User blog comment:Godisme/Everything But The Rain/@comment-28861328-20130307061758/@comment-1393830-20130307133818

Ten Tailed, please reread the latest chapters. In there, you will read Nimaiya saying, "You are not a Shinigami". You will also read Isshin saying, "You aren't a Shinigami". If I still had the ju-ni scan of Chapter 188, I would give it to you. In the ju-ni scan, Urahara says "How does it feel to regain the Shinigami powers you lost 20 years ago". It has been noted several times that Isshin lost his powers and heavily implied that he used the final getsuga tensho, or are you forgetting that Isshin is the one who told Ichigo about the FGT and stated that he at least attempted to learn it with Engetsu. Then look at Chapter 528. Isshin states he is a captain and could not defeat a mere Hollow, once again heavily implying that he lost his powers. Im sorry to tell you this, but Ichigo is not a Shinigami by birth.

You say that Isshin was not wearing a gigai. Alright, if he wasn't wearing a gigai, then how can Yuzu, his daughter who can only partially make out spirits, see him? He is a doctor, how are his patients capable of seeing him? The answer is he has been residing in a gigai for the past 20 years. You say that Ichigo has latent Shinigami powers, okay. This doesn't mean his father was a Shinigami. If you needed to have a parent who was a Shinigami to be a Shinigami, Rukia, Renji, Hitsugaya, Gin and many others would not be Shinigami. Lots of people have latent Shinigami powers. I'm sorry, but you are just going to have to accept that Isshin was powerless when he conceived Ichigo and did not pass on Shinigami powers to him. Ichigo's powers come entirely from himself.