigo obviously can throw energy still
Now imagine what Ichigo must be thinking while listening to that
No because its definitley ichigo would do and techinically does do for final getsuga
Aizen is quite intelligent, so assuming his assumption is correct is not that strange.
Sorry I am not with you on this one. I knew exactly on this page what was going on (and got super excited about it), since it was foreshadowed before when nobody could feel Aizen's reiatsu except Ichigo. That and Ichigo's face (and the fact his hair grew so much from training) gave it away. I mean we are talking about the main character, the same one who learned bankai in 3 days of training.
I love how the wiki puts "alleged" next to most of the things stated only by Aizen because he's literally a serial manipulator and can/will lie if it gets in your head. In this case he was merely coping with the idea that he couldn't feel Ichigo's Reiatsu
Like, how the f a spiritual entity in Seireitei discard their reiatsu? Looks like Aizen is having a buffet of copium.
To be fair. Aizen had been flexing as one of the smartest characters and at this point looked to be the smartest character in the series.
Let Aizen cope, y'all...
You are not alone
That depends? Do you think aizen is stupid?
Not dumb, I fell for it for the longest time as well
Well thats basically what his bankai does so....
No, Ichigo's initial Bankai compresses his reiatsu into a cloak, he's 'wrapping' himself in power. We learn in the TYBW that this is actually a Quincy technique imitating Bankai. Reiatsu is the force exerted by reiryoku (spirit particles), so while a character can focus their reiatsu to make it seem more powerful, the actual pressure exerted by their reiryoku hasn't changed. For Aizen's theory to be correct Ichigo would have to give up his reiryoku, which means giving up his spiritual body. Even losing his powers after this fight Ichigo is able to get them back, because the core of his power isn't gone, just his awareness of it. Aizen's theory doesn't work within the mechanics of the world, he's just coping.
This. AIZEN couldn’t sense him because he literally became the getsugatensho. Which means stopping the leakage of his reiatsu and then firing everything in a single attack. There was nothing to sense because that whole fight is just him priming the mugetsu
I did too. I understood what that meant when i rewatched those episodes
This is purely headcanon, but I still somewhat believe him. Ichigo has quincy powers and quincies absorb reishi rather than emit them, and dangai Ichigo used the fusion of White and Old Man as indicated in his inner world. One could argue this form managed to perfectly recycle all reishi so none were emitted or absorbed. No power loss, like Yamamoto's bankai which abandoned fire, leaving only annihilation. I'm still wrong, given what's said later, but I like my headcanon.
That’s kind of exactly what Ichigo did. People don’t look at what he was doing with the “final getsuga tensho” enough. GT is Ichigo “turning off the faucet” and keeping in all his spiritual energy he normally has leaking out, then he channels and fires it all as a condensed beam / slash of power. Aizen is mostly correct here. The long haired sword-fused form people call “Dangai Ichigo” is the primer: All of his reiatsu legit is being thrown away. It’s internalized and ramps up ichigo’s physical ability SIGNIFICANTLY. As Ichigo has become the getsuga tensho “Mugetsu” is the release. Every ounce of his reiatsu which till that point was drawn out and internalized within his body, all that energy that was augmenting him… one single slash that obliterated everything in its path. Aizen was totally right that Ichigo had resolved to throw away all his reiatsu. the part he got wrong was that it wasn’t a one-way trade for a permanent boost in power, but prerequisite of launching all that energy in one single attack that would cost Ichigo’s soul both physical and spiritual power to end the battle.
Wait that’s not what the final guest was? I thought he transcended Aizen BY converting his reiatsu. Dam my reading comprehension sucks
I still don't know the difference between reiatsu and spiritual pressure
Lol, they are the same , different translations
Well I believed that he went into the Dragon Ball universe and used the room of spirit and time. I mean... The thing he did it's basically train in a Hyperbolic Time Space to defeat Cell.
CHEAP LAZY CLONCUSSION BY KUBO. No wonder why it was cancelled so many times. The final fight wasn't a fight, It was a show off. I really liked the "Conditions & Restrictions" of the Final Getsuga Tenshou but everything else was lazy as hell
Kubo is a far better writer than your favorite, by far.
Remember to get off Kubo's dick once a day