Bleach Chapter 431 Discussion

reaght said:

Its too slooow!!!! I dont care for the '3 times call thing' and Inoue wanting to find Chad--> that would be fine if she get atleast some clue's or something, not only bringing a basket of bread and then go away without knowing anything new. Its pointless. ,

KantonKageX said:
And once again this guys are going to manipulate Ichigo life.

Fai said:



Frankly, the problem of bleach pacing is NOT those things. Its the panel placement.

Kubo , unlike other mangaka in shonen genre, draws his manga more in a way of episode storyboards, than in a way of manga. While some panels of MOTIONS can be skipped, kubo just loooves to draw every little turn, motion, suspense face, etc.

Thats what slows the pacing down and thats why the pacing is comparably more faster in volume format.

NOw the things you did not like, actually serve purposes:
- The ringing three times has to have a huge importance. There's A LOT of lore about saying something three times, doing something three times, etc, both in japan and in the western world. The legend of bloody mary for example requires you to chant the name Bloody Mary three times for the demon to appear, there's also a folk myth that faeries can't say the same lie three times in row.

3 is also the very first odd prime number and the first unique prime number. 3 also is the THIRD heegner number in math. Its also third unique fibonacci number. 3 is also a triangle, which, due to having three points, never changes its form, unless the degrees are changed. Even the earliest "simple math" contained three main things - one, two and "many".

Overall there are three primary colors that make up all the others, atoms are made of three main parts(protons, electrons, neutrons), three galaxy classifications and earth is a third planet in the solar system.

In religion, and not only christianity, you have the holy trinity(trinity in some form exists in hinduism, budhism and taoism too). And three abrahamic religions (islam, christianity, judaism) are FULL of number three.

Also language-wise, three is prunounced in same way as chinese word quivalent of alive(four being dead).

Then there's saying that "third times a charm" and that bad luck comes in three. NOt to mention the saying that death knocks three times.

Story wise we had three friends, each arc focused on three races(hollow, human, shinigami> hollow, quincy, shinigami>quincy, human, shinigami> etc), ichigo has three main friends that represent three different powers, the last arc had three top villains and top three espada and Aizen theoretically had three forms after turning into cocoon. The executioners we have seen so far also almost always have came in three(ginjou, buttler, loli and now buttler, capguy, woman).

I am pretty much convinced that the number three and calling three times is VERY important for the story.


now as for inoue's scene - it serves a simple purpose of showing us that chad IS NOT at home. It reinforces the fact that he is nowhere to be found (and kubo has already stated that in one of upcoming arcs, char will play a huge role).


So far, while chapters might seem short, each chapter successfuly built up the start of arc - we got the background how ichigo feels being powerless, his silent resentment of others having powers while he does not, the way his friends now live. Then we got introduced into the new characters and the mystery around them was built up also causing ichigo to feel completely powerless. At the same time we got foreshadowed hints that we will hear more on Isshin, Urahara, the badge, etc.

The problem is kubo's storyboard style. If we had an entire volume of this already, this build up would feel damn awesome, but currently most people loose the build up when having to wait for a week till next chapter.


Anyway, since we will most likely have some sort of break in between christmas and new year, i expect next chapter to have quite a huge cliffhanger.

Pheefa said:
LAWL, what do you mean 'too complicated for Kubo'? I love how foreign readers think they know better than the mangaka and forget that it's CAREFULLY CATERED for a young, casual-reading market

All I care about is: WILL SHOUNEN JUMP USE RUKIA'S DRAWING!?

reaght said:


I have to say, i didnt thought of the number 3 in the symbolic way for a second, but that doesnt make it more interesting. Unless Kubo manages to make the number 3 also relevant to the story not only some randomn symbol. Chad is my favourite character so that he's gonna be important in this arc is great and certainly not why i'm hating on this chapter

Its just that for the last 3 chapter there is only some foreshadowing, and it gets annoying. Every chapter i'm hoping that there's gonna be some kind of revelation but it just isnt coming. And thats really too bad because this arc could prove to be quite interesting

I was just thinking, if the manga is this slow, i cant start to imagine how slow the anime will be:S

szugioh said:
I knew the card was a key.

I bet they want him to get his powers back so they can execute the "soul king" <--(input a proper noun related to the bleach world.)

While working for Urahara, I wonder if his sister will try and stop him...
Pure speculation.

Avalie said:

I agree with you that symbolisms don't mean much. Bleach is filled with symbolisms and other useless parallels. Kubo has done this as far back as pre-SS. These 'easter eggs' make you think OH! IT'S SO INTERESTING! But has ANY of those symbolisms and parallels led us anywhere? Just because something is interesting doesn't make it useful.

BakaKawaii said:


That would actually be awesome, Urahara "corrupting" Karin and turning her against her brother. She'd need some Kubo Powerup to even get to Chad or Ishida's level though, doubt she'd ever get near Ichigo's.

BakaKawaii said:
So? It took Ichi ever so long to get to the level he was at, and that was with super asspull power ups, if Kubo decides to make Karin relatively useful that means he messes with the power levels even more.

He's not a fallen hero, he's more the King's Knight. Blindly serving his king's ideals.

Kubo has already declared Ishida a fodder character, I don't see a rematch anytime in the future. Ryuuken on the other hand, possibly.

Mayuri had his fun in Szayel's lab. I don't think revenge is on his agenda.

VillettaIchihara said:
Once they restore Ichigo's powers, then what?

Fai said:


Now we do NOT know at what level of power Karin is now. Maybe she is not human and already a shinigami now? Its quite clear that she has been going to Urahara's store without others knowing it. So we have around a year of timeline at which Karin MIGHT have been developing powers and with the fact that Ichigo was NOT developing powers and was powerless all that time, the gap should be lesser.

VillettaIchihara said:
I was hoping Kube would hold off on Ichigo getting his powers back for a bit and focus on what the hell is going on with Chad! I'm still interesting in finding out more about this XCUTION group. Once they restore Ichigo's powers, then what?

wintercrush said:

Yeah I doubt Karin is a shingami at this point, she has only grown up and naturally her ability to sense spirits has been amplified. If you remember what she bought from urahara they were products to help repel hollows and annoying ghosts, not things like soul candy, because if she was a shingami she wouldn't need such useless products.
Anyways I'm under the impression that anything that seemed weird in the past few chapters is probably because ichigo was manipulates into feeling in the dark and desperate in order to seek out ginjous help and probably for a price.
Don't jump the gun yet...

KantonKageX said:
One thing's guaranteed Ichigo will be stabbed in his chest and according to Fai he will stabbed thrice.

chicalternita said:
Most people enjoy sophisticated plots, but what *I* look for in shounen is the plot depth perfect for 10 year old boys [exception; Bakuman]. This hits the nail on the head, so I'm interested again.

lubryka said:
HaHaHaHaHa!!!!!!!! What a funny chapter!
"Our purpose is to restore your Shinigami powers." HaHaHa!!!!!!

I've finally realized that until now I've been reading this manga in a wrong way. I shouldn't look at Bleach as good or bad. I should consider it total BS. Next time I'll make sure to switch my brain off before reading it. Maybe then I'll actually enjoy it.

Fai said:

actually wrong.

if one knew symbolism one would be able to guess a lot of things. For example:
- That gin will stab aizen and that Aizen will die and "revive" in another form from it. Considering both gin's weapon, arc title and aizen's god status refers to the re-enactment of the Jesus getting stabbed with lance of longinus, dieing and reviving anyway.

- If one followed the symbolism on how Ichigo bests his opponents, one would have easily have guessed that Ichigo will fight aizen in non-equal fight and be millioon times more powerful thank him.

After all Aizen's aspect was absolute power.

Just like Renji's was brute power(Ichigo bested renji with brute power), Kenpachi's battle resolve(ichigo bested him with his will to fight), Byakuya's speed (ichigo outspeeded him),

Ulquioras "despair"(Ichigo caused Ulquiora to feel the despair of facing way stronger opponent, a monster) and in a same way Aizen is absolute power and outr-tricking stronger opponents with prepared tools. So the only fitting way would be for Aizen's skill-rival Ichigo to best him in all shinigami aspects and Aizen's intellectual rival Urahara to best him with his intellect and trickery.

- Each espada died according to its element of death.
- Vaizards appeared as ominous beings using symbolism of masks. so its only obvious that their ominous appearance and seemingly-ill intent was just a mask as well.

Even now we have things like Ichigo representing grim reaper in his final form and Ishida representing an angel in his final form, suggesting that they will either tagteam or we will get a rematch between them.

Now what about xcution?
- unlike previous times, the whole "number three" thing is outright stated more than once in the chapter. You have E being committed, you have Ginjou call needing three calls and ginjou specifically stating that there's a reason for that. Then GInjou specifically says that they cleared three floors below and three above and so on. Unlike previous paralels this one is outright spelled, so we can expect not only symbolism and plot movements according to it, but actual meaning to the story.

Avalie said:

Such symbolism of the rising of Christ is not unique to Aizen nor Kubo. Szayel risen from this the same way from Nemu's ovaries. Such incorporation of the rising of Christ is widely used by many authors.

No, it's because Aizen is over-pimped.

Aizen's power followed the old chinese/japanese adage of hypnotic power believing in the intangibles, which evolved into something else with the help of the hougyoku.

I don't see how these are symbolisms. These are merely ploys to show how 'great' Ichigo as the main hero/protagonist is. It's a standard formula. Along the way he will have his lows and he will lose, he will become upset, but eventually he will emerge victorious in various ways. In his journey he will hone several aspects of his fighting techniques. They aren't symbolisms per se. They are a flat attributes of a character, ANY character, in ANY story. Characters fight in different ways, have different strengths, possess different weaknesses.

All these are not perfectly crafted scenarios. You're overlooking many flaws. One of which is why did Gin pick the worst time to betray Aizen. Why did he betray him when Aizen was at his most powerful, why not before when he could do something about it? It was sheer inanity.

These are useful symbolisms, but the ones you mentioned such as "The chapter contained '3' because it's chapter #431, or there are 3 stools in the room, that there are 3 persons in the bar..." That's taking things too far. And yes, the Espadas died according to their elements of death, but these are merely shallow representations of objects or characters and the connections end there.

His symbolisms aren't as deep and though provoking as you think. They serve no advancement to the story or whatsoever. It merely made the characters seem interesting, but only for 1/5th of a second, as these characters have been doomed to die from the beginning as many readers expected. They are dispensable villains for Ichigo and the shinigamis, hence such symbolisms are practically only skin-deep.

Do you mean Ulquiorra? I didn't see where you get Ishida as an angel.

All that is nice and dandy, but it remains to be seen. I will only take it with a grain of salt. ^_^v

Fai said:



- Death aspects also almost perfectly portray their backstories, personalities, etc. Yes its nothing deep but its symbolism.
- "Chapter 431" was me merely pointing out that I am talking about Chapter 431 and then listing the points.
- The chairs and lamps are part of the symbolism. Kubo does not have assistants, he does not usually even add backgrounds and is very well known to love designing stuff. Thus its very likely that when designing xcution room, he had in mind the symbolism behind the xcution and the importance of 3.

Fai said:




So do I, every manga, especially shonen can go to crapper fast (refer to D.gray-man, naruto, dbz, even to the better ones like berserk).

Its just that so far, Bleach seems to NOT have gone to the crapper yet(I still prefer the pre-ss bleach with the obscurity and monstriousness of hollows to the post-rukiakidnapped bleach, but its still decent)

SatoriTokku said:
Hmmmm, and how exactly are they gonna do that? Perhaps they're the same people who helped Ichigo's dad to get back his powers as well... ?