Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27110495-20160106235339/@comment-27565137-20160224190723

Youbetrippin wrote: 2manga wrote: I think the real question is can yhwach steal it from him? No I don't think so cause A) he still has a hollow inside of him and B) Yhwach most likely still has Yamamoto's bankai. I don't know if the soul reaper/zanpakuto has to still be alive for the quincy to still able to use it or not though, that's why I put most likely. But I don't think they still have to be alive since Cang Du still had Toshiro's bankai even though Toshiro was a zombie. Now I don't know if being a zombie classifies him as dead or not, but I'm not going to try and figure that out.

Has for point B. No. The shinigami doesn't need to be alive. Remember that at the time vice-captain of Yamamoto, was the first to get his bankai stolen and was killed after that.

Then when Yamamoto faced off against the Quincy that had stolen his vice-captain bankai, he used the medallion to use the bankai against Yamamoto. So the original owner of the bankai doesn't need to be alive for a Quincy to use the bankai he or she stole.

Has for point A. It isn't so much that Ichigo has a hollow soul inside him, but that his shinigami and hollow soul are one and the same. The only question that remains is about Ichigo Quincy side. We know that Old Man said that he wasn't Zangetsu, and that Ichigo preferred to accept Old Man as also being Zangetsu. But just because he chose to believe that, doesn't make it so. As far as we know, Ichigo choice to not seal away his quincy side, just like is quincy side had done with most of his shinigami/hollow side, might come to bite him in the ass.