User blog comment:Godisme/Double Feature: Bond Behind Blast and March of the StarCross/@comment-893506-20120418181407

God, you and I both know that the Tres Bestias are actually somewhat strong. Like you pointed out, they took on Rangiku with little effort and only resorted releasing when Momo got involved and used Fushibi against, who also admits that it would not have been enough to kill them. Practically anyone going up against Yamamoto prior to this arc (and prior to Aizen himself) would have been one-shotted regardless. Releasing Ayon, however, did cheat us out of how strong their released forms were, and unfortunately, being defeated by Kirge off-panel has once again done this (though, from what we saw, they didn't release this time).

Anyway, getting off this rant, I honestly enjoyed both of these chapters. The Vandenreich has already proven that they're not slouches when it comes to fighting, given how they took down Sasakibe and now three powerful (but not captain-level) Arrancar. Ichigo's strong, but I'm wondering how strong Kirge is, and if he too will try to seal Ichigo's Bankai.

Mayuri being responsible for the disappearances in Rukongai was a bit surprising to me, but also made sense. Quincies were responsible for upsetting the balance last time, and upsetting it again seems like it would have caused a lot of problems, especially given that Yamamoto admits that he would have given Mayuri permission to do so if he asked him.

And yeah, Yamamoto has gotten pretty emotion since Sasakibe's death, and given Mayuri's comments about him during this chapter, I think we'll learn a few things between him and the man he didn't kill 1000 years ago. This is something I think we all wanted to see, since Yamamoto hasn't had much of his past revealed yet.