User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 561 - THE VILLAN/@comment-1268838-20131212223816/@comment-28861328-20131213023747

You're right in lieu of the abilities. But that's not why I, personally, dislike him. I can't speak for others of course. I don't like these Quincy in general. They don't send me any of the right vibes. They don't really make me feel despair, like a villain should, so much as rage.

For example, Aizen, as broke as he was, and as easily as he one-shotted our favorite characters all the time, gave you that sense that he was really going to win. Nothing seemed to work on that guy, and the scary thought was that, up until the Hogyoku made him immortal, he was only using his Shikai occasionally because all of his other skills were just that good. He was also a brilliant manipulator. I'll never forget the chapter when his deception causes the captains to attack Hinamori rather than who they thought they were attacking (Aizen himself), and I remember thinking, "There's just no beating this guy. He's actually going to win."

In a shonen series, there is only one villain that has ever given me that sense of "despair", and that was Cell in DBZ. Because, right up to the last few panels, every indicator was that this guy was going to win it all and the heroes were going to die. The same happened with Aizen, and even Ichigo had gotten thrashed by him before the FGT training, and even then, Aizen got back up after Ichigo thrashed him.

These Quincy don't give me that faux sense of despair and they, arguably, accomplished more than Aizen did in stomping and killing several Shinigami, including Yamamoto. They just make me angry. They ways in which they are winning either don't make sense, or are just so irritatingly stupid that it is infuriating to read. Yamamoto for instance. Arguably the most powerful Shinigami ever to exist, and one that saw through even Aizen's illusions falls for a clone, and then gets ONE SHOTTED from behind.... by a human. A human that he was dominating (assuming Royd Loyd obtained Yhwach's power by mimicing him) just moments before. I'm sorry, that is perhaps the most bull**** way to win ever.

Then you have the Bankai Stealing Medallions. Cool concept, but 1) How do you steal a RELEASE? I could understand if they like stole the Zanpakutou's ENTIRE powers, but just Bankai? Really? No explanation on how they do it, either, we're supposed to just eat that. Then, we see like three of the stolen Bankai used, only to find out that they were actually weakening the Quincy by having stole them, and Yhwach planned for the Shinigami to get back what they had worked so hard to steal. That makes no sense whatsoever.

And then we get to Mask, whom I really didn't have an opinion on until "The Superstar". That was about the most outlandish ability I could think of, but it wasn't until he broke his eardrums, which will NEVER render you deaf, to counter a Bankai that uses sound as a weapon, and Kubo uses that to beat a famous main character. Its like he doesn't know what he's doing at all this arc. Nothing connects together, everything is just happening at once.

Ichigo learning of his mother's death. Why did he have to know that? Better yet, how in the name of sweet Jesus did it magically make the Asauchi accept him? Once again, no explanation, it just is thrown together like Kubo expected us to find it obvious.

This whole arc is a cluster of idiocy the likes of which I've never seen Kubo write. Its insane. THAT is why I'm unsatisfied with Mask, among other Quincy and plot points this arc.