User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 561 - THE VILLAN/@comment-1268838-20131212223816

To be honest, I think some are basing their opinions regarding this fight on Mask's appearance, demeanor and personality. (Putting aside the consistent claims that the Sternritter are "overpowered"). He is a character of questionable intelligence that is silly-looking, has a wacky personality, and possesses outlandish (though not terribly so) abilities. This guy is wiping the floor with characters that a lot of fans had high expectations for, and I am getting the impression that some people do not believe he should be for the aforementioned reasons.

I suppose there is the inevitable comparison to Yammy, who was a different kind of character that more or less fit into the same archetype. He was supposedly (and rather abruptly) the strongest among the Espada, yet nothing we saw of him really served to reinforce that fact. In that regard, I feel that Mask is a more successful character; regardless of preconceptions, he has proven to be obscenely powerful, perhaps even compared to other Sternritter.

With all of that being said, I do wish that these fights were a little longer, but I am glad that Mask did not end up being the predictable throwaway character that someone like say, Chad ends up fighting against. (But seriously, that guy needs a break.)