Board Thread:New on Bleach Wiki/@comment-957629-20151213135550/@comment-957629-20151213191643

Yeah we were discussing it after, Future, Sal and I, checking translations and such and it was properly translated not that he had died but seemed to have died. Given he was not near the battle, the only way JugJugMan could have sensed this was through Reiatsu which is something hes done many times in the past to build urgency in situations. It was also 10 chapters later when he spoke to Ichigo believing he was dying an soon after that that he was critical. So there really was no official "Byakuya is dead" confirmation, there was observations from a severely injured man and from someone that was not witness to it.

Anyway, honestly, I think "almost dying" is a cheap form of character development especially for someone whom we have seen gravely injured before at the end of the SS arc and seen great development there. Byakuya is someone who has suffered a lot and is very aware of mortality having seen everyone he loves die around him. He is not someone who hasn't experienced turmoil but someone who has experienced a lot of it and keeps it hidden. He's already an emotional character he's just not externally emotional. We already know he feels deeply so for us it was it was wasted, he shows fear by being afraid to break his family rules but being afraid to let Hisana down, he already shows fear of loss of Rukia so he kept her demoted, so he feels, a lot and for us it was entirely OOC in that fight.