Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28503619-20160520045652

Despite all the hype about the espada, we still do not know which were vasto lorde and which were simply adjuchas, especially concerning the top 5 (rank 4 and down). While most people consider all of the top 5 to be vasto lorde, I believe that only Halibel and Ulquiorra are likely vasto lorde, Barragan is probably not, and Stark and Yammy cannot be confirmed.

So why do I think that Ulqiorra and Halibel were vasto lorde? because a vasto lorde is a hollow at the end of its evolution, thus it no longer needs to consume hollows, and what do both Ulquiorra and Halibel both feature as hollow? sealed mouths, indicating that they cannot consume and evolve any further.

It is noteworthy however, that Halibel and Barragan do not appear to have hollow holes (though Barragan's robes probably hid his) while Ulqiorra does have one, which may indicate that only Halibel is truly complete, having sated her hunger.

This may seem contradictory, as Stark Barragan and Yammy are ranked higher than Halibel and Ulqiorra; however, Vasto lorde is simply the end of a hollow's evolution. An analogy to this would be Ikkaku's bankai vs Yamamoto's sealed zanpakto, Ikkaku may use the highest evolution of his zanpakto, but it is still much weaker than Ryujin Jakka's sealed form. Likewise, it may be that Barragan is so much more naturally powerful than his compatriots that he made a higher rank despite being only adjuchas, similar to how aareniero (screw that loser I'm not looking up his name) made espada despite only being a gilian.

For Stark and Yammy, we have no reason to conclude whether or not they are vasto lorde, there's simply no evidence to go off of.

And Finally, Ichigo's power up was not vasto lorde, sure its a nice way to refer to that form, but he wasn't even a menos, he never even ate another hollow. 