User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 566 (not out yet, but dis gon b gud)/@comment-24113610-20140201055009/@comment-5398287-20140202183116

Rahmaru, allow me to explain something to you that I've been wanting to explain to many people for quite some time.

Rose, Kensei, and Renji are all at about the average level of a captain, Renji having reached it after a lot of fighting and training. The former two can don their masks to become more powerful, but otherwise they're standard fare, which is still pretty powerful.

However, Renji beating Mask is not a case of "oh man Kubo doesn't know what power levels are", and allow me to explain why.

Both Kensei and Rose had the power to defeat Mask, but they failed to do so for two different and inverse reasons:

1. Kensei went straight to Bankai and focused on pummeling Mask instead of explaining his abilities, but neglected to take out James, who revived Mask and led to Kensei being defeated.

2. Rose incapacitated James, at least for the duration of his portion of the fight, and went straight to Bankai as well. However, he spent too much time explaining his abilities, which allowed Mask to counter his abilities and defeat him.

Renji, however, took the good parts of both of those strategies and combined them.

He sliced James into itty-bitty pieces as soon as Mask was distracted; though that wasn't permanent in the long run, it allowed him to temporarily overpower Mask with his Shikai. Additionally, he never explained any of his powers, and just went for the kill all the time. This is what enabled him to kill Mask while two other captains couldn't: to put it crudely, he didn't fuck around or mess up. It has nothing to do with Kubo forgetting power levels or anything, just Renji fighting correctly. Don't get me wrong, I think Kensei and Rose could've been handled a bit better, but as far as power levels go, they haven't been ignored.