Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-11927664-20130711005557/@comment-893506-20130723203324

Xilinoc wrote: The Zanpakuto arc pretty much defied canon with Muramasa and his abilities, and the Reigai arc 1. made every single captain look ridiculously weak, 2. introduced a villain who is ridiculously OP, and 3. had Ichigo win with the power of FRIENDSHIP. Also, in regards to Choojiro's power, no one made the connection at the time anyway, since Tenken was throwing fireballs and stuff and Komamura doesn't do that.

To expand further on this, with Muramasa, there were several key issues that defied canon:


 * 1:) Muramasa could freely leave Koga's inner world whenever he wanted. With Koga being sealed, this would mean that Muramasa should have been sealed too, since Koga had Muramasa with him.
 * 2:) Koga should not have been able to materialize Muramasa at all. Zanpakuto spirit materialization usually requires a great deal of training (as it is a requirement for achieving Bankai) and uses a lot of spiritual power to perform, and the spirit cannot stay materialized indefinitely. Muramasa's special ability revolved around him being out. Furthermore, Koga's relationship with Muramasa made it impossible for him to even be able to advance to the materialization stage. Several Shinigami may have had problems with their Zanpakuto spirit's personality, but Koga is the only one who flat out abused Muramasa and would not even acknowledge him as a separate being.
 * 3:) During his battle with Byakuya, Koga was able to use some of Muramasa's abilities. Even if you ignore the long explanation of why that would be a problem above, remember that Koga discarded Muramasa's sword body at the start of his fight. He should not have been able to use any of Muramasa's power at all.
 * 4:) Muramasa could only fight evenly with Ichigo in his Bankai state. You explain to me how Muramasa could take a full-powered Getsuga Tensho from Ichigo using both Bankai and Hollowfication, and not even suffer a single scratch.
 * 4:) When Yamamoto and Ginrei closed off their hearts to Koga, that made them both incapable of killing Koga. While I can understand this happening to anyone else, how exactly would this make Yamamoto incapable of killing Koga? Yamamoto dwarfs EVERYONE else's power, including Aizen, who was more powerful than the rest of the captains.

All of this is why the Zanpakuto Unknown Tales arc defies canon. And I didn't even bring up the Zabimaru and Muramasa absorbing Hollows issues.

As for the Gotei 13 Invading Army arc, it had a lot of flaws.


 * 1:) It was a clone arc. An ACTUAL clone arc, with clones of the Shinigami as the primary bad guys. This, in no way, should be excusable, since it's literally the least creative type of storyline anyone can do.
 * 2:) As Xil said, it made every character, including the Shinigami captains, look ridiculously weak. Since the Shinigami are the prime favorite characters by a majority of the Bleach fanbase, it really does baffle me on why this is acceptable to them.
 * 3:) Inaba was SEVERELY overpowered. The obvious reason is his TiVo/DVR power, Raiku (also, the laziest and least creative power ever), but it's not the only reason. He could also clone himself with said power, with the clone acting independently from him. This is especially confusing, since the clone did see the original AND it was still confused on why it didn't have Raiku. Next, Inaba claimed he can use spatial displacement on himself, which is how he was able to easily subdue Uryu and Chad. That does explain a lot, but it does not explain why Uryu was disoriented when Inaba counterattacked him. Inaba literally had a trick every time he was in danger to prevent him from getting scratched, much less suffer a serious injury.
 * 4:) It is never elaborated on how Inaba was able to capture the original Shinigami he had replaced in the Soul Society, as well as where Yoruichi found them.
 * 5:) Yamamoto, for whatever reason, couldn't kill clones Ukitake, Kyoraku, and Unohana. While I do understand the need of leaving one of them alive for questioning, he still should have been able to kill them rather easily, even with just one arm. He knew they were imposters, so he shouldn't have had any reservations on killing them.
 * 6:) The Yushima fusion from Inaba and Nozomi had a technique capable of destroying the Soul Society. Explain why this is not overpowered.
 * 7:) When cornered by Mayuri and his thought-stopping drug, Inaba took over Reigai-Isane's Reigai. Well, that's fine and dandy, except there is a HUGE problem with this. When Inaba did this, he first destroys Reigai-Isane's Reigai body. Then, when he swallows the Mod Soul pill, Inaba explains that he used the Mod Soul and the Reigai to make it so Reigai-Isane inhabited his original Reigai, while Inaba took over hers. This makes no sense whatsoever, since Inaba just destroyed the Reigai body Reigai-Isane was using.

Out of the two of them, the Gotei 13 Invading Army arc was MUCH worse and had the most nonsensical and lazily-written plot I have seen in an official franchise, and I still cannot imagine why it was one of the better-received arcs.

The point is while the Bount arc and the New Captain Shusuke Amagai arc may have had flaws, they were better-written and more suited to the rules of Bleach than the Zanpakuto Unknown Tales arc and the Gotei 13 Invading Army arc. The Amagai arc I don't recall violating any rules Kubo established, and the Bount arc didn't violate nearly a fraction as much as the Zanpakuto and the Invasion arcs did.