Forum:Starrk, Harribel and the Aftermath

Well it was a long time coming but not completely unexpected while other portions where.


 * First we have the death of Starrk, this wasn't unexpected it was anticipated and would have happened sooner or later. It's just that out of all the Espada he was the saving grace. He was the only one who had no arrogance, no particular hated for anyone shinigami or otherwise, he showed respect where it was warranted. If anything his one failing is not following his first instinct to leave the battle instead he choose to stay and fight for someone who was just using him. He is a sad character, not really evil like the rest of the antagonists, he was just repaying Aizen for allowing him to be apart of something so that he wouldn't be alone for once. Thats really the thing that made him likable even when he was on the wrong side, he was just lonely and when Aizen saved him from that he just wanted to thank him by following him. He died but in the end he realized he was never alone. A good fight none the less we got to see to vizard release their shikai and now we fully understand Shunsui's shikai and he couldn't have lost to a better opponent, someone who gives out respect to others as well, even after his death Shunsui stated wisdom of the futility of fighting. There was no shame in losing to Shunusi, he was more powerful but at the least Starrk met his match in combat.


 * Second there was the death of Harribel, this was unexpected but at the same time it makes sense. For her part in the end she personified her death aspect, sacrifice. Regardless of the fact that she didn't know it or make the attempt herself she was sacrificed at Aizen's discretion, though by his own hand. Harribel to me wasn't that interesting of a character and had bascially reached the limit of what can be done with her. Though i am disappointed that there wasn't an epic girl battle (her vs. lisa) that bleach really would have benefitted from. But in the end Aizen was right with the death of the two above her (Starrk and Barragan) there would be no way that she would survive as they were more powerful. Sooner or later she would have fallen especially against two Vizards and a captain.


 * Regardless of how cold it was it was pure Aizen, as I have said all along he was using the Espada/arrancar he had no use for them besides his own ends and when they outlived there usefulness he would get rid of them. He apparently has been playing them all from the moment he told them ichigo and friends were nothing to worry about when they first came to hueco mundo. From that first statement Aaroniero, Szayel, Zommari, Nnorita, Ulquiorra all ended up dead. Grimmjaw was defeated and now the two top espada were killed as well. The entire time he looked on uncaring and did nothing to stop or help the situation and in the end turned on the one espada he had left taking her life with his own hand.  Why because she was not strong enough to fight for him. Im personally so tired of Aizen can we like please kill him already. He so predicatable we really need a fresh main antagonists. Even replacing him with Gin would be better then continuing the arrogance and the all knowing, all powerful bad guy who never does anything but stand around at a battle bit.Salubri 13:44, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

I can't wait till next weeks chapter to see what Aizen means by "let's go". He's either going to retreat or he's going take on everybody there at once, destroy the pillars and make the okun. We know that Tosen's bankai let's him take on multiple people at once but at the same time when he did it 100 years ago, most people didn't even know he had a bankai. You would think Kensei at least had been thinking about how to defeat Tosen's bankai for the last 100 years. We of course don't have a clue was Ichimaru or Aizen's bankai are but I would bet that they are things that allow them to take on multiple opponents at once too. So this could get interesting. But then again if it was so easy for Aizen to take on so many captains and vizards at once, he wouldn't have wasted time getting the espada. *sob* I just want to see Gin fight! Why! Why KT did you not show us Gin and Shinji fighting! *sniff* Tinni 14:15, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

Man this sucks. Starrk's gone. The one Espada that was actually good, but followed Aizen out of owing him for saving him from his loneliness, got pwned by the freakishly powerful Kyoraku. Now Harribel is dead so all that leaves is Yammy (UGH!!). Now Aizen needs to die. I don't care about what he did to Momo, cause she just became ignorant, but he screwed over and used Starrk when he just wanted friends. That is not right. CRUSH HIM GOTEI 13!!!--Moe1216 14:27, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

I for one don't think that Halibel's quite dead yet. Aizen's been shown slicing her across the stomach/chest, but it's not a confirmed death, as such. Just as an example of a similarly horrible injury for a character of similar strength: During his first fight with Ichigo during the Soul Society arc Kenpachi Zaraki sustained an injury at the end of the battle that, at least to me, looked like it completely separated his right shoulder and five or six ribs from the rest of his body, and yet he still survived and was shown a few chapters later sitting up and talking with Uryu, Ganju, Orihime, and the rest of the gang.Ulyenov 15:37, September 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes because Yachiru removed him from the area and called Unohana. Can't remember if that part was made clear in the anime but in the manga she says clearly that she has called Unohana. If he was just left there, if Ichigo was just left there (Yoruichi came and healed Ichigo), they would both have died from their injuries. So unless the Gotei 13 decide to heal her, she's pretty dead. Tinni 15:48, September 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * Thats a bad example Zaraki is in a class of his own and Ichigo wasn't gonna kill anyone even if he tried. Zaraki has survived many bad injuries and kept going regardless of the medical help, hence the point behind zaraki being fine afterwords and effortlessly fighting two captains at once. He is simply a beast. The point i think to take from this is Harribel was no use to him anymore his intent was to kill her and the slash is similar to the one that took out Starrk. Not to mention its more then likely Harribel wasn't any more powerful then Hitsugaya, Hiyori and Lisa as she was at a stalemate in actual fighting and couldn't beat hitsugaya's full power even at a immature level. so her instant attack at Aizen's hands was definitely not something she could have blocked against, its not likely she was on his level. What it was is a underling getting taking out by their superior, doubtful they are on equal power terms even without his zanpakuto.Salubri 15:52, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

The Gotei13 healing Harribel wouldn't be a bad move for them - they could use a prisoner that they could interrogate, or if that proves unsuccessful, experiment on to learn more about Arrancar. Who knows what they might learn. Unohana had the right idea with Gantanbein. But I don't see this happening at all, tbh. --Yyp 15:56, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

Well i see your point with Unohana though she is compassionate for all so thats the bases behind healing the arrancar. But we all know the rest of the Gotei 13 are nowhere that nice. If anything she wouldn't tell them anything but she would be a good test subject dead or alive, so either way Mayuri will be happy to have new material to study. Though she doesn't need to be alive for it.Salubri 15:59, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

Mayuri'd love them forever if that happened!

I don't think they're done just yet. I'll wait for an explicit statement before I'll say they're really dead (Starrk in particular). Besides, the Gotei 13 do prefer to take prisoners (if SS arc was anything to go by), though circumstance may prevent this from happening.

I'll give the possibility of harribel being somewhat alive but certainly dying until we see her do a flashback or its otherwise shown, but its safe to say that once the flashback roles the fat lady has sung. Nnorita, Barragan, and now Stark it happens infrequently amongst the arrancar but that is a definite sign of their passing.Salubri 16:06, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

We all knew she was gonna get bashed soon, but we hoped it would be by Lisa and Hiyori's hands.. oh well.. at least it saved us some chapters and finally some real action is going to happen.. just hope next chapater doesn't present something ridiculous like Aizen using an uber mega power to put everyone unconscious and then just flash step away to wherever.. Deimonos 16:35, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I just noticed something. Page 21 had the word "375/End" on it while page 22 didn't have anything on it. Why do I get the feeling the the editors might have messed up and his weeks chapter was meant to end with Harribel just getting slashed and the page where Aizen explains himself was meant to be part of next weeks chapter... Tinni 17:14, September 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * Don't think so. It is actually not the first time they've done that (though I never understood why they did that). And the last page has the "A heartless blow" caption at the bottom, like is usually on the final page when there's a cliffhanger. --Yyp 17:23, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

LOL Tinni, it appears so. There the "375 end" in the corner and an extra page that should've been the opening of 376.. haha Deimonos 17:24, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

I think it's just a cliffhanger ending, as it's pretty similar some of Tite's other cliffhangers. How would they have the first page to 376, but not the rest of the chapter, anyway?

But that's beside the point. What's with all the Harribel hating? I really liked her - she's a strong woman, fierce warrior, and an intelligent and caring individual. I certainly find her far more likeable than Orihime and most of the female Shinigami, who generally present themselves as useless idiots who need their asses saved by the big, strong men. Twocents 17:40, September 25, 2009 (UTC)


 * Well I won't start a hate war over this. But I happen to like Orihime and most of the female Shinigami. They have generally more nuances to their personality, especially Orihime and Rangiku - both of whom get a lot of hate because they are fun loving, and do the best they can. However, most of the female Shinigami are vice-captain level. At this stage most of the vice-captains, male or female, need to be saved from time to time. Plus we haven't actually seen the women fight a lot. Rukia did and defeated no. 9. Matsumoto defeated that faccione of Gimmjaw after she was able to access her full power in about a second. Back in SS arc she also defeated Kira, not to mention blocked Gin's blade - whatever physical strength was required for that, it did require a lot of emotional strength because Gin is her oldest friend and someone she clearly cares about deeply. She and Hinamori were doing well enough against all three of Harribel's faccione till they released Allon. Who took out almost all the vice-captains present and forced Yama-jii to step-in. So no shame to lose to him.
 * Orihime hasn't fought it is true but her patience and empathy are her main strengths, plus I was really impressed with how she handled herself during the Lust chapters. People do bash her for crying "Kurosaki-kun" repeatedly but if you actually LOOK at that chapter you'll see that she achieved more than most of the other characters in Heuco Mundo at the time could have. Even while she was panicking she activated her shield to catch the falling body of Ichigo (http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/349/05/), activated her healing ability to try and revive Ichigo (http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/349/11/) and activated her protection shield again to try and protect Ishida from Ulq (http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/349/17/). Only thing she didn't do was attack Ulq and let's face it, with the exception of maybe Unohana, most of the actual fighters probably wouldn't have stood much of a chance against Ulq and his second stage. Soifon of course held out admirably well against an opponent who really wasn't the type she could fight, given that she is all about hand to hand combat and Barragan is someone you can't get close to. I would have preferred it if her bankai killed Barragan but clearly Kubo had marked Barragan out for Hachi's prey sometime ago. So you know, my personal feelings is that the female shinigami and Inoue often get sold short.
 * I don't like Harribel because I happen to find her rather boring and foolish. Sure she showed caring towards Hitsugaya and was upset over her faccione's death and that made me go "Oh! This is different!" but from the moment she uttered the phrase "This is all a captain can do, I am done with you," and released... I realised that she was one of the most cliched of cliched characters. A female that loses her cool due to her emotions. Sure she had that same deadpan expression on her face but seriously that Hitsugaya fight showed that she really didn't have much to offer in terms of attack variation and that Yama-jii challenge... argh! But what really started to chafe me was how her initial cool and collected look started to become haute as the fight progressed and she started lecturing Hitsugaya in the most basic of battle tactics. Hitsugaya might be young but he's still a captain, he would know basic battle tactics. If you want to say something to him, say something like Kyoraku said to Love. So, in short, I was ready to like her. I really was. But she disappointed me greatly. Tinni 00:55, September 26, 2009 (UTC)

I really don't know what to think. Something just tells me that Harribel isn't dead, and I get the feeling that there's a reason Aizen sacrificed her. Of course, it could be simple, and she just outlived her usefulness, but all the same, there could be another reason.

and in regards to what was said above. I did like Harribel in the beginning, because she seemed interesting and collected. But like what everyone did say, she was a little flat. And in regards to the other female characters being useless, I don't think so. It's just that most of the characters are male. Most female characters are still powerfully ranked, so they are anything but useless.

Back in regards to Starrk and the espada. I'm pretty sure that Starrk is dead, though i wouldn't mind at all if he wasn't. Harribel, as I said above, I don't think she's dead quite yet. I think there's a reason that she was kept until now, so if she just went like that, then...that would be sort of odd. I think we'll all have to wait for the next chapter to find out what happened to her. KnowledgeandImagination 02:10, September 26, 2009 (UTC)

RIP Starrk,we'll miss you. T_T

Sting! TenRyuoh! 05:59, September 26, 2009 (UTC)

Well some people were saying that in the last chapter when Aizen turned up behind Harribel they used the Kanji for sonido and not shunpo. So there appears to be hints that Aizen may in fact be a vizard. I wouldn't be surprised about the time both Aizen and Gin changed from wearing shinigami black kimono with a plain white haori/coat-like thing to cloths that looked exactly like Arrancar uniforms they were visually being differentiated as not being shinigami any more. Might also explain why Tosen was sent to retrieve Grimmjow. You'll notice that by the time Tosen came for Grimmjow he had already switched to dressing like an arrancar and he used a garganta naturally, similar to how an arrancar/hollow would (Urahara had to build a gate and use an incantation). Tosen being Tosen probably volunteered to be turned into a vizard first by means of the hyokogen as a ginnie-pig and once Aizen was certain that nothing bad was going to happen, turned himself and Gin into vizards and that's when they changed cloths.
 * So the question is, can a vizard Aizen, Gin and Tosen take on everyone currently in Fake Karakura and win? That wouldn't make a lot of sense to me because if he could do that from the start then why did he even bother with the Espada? I can think of an explanation, he, Gin and Tosen could take on the Gotei 13 as well as the vizards but they needed the Espada for the royal guards and so were testing the espada out, but it would still make me feel somewhat cheated. So I am not averse to Aizen, Gin and Tosen being revealed as vizards in the next chapter but I hope they aren't so overpowered that they just take out everyone still capable of fighting and succeed in making the Okun. Not to mention it would be a bit of an overkill. There are only three of them while there are four vizard captains with bankai, Kyoraku, Yamamoto, Komamura with bankai and if Hachi heals fast enough he might be able to get Ukitake up on his feet too! So if Aizen, Gin and Tosen does succeed in taking out everybody, I personally would feel that my time has been wasted both by the espada, the Gotei 13 and the vizards. Tinni 08:08, September 26, 2009 (UTC)

Well, Soifon used the fight with Vega to scout out an arrancar's release, so it could be that Aizen is scouting his opponents using the espada as guinea pigs; I doubt any of the other captains will have use their abilities to anything like their fullest in his presence before, so he wouldn't know what to expect, now he has a much better idea of what he's up against.

As for Vizard Aizen, we kind of came to that conclusion a good while back, so it's quite possible. I still expect him, Vizard or not, to get what he wants though; the bad guy always does. TomServo101 09:54, September 26, 2009 (UTC)

You know theres nothing more that i cant stand then talk of Aizen being a vizard. Its beyond speculation and i dont know who came up with it. Who can tell the difference between sonido and shunpo in manga first off secondly he wasn't in a position to be stabilized by a hogyoku or go through encroachment and then theres the issue of having to deal with an inner hollow that could rival if not surpass his power. He would be extremely stupid to put himself in a situation like that. There is no actual hints about it at all. Even the scenario made up for it above is far fetched even for speculation. I swore this thread was about harribel and starrk and not something this ridiculous. We all know the stuff that The vizard and ichigo have gone through so why would the bad guy go through the same thing. Its more then a waste of time it would destroy the constructs of the very story and make ichigo and the vizards pointless as characters. Even the espada served a purpose, considering how aizen almost exclusively deals in arranacar creation. The entire notion above is because they changed clothes. Also thats not true the bad guys dont get what they want least you forget karakura town the main setting of the series other then soul society they wont destroy it. Aizen wont get that far because even if he did there are so many characters we haven't fully seen yet. If the driving force is to see more forces beyond the capability of the story least you forget there is nothing above the vizard only the royal guard and they are just shinigami too. When people say things that arent logical like this it makes them sound like they want the series to end.Salubri 14:30, September 26, 2009 (UTC)