User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 569 (You've been hit by / You've been struck by / Senbonzakura~)/@comment-7079377-20140221113541/@comment-1771627-20140222073312

It would be good to note that Rukia didn't became a seated officer before solely for Byakuya's insistent protection of her. She had remarkable abilities over Kido, and her Shikai wasn't that weak before the royal training. Remember that, even not having a rank in the Gotei 13, she was on foot with Aaroniero and managed to surprise both Grimmjow and Rudborn. Ranks doesn't really mean THAT much, you know, there are only 13 slots for captains, but nothing that impedes more than 13 shinigami being captain-level. I was thinking about what people said of "everyone's gaining Bankai wtf" "back at the start having a Bankai was something that would put you in history books" "Bankai lost its meaning", and I think it's only natural for the characters to evolve, I mean, they are the major characters because they are meant to do something great, imagine the thousands of unseated shinigamis that don't even have a Shikai, when we talk about 20 bankai users, it's still a plausible number, in terms of rarity, with everything we've seen so far.

Just to clarify my vision that, sometimes, we limit our vision of what characters can do just by their titles. Even saying things as "captain-level" is doubtful. Who's the measure of this count? Because, comparing Byakuya even before the Royal Training to, let's suppose, Rose, who got kicked with his bankai on, or Sui-Feng, that have a Bankai meant to "hit kill people" that actually never killed a single person, is complicated. The discrepancy is high. Would you say that Renji or Rukia are "lieutenant-level" now?