Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-5693502-20141219175924/@comment-5553481-20141219182344

I don't think he actually take a shinigami and makes him into a weapon, more like a...uhh...part of him, like, some shinigami reiryoku from every living shinigami, that is then (somehow) processed into a zanpakuto. So the shinigami doesn't even notice the minimal loss of reiryoku and can easily regenerate it, and the shinigami aren't actually used as zanpakuto, because that sounds just creepy, using dead souls as weapons .-.